Challenges in Tourism Research 9781845415341

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Challenges in Tourism Research

ASPECTS OF TOURISM Series Editors: Chris Cooper, Oxford Brookes University, UK, C. Michael Hall, University of Canterbury, New Zealand and Dallen J. Timothy, Arizona State University, USA Aspects of Tourism is an innovative, multifaceted series, which comprises authoritative reference handbooks on global tourism regions, research volumes, texts and monographs. It is designed to provide readers with the latest thinking on tourism worldwide and push back the frontiers of tourism knowledge. The volumes are authoritative, readable and user-friendly, providing accessible sources for further research. Books in the series are commissioned to probe the relationship between tourism and cognate subject areas such as strategy, development, retailing, sport and environmental studies. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.channelviewpublications.com, or by writing to Channel View Publications, St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

ASPECTS OF TOURISM: 70

Challenges in Tourism Research Edited by Tej Vir Singh

CHANNEL VIEW PUBLICATIONS Bristol • Buffalo • Toronto

Dedicated to my wife Dr Jagdish Kaur

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Challenges in Tourism Research/Edited by Tej Vir Singh. Aspects of Tourism: 70 Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Tourism – Research. I. Singh, Tej Vir. G155.A1C437 2015 910.72–dc23 2015009758 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-533-4 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-84541-532-7 (pbk) Channel View Publications UK: St Nicholas House, 31-34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Website: www.channelviewpublications.com Twitter: Channel_View Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/channelviewpublications Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2015 Tej Vir Singh and the authors of individual chapters. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Techset Composition India (P) Ltd, Bangalore and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Short Run Press Ltd.

Contents Contributors

viii

Foreword – Erik Cohen

xv

Preface – Tej Vir Singh

xvii

Introduction – Tej Vir Singh

1

Chapters 1

I Am a Traveller, You Are a Visitor, They Are Tourists But Who Are Post-Tourists?

1.1

Are We All Post-Tourists Now? Tourist Categories, Identities and Post-Modernity – Scott McCabe 18 Those People Were a Kind of Solution: Post-Tourists and Grand Narratives – David Dunn 26 Exploring the Post-Tourist: Guidelines for Future Research – Natan Uriely 33

1.2 1.3 2

Is Tourist a Secular Pilgrim or a Hedonist in Search of Pleasure?

2.1

The Secular Pilgrim: Are We Flogging a Dead Metaphor? – Dan Knox and Kevin Hannam Whiskey and Pilgrimage: Clearing Up Commonalities – Peter Jan Margry To Be or Not to Be a Tourist: The Role of Concept-Metaphors in Tourism Studies – Noel B. Salazar

2.2 2.3 3

Do Tourists Travel for the Discovery of ‘Self’ or to Search for the ‘Other’?

3.1 3.2

A Journey in Search of ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ – Gianna Moscardo The Quest for the ‘Self’ or the ‘Other’ as Motivation for Travel: Simple Choice or Spoiled for Choice? – Graham Dann Tourism: The Quest for the Selfish – Bob McKercher

3.3

v

17

45 46 53 58 71 72 81 87

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4

Is Volunteerism a New Avatar of Travelism?

4.1

Volunteer Tourism: Return of the Traveller – Stephen L. Wearing, Simone Grabowski and Jennie Small Reciprocity in Volunteer Tourism and Travelism – Kevin D. Lyons Volunteer Tourism: Insights from the Past, Concerns about the Present and Questions for the Future – Daniel Guttentag Volunteer Tourism: A New Narrative Between Hosts and Guest – Alexandra Coghlan

4.2 4.3 4.4

97 98 106 112 119

5

Tourism’s Invulnerability: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

135

5.1 5.2

Is Tourism Vulnerable? – Julio Aramberri Tourism and Vulnerability: A Case of Pessimism? – Richard Sharpley Is Tourism Vulnerable? An Ambiguous Question – Carson L. Jenkins

136

150

6

Vanishing Peripheries: Does Tourism Consume Places?

161

6.1

6.4

Elaborating Core–Periphery Relations in Tourism – C. Michael Hall Vanishing Peripheries and Shifting Centres: Structural Certainties or Negotiated Ambiguities? – David Harrison Moving in From the Margins: Experiential Consumption and the Pleasure Core – David Weaver Tourism in Peripheries – Geoffrey Wall

176 180

7

Tourism is More Sinned Against than Sinning

193

7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4

In Defence of Tourism – Richard Sharpley Original Sin: A Lack of (Tourism) Knowledge – Noel Scott Tourism: The Good, the Bad and the Sinner? – Jim Macbeth In Defence of Tourism: A Reassessment – Peter Smith

194 201 206 211

8

Is the Concept of Sustainability Utopian? Ideally Perfect but Hard to Practice

223

8.1

Sustainable Tourism: Guiding Fiction, Social Trap or Path to Resilience? – Stephen McCool Sustainable Tourism: The Undefinable and Unachievable Pursued by the Unrealistic? – Richard Butler Tourism and the Sustainability of Human Societies – Ralf Buckley

5.3

6.2 6.3

8.2 8.3

145

162 170

224 234 241

Content s

8.4

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8.5

Wither Sustainable Tourism? But First a Good Hard Look in the Mirror – David Weaver Sustainable Tourism: Milestone or Millstone? – Brian Wheeller

248 253

9

What is Wrong with the Concept of Carrying Capacity?

267

9.1 9.2

Tourism Capacity Concepts – Ralf Buckley A Twist in the Tale of Carrying Capacity: Towards a Formula for Sustainable Tourism? – Sagar Singh Tragedy of the Tourism Commons: A Need for Carrying Capacities – Gene Brothers Why Carrying Capacity Should be a Last Resort – Simon McArthur

268

288

10

Knowledge Management in Tourism: Are the Stakeholders Research-Averse?

309

10.1

10.3

Transferring Tourism Knowledge: A Challenge for Tourism Educators and Researchers – Chris Cooper Transferring Tourism Knowledge: Research on Climate Change and Sustainability – Lisa Ruhanen A Market Approach to Tourism Knowledge – Noel Scott

319 324

11

Tourism for Whom: The Unmet Challenge

339

11.1 11.2

What Has Tourism Ever Done for Us? – Richard Butler What’s Tourism Ever Done for Us? Depends Where You are Looking From and Who’s Looking – C. Michael Hall Tourism has Done A Lot for Us, Both Good and Ill – Geoffrey Wall Are We Going to Use Tourism or Be Used by Tourism? – John Swarbrooke

340

9.3 9.4

10.2

11.3 11.4 Index

273 281

310

346 353 358 367

Contributors Editor Tej Vir Singh is Professor and Founding Director of the Centre for Tourism Research & Development (CTRD), Lucknow, India. He is also Founder Editor of the Centre’s international journal Tourism Recreation Research. He was Founder Director of the Institute of Himalayan Studies and Regional Development at the University of Garhwal and introduced the first tourism course in India (1976). Dr Singh has published about two dozen books on tourism and many technical papers on tourism development and impacts. Dr Singh is a Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism. He has consulted for the UNEP. He is Associate Editor of Encyclopedia of Tourism being published by Springer. He was awarded, lifetime honorary Professorship for his outstanding contribution in Tourism Academics and Research by Bundelkhand University, Jhansi, India (2002). Dr Singh has been awarded UNWTO Ulysses Prize for the year 2013 for Excellence in the Creation and Dissemination of Tourism Knowledge. Contact details: Centre for Tourism Research and Development, A-965/6 Indira Nagar, Lucknow 226016, UP, India. Email: [email protected]

Contributors Julio Aramberri was Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Cultural Studies at Hoa Sen University, Saigon, Vietnam (2009-2013) before his present position at DUFE. Julio wass Professor of Tourism at Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA (1999–2010); CEO of Turespaña (Spain’s Tourism Promotion Agency; 1987–1990); Professor of Sociology at Madrid Complutense University (1964–1984). He is a charter member of International Academy for the Study of Tourism. Gene Brothers is Associate Professor at North Carolina State University. His career to date has been focused on university teaching, natural resource management, and planning. It evolved into a study of tourism resource management of both the natural and human dimensions of resource assessment, planning and monitoring. A research thread that ties together his 36-year career is an evaluation of changing destinations and the critical tourism metrics for assessment of these changes. He has been fortunate to have had extensive international experiences in tourism research and planning. viii

Contr ibutors

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Ralf Buckley is the International Chair in Ecotourism Research at Griffith University, Australia. He graduated from Cambridge in 1975 with a BA and a PhD from ANU 1979. Ralf’s previous appointments include CSIRO Fellow, Rothmans Research Fellow, Chief Environmental Scientist AMDEL, Senior Research Fellow ANU, Professorial Fellow UNE, Foundation Professor Bond University, Senior Fulbright Fellow and Senior International Scientist Chinese Academy of Sciences. His publications include 12 books, about 200 journal articles including Nature and Science, and more than 500 other publications. Ralf’s H index score is 45 with more than 7000 citations. He has conducted research in 40 countries. His main areas of interest are adventure, conservation and ecotourism. Richard Butler is a geographer (Nottingham and Glasgow Universities), and has taught for 30 years at the University of Western Ontario (Canada) and then at the University of Surrey. He has published 18 books on tourism and over 100 journal articles and chapters. His main areas of research are tourism destination development, and the sustainability of tourism. He is a former President of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and of the Canadian Association for Leisure Studies. Alexandra Coghlan is Senior Lecturer in Tourism at Griffith University. Her research expertise covers four major areas: (i) sustainable tourism; (ii) the affective dimensions of tourism experiences; (iii) tourism and the green economy; and (iv) philanthropic tourism. She has published over 30 papers and book chapters in these areas. Her research currently focuses on using positive psychology to design tourism experiences for mental health and wellbeing outcomes. Chris Cooper is Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Business Faculty at Oxford Brookes University, UK. He was Chair of the UN World Tourism Organization Education Council (2005–2007) and was awarded the UN Ulysses Medal for contributions to tourism education and policy. He co-edits Current Issues in Tourism and sits on editorial boards for leading tourism, hospitality and leisure journals. He has authored a number of leading textbooks and is the co-editor of Channel View’s influential book series Aspects of Tourism. Graham Dann became the first Professor of Tourism at the University of Luton (now Bedfordshire) after teaching at the University of the West Indies. There he was awarded the higher degree DLitt for his contribution to understanding tourist motivation and promotion. As a founder member of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and the Research Committee on International Tourism of the International Sociological Association, he has over 150 publications to his name. From 1999 he has successively been Professor and Emeritus Professor of Tourism in Alta, Norway. David Dunn worked in network television in Scotland and in England for 30 years, directing drama series’ and documentaries. On returning to the academy, his doctoral thesis at the University of Birmingham and his subsequent publications have focused on factual and fictional televisual

