Also, the surface required for tourism is huge and is often constructed out of infrastructure and land for communal use. Thus, the construction of hotel zones and tourist developments, campsites, golf courses and equipments sporting or tourism transportation infrastructure (streets, car parks, railways and airports) only indirectly have positive effects for the local population. At the same time it causes serious damage to the natural environment, as amounts of building materials such as sand, limestone from coral and wood from the nearby forests, are extracted for the construction of tourist centers causing great damage to the ecosystems involved. In the same way many tourist activities such as skiing, diving, exits in boat, mountain hiking, mountaineering, alter space natural plants and animals that live in it. In many cases precisely is eco-tourism which causes or worsens the damage to the natural environment, since with these activities open to tourism areas until now unexplored.
Due to mountaineering for example, mountains, are affected by waste and felling of trees. Tourism to help the poorest income generation another possibility put forth by proponents of sustainable tourism is to improve the living conditions of the inhabitants of poor countries (Latin America, Asia and Africa) which have become important tourist destinations. Tourism and poverty elimination initiative was presented for the first time during the Johannesburg Summit in 2002. Basically covers the following points: the employment of the poor in tourism enterprises, the provision of goods and services to the tourist industry for the poor, the direct sale of goods and services to the visitors by the poor (informal economy), and the creation and management of tourism companies by the poor. Also proposes the establishment of tariffs or taxes on income or profits of tourism (whose fundraising intended to benefit the poor), donations and volunteer support tourism businesses and tourists, and investment in infrastructure that will also benefit the poor of the town.