单项选择题

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Tourism develops culture. It broadens the thinking of the traveler and leads to culture contact between the hosts and guests from far-off places. This can benefit the locals, since tourists bring culture with them.
Tourism may help to preserve indigenous customs, as when traditional shows, parades, celebrations and festivals are put on for tourists. The musicals, plays and serious drama of London theatres and other kinds of nightlife are largely supported by tourists. Such events might disappear without the stimulus of tourism to maintain them.
On the other hand, tourism often contributes to the disappearance of local traditions and folklore. Churches, temples and similar places of worship are treated as tourist attractions. This can be at the expense of their original function: how many believers want to worship in the middle of a flow of atheist invaders Who would want to pray while curious onlookers shuffle to and fro with guide books, rather than prayer books, in their hands
Tourism may bring other indirect cultural consequences in its wake. Tensions which already exist between ancient and more modern ways may be deepened by tourists’ ignorance of local customs and beliefs. Tourists, if not actually richer, often seem more well-off than natives. The former may therefore feel superior, leaving the latter embarrassed about their lifestyles. The result maybe an inferior feeling which hardly helps the sense of identity which is so important to regional culture. The poverty of a locality can look even worse when contrasted with the comfortable hotel environment inhabited by tourists. Prosperous retired or elderly tourists from Britain, where the average life expectancy is 75 years, may well generate resentment in Sierra Leone, where the local population can expect to live to no more than 41 years. The relative prosperity of tourists may encourage crime. In Gambia, unemployed young people offer to act as "professional friends"--guides, companions or sexual partners in return for money. When the tourism season is over they can no longer get wages that way so they turn to petty stealing from the local populace. All this affects the local social life and culture adversely.
Cultural erosion can also take place at more subtle levels. Greek villagers traditionally prided themselves on their hospitality. They would put up travelers for free, feeding them and listening to their stories. To take money would have been a disgrace. That has changed now. Tourists exist to be exploited. Perhaps this is hardly surprising if the earnings from one room rented to a tourist can exceed a teacher’s monthly salary.
The relative prosperity of the tourists may______.