Establishing the exalted tourist

Constructing the tourist as a cultural terrorist

It is often said that it is better to be a traveller than a tourist. This statement has much to do with the evolution of mass tourism and the notion of ‘authentic’ versus ‘inauthentic’ tourism experiences. Travellers presumably engage with the ‘reality’ of places, while the tourist consumes a sanitised, and no doubt crass, version of where they happen to be. Crick¹ notes the difference between ‘tourism’ and ‘travelling’ as expressed by Boorstin and Fussell:

This tends to create a certain amount of confusion about what tourism really is and whether tourism is centrally concerned about ‘authentic’ experiences after all. It may be questioned whether it matters more that the tourist feels they have ‘consumed’ what they expected according to the tourist marketing brochures, or that they have experienced something that is ‘genuine’. Part of the problem will be whether an authentic experience will be even recognised as one, and indeed whether tourists actually want to be confronted by ‘reality’:

The irony, as Gladstone points out, is that in using tourism as a form of escape from the everyday routine of their lives, tourists in effect escape into other contrived spaces.⁴ There is a significant body of literature that highlights the negative consequences for host communities subjected to pleasure-seeking tourists. Tamara Ratz writes:

Ratz identifies the main impacts of the tourist–host relationship as: the ‘demonstration affect’ – when the hosts’ behaviour is modified to imitate tourists; change in language usage in the destination; growth of alcoholism, crime, prostitution and gambling; transformation – revitalisation or commoditisation – of the material and non-material forms of local culture.⁶

She also notes the following impacts of the development of the tourism industry apart from the impact of the tourist–host relationship: the creation of new employment but much of which is seasonal, unskilled and low-paid; abandonment of traditional work patterns can be affected, through, for example, the decline of agricultural occupations; changes in size of demographics of host population; alteration of community structure; increased mobility of women and young adults; development of local infrastructure and increased supply of services and thus increased quality of life for local people.⁷

Ratz would support the proposition that becoming a tourist destination can result in the loss of culture as the type of culture which one will want to present is one which appeals to the tourist – perhaps a case of ‘who pays the piper calls the tune’. If the culture that appeals to the tourist is not the same as the traditional fare then there is likely to be pressure to adapt the local version. The consequence of not doing so will be the loss of valuable foreign exchange.

This latter point is important as it indicates where the pressure might come from to change the culture. While individual artists might resist this pressure to adapt, government agencies and other parts of the tourist industry (airlines, hotels, etc.) might apply different forms of pressure to force the process of change. Thus who gains government support for their art, who is provided with exhibition space, where visitors are taken may also be end products of a process which begins with a view of ‘what the tourist wants’.In this sense it is about the market – if the aim is to increase foreign exchange then how can one justify any kind of support for those who do not assist in that process?

Kaleo Patterson⁸ identifies the way in which the tourism industry in Hawaii has destroyed reefs and fishing grounds as the result of golf-course irrigation and hotel sewage. He also writes about traditional foraging areas from which indigenous people have been prohibited from entering. Rights of access to certain areas can result from the need to create ‘safe tourist enclaves’ and in so doing remove rights from local people. Patterson also speaks of the desecration of sacred sites.

For Patterson the marketing of Hawaii is that of ‘Hula marketing’ – the romanticisation of the culture ‘to appeal to the fantasies of world travellers’. It becomes difficult to distinguish the ‘authentic cultural experience’ (often the line contained in marketing brochures) and the real thing:

It is the reinforcement of the racist and sexist stereotypes that perhaps impact most on local people. The incentive of economic gain is a reason for internalising these roles. The difficulty is then that local people may be very happy to act in the way the brochures project the culture to be. Over time one then has the problem of distinguishing the ‘real’ culture from the ‘artificial’ one. But perhaps one thing is certain – a different culture has resulted. The dilemma is to establish whether it is a positive or a negative change.

Shankland¹¹ provides an example of what Ratz might describe as host people transforming their culture to accommodate the tastes and desires of the tourist. He writes about Indian villagers in Paraguay who have changed their traditional dances for the benefit of tourists. He also points out that those who voice this concern represent official stances on tourism which on the one hand wants to market indigenous culture while at the same time indigenous people are being dispossessed of their lands.