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representations of place and space. He has taught at the Universities of Wolverhampton, Salford and Paisley, and was, before his retirement, Dean of the School of Drama and Creative Industries at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. Simone Grabowski is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology, Sydney. She holds a first class Honours degree in Tourism Management and a BA (International Studies) from UTS. Her research interests and current research areas include ecotourism, sustainable tourism, volunteer tourism, volunteerism, tourist behaviour and accessible tourism, leisure and sport. She has been a Research Assistant and Tutor in the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism, UTS, in these areas since 2005. Daniel Guttentag is currently pursuing a PhD in the Recreation and Leisure Studies Department at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He previously received a Master’s degree in Tourism Policy and Planning from the same university. He also spent two years working as a Research Analyst with the Toronto Convention and Visitors Association. Daniel has published on a variety of topics, including volunteer tourism, hospitality innovation, virtual reality and gambling behaviour. C. Michael Hall has a PhD from the University of Western Australia and previous positions at the University of Canberra, University of New England, Massey University and the University of Otago. Currently co-editor of Current Issues in Tourism and Professor, University of Canterbury; Docent, University of Oulu; Visiting Professor, Linnaeus University; and Senior Research Fellow, University of Johannesburg. Kevin Hannam is Professor of Tourism Mobilities at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Previously he was Associate Dean for Research at the University of Sunderland, UK. He has particular research interests in heritage and nature-based tourism with a geographical focus on South and SouthEast Asia. He has supervised to completion over 100 master’s theses and 18 doctoral students. He is founding co-editor of the journal Mobilities (Routledge), and co-author of the books Understanding Tourism (SAGE) and Tourism and India (Routledge). Most recently he was co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Mobilities Research and co-editor of Moral Encounters in Tourism (Ashgate). He has a PhD in geography from the University of Portsmouth and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). David Harrison is a London educated Sociologist/Anthropologist who has taught at the University of Sussex, London Metropolitan University and The University of the South Pacific in Fiji, from which he retired in 2014. The USP link continues, and he is also associated with St Mary’s University in London and the University of Surrey. He has written extensively on tourism and development and has researched its impacts in Eastern Europe, Southern Africa, the Caribbean, the South Pacific and South-East Asia. Carson L. Jenkins is an economist by training, who has specialized in the study of tourism in developing countries. He has undertaken teaching,

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research and consultancy assignments in over 80 of these countries for most of the international development agencies. His specific interests focus on tourism policy formulation, planning, legislation, institutional restructuring and human resource development. Dan Knox is a Senior Lecturer in Tourism and Events Management at UWE Bristol, UK. He has research interests in youth tourism, traditional cultures, events and festivals, and critical theory in tourism studies and is the co-author with Kevin Hannam of Understanding Tourism (SAGE). Kevin Lyons is Associate Professor Tourism and Management at University of Newcastle, Australia. He has made nationally and internationally recognized contributions to research that examines the intersections between volunteering, tourism and community engagement. He has published his research on the ambiguities and overlaps between volunteer tourism, cultural exchange and independent travel in leading leisure and tourism journals and books. He has also undertaken research that examines the knowledge economy in tourism and the role universities play in supporting sustainable management practices. Jim Macbeth began his career in Commerce, but quickly morphed into the Social Sciences, where it was dominated by Sociology. In the mid-90s he shifted to tourism research and teaching. Through a variety of research grants from two national Cooperative Research Centres, he carried out both empirical and theoretical research, some with a regional development orientation and some more closely aligned to sociology. His current research (slotted in around international sailing) is in cooperation with staff in Environmental Science. Peter Jan Margry is a historian and ethnologist. He studied history at the University of Amsterdam, and was awarded his PhD by the University of Tilburg. As a Senior Research Fellow at the Meertens Institute (KNAW) his focus is on contemporary religious cultures, cultural memory practices and cultural heritage. Since 2013 he has been Professor of European Ethnology at the University of Amsterdam. Since 2004 he has been Executive VicePresident of SIEF, the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore. Simon McArthur is an Associate Professor (Hotel Management), PhD (Tourism Management), MBA (Marketing & Finance), BAppSc (Natural Resource Management). He has 25 years of experience in tourism planning, development and operations. He is currently Director of two tourism consulting businesses – Simon McArthur and Associates and Total Tourism Solutions. He has developed/operated/evaluated over 25 applications of tourism/visitor management models, including carrying capacity. Simon has received some 20 awards for heritage tourism planning and development, marketing, product innovation and sensitive environmental design. Scott McCabe is Professor of Tourism Management/Marketing at Nottingham University Business School and has been working in higher education for last 16 years. His research interests are in tourist consumption,

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experience and behaviour; marketing communications, and destination image; and, social tourism and issues of equity in tourism. He is also interested in socio-linguistic approaches to tourist narratives and texts. Stephen McCool is Professor Emeritus, Department of Society and Conservation, University of Montana. Steve has spent his career working on issues, challenges and opportunities related to the management of the intersection of natural resources (including parks and wilderness) and people (primarily visitors and tourism). This has involved primarily three thrusts: (1) managing visitors to provide opportunities for high-quality experiences and minimizing biophysical impacts; (2) developing and applying systems of public engagement; and (3) rethinking the notion of planning. In doing so now, he applies notions of complexity and systems thinking. Bob McKercher worked in the Canadian tourism industry in a variety of advocacy and operational roles for about 10 years before joining academia. Dr McKercher has wide-ranging research interests. He has authored or edited five books and has written over 200 academic and professional papers. He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne in Australia, a Master’s degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and his undergraduate degree from York University in Toronto, Canada. Gianna Moscardo has qualifications in psychology and sociology. Prior to joining JCU she was the Tourism Research Project Leader for the CRC Reef Research for eight years. Her research interests include understanding how consumers, especially tourists, make decisions and evaluate their experiences, and how communities and organizations perceive, plan for and manage tourism development opportunities. She has published extensively on tourism and related areas with more than 170 refereed papers or book chapters. Lisa Ruhanen (PhD, GCEd, BBusHons) joined the University of Queensland in 2001 where she has been involved in over 30 academic and consultancy research projects in Australia and overseas. Her research areas include sustainable tourism destination policy and planning, climate change and indigenous tourism. She has worked extensively as a consultant with the United Nations World Tourism Organization. In 2010 Lisa was awarded a fellowship under the Oxford Brookes University International Visiting Fellow Scheme in the United Kingdom. Noel B. Salazar is Research Professor in Anthropology at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He is the author of Envisioning Eden: Mobilizing Imaginaries in Tourism (Berghahn, 2010) and numerous journal articles and book chapters on the anthropology of tourism. He is President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (2013–2015), Board Member of the Young Academy of Belgium, Chair of the IUAES Commission on the Anthropology of Tourism and Founding Member of the AAA Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group. Noel Scott is Professor at the Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia. His research interests include: network analysis of

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tourism destinations, tourism experiences and tourism in China and the Middle East. He is the author of 13 books and over 200 academic contributions and has conducted tourism education, research and planning projects in Asia and the Middle East. He has supervised 18 doctoral students to completion. He has held several senior research positions in industry and government in Australia. Richard Sharpley is Professor of Tourism and Development at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK. He has previously held positions at a number of other institutions, including the University of Northumbria (Reader in Tourism) and the University of Lincoln, where he was Professor of Tourism and Head of Department, Tourism and Recreation Management. His principal research interests are within the fields of tourism and development, island tourism, rural tourism and the sociology of tourism. Sagar Singh is an anthropologist who has been associated with the Centre for Tourism Research and Development since 1984. He specializes in the anthropology of tourism, but in his attempts to find new directions has delved into management and marketing, ecotourism, tourism planning, tourism and Indian cultural history and philosophy, and, most recently, tourism autoethnography. Jennie Small is a Senior Lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her specific teaching and research interest is tourist behaviour from a critical tourism approach, focusing on equity and social justice issues in tourism. She is recognized for her research contributions in the areas of mobility, embodiment, gender, disability (vision impairment), obesity, age and the life course. Peter Smith worked in the independent travel sector in the UK before embarking on an academic career. He is now the Director of Tourism, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. Peter is currently researching volunteer tourism, with a particular emphasis on perceptions of development in discourses of alternative tourism. John Swarbrooke is Head of Department and Professor of Tourism at Manchester Metropolitan University. Previously he was Director of the Centre for International Tourism Research at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK and Director of Cesar Ritz Colleges Switzerland. He is Professeur Visitant, IMHI/ESSEC Paris and former chair of ATLAS, and Board Member of TTRA Europe. John is author of eight books in the tourism field. He worked on consultancy and research projects in more than 20 countries and been a keynote speaker at more than 30 international conferences. He is Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Science. Natan Uriely is a Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is a sociologist who specializes in tourism research. His academic work consists of theoretical conceptualizations and empirical research on various issues, including the tourist experience, backpacking, volunteering, deviance,

