Introduction
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Tourism is
a booming industry that is a large source of income for many countries.
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Every year
millions of people travel to new destinations.
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Typical
tourist vacations are often for relaxation or leisure, but today new forms of
tourism are becoming increasingly popular.
Problems with
Traditional Tourism
Economic Effects
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Financial
burden falls on the local communities.
This burden is to build and maintain a tourism industry.
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Local
housing becomes expensive with the increased demand for tourism properties such
as hotels.
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Often
times there is an increase in the price of local goods because the stores know
that tourists will pay more.
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Risk of
encroachment of offshore corporations who cater to rich tourists and will bring
the biggest profits out of the country.
Environmental Effects
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Damage to
the landscape such as pollution, erosion and fire sometimes completely
destroying ecosystems.
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Traffic
congestion and pollution and higher CO2 emissions.
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Loss of
virgin landscape that is unprotected from development.
Cultural Effects
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Extremely
at risk because of the tourism industry.
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Cultural
identity and practices become a tourist attraction and are often exploited.
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Traditional
communities are thrust into the modern world and risk losing their traditional
culture.
Social Effects
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Local
needs are forgotten such as in grocery stores, products used by locals are
replaced with products used by tourists.
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Seasonal
jobs that are not well paid with long hours.
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Locals can
feel as though they are on display and are a caricature of who they really are.
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Families
become dependent on the tourist economy and must work long hours limiting their
participation in local traditions and cultural ceremonies.
Political Effects
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Extreme
differences in wealth and lifestyle can create tension between locals and
tourists.
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Hawaii is
an example of this, the locals often have problems with the tourists and
violence does occur.
http://www.nationalparks.gov.uk/learningabout/ourchallenges/tourism/impactsoftourism.htm
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5244298_positive-negative-effects-tourism.html
Positive Effects of Tourism
Tourism is not all bad, in fact if done
correctly it can be a beneficial and productive practice that gives back to
local cultures and people.
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Jobs for local people.
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Income for local economies.
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Increased
demand for local food and crafts.
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Promote
cultural awareness therefore preserving local traditions and culture.
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Income
from tourism could go towards preserving infrastructure.
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Could
inspire a desire to protect natural features and the environment.
Here are the four articles we have been working on in class!
Ecotourism: Ethical Operation or Cultural
Exploitation?
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 02, 2013
The myth and reality of ecotourism
In her paper on
ecotourism, New Zealand scholar Regina Scheyvens explains “ecotourism has been
defined as ‘environmentally responsible, enlightening travel and visitation to
relatively undisturbed natural areas in order to enjoy and appreciate nature
(and any accompanying cultural features both past and present) that promotes
conservation…and provides for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of
local populations.’” To Scheyvens, it is important to remember that ecotourism
is also an industry: “When business is the main driving force behind
ecotourism it is not surprising that the ventures which emerge may serve to alienate, rather than benefit, local communities.”
ecotourism it is not surprising that the ventures which emerge may serve to alienate, rather than benefit, local communities.”
The promise of
economic stability prompts many local communities to pursue ecotourism as a
means of self-reliance, but it is often outside companies or governments who
reap the benefits of such endeavors. In some cases profits are split unevenly
between companies and communities, local workers receive unfair wages, and
outside products and services provided by companies hinder local economic
growth. Scheyvens adds that “even where ecotourism results in economic benefits
for a local community, it may result in damage to social and cultural systems,
thus undermining people’s overall quality of life.”
The demand for
“authentic” cultural experiences can often be injurious to communities when
their cultures are marketed as products for consumption. In their book
Ethnicity, Inc., John L. and Jean Comaroff discuss the consequences when
culture is capitalized. Once the cultural practices of a community are
commodified, so is its identity: “The alienation of indigenous practices, even
of the deepest knowledge, is…simultaneously a means of self-construction and a
source of material sustenance. Cultural survival…has given way, in many places,
to survival through culture,” note the Comaroffs. Additionally, communities are
often removed or
resettled from their native lands in the creation of nature preserves or wildlife parks, restricting their access to the resources necessary to their livelihood and ensuring dependence upon their commodified culture and ecotour companies.
resettled from their native lands in the creation of nature preserves or wildlife parks, restricting their access to the resources necessary to their livelihood and ensuring dependence upon their commodified culture and ecotour companies.
Ecotourism touts
preservation of culture, but often this"preservation" is in fact
exploitative and only exacerbates existing socio-political or economic
instabilities. Outside companies may pair up with local communities to help
manage and contribute to an endeavor, but the communities do not always receive
fair shares of the profits, or the profits are circumvented by local or
national governments. There are however many ecotour operations which work
closely with or are co-managed by native communities which do enhance and
promote the well-being of locals. The difference lies in how the operation
represents and interacts with the local community as a whole.
Does the National Park Service Need a Quota System for Peak Seasons?
By Bob Janiskee on February 19, 2008 edited for use
It’s conceivable that the National Park
Service might eventually have to take drastic measures to reduce peak-season
crowding in our most popular national parks. Overcrowding and overuse lead to
congested roads and trails, excessive air pollution, accelerated erosion, and
many other problems that reduce recreational pleasure and damage park
resources. Anyone who visits Grand Canyon, Yosemite, or Yellowstone during
the peak season knows that crowding can make a park visit stressful and
inconvenient.
The Park Service is already using a
variety of strategies and tactics to discourage overcrowding and overuse. But
urging people to choose less popular parks and less busy times of year doesn’t
do much good, and might actually create new crowding problems. At root, nearly
all of the methods that actually work are forms of rationing. For many years
now the Park Service and concessionaires have been using first-come,
first-served (queuing and reservation) systems, lotteries, and price increases
to regulate access to parks, campsites, backcountry trails, whitewater rivers,
and other park facilities and activities.