He also cites the example of a Carnival in Bolivia where the cost of ‘authentic’ costumes has become so high that traditional indigenous dancers can no longer afford to take part. In Rio the Carnival included more and more white models and imported soap stars (what Shankland refers to as the increase of ‘flesh’ on display) – to appeal to the increasingly middle-class audience – resulting in the exclusion of Afro-Brazilian residents of the shanty towns. It thus became less of a popular festival and more one linked to the marketing of a particular image of the city. It led to a change in the nature of the city. As Shankland observes, the exclusion of many local people led to increased crime in Rio and the scaring away of many visitors allowing the Carnival to be reclaimed by the local population.¹²

Shankland also refers to the complexities surrounding the manner in which the Green movement has co-opted certain indigenous peoples as symbols of a more appropriate approach to tourism. On the one hand the idea of appealing to environmentally aware tourists through attempts to better understand indigenous people and their relationship with their natural environment has many positive features. It might be that such awareness can be the key to limiting the damage caused by international tourism. But it is also easy to resort to half-baked understandings of such people and their cultures.¹³ Shankland notes the irony of holding an international conference on ecotourism in the middle of a region where government is systematically destroying rainforest and does not acknowledge indigenous land rights. He also refers to the ‘invasion’ of one tribe’s area by visitors clamouring to see indigenous people in authentic dress – when in fact the dress came to them from an earlier period of colonisation.¹⁴

Importantly Crick notes the lack of social-science research on tourism. This raises questions about the amount of thought that has been invested in thinking about the various impacts of tourism on local communities. He identifies, citing Boissevain, ‘four biases’ in the images of tourism which exist:¹⁵ the ‘grossly inadequate framework of economic analysis’; the lack of the local voice; the failure to distinguish the social consequences of tourism from other processes of change going on in a society independently; and the noble-savage syndrome.

Crick also questions some of the supposed benefits thought to accrue from tourism, such as increased cultural understanding of the tourist’s culture. He writes that because tourism has more to do with hedonism and conspicuous consumption tourists are poor cultural carriers. He notes:

Crick responds to the claimed ‘peace and understanding’ benefit of tourism by referring to a 1980 conference in Manila where the need to preserve Philippine culture was asserted while at that time the city was said to have 10,000 prostitutes ‘at the disposal of international tourists and members of the local elite’.¹⁷

He also refers to the suggestion that international tourism narrows the mind rather than broadens it. The claim here is that travellers are indifferent to the social reality of their hosts and empirical evidence is that individual perceptions are replaced with stereotypes. Crick suggests that the mystifying images promoted by the tourism industry are part of the industry itself and should not prevent a ‘realistic and empirical analysis of this industry and its consequences’.¹⁸ Thus the image can be easily accepted by the nation that promotes it and so stunt its own development and culture. The images are not real. As Crick points out poverty does not sell. Paradise does. But the Paradise does not exist: he refers to brochures that proclaim the Caribbean as ‘the Best of the Mediterranean on Mexico’s Pacific’. The Victorian Tourist Commission markets Victoria as different parts of the world. South Australia is marketed as Australia’s Mediterranean. Crick might say this is all nonsense. No such place exists, except in the minds of the promoters and those who believe the images.

When the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) in 1992 adopted Agenda 21 to create a more sustainable future, the travel and tourism industry responded with its support. The then Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organisation remarked:

This may represent the extent to which the notion of the pleasure-seeking tourist had become embedded in the discourse of tourism. The challenge of climate change may have accelerated the shift to conceptualising tourism in terms more noble, although as we shall see the existence of other discourses of tourism and the tourist were not invented at that time.

Tourism as a noble pursuit

There is a broader basis for understanding the nature of the tourist experience that relates to the various types of tourist that can be identified and at least calls into question the various critiques discussed above. As Gladstone notes, the idea of the ‘pleasure tourist’ – essentially a Western tourist – is in its own terms problematic as many people also travel for business or to visit family and friends.²⁰ His project though is to highlight tourism in the Third World and he points to the large number of non-Western pilgrim and religious travellers.²¹ Gladstone also acknowledges that the purpose in travelling for the pilgrim and that of the pleasure-seeking tourist may be very similar – to step outside their usual lives.²² This leads to broader typologies that centre on how tourism relates to the person’s commitment to the values of Western society.²³ Thus ‘recreational tourism’ might evidence a commitment to such values and the purpose of tourism for such a tourist is to rest and re-energise, to re-enter the ‘capitalist’ fray.²⁴ The ‘diversionary tourist’, on the other hand, uses tourism to escape their mundane and alienating life.²⁵ ‘Experiential tourists’, while alienated from the values of their society, utilise tourism to find ‘meaning in the lives of others’ and reassurance that others live authentically.²⁶ ‘Experimental tourists’ are similar but actually engage in the lives of those others in a search to find a new way to live for themselves,²⁷ while ‘existential tourists’ commit a new set of values in that other place, perhaps similar to the pilgrim.²⁸