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risk-taking, guest-host interaction, visiting friends and relatives, post-modernity, sustainability and public-policy. His current work focusses on hybrid forms of travel, in which ‘touristic’ pursuits and other travel motivations are combined. Geoffrey Wall is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo where he taught for almost 40 years, specializing in tourism, recreation, resource management and climate change. Much of his research has been conducted in Asia, particularly in Indonesia and China, including Taiwan. It has been guided by exploration of the implication of different types of tourism for places with different characteristics in the belief that such information has utility in tourism planning. Stephen Wearing is Associate Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney, and a long-standing Visiting Fellow at Wageningen University’s World Leisure International Centre of Excellence (WICE) in the Netherlands. He is recognized by Industry and Government for his contributions to Parks and Leisure, Volunteer Tourism and Ecotourism, and for his teaching both nationally and internationally. Wearing has authored 10 books in the field of leisure and tourism, over 100 refereed papers and a wide range of industrybased articles. David Weaver has held professorial appointments in Australia, Canada and the USA, and is the author of more than 120 books, book chapters and refereed journal articles related to sustainable tourism, ecotourism and destination life cycle dynamics. He is a Fellow of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism and author or co-author of Tourism Management (5th edn, Wiley: Australia), Ecotourism (2nd edn, Wiley: Australia) and Sustainable Tourism: Theory and Practice (Elsevier). Brian Wheeller holds degrees in Economics, Applied Economics, Economic Impacts of Tourism, American Studies and his PhD, Critiquing Eco/Ego/Sustainable Tourism, contextualizes the debate within the wider arena of tourism planning and management. His interests now embrace the links between travel and tourism with popular culture and the Arts – and the relevance to contemporary tourism thinking: together with humour, image and the visual in tourism and tourism education. He is Visiting Professor of Tourism at NHTV, Breda, the Netherlands and at the University of Plymouth, and Honorary Professor of the University of Wales.

Foreword T.V. Singh occupies a unique place in the field of tourism studies. Himself an accomplished researcher and author, he is the founder, editor and long-time publisher of Tourism Recreation Research (TRR), which under his guidance became the pre-eminent Asian journal in the field. TRR, which is approaching its 40th anniversary, is exceptional among major tourism journals, in that it was, until recently, published by Tej Vir’s own Centre, which made him bear the economic responsibilities for its survival, in addition to the burden of its editorship. His success is to no small extent due to the close ties that he developed over time with his leading authors, whom he frequently asks, and sometimes pressures, to take part in the various projects that he initiates. Perhaps the most important of these projects is the pioneering idea of Research Probes, a Department of TRR in which leading experts discuss fundamental, often controversial, issues in the field of tourism studies. This unique format has no peer in any of the leading journals in the field of tourism studies. Tej Vir makes a careful and systematic effort to choose the themes of such probes, as he makes clear in his introduction to the present volume. He consults with colleagues on possible themes, but then decides himself on the ones to be probed. He then asks one of the recognized experts to prepare a leading paper on the theme, and several others to discuss it, while the author is given a chance to respond to their comments. The result is a lively discussion, a welcome alternative to the anonymous, formal and secret ‘refereeing process’ to which submissions to scientific journals are usually subjected. The first fruits of these discussions have been collected in the volume Critical Debates in Tourism (2012), edited by T.V. Singh. That volume embraced a wide range of topics, many of which are at the heart of the current controversies about the nature, dynamics and future directions of the tourism industry, and its influence on some topical issues, such as poverty reduction, heritage preservation and climate change. The present volume offers the second batch of such debates. Inevitably, one of the major themes, discussed in several contributions, are the ambiguities inherent in the concept of the ‘tourist’, a controversial issue from the very beginnings of the sociological study of tourism, which in recent years took a new turn, as the concept came under growing post-modernist scrutiny. Many contributions relate, from various angles, to the consequences of tourism development and to its long-term sustainability. But some other xv

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relatively rarely discussed themes, such as the growing trend of voluntarism as a form of tourism and the vulnerability of tourism, are also taken up. Tej Vir Singh’s contribution to tourism studies was globally recognized in 2013, when he was awarded the prestigious Ulysses Prize by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). In the following year he transferred the publication of TRR to a British publishing house, which will soon publish its benchmark 40th anniversary volume. But though it will now be published in the UK, TRR will remain an Asian journal, with Tej Vir continuing to edit it vigorously. Hence we can look forward for a third installation of collected Research Probes in the not-so-distant future. Erik Cohen George S. Wise Professor of Sociology (Emeritus), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Preface Francis Bacon was unparalleled in the art of word craft. Regarding the quality of books, he famously said, ‘Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested’. This book is none of this sort. It is organized to help understand certain research nuances of tourism, metaphors and methods, and to assist tourism scholars in some concepts that have gone vague and ambiguous owing to want of new knowledge. There are books – perhaps lot of them – that deal with such notions, yet these concepts remain stubbornly unexplained, so much so that some of them are considered stale and futile, for example, the concept of carrying capacity is considered almost ‘dead and ready to be buried’. I fear the concept of sustainability may not meet the same fate. We need innovative tools to operate them skillfully. Failure in scholarship should not be attributed to flawed concepts, for example, tourism is generally considered a most vulnerable industry that vanishes from the scene by sheer minor shocks – socio-economic upheavals, physical calamities or cultural loss. The industry has wronged the notion by surviving these impediments and has outlived such a menace as terrorism. It has established its resilient character amenable to quick recovery. The book addresses such challenges and attempts to seek right answers. About 37 known scholars of tourism, emerging from different disciplines and diverse geographic regions, discuss and argue the threat of challenges. They present a suitable forum for meeting of the minds to find the key to open the door of knowledge. However, the book does not ignore the needs of young learners of tourism studies, particularly tourism’s new found language and vocabulary, idioms and paradoxes that often puzzle the freshers and very often the undergraduates. The new learners will find explanation of terms as post-modernism, post-tourism and difference between traveller and tourist; tourist and a visitor. Such terminologies demand disciplinary orientation. This book would not have been possible without the assistance, help and enthusiastic cooperation of learned scholars from all over the world. This consortium of theme experts has given their most precious time for a deep probe. Lead probe authors have helped in writing the context and concluding remarks. I particularly owe a word of thanks to Richard Butler who gave his time to read some parts of this book at a time when he was facing serious personal problems. From the Centre for Tourism Research and Development my thanks go to Sagar Singh and Syed Ahmad Rizwan who helped me in xvii

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reading the text. Masood Ansar Naqvi, to whom goes the credit of suggesting a short title to this book, was of immense help in preparing the text for the press despite his important editorial commitments. How can I forget Dr Naresh Arora and Dr Arvinder Singh who looked after my health, so did my sons Dr Salil Singh and Dr Samir Singh. Let me not forget Sahil Singh Yaduvanshi, my grandson, who will receive inspiration from this book. I was highly impressed by Elinor Robertson for her deft professionalism. My special thanks to Ulysses Laureate Professor Erik Cohen for writing a foreword to this book. I am highly obliged to Jonathan Manley, the publisher, Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group (UK) for giving license to publish literature drawn from Tourism Recreation Research.

Lucknow, India January 7, 2015

Introduction Tej Vir Singh

Tourism is a highly complex phenomenon, riddled with a number of intriguing problems and stubborn challenges that gnaw at the patience of tourism researchers, owners, resource managers and stakeholders. There are many factors that make these challenges unassailable. Global in dimension, it is one of the largest industries of the world, hosting over 1.08 billion tourists earning over 1 billion US dollars and creating 1.11 million jobs in 2013 (UNWTO, 2014). Imagine how many businesses, firms, services and workforce would be engaged in serving these tourists; it is a huge challenge by itself. There are challenges inherent in tourism, such as seasonality and sensitivity, besides being an ensemble of many disciplines. This multidisciplinarity demands acquisition of rudimentary knowledge in some of the related disciplines (e.g. geography, economics, anthropology, psychology and other bio-sciences). Heroes of these disciplines have not only contributed to tourism studies, but have enriched tourism idiom and vocabulary; terminologies and epithets, like the tourist gaze, post-tourism, secular pilgrim are now part of tourism lexicon, nevertheless a learner of tourism faces a strange paradox when he fails to identify a tourist and confuses between a tourist and a traveller or a visitor, as these terms are often used interchangeably. Tourism often borrows metaphors, methodologies, concepts from other disciplines. One of the questionable drawbacks in proper understanding of tourism is want of a clear and succinct definition despite prolonged efforts of World Tourism Organization (WTO) (now United Nations WTO (UNWTO)) and other international organizations (Theobald, 2004: 15). Having none of its own doctrine, it is a discipline in making; to some scholars, it is ‘indiscipline’ (Hall, 2006: 4; Tribe, 1997: 17). This book Challenges in Tourism Research is an effort to understand, identify and analyse some of these challenges with the help of the collective wisdom of tourism scholars who have spent years in studying and researching the phenomenology of tourism.

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Probing the Challenges I adopted a two-way approach to examine nature of these challenges. One, classify them into three categories, after preparing a list of important challenges. (1) Endogenous (internal). (2) Exogenous (external). (3) Conceptual (pertaining to thought and knowledge). In the first category were included challenges like seasonality, competitiveness, governance, making and breaking of experiences and vulnerability. Category two includes war, terrorism, epidemic and factors associated with impacts from the outside world, such as climate change, knowledge production, etc. The third category includes conceptual themes, such as concept of sustainability, carrying capacity, core and periphery relationship, etc. Not all the challenges could be discussed in a single volume and therefore representative examples were selected from these categories for intensive discussion. For the second methodology, an elenctic approach was adopted.

