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- Convenor:
-
David Harrison
(Middlesex University)
- Location:
- Room 8 (Examination Schools)
- Start time:
- 12 September, 2016 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
Tourism is a major tool for development in many countries and regions but its impacts remain contested. This panel focuses on current thinking and research on the economic, social and cultural processes underlying its continued growth and on tourism's relationship with other forms of travel.
Long Abstract:
Tourism is a major tool for development across all types of society and many 'developing' countries, along with regions in countries considered 'developed,' rely on tourism as their primary sources of income and employment. Although writing about and research into the 'problems' often perceived in tourism's apparently inevitable growth tend to focus on 'developing' societies, its impacts are global and remain contested. This panel focuses on current thinking and research on the economic, social and cultural processes underlying tourism's continued growth, and on its relationship to other forms of travel..
Accepted papers:
Session 1Marina Novelli (University of Brighton)
Paper short abstract:
Travel philanthropy combines philanthropic principles with social-justice-focused forms of tourism. It exhibits characteristics from three broad philanthropic movements and approaches - traditional, modern and post-modern philanthropy. This paper offers a critical assessment of travel philanthropy.
Paper long abstract:
Travel philanthropy is not a new concept, which combines philanthropic principles with social-justice-focused forms of tourism. Arising from frustration with the ineffectiveness of much conventional aid and traditional philanthropic giving, travel philanthropy is seen as a form of development assistance whereby funds, labour and/or other resources flow directly from the tourism industry into community development and conservation initiatives.
As a westerner travelling in SSA, it is easy to be drawn into the desire of 'helping the less fortunate' or 'doing things differently' as philanthropist, volunteer or paid technical advisor on development matters. However, the reality is that we often fail to even understand our role as individuals travelling into unknown lands.
Springing from the democratisation of charitable gift-giving, the growth of international travel and tourism and an increasing care about the socio-economic welfare of those living in less privileged conditions around the world, travel philanthropy exhibits characteristics from three broad philanthropic movements and approaches - traditional, modern and post-modern philanthropy.
This paper is intended to further the debate towards a critical understanding of travel philanthropy not necessarily associated with the known one of volunteer tourism, but as a broader contested practice.
Adolfo Arguello (Tec de Monterrey)
Paper short abstract:
My proposal explains the transformation of tourists reaching nature friendly locations, creating collective action, driving the sense of change in citizens. In alliance with the Lacandones, different organizations are creating a vision WHY we need to manage properly the Governance of Biodiversity.
Paper long abstract:
Today the process of democratization in the Latin American region has created a platform where significant participation of indigenous groups has emerged (Nivón, 2006). Likewise, their customs are intangible values of great importance to national identities that are slowly giving them space to be the pillars in the production of cultural goods (Canclini, 2001). In addition, their inputs have been included to build new measurement of welfare. Their relationship with nature provides opportunities to reconsider new production measurement using more sustainable means in our daily activities (ECLAC, 2014).
I seek present the results of the implementation and monitoring of a business model operated in Chiapas in partnership with the Lacandones community while offering tourism experiences, potentiating the governance of biodiversity through educative approaches. We are currently building the bridge to expand our impact, providing advice to local authorities in order to merge our approach with the regional initiative "Chiapas Brand Strategy". The proposal adapts the "sustainability" component, a duality Framework, in different sectors of the public, private, civil society, and academia.
This is a proposal to transform the individual behavior of tourists that flee cities to more nature friendly locations, reaching collective action, driving the sense of change in citizens. In alliance with the Lacandones, different organizations are creating a vision of HOW to look into the future, and WHY we need to manage properly the Governance of Biodiversity. I am convinced that while understanding the complexity at local levels interesting synergies emerge at global scales.
Louise Dixey
Paper short abstract:
This paper reviews weaknesses in the study of NGOs involved in tourism in less economically developed countries and presents the rationale for embracing critical ethnography in order to further understanding of the complex dynamics of development.
