DSE Geography | Tourism - conditions, leakage, impacts and sustainable management | Leakage maths, three-level impacts, four tools

DSE Geography | Tourism – conditions, leakage, impacts and sustainable management | Leakage maths, three-level impacts, four tools

2026-11-06

Tutor lesson-prep guides · Secondary Geography

Ask for impacts of tourism and you get the same three lines: income, jobs, damage. Students are not short of ideas; they lack the tools that split each line open – income after leakage, jobs by skill and season, damage by whether it can be reversed.

Objectives — Students can: (1) assess whether a place can grow tourism using resources, accessibility, facilities and stability with visas; (2) apply leakage – with 35 per cent leaking, only 65 of every 100 dollars stays local; (3) propose sustainable management from four tools – carrying capacity, ecotourism, community participation, market diversification – each with a reason.

01 Prerequisites (3-minute check)

If any of these fails, fix it before the lesson starts.

Skill	Quick check	Pass mark
Tourism types	A visitor stays two nights and visits a theme park: which type?	Leisure tourism, not business
Push and pull	What must a place have before tourists come?	Something worth visiting and a way to get there
Local resources	Where do most Hong Kong visitors come from?	Mainland China, then short-haul markets

02 Lesson flow (60 minutes)

Time	Stage	Tutor does	Student does
0-6 min	Three visitor figures	Ask why so many came in one year and so few in another	Give one reason aloud
6-18 min	Four growth conditions	One positive and one negative example per condition	Fill a four-cell assessment table
18-30 min	Leakage and impacts	Work the 100-dollar example, then split economic, social, environmental	Calculate once and split three ways
30-42 min	Four sustainable tools	Each tool with a real management example and one reason	One sentence per tool
42-56 min	Suggestions practice	Eight minutes writing, six minutes marking	Finish under time and self-mark
56-60 min	Exit check	Collect three items, mark at once, name the missing level	Work alone

03 Teaching script (read it out)

Scene 1: Four conditions must work as an assessment table

Students treat the conditions as slogans, so an assessment question gets the question repeated back. Convert them into a four-cell table, each cell marked yes, no or partly with evidence: resources (distinctive landscape or culture), accessibility (airport, border, flight frequency), facilities (accommodation range and capacity), stability with visas (will visitors come, can they enter easily).
Once the table is filled, the answer is naturally three strong cells and one weak, which is exactly what an assessment question wants.

Ask the student to assess two places with the table and name the weakest cell.

Scene 2: Income only counts after leakage

Students write that tourism brings large income, but part of every tourist dollar leaves at once: foreign-owned hotel profits, imported food and equipment, overseas airlines and agents taking commission. That is leakage. Use money they can feel: of every 100 dollars a visitor spends, with 35 per cent leaking, only 65 stays in the local economy.
Then split impacts three ways: economic (foreign exchange, but jobs often low-skilled and seasonal), socio-cultural (exchange versus commodification and rising living costs), environmental (pressure on sites, ecological damage, and whether it is reversible). Each level needs one positive and one negative.

Ask the student to run the 100-dollar example once, then name what makes leakage larger.

Scene 3: Sustainable management is four tools, not fewer tourists

The reflex answer is to cap visitor numbers. Real management uses four tools: carrying capacity (booking, timed entry, total caps), ecotourism (low density, guided, revenue back to conservation), community participation (local jobs and a say in decisions, which reduces conflict), and market diversification (new source markets and off-season products, reducing seasonality).
Each tool needs one sentence naming the problem it solves, or it is just a noun list. Use the example figure: visitors fell from 65.15 million in 2018 to 34 million in 2023, recovering to 52 per cent, which is a clean way to show the risk of depending on one market.

Ask the student to pick two tools for one overcrowded site and give a reason for each.

04 Question types and worked steps

Type	Example	Steps	Answer
Condition assessment	Assess whether a place can grow tourism	Four-cell table: resources, access, facilities, stability and visas	Evidence in every cell, then name the weakest
Impact item	Impacts of tourism on a place	Economic with leakage, socio-cultural, environmental, each with a positive and a negative	Six points, leakage mentioned
Suggestions item	Propose sustainable management	Three of the four tools, each with a reason	Reason must target a named problem
Data item	Describe the change in visitor numbers	Calculate change and recovery rate	From 65.15 million to 34 million, recovering to 52%

Sanity check (teach this): Sanity check: the four conditions must be filled as a table or assessment questions stay abstract; leakage is only credible with a concrete money example; impacts always split three ways with both signs so the answer is not pure environmental complaint; each sustainable tool carries a reason; visitor figures are labelled as example data in class.

05 Independent practice (3 questions)

Question	Answer	What to watch
Four-cell table	Assess two places and name the weakest cell	Check that every cell has evidence
Leakage maths	Of every 100 dollars with 35 per cent leakage, how much stays?	Check nobody answers 100
Suggestions	Two tools for an overcrowded site, with reasons	Check the reason targets a real problem

06 Common mistakes and what to say

Mistake	Student writes	Say this
Only damage to the environment	All three impact points about pollution	What about income after leakage, and residents facing higher rents?
Leakage counted as income	Visitors spend 100 dollars, so the place earns 100	The hotel is foreign owned and food is imported. What share actually stays?
Sustainability equals a cap	Only limiting visitor numbers	A cap is one of four tools. What are the other three?
Conditions written as slogans	Because it has resources and good transport	Which resource, which border crossing? No evidence means no mark.

07 Homework (paper, section and question numbers)

Geography chapter index — All chapters in the subject
All prep guides — Same format in other subjects
Redo this chapter — Redo one impact item (three levels, both signs) and one suggestions item (three tools)

08 Exit check (last 5 minutes)

Question	Answer	Decision
Four growth conditions	Resources, access, facilities, stability and visas	Missing one = repeat act two
Leakage	The share of spending that leaves the local economy	Saying income minus cost = repeat act two
Four sustainable tools	Capacity, ecotourism, community, diversification	Only capping numbers = repeat act three

09 Tutor FAQ

How many place examples are needed?

Three: one success, one overcrowded, one dependent on a single market. The table handles the rest.

Should students memorise a leakage rate?

No, exams give it. Train the reflex: see income, ask about leakage.

Is seasonality worth teaching?

One line: seasonality makes jobs unstable, which is an economic negative.

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A TutorZone lesson-prep guide. Written by the TutorZone team; questions and lesson flow are original and are not taken from any school or publisher material.