Elenctic Approach In this approach, the research problem is attacked by collective wisdom of inquisitive research scholars through cross examination debate and discussion (see Dann, 2013: 99). For example, at first the most pressing problem is identified with mutual discussion, say, ‘tourism is more sinned against than sinning’. Having selected a problem, some specialist in that field will be commissioned to write a comprehensive ‘research probe’ with all its pros and cons, then three to four erudites in this field would review the lead piece, react, argue and comment with their knowledge equipment. The concept of peer review was recompensed by the scholarly respondents having competitive knowledge. Finally, after deep probe, they would arrive at some conclusion. The outcomes of this critique would be a subject of further research until some tangible results are obtained

Selecting Research Themes The selection of themes for this book was indeed a challenging task for two important reasons: (1) how to find out precise research needs of the scholars from different geographic regions; (2) the availability of high expertise on the theme that would feature in the book. In order to find a relevant theme I consulted selective curricula from different parts of the world and

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established an academic contact with resource persons. Thereafter, the categorized list of possible themes was sent to them to mark the most important topics, they were in search of. Based on my long experience in teaching and research, and also considering the needs of research scholars, I picked up themes as far as possible, from the three types of challenges discussed above. While identifying themes, it was felt that needs of the beginners and readers from non-tourism background should be taken care of. No effort was made to cover-up all the challenges that tourism faces, nor was it possible in the given print space. Thus the book has 11 chapters. The earlier chapters take into account the need of the freshers and the beginners of tourism studies, while the latter chapters discuss challenges of borrowed concepts that refuse to translate into practice, such as sustainability, transfer of knowledge, carrying capacity and the like. In between the more enduring challenges of tourism are attacked, such as ‘is tourism a sinner or sinned against?’ and ‘is tourism vulnerable?’. The last chapter is broad-based and sums up the experiences of four tourism stalwarts who take up a challenge of the much asked question ‘tourism for whom?’.

Not all Travellers are Tourists Before moving further it is advisable to remove the confusion that surrounds the term ‘traveller’, ‘tourist’ and a ‘visitor’. For a non-tourism student they are the same, but the fact is they are not synonyms. Since tourism/tourists are in focus, it is considered necessary to define it more scientifically, although it defies boundaries. For the last 50 years, since the days of League of Nations, several statistical exercises were done to finalize the definition of a tourist until the World Tourism Organization provided the following definition: The temporary visitors staying in a place outside their usual place of residence for continued period of at least 24 hours but less than one year, for leisure, business or other purposes (WTO, 1993). Interestingly, this definition of a tourist also holds good for a visitor. Although the above definition was largely accepted by most member nations, many did not agree to it for some cogent reasons; important being international excursionist, having the same definition as of tourist except that s/he stays less than 24 hours in the country visited. Fretchling (1976: 59) focused on three important components to make the definition precise: should have unambiguity, facilitates measurement and follows established usage very closely. Since then, these definitions created confusion and many countries redefined this definition according to their own convenience. As we can see the definition needs further refinement for precision.

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From Traveller to Tourist We have marked that a traveller is not a synonym of a tourist or a visitor. All tourists include some travel, but not all travel is tourism. Travel is timeless and embedded in human nature and is as old as human civilization. Greeks and Romans were great travellers. Plutarch informs us of Romans as Globe ramblers and how they spent lives in inns and boats. Rome grew up as an important centre of travellers. Grand Tours were popular in between 16th to 19th centuries. Adler (1985: 335–354) notes that this was a golden period of travelism, which over time yielded place to tramping, where craftsmen and workers were receiving funds, meals, beds and even jobs from their societies, if they travelled on the road on prescribed routes, for example, a journeyman in 19th century Germany was expected to be on the road for 4–5 years (Adler, 1985: 335). Tourism is a recent phenomenon having its origins in the beginning of 19th century (Ogilvie, 1934: 66), which post-industrial society embraced enthusiastically. With the advent of railways, Thomas Cook introduced his package holiday programme and thus he ushered in an era of mass tourism that gave tourists ignominy for all their middle-class attitude and behaviourism. The tourist was in the dock, called names such as vulgar and barbarian (Boorstin, 1961; Mitford, 1959: 130–137). Even poets and novelists expressed their disgust with noisy tourist hordes; so much so that a traveller felt denigrated to be addressed as a tourist (Waugh, 1930: 44). The mass tourism experience could be called tourism, while an individual experience, travel. Francesconi (2014: 2) comments that ‘semantic borders between a tourist and traveller is more opaque than it appears’. Tuner and Ash (1975) believe that ‘a traveller is more responsible, sustainable and fulfilling activity practiced by human beings’. Fussell (1987) comments that ‘a mass tourist lives in a predictable tourist experience, ignoring serendipity, strangeness and novelty’.

We are All Post-Tourist In Chapter 1 of this book, Scott McCabe, David Dunn and Natan Uriely go into details on the concept of ‘post-tourism’, which freshers from a nontourism background may find confusing; hence there is a debate on tourist experiences and dilemma of authenticity. They also present a profile of a post-tourist. David Dunn challenges the idea of the relevance of a posttourist. He argues that the term post-tourist did not succeed in creating its niche as a last category to follow on from the tourist–traveller dialectics. On the contrary, it has fuelled fire to the discussion on ‘anti-tourism’. David focuses on media representation to demonstrate how post-modernism has impacted media portrayals of places and destinations. Natan Uriely puts up a strong defence against post-tourist categorization. Uriely’s appraisal of

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post-tourist is on the negative side and more on its destructive impact on tourism scholarship. His strong reaction to the probe is characteristic. McCabe provides a historical analysis and declares, ‘living in post-tourism era, we are all post-tourists’. Uriely presents a meaningful discussion on ‘tourist experience’. He states that most of the research is in this area applies to a ‘phenomenological approach’, where tourist’s subjective experience is the core of the inquiry. Uriely suggests extending the phenomenological approach from the study of the ‘tourist experience’ to the study of experience in tourism.

Secular Pilgrims – an Oxymoron that Smells Profane In Chapter 2, a group of social scientists, Dan Knox, Kevin Hannam, Peter Jan Margry and Noel Salazar critically discuss the complex oxymoronic concept of ‘secular pilgrim and hedonic tourist’. Knox and Hannam take the lead by unfolding the crust of tourist–pilgrim dichotomy, after exploring the meaning and uses of the metaphor and how these relate to religion, tourism and hedonism, and how they inter-connect. Margry disliked the phraseology of ‘secular pilgrimage’, an oxymoron that smells profane; Salazar believes that secular tourism has become ‘tourist imaginaries’. The group felt the need of extending the metaphor of the pilgrim far beyond its usefulness in understanding contemporary tourism. The fact is that neither all tourists are hedonist nor are all pilgrims pious. In the words of Turner and Turner (1978: 20) ‘a tourist is half a pilgrim if a pilgrim is half a tourist’. There are striking similarities spatially and structurally in both concepts. Both are capable of exchanging character imperceptibly – a tourist in a Hindu temple and a pilgrim in a mall shopping for his family. Keeping aside the devotional side, ‘pilgrimage also involves sightseeing, visiting diverse attractions or buying the local memorabilia’. Digence (2006: 37) confirms that there are many shared similarities or common threads found in both traditions – faithful and secular forms of travel. Consumerism has overtaken modern society, where religion is just another marketable commodity (Olsen, 2003: 99-104). More technological changes will direly affect the traditional ethos of society; maybe, a cyber-pilgrim has not to travel all the way to the destination, he can perform the ritual sittings in his drawing room – gods and goddesses shall move to the devotee – a virtual pilgrimage that shall render pilgrim–tourist dichotomy irrelevant.

Tourism for ‘Self’ or the ‘Other’ A quirky question is begging a clear answer – why do tourists travel? Are they travelling to discover ‘themselves’ or searching for the ‘other’ or both?

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A most innocent response that has come up is – escape from the drudgery of everydayness. This may not be the whole truth, as a tourist may have some other cogent reasons, and that demands research, particularly in tourists’ motivation. Cohen’s (1979) five-fold typology of tourists suggests a range of diverse motivations. Gianna Moscardo (Chapter 3) covering the entire gamut of the problem, particularly in the field of psychology, concentrated her research on the ‘self’ (social identity). Graham Dann commented upon the deficiencies of Moscardo’s review of sociological literature. Bob McKercher found tourist ‘selfish’ and ‘ego-oriented’. They travel for their needs. As long as their needs are met, they will continue to travel. The ‘other’ has been considered as a persona adopted by tourists when abroad and away from familiar surroundings (Smith et al., 2010: 150). They are in a transitory world and can abandon themselves to frolicsomeness. Krippendorf puts it nicely: Tourists are free of all constraints . . . Do as one pleases; dress, eat and spend money, celebrate and feast . . . they have a good time ideology and the tomorrow, we shall be-gone attitude . . . (Krippendorf, 1987: 33) Munt (1994: 101–123) argues that search for ‘otherness’ is linked up with the quest for distinction from mass tourism. Since the ‘other’ is exotic, primitive and remote, the post-tourist searches them in laggard regions, while the process of globalization has touched even the most untouched primitiveness – a rare commodity. Helplessly, the post-modernists get nostalgic and eventually engage themselves in the past with a hope that the ‘otherness’ may be found in pre-modernity, hence the increasing popularity of heritage destinations and love of the bucolic countryside. Wheeller (1992) doubts: ‘would the past look the way in which we would like to see it?’ Past has gone out of reach and cannot be reconstructed. Heitmann (2010: 55) sums up very nicely that such a renewed past would be no better than a ‘collage of images’ of different epochs . . . and only a vision of authentic life.