There have even been some attempts to
ration by merit or competency, as in screening for the issuing of climbing and
mountaineering permits. But what if all of these measures are not enough? What
if problems related to overcrowding and overuse in certain heavily used parks
become overwhelming?
In the worst case scenario, the Park Service
might have to adopt truly draconian measures. Some observers believe that it is
only a matter of time before we see strict entrance and recreational facility
quotas employed. A few have suggested that access to national parks and their
recreational facilities might best be regulated by a national lottery, and that
a “white market” for park permits should be allowed to flourish.
Here is how it would work. The Park
Service would use the best available scientific methods to determine the
recreational carrying capacity, acceptable limits of change, and other limiting
factors in parks that experience serious overcrowding and related facilities
overuse during peak seasons. The key question is how much access and use can be
permitted without seriously reducing recreational quality or causing
unacceptable damage to physical and cultural resources in the parks.
The agency would then set peak-period
quotas for admission and recreational facilities use at the “problem parks.”
Each quota would express the maximum number of permits to be issued for
visiting a particular park and engaging in specified recreational activities
during a specified period of time. The quotas would be partially filled through
allocations to tour operators, park concessionaires, various other commercial
recreation providers, and presumably some national NGOs. The remaining permits
would be allocated to the public via lottery.
The ethics of disaster tourism: What is the right thing to do?
All of which raises this question: Is it love
or is it lewd to visit a place after a disaster?
After a recent story in the Travel section reported that some residents of Joplin were angered by a map showing where a tornado
devastated the southwestern Missouri
town last spring, we asked ethicists about tourism in the aftermath of
tragedy.
Wanting to see a place where disaster has
struck is not always a sign of insensitivity, said Patricia Illingworth, an
ethics professor at Northeastern
University, a lawyer and
a lecturer in law at Northeastern University School of Law and author of “Us
Before Me, Ethics and Social Capital for Global Well Being.”
“I think that there’s a lot of benefit from
going,” she said of seeing the aftermath, adding that “gawking … obviously
isn’t a good idea.” But, she added, “going and seeing what the people are
suffering or seeing the situation, that then raises empathy or allows us to
empathize” with the situation, she said.
Fundraisers, for instance, often have at their
core human suffering, she noted. And you know those ads featuring emaciated
children? Calling this the “pornography of poverty,” Illingworth noted that
such images stimulate empathy, which often results in action.
But some may object. “Some local residents may
find it embarrassing or offensive for outsiders to ooh and ahh and take
pictures of a broken community," said Dr. Tanvir Hussain, a Los Angeles cardiologist
and adjunct professor of bioethics at Pepperdine University School of Law.
"On the other hand, local businesses [that] thrive off of visitors, such
as restaurants and hotels, may welcome outsiders at a time when little business
from locals is to be had.”
The issue of disaster tourism isn’t new. After
Hurricane Katrina in 2005, companies began offering tours of areas that were
especially hard hit after the storm and the levee failures. After the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, photos showed tourists
sunbathing on Asian beaches while cleanup continued in the background. More
than 200,000 people were killed in that calamity, many ripped from the arms of
loved ones and swept to their deaths. Some thought the sunbathers insensitive.
Travel, at its core, is supposed to broaden
our experience and make us think beyond our own horizons. A visit to a place of
barbarism that once may have been unthinkable can now provide a painful but
important lesson.
Yet those whose lives are touched by
misfortune, although none on the scale of the Holocaust, may object to becoming
unintended teachers.
TOURISM BOYCOTTS: HELPFUL OR HARMFUL?
By David Piepers
May 8, 2013
Edited for use
AS we make our way around the globe as
tourists, honeymooners, researchers and such, most people probably don’t
consider the implications of choosing to visit one place over another. Many
people probably aren’t aware of the conditions of poverty and deprivation faced
by the civilians of the place they stay, choosing to stick to the primary
tourist spots.
But if you knew that a nation was abusing the
rights of its people, would it affect your decision to stay there? Have tourism
boycotts worked in the past? Or do they hurt more than help that nation’s
inhabitants?
A good place to start would be the case of
Burma/Myanmar. In the 90s, the junta in control put tourism high on the agenda
for the developing country, only to have the nation shunned by the
international community because of the human rights violations surrounding
tourism infrastructure projects. The calls weren’t just originating from the
outside, with pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi joining the
campaign.
All this has changed since elections in 2011
though, as the pro-democracy party decided it was time to encourage
‘responsible’ tourism, with a focus on making sure tourists are keen to promote both social and
environmental welfare. How well they can enforce such an idea is yet
to be seen, with tourism numbers starting to gradually rise again over the last
2 years. That being said, there is still minimal regulation.
Another nation experiencing similar issues,
albeit with a much better advertised tyranny, is Zimbabwe. Poor socio-economic
conditions have engulfed the nation’s people for years, and significant drops
in tourism and the refusal of many major airlines to fly there have resulted in
income and job losses, with companies unable to pay wages. Even the cricket
World Cup, held in Africa, spurred calls for a
boycott of all matches in Zimbabwe, and England
and New Zealand
didn’t play their scheduled matches.
With the international reputation synonymous
with Mugabe, and the damage that has been done to the Zimbabwean tourism
industry in the last 13 years, it boggles the mind why the UN would then go
on to appoint Mugabe a ‘leader for tourism’, despite his
well-advertised reputation.
What do you think?
Does boycotting tourism to
nations such as these have the potential to make a difference? Could it be
doing more harm than good to the economies and employment prospects of these
nations? Is international pressure the only way to affect change in
dictatorships? Did you even know about the problems existing in countries like
these? Is tourism money really going to help the people? Or will it instead be
used to help entrench the power of the political elites?
