Tourism is of major economic and social importance. More than 720 million tourists spend $480 billion per year outside their own country (WTO, 2004). This is one of the most important items in global foreign trade. The importance of tourism has been recognized in both developing and developed countries. This is seen in the creation of sophisticated and well-resourced government tourism departments, the widespread encouragement and sponsorship of tourism development, and the proliferation of small businesses and multinational corporations that contribute to the tourism industry. and benefit from it. In 2005, the tourism sector represented 3 to 10% of the GDP of developing countries. Tourism's contribution to economic growth and development is reflected in the form of exports as it accounts for 40 percent of all service exports, making it one of the most important categories of international trade (UNWTO , 2006). There is widespread optimism that tourism could be a powerful and beneficial agent of economic and social change, with some even advocating that it could be a force for world peace. Indeed, tourism has stimulated employment, investment and entrepreneurial activity, changed land use and economic structure and made a positive contribution to the balance of payments in many countries around the world. At the same time, the growth of tourism has caused insightful observers to raise many questions regarding the social and environmental desirability of encouraging further expansion. Does tourist spending benefit residents in destination areas? Does tourism encourage prostitution, crime and gambling? Does tourism rejuvenate or erode the traditional arts and crafts of the host culture...... middle of paper ......o contains a mixture of both positive and negative and affects both hosts and guests (Opperman, Chon 1997; Cooper et al. Consequently, despite the fact that some researchers consider socio-cultural change as one of the evils of tourism development, any form of economic development will, by definition, have implications for the social structure and cultural aspects of the host population (Cooper et al. 1998) Although initially most research has tended to focus on rural areas. of the English-speaking world (e.g. Long et al., 1990; Murphy, 1985), they subsequently referred to the impact of tourism on indigenous communities and peoples (e.g. Ryan and Aicken, 2005), research. More recent ones have examined the impacts of tourism in the non-English speaking world among the cultural representatives of these countries (e.g. Eraqi, 2007).