Where Guests Care for the Hosts In the beginning of this millennium, a new form of tourism emerged with a name of ‘volunteer tourism’ (VT) that grew popular with the youth who longed for experiencing the realm of the ‘other’. A volunteer tourist customarily immerses himself in the host culture without being an intrusive visitor. Broadly, a volunteer tourist comes closer to Boorstein’s ‘traveller’. In Chapter 4, Stephen Wearing, Simone Grabowski and Jennie Small are doing the lead probe; Kevin Lyons, Daniel Guttentag and Alexandra Coghlan enter into the fray to find out linkages between today’s volunteer tourists and youth travellers of yesterday. They commented that VT is growing very

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fast as a new avatar of travelism, reminiscent of past generations of youth. They argue that youth travellers have a preference for a personalized, authentic travel experience. Unlike mass tourism, it represents their involvement in ‘other cultures, altruism, personal development, community development and global citizenship’. They are concerned in drawing people from different cultural regions into a close relationship. Daniel Guttentag, who presents ‘insights from the past, concerns about the present and questions for the future’, affirms that VT participants are motivated by a blend of self-interest and altruism. Guttentag paints a different picture by pronouncing VT as a business and volunteer tourists as customers. Commenting upon volunteers’ immersion in the host community, Guttentag disagrees with Wearing and his co-authors for reasons of volunteers’ inability to speak the local vernacular, and their short duration of stay. In fact, he further suggests that there is a need to examine findings regarding the VT experience with non-participants and other type of travellers. Practically all the challengers focused on the need of research on the impact of VT on the host communities, ranging from dependency issues to sexual offences to local employment. Lyons raises the issue of altruism, which some critic believed to be a paradoxical notion to self-serving volunteers. Wearing et al. discuss the issue and assert that altruism is considered a foundational ideal of, and shall remain a dominant paradigm in, VT. He further suggests that VT may be described as ‘altruistic pleasure’. Coghlan presses the point that the probe group should discuss more on ways to keep VT attractive to youth travellers, how to encourage sense of well-being and how to benefit local communities. Lyons and Wearing argue that charity-challenges have to be faced with meaningful alternatives. ‘Bottom-up approach’ would yield better results – that means VT organizations should find out the needs of the host communities and then match these with the right kinds of volunteers instead of getting them dumped on the project (Singh, 2012: 15-16). Unfortunately, tourism has a genius for self destruction; this has to be fortified against.

Say Not: Tourism is Vulnerable? Chapter 5 deals with the vulnerabilities and invulnerabilities of tourism. Julio Aramberri in his lead probe hits upon the statistical vulnerability, let alone other weaknesses of tourism, such as financial crises, natural calamities, terrorism and spread of epidemic diseases (SARS, tsunami, Fukushima, Bali episode, 9/11 attack, etc.) that severely affect visitor mobilities. He commented on the inadequate methodology of data collection of various countries: for example, ‘excursionists and proper tourists are often bundled under the “arrivas” label’. UNWTO arrival database sidelines travel by residents (domestic tourism). Julio remarks that the UNWTO database does not tally

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with the WTTC (World Travel and Tourism Council), while researchers of tourism mostly depend upon them in their field researches. Nevertheless, Julio admits, UNWTO is the only organization that provides a highly structured picture of the world tourism market. Richard Sharpley, the other challenger, in his response pronounces vulnerability as a case of pessimism. He quips that ‘tourists’ not ‘tourism’ are more susceptible to vulnerability. He asserts that it is at the level of destination where ‘true vulnerability’ exists. Small islands, because of their physical setting and ecological fragility, are more prone to vulnerability than mainlands. Sharpley states that most tourism destinations rise and fall in popularity, for some other reasons than inherent vulnerability or weaknesses – maybe owing to political upheaval, economic inability or natural disaster. However, tourism has shown a wonderful capacity to recover from such mishaps quickly. Carson Jenkins supports the findings of Aramberri, Sharpley appreciates tourism’s resilience to many crises that have happened during the last two decades and how quickly these destinations have recovered.

Where Have All the Peripheries Gone? Chapter 6 touches upon the theme of vanishing peripheries and the charge that tourism consumes places and cultures. With C. Michael Hall in the lead, David Harrison, David Weaver and Geoffrey Wall debate on this hot issue. Hall elaborates William Christaller’s (1963) famous core–periphery theory. It is a spatial concept and the term ‘peripherality’ refers to the urban– rural interface; both are relative terms. Cores have a high level of economic vitality. One is metropolitan in character, the other is rural and remote. Core is innovative with good infrastructure, while periphery has poor amenities and relies on imported technologies – developed ‘core’ and developing ‘periphery’. Harrison, supporting Hall, argues that pleasure-periphery functions as recreational arena close to ‘industrial core’. He emphasizes the fact that tourism adds value to peripheral wastelands. He cites examples when, over time, peripheries change, disappear and reappear. Tourism has given new growth impulses. Wall argues that much tourism takes place in coastal peripheries and mountains. Harrison informs us that two isolated rural areas, Rimini in Italy and Alicante (Spain), got a new lease of life in tourism development. David Weaver argues that peripherality is a contested concept. Turner and Ash (1975) gave the term currency when regions of economic and geographic marginality were ‘being mobilized and modified for recreational needs of consumers’ seeking peak experience, deep relaxation and hedonic impulses. Weaver describes these places as ‘pleasure core’ and ‘semi core’, that

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are in fact ‘economic periphery’. Weaver further explains that this offers geographical remoteness with a co-existing ‘pleasure-core’ that provides spiritual and ‘emotional intimacy’. When asked whether or not tourism is responsible for vanishing peripheries, the group replies that ‘tourism is but one of the several factors in transforming the picturesque peripheries’. Globalization, capitalism, urbanization and post-modernity are largely responsible for the disappearance of peripheries; conurbation syndrome seems to have devoured these attractive edges. Richard Sharpley explores the reality in his lead probe, ‘In Defence of Tourism’; Noel Scott, Jim Macbeth and Peter Smith are the challengers (Chapter 7). Sharpley wonders why tourism has earned so much notoriety when many other sectors allegedly cause more negative impacts – social, cultural and environmental – than tourism. ‘Tourism bashing’ has become fashionable among the academics, while in journalistic circles, tourism is played down for sensationalism: such as it creates xenophobia, anomie, culturelessness, consumes places, erodes social capital, bio-diversity and so on. He continues that ‘in some cases, tourism has been made an escapegoat for the doings of many other sectors’. A plethora of tourism literature has appeared since the 1970s, depicting it more sinning than sinned against. Sharpley argues that the products of automotives and livestock are acceptable, despite their deleterious impacts, because they meet the essential needs of society. In defence of tourism he presents examples of revitalization of war-torn countries like Cambodia, Northern Ireland and Croatia. He says it is a pity that scholars have been niggardly in exposing the positive side of tourism – that it protects and preserves environment, recycles and reuses ruins, abandoned palaces and castles, revives dwindling art and craft, reduces poverty and makes remote areas accessible. There are still more benefits that tourism scholars have ascetically passed by. Noel Scott lays strong emphasis on lack of knowledge, which has been the original sin of tourism. He does not agree with Sharpley on many issues. Scott critiques Sharpley’s assertion that tourism cares for sociocultural and environmental assets of the host society and that tourism is fundamentally good. Good governance is the answer for many ills that tourism suffers from. Knowledge is the key to success. Jim Macbeth admits that tourism is a serious industry and should be treated seriously. He argues that the vital question is not who is sinning – but what are we doing about it? Macbeth boldly admits that it is not tourism but the academics who are the sinners. Peter Smith, supporting Sharpley’s viewpoint, reaffirms that good governance can bring out desired results but that it demands coordination, cooperation and commitment from all the sub-sectors of the industry. He considers ‘mass tourism as a sinner’. Peter admits that mass tourism may have some grave negatives, but it improves the economy of the visited destinations. That said, tourism was found inevitable. It is a challenge for the researcher to find a proper remedy to make tourism good – sustainable and ethical.

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The Challenge of Sustainability The 1980s have been very crucial in the history of tourism development. It gave us ecotourism as an innocuous form of tourism that cares for nature and human welfare, and the other concept of sustainable development that emerged out of the Brundtland Commission report, Our Common Future (1987). Unfortunately, both concepts could not give tourism as much as they had promised. Ecotourism fell prey to ‘green bashing’ and sustainability suffered from definitional deficiency. Let us have a look into the aspects of sustainability phenomenon closely. First, its definition: Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (Brundtland, 1987) The concept required that societies meet human needs, both by increasing productivity potential and by ensuring equitable opportunities for all. The report further emphasized that poverty, population and environmental degradation are inextricably related, and none of these problems can be successfully solved in isolation (Brundtland, 1987). Development, according to Brundtland, means ‘progressive transformation’ of economy and society without harming the environment. The development mantra was noble and inspiring but was difficult to put into practice. More challenging was to assess the present basic needs (food, clothing and shelter) of huge populations. To foresee the future needs of people and their aspirations is a tremendous task, nor is it easy to maintain ecological integrity, social responsibility and economic viability of the ecosystems, given the ever threatening population explosion. Opening the probe, McCool briefed the challenges about the complex concept of sustainability. He admitted that some success was achieved in the domain of small business. UNWTO has initiated a programme, Sustainable Tourism – Eliminating Poverty (ST–EP). McCool stresses the need for creating knowledge that reconciles human activities with the laws of nature. Peoplecentred development should be encouraged that may lead to ‘authentic development’ – that means participation and intervention of the local community (with all its value and vision) should be included in framing the strategy of development. He was scrupulous of the triple bottom-line as economic feasibility was dependent on short-term market, social acceptability varies across cultures and ecological integrity needs new tools of knowledge. There are hard barriers to cross, such as ‘butterfly effect’, complexity of planet Earth, data deficit and the changeability of tentative knowledge prone to change any time. McCool (Chapter 8) presents a resilience model that could withstand uncertainties surrounding the vulnerable complex of socio-ecological system that can be disturbed anytime by internal/external forces. Brian Wheeller

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partially supported the notion by invoking chaos/complex theory. Wheeller wondered how we can achieve sustainability without having any sustainable transport. Richard Butler opined that the concept of the triple bottom-line should be quadruple bottom-line – politics. The projects are subject to political acceptance. He emphasized that no sustainable development is possible without population control. Ralf Buckley considered the concept of sustainable tourism ‘either meaningless or impossible’. He commented that ‘Brundtland’s definition gained political acceptability, but at the cost of technical feasibility’. David Weaver was sceptical about the effectiveness of our research scholars’ work whose findings have little or no impact in contributing to making the concept robust and useful. He suggested that we should spend more time in the communities and industries that embody the tourism sector of the real world. Lack of knowledge is our failing. Our paramount obligation is to create knowledge and disseminate knowledge, then alone we can capture the spirit of sustainable development of tourism, otherwise sustainable tourism will remain a holy grail.

