GeographyTravel: journeys and tourism30 min★★★ difficulty

Tourism: who wins and who loses?

Tourism is one of the world's biggest industries. This lesson sorts tourist jobs into economic sectors and weighs the gains against the costs in places like Venice and the Maasai Mara.

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Understand economic activity in the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors, and the change in their inter-relationships in different economic settings

Key learning points

• Four sectors
• Venice: too much of a good thing
• Kenya: wildlife pays
• Judging it

This lesson at a glance

30 minutes
20 parts to scroll through
4 quick checks
Marked quiz at the end
Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

economicactivityprimarysecondarytertiary

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

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Tourism: who wins and who loses?

An English teaching video on this topic from iNewittAll. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Understand economic activity in the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors, and the change in their inter-relationships in different economic settings

What you already know

Part 2 of 20

Before we start

What you already know

You know that people earn money from different kinds of jobs.

Key words

Part 3 of 20

Key words

Words you'll need today

tertiary sector: Jobs that provide a service, such as hotels, tour guides and shops.
primary sector: Jobs taking raw materials from the land or sea, such as farming and fishing.
ecotourism: Tourism that protects nature and benefits local people.

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 20

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Part 1 — The sectors

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 20

Learn

Four sectors

Primary takes from nature (farming, fishing), secondary makes things (factories), tertiary serves people (hotels, transport, shops), quaternary works with knowledge (research, IT). Tourism is mainly tertiary — but it buys food from local farms, linking the sectors.

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 20

Learn

Venice: too much of a good thing

Venice has about 50,000 residents and receives over 20 million visitors a year. Tourism brings money and jobs, but raises rents so locals move out, crowds block streets and big cruise ships damaged the lagoon. The city now charges some day-trippers an entry fee.

Quick check

Part 7 of 20

Quick check

A tour guide works in the...

Quick check

Part 8 of 20

Quick check

A problem tourism causes in Venice is...

Reset break

Part 9 of 20

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 20

Learning cycle 2 of 2

Part 2 — Costs and benefits

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 20

Learn

Kenya: wildlife pays

In the Maasai Mara, visitors pay to see lions, elephants and the wildebeest migration. Conservancies lease land from Maasai families, paying them to keep it wild rather than fence it for cattle. Done well, tourism funds conservation.

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 20

Learn

Judging it

Weigh economic, social and environmental effects, for locals and for wildlife. A strong answer ends with a judgement — 'benefits outweigh costs if visitor numbers are managed' — and a reason.

Quick check

Part 13 of 20

Quick check

Maasai Mara conservancies pay families to...

Quick check

Part 14 of 20

Quick check

Ecotourism aims to...

Investigate evidence

Part 15 of 20

Evidence 1 of 1

primary

Venice visitor and resident numbers

Comune di Venezia and Italian tourism statistics, Recent official figures

Visitors per year: about 20 million. Residents of the historic centre: under 50,000 — down from 175,000 in 1951. A day-visitor entry fee was introduced in 2024. Cruise ships over 25,000 tonnes were banned from the historic lagoon in 2021.

Tourism brings jobs and money but can hollow out the place people come to see. Venice is the classic case study of a city weighing up who wins and who loses.

Think like a historian

Use the figures to explain why Venetians are leaving their own city, and judge whether the entry fee and ship ban are fair responses.

Source: Official city and national statistics, publicly reported.

View the archive record ↗

Common mix-ups

Part 16 of 20

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

Calling hotel work secondary — it is a service, so tertiary.
Listing only benefits or only costs.
Ending without a judgement.

Challenge round

Part 17 of 20

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

Challenge round

Part 18 of 20

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

____ takes from nature (farming, fishing), secondary makes things (factories), tertiary serves people (hotels, transport, shops), quaternary works with knowledge (research, IT).

Tourism is mainly ____ — but it buys food from local farms, linking the sectors.

Weigh ____, social and environmental effects, for locals and for wildlife.

Mastery quiz

Part 19 of 20

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Tourism: who wins and who loses?

4 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

1. A fisher works in the...
2. A strong 'costs and benefits' answer ends with...
3. A tour guide works in the...
4. A problem tourism causes in Venice is...

Lesson round-up

Part 20 of 20

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

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Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

Source for this lesson

Use this for the source work task below.

Venice visitor and resident numbers

primary

Comune di Venezia and Italian tourism statistics, Recent official figures

Visitors per year: about 20 million. Residents of the historic centre: under 50,000 — down from 175,000 in 1951. A day-visitor entry fee was introduced in 2024. Cruise ships over 25,000 tonnes were banned from the historic lagoon in 2021.

Tourism brings jobs and money but can hollow out the place people come to see. Venice is the classic case study of a city weighing up who wins and who loses.

Source: Official city and national statistics, publicly reported.

View the original record ↗

Case study notes
Writing
Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.
Half a page
Explain answer
Writing
Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.
8–10 sentences
Map or sketch
Diagram
Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.
1 map with a key
Data work
Working out
Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.
1 graph + 1 sentence

Write your answer, notes or working here

Saved as you type.

Photos of paper work, diagrams or working outHow many minutes did the written work take?

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