Interaction between tourism and

While tourism provides considerable economic
benefits for many countries, regions and communities, its
rapid expansion can also be responsible for adverse environmental,
as well as socio-cultural, impact.13 Natural
resource depletion and environmental degradation associated
with tourism activities pose severe problems to
many tourism-rich regions. The fact that most tourists
chose to maintain their relatively high patterns of consumption
(and waste generation) when they reach their
destinations can be a particularly serious problem for
developing countries and regions without the appropriate
means for protecting their natural resources and local
ecosystems from the pressures of mass tourism.
The two main areas of environmental impact of
tourism are: pressure on natural resources and damage to
ecosystems. Furthermore, it is now widely recognized
not only that uncontrolled tourism expansion is likely to
lead to environmental degradation, but also that environmental
degradation, in turn, poses a serious threat to
tourism activities.