Tourism is usually described as having three major types of impacts on many of the places which tourists visit. These effects are economic, environmental, and socio-cultural in nature.
However, some impacts have been attributed to tourism though they may in fact originate elsewhere. Instead, more appropriate sources may be the media, the advertising & fashion industries, new industrial development, urbanisation, modern agriculture, mining and forestry projects, and government and military activity. But while all these factors can be described as frequent features of modern societies, it is widely believed that travel and tourism do generate impacts, including economic ones.