The Challenge of Carrying Capacity The concept of carrying capacity is very useful in fixing thresholds. It has worked well in range management, agricultural activities, parks and protected areas. At some European destinations, recreational carrying capacity has been pretty successful. Such experiences can be used as benchmark for the developing societies (Coccossis & Mexa, 2004: 19). Chapter 9 is devoted to the challenges of carrying capacity. Ralf Buckley takes up the lead; Sagar Singh, Gene Brothers and Simon McArthur accepts the challenge. Buckley presents origins of carrying capacity and its application. He advises that the concept should be redefined, if it has to be used in tourism; it will include social, economic and environmental measures that are not easy to assess. He asserts that the optimum number has to be respected so that tourism destinations remain in the state of stability and enjoy longevity of life. Every one of the challengers accepted that carrying capacity for tourism (CCT) is in its nascent stage, and needs well directed and result-oriented efforts. Simon McArthur as a practitioner offered downto-earth advice, not to rely on carrying capacity (CC) solely for measurement of tourism – use it as a last resort. Based on his rich ground experiences, Simon suggested alternative models such as limits of acceptable change (LAC), visitor impact management model (VIMM), visitor activity management programme (VAMP), visitor experience and resource protection model (VERP) and tourism optimization management model (TOMM). McArthur argued that each model had some ‘flip-flop’ response and constraints in their implementation, except TOMM which is broad-based in coverage. He

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affirmed that TOMM has produced successful results at many destinations in Australia, such as Kangaroo Island, Dryandra Woodland, Sydney Harbour National Park, etc. TOMM is not only broad in coverage, but also focuses on optimizing performance rather than limiting use. Simon also mentions several constraints in the adoption and successful implementation of the model. He presents several tables to explain how to select an appropriate model in different situations. Concurring with Buckley, Simon concludes that transitioning CC from grazing management to the management of visitors is a challenging task. Singh in his response comes up with a formula based on Western’s formula of CC that offers a promise of sustainability, which needs testing. Brother’s universe is large – Tragedy of the Commons, which he thinks is more useful than the agricultural analogy for tourism carrying capacity. He pleads for the use of CC with four-step process: (1) engaging local stakeholders; (2) benefits of development to the residents than investors; (3) document the desired state; and (4) monitoring indicators.

The Challenge of Knowledge Transfer Chapter 10 reveals that knowledge creation, dissemination and transfer are the keys to success in any enterprise. They give a competitive edge over others. It is unfortunate that the notion of knowledge management arrived late in tourism. Chris Cooper in his lead piece, and Lisa Ruhanen and Noel Scott address the key challenges on this issue. Cooper explains why the tourism sector is slow in adopting knowledge management, discusses imperatives of knowledge transfer for tourism and how to achieve knowledge transfer. He then focuses on core tourism knowledge and how to make decisions. Cooper observes that very often knowledge provided by researchers is too academic, complex and deficient in delivery; tourism product is fragmented among the variety of producers. He emphasizes that the knowledge that we generate as researchers must be of true relevance to the sector, then alone academic research shall be able to influence the real world of tourism. Lisa Ruhanen deals with the role of knowledge transfer on climate change and sustainability. Much research has been conducted in this field, yet much more remains to be done. Many stakeholders have a meagre understanding of the sustainability concept, let alone how to practice it (Ruhanen, 2013: 80–98). Relevance of the concept can be meaningful when quantitative indicators, benchmark, audits assessments and appraisals are in place (McCool & Moisey, 2008). She refers to the UN-based programme ‘education for sustainable development’ and believes that educational efforts shall bear fruit. It is unfortunate that ‘there is a lack of research on knowledge management of tourism and climate change’ (Hernandez & Ryan, 2011: 86). Climate

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change poses a huge challenge to sustainable development – effective knowledge transfer can fill this gap. Noel Scott takes a different view on the issue. While agreeing with Cooper on the tourism sector being research-averse in knowledge transfer, he adds that many scholars do not want to engage with the industry and wish to contribute to ‘new academics’ and ‘theoretical knowledge’. Scott notes that unfortunately tourism managers are ill-equipped in new knowledge.

Tourism for Whom: The Unmet Challenge Chapter 11, ‘Tourism for whom?’ is not about research, but the sharing of research experiences of four distinguished tourism research virtuosos – Richard Butler, C. Michael Hall, Geoffrey Wall and John Swarbrooke who have spent a major part of their lives in doing research and teaching. This out-moded but meaningful topic was given for discussion and comments. The authors were requested to quintessentially sum up the probe discussions, adding their personal experiences. Richard Butler, in his tell-tale style, elaborates a few topics, such as transportation, health, crowding and the aspect of change. He lays stress that good and bad tourism move in tandem. It is for the tourism maker to bring out good from the undesirable system. Unfortunately, people develop amnesia for the good in tourism and remember the ugly and the bad. Mark Antony, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, puts it nicely, ‘the evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interr’d with the bones’. To answer the question, Butler responded sardonically: ‘Nothing, apart from employment, investment, enjoyment, improved access to destinations . . .’. He emphasized that the change is inevitable ‘for’ tourism, ‘by’ tourism or ‘by’ the inexorable laws of nature. The change for the good of mankind should be welcomed. He forewarned against the challenge of touristic culture; how to retain it and transmit to future generations. C. Michael Hall exposes the theme in a dramatic vein and emphasized that good or bad is not implicit in the theme, it depends on the viewpoint of the beholder. Dealing with the theme he goes philosophic to explain the concept of ‘academic capitalism’, how tourism knowledge is produced, who produces it and how it is being utilized. He goes on to describe the huge dimension of tourism, that it is grounded in capitalism, global in scope and questions why people are immobile. He informs that the study of tourism goes beyond producing only labour force for the industry, but we all need able knowledge creators and knowledge managers for better development of tourism. Wall does not agree wholly with Butler although he does admit that tourism has done ‘a lot for us’, not unmixed with ills. Wall points out that the biggest shortcoming of tourism is definitional deficiency that causes many statistical vulnerabilities. He introspects that much of his research in the past was on impacts, but it was mostly covering negative consequences. Wall

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wonders how, without scientific criteria, tourism can be proclaimed as the largest industry of the world. It is not easy to ‘move from data to information to knowledge’. The industry also uncritically claims that tourism creates more employment than any other industry in the world. These are selfserving statistical lies. Considering this lacunae, major research users maintain their own research cell. Wall emphasizes that because of these shortcomings, real impacts are hard to find. Citing his Bali experience, he noted several changes in the society within a short period of time that were attributed to tourism. Such statement demands empirical findings to be authentic so that they do not look stochastic. John Swarbrooke explains the peculiar paradox of tourism and asks ‘are we going to use tourism or to be used by tourism?’. On a personal note, he feels that tourism has provided us (academic community) livelihood and opportunity to travel. Let not its frailties be remembered, tourism has been good to us in many ways: in fact, we as scholars should be blamed, not tourism. He recounted how researchers have failed in defining most useful concepts like carrying capacity, sustainability and acquiring new knowledge. Ecotourism was the best gift of tourism to humankind, but it too has been green washed. It is not wise to blame tourism for the failure of scholarship. He admonished that debates, discourses, discussion and dialogue help create new ideas for a better management of tourism business.

References Adler, J. (1985). Youth on the road: Reflections on the history of tramping. Annals of Tourism Research 12(3): 335–354. Boorstin, D. (1961). The Image: A Guide to Pseudo Events in America. New York: Harper and Rows. Brundtland, G.H. (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Christaller, W. (1963). Some considerations of tourism locations in Europe: The Peripheral Regions – Underdeveloped countries – Recreation areas. Regional Science Association Paper 12. Coccossis, H. and Mexa, A. (2004). The Challenge of Tourism Carrying Capacity Assessment: Theory and Practice. England: Ashgate. Cohen, E. (1979). A Phenomenology of tourism experience. Sociology 13: 179–201. Dann, G. (2013). Exploring the historical context of research probe. Tourism Recreation Research 38(1): 99–100. Digence, J. (2006). Religion and secular pilgrimage: Journeys redolent with meaning. In D. Timothy and D. Olsen (eds) Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journey (pp. 36–48). London: Routledge. Fretchling, D.C. (1976). Proposed standard definitions and classification for research. In Proceedings of TTRA conference, San Diego, California. Francesconi, S. (2014). Reading Tourism Texts: A Multimodel Analysis. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Fussell, P. (1987). The Norton Book of Travel. New York: Norton. Hall, C.M. (2006). Tourism: Rethinking the Social Science of Mobility. Harlow: Pearson. Heitmann, S. (2010). Authenticity in tourism. In P. Robinson, S. Heitmann and P. Dieke (eds) Research Themes for Tourism. Wallingford: CABI.

