Tourism in LEDC’s continues to become more popular and this has both positive and negative effects on the countries involved. If we take the example of Kenya, we can see that there are several advantages and disadvantages to the rapid increase in visitor numbers.

Kenya has large safari parks and beautiful beaches which have become extremely popular places to visit. Unemployment in the country has declined as a result of the tourism industry and the industry also acts as a catalyst for other sectors, such as agriculture and transport to develop.

However, with large numbers of tourists there comes the problem of damage to the natural environment. On the coral reefs, boats drop their anchors and damage the fragile coral. In the game parks, tourist guides take visitors too close to the animals and this disturbs their natural habitat. They churn up the ground in large land rovers and this leads to an increase in erosion. There are also conflicts with the local people, as the Maasai people were driven out of their homelands by the government who wished to set up safari parks. This has led to local people and farm animals being killed by wild animals which they are legally not allowed to touch.