Paper long abstract:
The study of NGOs involved in tourism in less economically developed countries has received insufficient academic attention and methodological and theoretical weaknesses are evident. This may in part reflect an inherent risk in our highly interconnected epistemic community that tourism scholars who also work as development practitioners do not publish donor-funded research findings on NGOs or their published accounts are instrumental i.e. descriptive and depoliticised. Shortcomings include a lack of attention to methodological assumptions, the predominance of normative accounts that emphasise technical issues, a neglect of reflexivity in relation to positionality and political ethics, as well as a lack of conceptualisation that adequately addresses the agency of actors and complexities of context. The extensive scholarship on NGOs in development studies has addressed these shortcomings and advocates the need to embrace critical ethnography. This is in order to better understand how NGOs are embedded in broader contexts and to shift the emphasis from evaluation of a fixed entity to organisational processes in flux. This approach draws attention to how an NGO can be shaped by diverse actors and serve different interests over time thus opening up the 'black box' of unseen political processes, institutional interests and social relations. This furthers understanding of the actual dynamics of development and in turn helps to explain the gap between idealised tourism development discourses and local empirical realities.
Maria Giulia Pezzi (Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy)
Paper short abstract:
This contribution explores whether tourism can be interpreted as a viable development strategy in the Italian “Inner Areas”, and the implications of creating a tourism market where basic services are still lacking, in an attempt to overcome the widespread idea that “tourism is the easiest way”.
Paper long abstract:
In 2012 the Italian Minister for Economic Development launched the "National Strategy for Inner Areas" (SNAI). The latter are areas located at a considerable distance from urban hubs providing essential services (namely education, health and transport), which since the 1950s have undergone a process of marginalisation and de-anthropisation, although around one quarter of Italy's population still lives there. The aim of SNAI is to create developmental tools likely to foster a series of improvements in the wellbeing of the population, which concern different aspects, i.e. access to basic services and better use of the social and territorial capital. By means of an initial screening of the national territory, 20 areas have been selected to enter the pilot phase of the strategy, which will end in 2020; and many of them are already drawing up the preliminary drafts of their local strategy, which include an analysis of the resources already available in each area and the possible actions which could be successfully applied to foster long-period development. What emerges from these drafts is that the great majority of the selected "inner areas" considers the creation (or the implementation) of a tourism market as a trigger for local development processes. This paper will explore the ways in which tourism is locally interpreted as a viable development strategy, and the negative externalities of creating a tourism market in areas where basic services are still lacking, in an attempt to overcome the widespread idea that "tourism is the easiest way".
Donna Lee (University of Bradford ) Mark Hampton (University of Kent) Julia Jeyacheya (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses a critical political economy approach to analyse the dive scuba tourism industry in Sabah to highlight the structural precarity of tourism development strategies as well as the agential vulnerabilities of tourism employment
Paper long abstract:
Long Abstract
This paper utilises critical political economy to analyse scuba dive tourism in Sabah, Malaysia and tourism workers' vulnerabilities. States using international tourism to drive growth, and the work experience of many indigenous and migrant tourism workers is described using precarity, a concept derived from political economy and seldom applied to tourism or developing countries. We present new qualitative data highlighting employment precarity, ethnic and socio-economic factors within the dive tourism industry, and the precarity of tourism as a development strategy in the area. We challenge the predominantly optimistic views of labour precarity in the political economy literature which sees precarity in the service sector as a means of empowerment. Instead we present evidence that demonstrates significant worker vulnerability, uncertainty, and contingency - especially among certain ethnic minority groups - resulting from the state-led rentier model of the Malaysian economy.
