Many developing countries spend a significant portion of their budget on promoting international tourism. Do the advantages of this spending outweigh the disadvantages?

The principal benefit of promoting tourism is the number of jobs it creates for people with few other options. Hotels, restaurants, guides and craft markets employ millions who lack university degrees, so the sector offers a route out of poverty that factories or offices rarely provide. In Morocco,

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, the campaign that transformed Marrakech into a global destination has given work to entire families in the surrounding villages, which once depended on unreliable harvests. Closely linked to

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is the foreign currency that visitors bring, since every night spent in a local hotel pays for imports of medicine and machinery that the country cannot produce itself.

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,

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spending does carry certain disadvantages. The most obvious is that money directed towards resorts is money withheld from hospitals and schools, and a government chasing visitor numbers may neglect the needs of its own citizens.

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, mass tourism damages fragile landscapes and raises prices for residents. The Atlas trekking routes,

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, now suffer from litter and water shortages, and,

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, some mountain communities have begun to resent the crowds they were encouraged to welcome.

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, these problems are matters of planning rather than flaws in the idea itself because sensible limits on visitor numbers and reinvestment of profits in local services can prevent most of the harm.