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Hernandez, A.B. and Ryan, G. (2011). Coping with climate change in the tourism industry. Tourism and Hospitality Management 17(1): 79–90. Krippendorf, J. (1987). The Holiday Makers. Oxford: Heinemann. McCool, S. and Moisey, R.N. (2008). Tourism, Recreation and Sustainability: Linking Culture and the Environment (2nd edn). Wallingford: CABI. Mitford, N. (1959). The tourist. Encounter 13: 3–7. Munt, I. (1994). The ‘other’ postmodern tourism: Culture, travel and the new middle classes. Theory, Culture & Society 11(3): 101–123. Ogilvie, F.W. (1934). The Tourist Movement. London: P.S. King. Olsen, D.H. (2003). Heritage tourism and the commodification of Religion. Tourism Recreation Research 23(3): 99–104. Ruhanen, L. (2013). Local government: Facilitator or inhibitor of sustainable tourism development? Journal of Sustainable Tourism 21(1):80–98. Singh, T.V. (2012). Critical Debates in Tourism. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Smith, M., Macleod, N. and Robertson, M.H. (2010). Key Concepts in Tourist Studies. London. SAGE Publications. Theobald, W.F. (2004). Global Tourism (3rd edn). London: Elsevier. Tribe, J. (1997). The indiscipline of tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 24: 638–657. Turner, L. and Ash, J. (1975). The Golden Hordes: The International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery. London: Constable. Turner, V. and Turner, E. (1978). Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press. UNWTO (2014). Tourism Highlights. Madrid: UNWTO. Waugh, E. (1930). Labels: A Mediterranean Journal. London: Duckworth. Wheeller, B. (1992). Is progressive tourism appropriate? Tourism Management 13(1): 104–105. WTO (1993). Recommendations on Tourism Statistics. Madrid: WTO.

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Chapter 1

I Am a Traveller, You Are a Visitor, They Are Tourists But Who Are Post-Tourists? Scott McCabe, David Dunn and Natan Uriely Context Perhaps an alternative title for this chapter could have been, ‘what is the contribution of post-modern thinking to our understanding of tourist experience?’ Tourists are all around us, both in the physical sense as the statisticians of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) continually allude to resilient growth in international tourism, and in the world of representation, the media and the internet, increasingly so in online social networks. Yet, has 40 years of theorizing about the nature of tourist experience led to any deeper understanding about the meaning of tourism and travel for people? Has post-modern theorizing led to a more complete understanding of the relationships between types of tourist experiences to cultural life and social change? The articles in this chapter try to address these essential questions. In essence, the three articles highlight three distinct approaches to understanding the nature of tourist experience in the context of the posttourist and the debates concerning post-modern tourism. Scott McCabe argues that role theory has the power to relate how travel is intertwined with our sense of identity. David Dunn focuses on media representations to show how aspects of the post-modern inflect media portrayals of places or destinations. Natan Uriely defends the contribution of postmodern thinking through the applied use of phenomenological methodologies. The articles in this chapter highlight that the concept of the post-tourist, while compelling and reflective of aspects of the ironic, dedifferentiated and pluralistic plasticity of the contemporary experience, has only partial value as an explanatory construct. Yet there are signs that we are moving towards a better understanding of the meaning of tourist experiences, which are outlined in the following texts. 17

1.1

Are We All Post-Tourists Now? Tourist Categories, Identities and Post-Modernity Scott McCabe

What’s in a name? The answer of course is quite important when the name in question represents a human action that has some significance for a person’s identity. In such cases the name attached to the activity takes on a different quality of meaning. Names become invested with characteristics and emotions, entitlements and duties, norms and expectations, rendering them with a transformative and expressive set of functions. Therefore, social scientists assess the significance of categories of social actions such as ‘tourist’, ‘visitor’ or ‘traveller’ for such distinctive features, qualities and meanings, both to users themselves and for their potential to inform debates about social or market trends, and their consequences. A different meaning is attached to the name ‘post-tourist’ however, since this is not a lay sociological construct but a theoretical/analytical category. But to what extent does the concept of a post-tourist offer social science an alternative or productive lens through which to theorize categorizations of tourist actions or experiences? This chapter aims to address the concept of post-tourist as an analytical category, first through a discussion of tourist typologies and then through a consideration of tourist roles to assess the applicability of this construct in tourism social science.

Tourist Typologies The debate concerning typologies of tourist and the nature of tourist experience has an enduring quality. Each new book launched on an evermore esoteric type of tourism – ‘slow’ tourism, ‘ski’ tourism, ‘tea’ tourism – is likely to elicit debate about the extent and meaningfulness of any distinction between different types and forms of tourist experience. The 18

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reason for this opprobrium presumably being that a focus on typologies is misdirected at the expense of understanding the meanings attached to tourist experiences. A tendency towards business and management issues in tourism studies has perhaps led to a conflation between categorical thinking and categorizing behaviour. Typologies of tourist experience proliferate perhaps without getting any closer to understanding what travel means to people or to understanding how travel tastes and behaviour help explain structural change within societies, the overarching aim of sociological theorizing. As Urry argued, the study of the tourist ‘. . . presupposes a system of social activities and signs which locate the particular tourist practices, not in terms of some intrinsic characteristics, but through the contrasts implied with non-tourist social practices, particularly those based within home and paid work’ (Urry & Larsen, 2011: 3). However, tourism and tourist’s experiences have been transformed by the global processes of modernity into such a huge variety of forms that meanings are difficult to disentangle. This has surely been the consequence of the post-modern dream turned into lurid reality? If a consequence of post-modern thinking is a rejection of grand narratives in favour of pluralism, an abandonment of scientific reasoning for relativism, a breaking down of the barriers separating forms of high and low culture (Ritzer & Liska, 1997), a collapsing of space–time to bring other cultures from distant places and situations into the everyday realm (Baumann, 2000), a de-differentiation between the meanings attached to activities of everyday life and extraordinary events (Uriely, 2005), then how are we to generate coherent overarching theories about the meaning of categories of touristic actions and activities? Each type of tourist/traveller becomes equally applicable as a descriptor of some kind of activity, without necessarily moving forward the debates about tourism’s significance to social life. This creates a tension in theorizing, since such thinking seems antithetical to progress in theory development. However, the tourist all the same has become a perfect symbol of postmodernity. Technology (chiefly internet technology) has driven transformations in communication and, importantly for tourism, how we understand and relate to different people, places and to ourselves, de-exoticizing and demythologizing others so that we can better understand ourselves. Technological progress has accelerated the pace of change, such that transformations heralded within the last generation (25–30 years) have become hyper-inflated. It is now difficult to imagine a world that is unknowable or to understand the challenges faced by tourists of the mid-1980s, who mostly did not own mobile (cell) phones, and relied on the knowledge and expertise of tourism industry representatives to provide information and deliver tourist experiences. In those days, there were observable differences between tourists, travellers and visitors, both quantifiably (as a factor of time spent, distance travelled, crossing international borders and so on (Smith, 1995)) and qualitatively

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(as a factor of type and nature of institutional contact with the tourism industry and so on (Cohen, 1979)). Similarly, the way in which tourist experiences are represented through the media has changed beyond recognition. The authoritative voice of the travel writer or TV presenter has been replaced by a multitude of voices, a privileging of the ‘ordinary’ persons view on reality TV shows and the internet through blogs, thus conflating the distinctions between class and taste that conventionally marked the differences between tourists and travellers (Dunn, 2006). This does provide a conundrum for tourism social scientists. Early social theorists criticized the lack of nuance in conceptualizations of tourists who seemed one-dimensional, and a failure to recognize the complexity of observed experiences (Uriely et al., 2002; McCabe, 2002). Yet the expansion of types of categorizations of tourist activity has not resulted in more meaningful typologies. Recent theorizing in the mobilities paradigm (Urry & Sheller, 2004) has widened the scope of social science theorizing about travel and its meanings, but also blurred the significance of tourism activity among a broad range of other types of travel/movement, making theory development in tourism more problematic. Furthermore, most of the theorization and empirical research that have attempted to understand tourist experiences has been undertaken from a top-down, researcher-driven perspective, such that few taxonomies of tourists exist (members own classifications). Of course, this is not so easy, as many studies have revealed how the construct ‘tourist’ is overwhelmingly pejorative, whereas the ‘traveller’ construct is a more positive and morally superior identity concept (McCabe, 2005). Thus many researchers have established that, when called to account for their actions, people tend to frame them in a positive sense. If asked to explain and justify their positionality, interview subjects are reluctant to ascribe themselves as a tourist, when more morally neutral concepts, such as visitor, or positive role models, such as traveller, are available. This tendency would be a potentially fruitful area for research, which has not been taken up by social scientists, in favour of further descriptions of increasingly diverse types of experiences. It is not only conceptualizations of tourists that have become more blurred; actual tourist behaviour has changed such a great deal in the last quarter century too. Tourists tended to be more visible because clothes, equipment, such as cameras, and actions often within an organized tour made them visible, distinct from locals and other inhabitants of tourist spaces. Nowadays, we all carry cameras on our mobile phones, engage in leisure practices in workaday spaces and in some situations it is not possible to distinguish tourists from other categories of people. Furthermore, a generation ago it was relatively clear what constituted tourist space, but new developments in cities, towns and resorts most often incorporate ‘mixed’ use (offices, leisure, retail and event space) activities, particularly in the postindustrial developed world (Bianchi, 2000), further blurring the identification of tourist spaces and practices. Flexible working practices can offer

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people the opportunity to work remotely, some live permanently in tourist resorts so that work and leisure practices can appear less distinct. The consequence of post-modernity for tourism social science has been a rejection of the traditional binary, oppositional dualisms: host–guest; tourist– traveller; familiar–strange; home–away. But the problem is that we have little theory to replace them. While these dualisms provided researchers with polarized frames of reference to construct or contrast forms of tourist experience, the void that has been left in the wake of the post-modern turn to relativism, has stifled rather than encouraged deeper theorization about the meaning of tourist experience. We are all post-tourists now, but what has been the impact on the search for self and meaning from travel? Do these concerns no longer matter for tourists? In order to provide some answers to these questions, it is useful at this point to define and deconstruct the concept of a post-tourist.

