IELTS GT Task 2. Your feedback will be highly appreciated

International travel is becoming cheaper than before, so more and more countries open their doors to tourists. Do the advantages of increased tourism outweigh the disadvantages?

Many countries are now focusing on increasing tourism as the cost of international travelling is more reasonable now. The main benefits of tourism are more employment opportunities for local people and improved economy that greatly outweigh its drawbacks.

Admittedly, increasing tourists brings some disadvantages to a country. First, local infrastructure would be impacted since they would use more vehicles and public transport. This is because they will try to explore each and every place that will put pressure on existing roads and mass transit. Another problem tourists can cause is deterioration of the environment. Since they would be using various mediums of travelling, such as airplanes and automobiles, air pollution would be increased significantly that will also lead to global warming. It is reported that more than 5 million people, for example, visited Italy in 2016. This led to respiratory illnesses to its citizens due to the higher pollution.

However, increased tourism brings a multitude of benefits for a country. First advantage will be a significant increase in a number of jobs and business opportunities. That is to say that foreigners will be spending their money on different things that will create various jobs for local people. For instance, France was visited by around 1 million people in 2014. According to a survey, their unemployment reduced substantially as its citizens started small businesses there. Since many people will be able to obtain jobs and start businesses, another benefit of tourism is a better economic progress. In other words, local people will be paying more taxes on their higher incomes that will enable the country to grow economically. Take Britain as an example. Its economy grew by 7% in 2013 alone as tax revenues grew substantially due to foreign tourists.

In conclusion, although higher tourism can be harmful for the environment and can damage the local infrastructure, its benefits far outweighs the drawbacks.