Global Citizenship

Cinque Terre, a place visited that was completely different from the rest of the trip. Here is where I had to stop a few times to take a moment and look around, to take in the fact that I was here in Italy, to take in the incredible views, and try their amazing seafood.

Cinque Terre survives off of tourism. A train was built and more people started going to Cinque Terre and tourism eventually became their thing instead of agriculture. The problem with this is that they stopped building and a mud slide occurred in 2011 that caused damages to the villages, especially Vernazza and Monterosso al Mare. The question and curiosity that came to my mind as I was here exploring the towns was if tourism can destroy a city. As I was reflecting, my answer was yes, I believe it can and I believe tourism hurts the values and culture of countries that depend on it. The problem with a place depending on tourism is that the jobs tend to be seasonal and money created may not go to local businesses, but large international companies who stick their hotels anywhere they can. Interaction with tourists can lead to a depletion of the culture of the community and people can be pushed out of their homes to make room for tourists. Tourism is also a threat to an area like Cinque Terre in terms of its natural resources like beaches due to over usage or littering. Although tourism is great for the economy, I have come to realize here that a city or little town should never lose its culture and that the government of that area should work on realizing the negative effects tourism can have on the values of  the area and attempt to preserve whatever they can because if not, tourism can continue to have depleting effects on a city as it did on Cinque Terre.