One can see that in identifying these various motivations for travel there are in effect many types of tourist and thus the notion of the ‘ugly’ tourist who visits other places with little regard for the cultural norms and practices of those places is but one face of tourism. In the alternative typologies not underpinned by the pleasure motivation one can see the genesis of the exalted or noble tourist – one that travels not for pleasure but for purpose. Thus the Preamble to the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism²⁹ recites the case for tourism as a noble pursuit that recognises:

Nevertheless, in spite of these noble sentiments it will be questioned whether this discourse has been significantly influential in regulating the behaviour of both tourists and hosts. While that is a common refrain advanced by those such as Crick above, it is also easy to underestimate the power of discourse in regulating behaviour. Only a few years prior to the adoption of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism the national body responsible for promoting tourism in Australia was still identifying the need to convince the population of the value of tourism. The Chairman of the Australian Tourist Commission wrote in the Commission’s 1996–97 Annual Report:

This statement is significant as it indicates that the Australian Tourist Commission then saw its role as not just that of promoter of Australia as a tourist destination but also as being charged with educating the Australian community about the value of tourism. One could be critical and suggest that this statement only speaks to the economic benefits of tourism and in that sense is narrowly framed. While this is true, it does nevertheless indicate a process by which the tourism body indicates that a tourism discourse that presents its benefits will necessarily change – and regulate – behaviour in the tourism context.

We are all tourists now

In Australia, an important part of the transformation towards creating tourism as a noble pursuit was the co-option of all members of society into the tourism agenda. While in the year 2008–9 Australia managed to sustain growth in earnings from international tourism in spite of economic down-turn and the swine flu outbreak,³¹ it was a downturn in domestic tourism that caused the national tourism body to promote the benefits of taking a holiday. This was marketed as ‘No Leave, No Life’ and was based on the recognition that Australian workers had accumulated 123 million days in unused annual leave.³² Much of the campaign focussed on the important health benefits of a proper work/life balance and was directed towards employers as well as employees.³³ Of course, such a campaign falls squarely within the remit of Tourism Australia under the Tourism Australia Act 2004 (Cth) as the Act states its functions to include that of increasing ‘awareness of potential domestic travellers of Australia as a place to travel’.³⁴ Clearly much of the tenor of this authority’s activities is to create and maintain economic benefits from tourism and the domestic campaign can be viewed as a simple attempt to cushion the industry from a possible decline in inbound international tourism by generating more local tourism.

But this campaign also creates a discourse around tourism that focuses on the importance of leisure travel for workers while saying nothing about the broader human right to leisure mentioned in Chapter 1. In part this is caused by the legal constraints placed on Tourism Australia by its enabling legislation, although there is nothing in the terms of the Act that would in itself limit the meaning of ‘potential traveller’ to only the affluent or those in paid employment. However, the sense that tourism is an ‘industry’ that is measured in terms of its economic benefits – as they can be measured – while its social contribution is more difficult to measure has arguably led to the ‘right to leisure’ of all people to be absent from tourism discourse in Australia. In other words, there is little in the current discourse on tourism that constructs tourism as a human right.

The World Tourism Organization and the construction of the exalted tourist

This shift in how tourism is constructed is most evident in the creation of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.³⁵ As mentioned in Chapter 1, the Tourism Bill of Rights and Tourist Code which can be regarded as a predecessor to the more recent Global Code of Ethics stressed the right to leisure, the manner in which tourism can promote world peace and international understanding, free movement of tourists, and mutual respect between tourists and hosts.³⁶ This was then followed by the Manila Declaration on the Social Impacts of Tourism 1997³⁷ which stressed the need to eradicate the negative impacts of tourism and also carried with it an agreement to work towards a Global Code of Ethics. The Global Code of Ethics in its very name suggests a shift away from ‘rights’ towards ethical duties. Thus while the Code’s preamble reiterates the role of tourism as a force for peace and international understanding it is the recognition of the effects of tourism on the environment³⁸