Without any previous thought, I just opened my laptop and searched the World Wide Web for costs and benefits of tourism. To my surprise, the very first website I came across gave me everything I was looking for: Barcelona Field Studies Center.[1] Both costs and benefits are divided into three segments: social, environmental, and economic. For some reason, I immediately turned to costs of tourism, which are frequently neglected by all and sundry. Among social costs, the following attracted my attention: attracts visitors whose lifestyles and ideas conflict with the community’s; loss of traditional values and culture through imitation of visitor behavior; crowding and congestion; and competition with residents for available services, facilities, and recreational opportunities. Here are some of the environmental costs of note: threatens natural resources and historical sites; increases litter, noise, and pollution; increases competition for limited resources such as water and land, resulting in land degradation and loss of wildlife habitats; contributes to sewage and solid waste pollution; and increases emissions generated by various forms of transport. And here are the economic costs that struck me as most important: development of infrastructure needed by tourists costs the local government a great deal; employment tends to become seasonal, and workers may be laid off during the winter season; many jobs in tourism are poorly paid as the local workforce lacks the skills needed for better paid management positions; tourist numbers can be adversely affected by events beyond the control of the local institutions, such as terrorism, economic recessions, and epidemics or pandemics; tourism follows a “product life cycle,” where a destination may eventually go out of fashion and attract ever less tourists. All in all, I was quite pleased with the page I came across without any trouble. And I could not but be amazed by the customary neglect of costs of tourism in Motovun, Istria, and Croatia as a whole. Only benefits are in focus although benefits and costs always go together. They are inseparable. Focusing only on benefits will eventually lead to great disappointments about the associated costs, which will keep mounting as tourism establishes itself. To my chagrin, Motovun is my witness in all of the above!

Footnote

1. URL: https://geographyfieldwork.com/TourismProsCons.htm (accessed on July 20, 2025)