Emmanuel Akwasi Adu-Ampong (Sheffield Hallam University)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I build up arguments about the particular ways in which the politics of local development planning and governance in Ghana shaped the outcomes of the Elmina 2015 Strategy
Paper long abstract:
Launched in 2003, the Elmina 2015 Strategy sought to use heritage tourism as a catalyst for local socio-economic development and poverty reduction in the historic city of Elmina, Ghana. The development of this strategy was led by the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem Municipal Assembly which has overall responsibility for ensuring local economic development in Elmina. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Elmina Castle which is managed by the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board was the centrepiece of this strategy. It was envisioned that by the year 2015 tourism's potential as a tool for development will be realised and the city of Elmina will be flourishing. My findings indicate that this vision has come undone due to the politics of local governance in addition to messy institutional arrangements, poor stakeholder interactions and the failure to fully embed the strategy within the wider local and regional development planning system.
In this paper, I build up arguments about the particular ways in which the politics of local development planning and governance in Ghana shaped the outcomes of the Elmina 2015 Strategy. During fieldwork research in Ghana between August-November, 2014 and July-September, 2015 I conducted 66 interviews with key tourism stakeholders at the national, district and local (Elmina) level. The interviews were transcribed and analysed in addition to extensive documentary analysis. In particular I highlight how the underlying governance and political interactions between actors and structures enabled and constrained both the planning process and outcomes of the Elmina 2015 strategy.
Nika Balomenou (University of Hertfordshire)
Paper short abstract:
This study argues that the metamorphosis of Kavos from a fishing village to an 18-30 tourism destination had a detrimental effect on the community. Solutions are sought to address complications from high tourist to local ratio, seasonal, low-revenue and environmentally unfriendly tourism activity.
Paper long abstract:
Until the 1980s, Kavos was a quiet fishing village in the South of Corfu. A lot has changed since the first tourists arrived in the 1970s. Nowadays, Kavos has developed a reputation of a notorious 'sand, sea and sex- 3s' destination for British 18-30, working class tourists. This reputation was cemented in Greece due to a group sex activity organised by holiday reps in 2003 that was reported on the news nationally and in the UK by TV programmes, including Channel 4 television programme 'What happens in Kavos…', which aired 2013-14. This pseudo-longitudinal study examines the development of Kavos as a tourism destination and its detrimental impacts on the local community, which shows no signs of change, despite the clear failure of the adopted boosterism' tourism planning approach. A key characteristic of this study is the high tourist-local ratio. Kavos hosts approximately 31 times its population during a short summer season; this results in emotional and physical conflict between locals and tourists. This study looks at motivations of guests under the prism of liminality and rites of passage, examines stakeholders and power issues that inhibit change and local peoples' attitudes towards tourism, under Krippendorf's prism of the 'rebellious local'. Data collected in 2003 will be compared to 2016 data and plans for the conclusion of the study will be discussed. Although the industry has tried to address the impacts of this type of resort, there still are '3s' destinations where the impacts of guests' behaviour are very acute.
Dirisa Mukindwa (University of Sunderland in London)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines power negotiations by local residents in community tourism in Uganda. Issues of power and governance are rarely understood and conceptualised in community managed tourism enterprises. Yet Power is indispensable in the success of these enterprises.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines power negotiations by local residents in a community based tourism enterprise in Bigodi, Uganda. It highlights the political dimensions of development practices by emphasising the role of power in the negotiations of who participates and their level of participation in the community based tourism enterprises. Local governance has been promoted as an essential element of development in rural remote areas particularly those adjacent to National Parks in developing countries. The literature highlight the merits and importance of the concept of participation in tourism management and planning. However, issues of power and how participation is defined by the local residents and the individuals who lead the governance of the local tourism enterprise, are rarely understood and conceptualised. Drawing on an ethnographic study, a community tourism lens is used to understand how power engenders or distorts governance. KAFRED in Bigodi presented a good case to study how the local people negotiate the issues of power, and how this in turn influence governance. The natural area of tourism in Bigodi is directly owned by the community; and tourism is developed and managed by the local people. Naturally one would assume that the leadership encourages wide community involvement in the decision-making process and equitable sharing of the benefits. However, as this study discovered, though there are benefits derived from the good governance of the community tourism enterprise, but there are also power constraints that hinder community involvement and equity in a locally owned tourism project.