Who is a Post-Tourist? The idea of the post-tourist was first introduced by Feifer (1985) almost 30 years ago, which makes it particularly germane to consider the legacy now. It is also important to note first that Feifer’s treatise is a historical romp through the development of tourist culture in the eyes of an apocryphal tourist, with the aim of uncovering the nature and meaning of the tourist experience. As such the post-tourist section marks a postscript to the book. Feifer recognizes that, in fact, people have travelled throughout history, simply in different ways, in different numbers and for different reasons. She surmises that as epochs rise and fall, the tourist goes around in circles. In different eras of history, matters of taste, fashion and desires have shaped the ways in which people have viewed the world and determined which destinations and aspects of culture should be appreciated. The chapter on the post-tourist is in fact an auto-ethnography of Feifer’s own trip to Paris in 1984, and written against a backdrop of fear of the consequences of Orwellian mass society. But the trip and her experience represent methods that tourists employ to reconcile their own desires for authentic travel with their realization of the unattainability of really ‘knowing’ the world authentically, epitomized by the post-modern condition. Interestingly, although anti-tourist sentiments have been evident throughout different epochs (since travel is umbilically connected to matters of social class), Feifer notes that the oil crisis of 1974, which led to a temporary cessation in the expansion of mass tourism, also spawned the most recent radical and bitter critique of the tourist as symbol of ‘modernity’, ‘Profligate, pollutant, voyeur’ (Feifer, 1985: 257). Yet, this did nothing to halt the relentless demand for tourism: ‘The quest for romantic exotica is still alive, too, with all its attendant illusions and well-meaning blunders – disruption of the unique and fragile scene that is its object being the major one’ (Feifer, 1985: 260). The post-tourist however, is characterized by a change of direction. She is more self-confident

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and assured, able to reject the interventions of the tourism industry, has a concern for the contemporary and the quotidian, and shows a consciousness of the absence of a universally-held world view. Confronted with this dialectic, in a particularly ironic moment, Feifer’s apocryphal tourist ‘Mabel’, having travelled the world, is asked by her critical nephew, ‘how was the world, Aunt Mabel?’, to which she replies, ‘Very nice, except for some plumbing problems’ (1985: 256). Mabel is confounded by the fact that her view of her experiences could be rejected or challenged by anyone. And it is this that drives posttourists to seek ‘the old strangeness in the new normality’ (Clive James, Sunday Times, 29 July 1984, cited in Feifer: 1985: 260). Assuming the role of the post-tourist, Feifer takes pleasure from her trip to the Eiffel Tower, the most typically touristic attraction in the world, built purposefully to cater for mass visitors, where she buys some kitsch earrings in the gift shop. Feifer interviews tourists on the way, overhears conversations and enjoys the surface textures of the visit alongside all the other tourists. Yet simultaneously, Feifer is reading Barthes’ essay on the Eiffel Tower and cites de Maupassant (who liked to eat there because it was the only place in Paris where one didn’t have to look at it), Cocteau and Utrillo, she is clearly able to appreciate the context and experience in a multi-layered, intelligent and rich sense. Thus, Feifer revels in the high contrasts afforded by her ‘random’ selection of Parisian sights, the mixture of the everyday (shopping streets, local bus transport), the typically touristy coffee and croissants (although Feifer lived in France at the time of writing, she rarely ate them), berating herself for falling for the over-priced meal in a gilded, well-known restaurant, describing the glossy soft-porn posters adorning shabby shop fronts, redolent of the city’s history as a centre for the exotic erotic. It is perhaps little wonder that the idea of the post-tourist has relevance to our knowledge of tourist experience in the contemporary sense, because Feifer’s description seems so closely to resemble how we think about tourist experience today. Urry, for example, interprets the concept of the post-tourist as being characterized by three features. The post-tourist does not have to leave the house to experience exotic and faraway places; they can use the TV and other media to see the typical objects of the tourist gaze. (This was almost prescient of Feifer, since her work predates the widespread adoption of mobile and internet technology.) This is a crucial aspect of post-modernism in tourism, a preoccupation with what is available through screens, an awareness of the inauthenticity of experience that is subject to the representation of the media, and yet a willingness on the part of viewers to suspend disbelief and immerse themselves in the confection of a tourist gaze. Urry and Larsen (2011) argue that most people are tourists most of the time, either literally or through the experience of ‘simulated mobility’ afforded by multiple signs and electronic images (2012: 113). The second feature of the post-tourist is an awareness of their own agency in constructing and interpreting their tourist experiences and the roles that they adopt in performing them. Feifer claims that the post-tourist

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knowingly subverts and resists prescribed roles of high and low culture, and can easily shift between an interest in deeply authentic and purely hedonic experiences. The post-tourist willingly and playfully engages in the constructed tourist experience, and appreciates it on a number of different levels. This type of thinking was pre-empted by Gottleib (1982) and Lett (1983), whose analyses demonstrated how American tourists chose types of holiday experiences that provided them with opportunities to reaffirm or contradict their everyday roles or social identities. Finally, the post-tourist is aware that they are tourists and because they are experienced, they understand that tourism experience is multi-layered and so there is no overarching authentic interpretation. This awareness of the touristic condition means that tourists must recognize that in order to truly escape, they must artificially construct and inhabit a particular way of experiencing places and people that acknowledges their role as an outsider (Feifer, 1985; Urry & Larsen, 2011). Urry and Larsen argue that ‘If post-tourism is important, it will affect existing tourist practices’ (2012: 114). Yet to what extent is post-tourism epitomized by a radical de-differentiation, a breakdown of the distinctiveness between elite and mass forms of consumption, between extraordinary experiences and those of everyday life, between representation and reality responsible for, or parallel to, a shift in behaviour of tourists, such that the concept of the post-tourist is a dominant category?

Tourist Roles and the Post-Tourist Condition In a recent review, Cohen and Cohen critically evaluate the progress of sociological theorizing on contemporary tourism (2012b). They argue that early focuses on the concept of authenticity and the tourist gaze have shifted, in line with meta-theoretical thinking as a reflection of post-modernism, towards three theoretical approaches: mobilities, performativity and Actor Network Theory. However, while arguing for the benefits of these theoretical approaches, Cohen and Cohen recognize that each suffers from ‘serious limitations and ambiguities’ (2012b: 2185), not least that none of them are paradigms, and more importantly they do not offer any basic propositions that enable them to be tested empirically. As such, these approaches do not seem to offer fruitful avenues for advancing theory about the tourist. However, the idea of the post-tourist does resonate vividly with role theory. Jacobsen (2000) draws on empirical evidence to apply Goffman’s role theory in his study of Mediterranean charter vacationers. This study demonstrated how tourists develop contrasting descriptions of their own experiences in relation to how other people might characterize and describe them. Jacobsen provided evidence for the ‘anti-tourist’ attitude that Feifer had claimed characterized tourists preoccupations with taste and fashion. Tourists were perceived as seeking shallow experiences of places, adopting a

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superficial ‘role’ typified by brief stops in each place. The concept of role distance was deployed to define how tourists display both attachment and commitment to tourist activities and behaviours, while distancing their own activities from the identity that accompanies it (following Goffman, 1959). This anti-tourist attitude was noted in tourist’s accounts of their day visitor behaviour (McCabe & Stokoe, 2004). Tourists tended to use the term ‘tourist’ in a pejorative sense, to denote people who swarm about, consuming places inappropriately, who collect experiences of places and sites speciously. The concept of tourist is full of incumbent moral associations and emotive attributes (McCabe, 2005). Uriely et al. (2002) found that backpackers subscribe more often to the ‘traveller’ category, which is largely constructed in a morally positive way, in contrast with mass tourists. However, backpacking was only deemed positive when the experience conformed to certain characteristics, which signify their identity, whereas those who deviate from these norms are considered ‘fake’ or ‘not serious’ (Uriely et al., 2002: 534). Edensor (2000) argues that in addition to tourism being a series of staged events and spaces, it is also an array of performative techniques and dispositions. Edensor argues that tourist practices are processes and are therefore dynamic, contextual and constantly being refigured in praxis, also drawing on Goffman’s (1959) ideas of social life as dramaturgical performances, in which social actors orient their identities relationally and contingently, depending on the social context. The features of tourist performances can be summarized as including ritualized times and spaces, stages and modes of performance, which are either disciplined and ritualized, improvised, or totally unbounded. The concept of the tourist as a performer sits well within post-modern theorizing since it focuses on praxis, ordinary people’s actions and specifically in its recognition that tourism is just one of a number of social practices of play and ritual. The performative approach has inspired richly detailed and insightful analyses of tourist performances (e.g. Haldrup & Larsen, 2003). An analysis of the roles that people adopt in particular situations offer us an insight into the meanings they attach to situations. People’s agency in tourism helps social scientists to unlock identity positions, and to better understand the meanings of social actions, within the context of lived reality, i.e. social life.

Conclusions Tourism is learned behaviour. As with any social action (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), we are socialized into tourism through our experiences in childhood, and through our interactions with the tourism industry. We learn through tourism, and tourism is an important way in which we can learn about the world and other cultures (Mitchell, 1998). Tourist experiences become subsumed into long-term memory and can help to define our identity. However, tourism is deeply divided and divisive on many levels. First, between those who

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are excluded from participation and those who are able to enjoy many and varied touristic experiences (Haukeland, 1990; Sedgley et al., 2012). The current era of ‘austerity’ threatens a return to a two-tier, have and have-not divide between those who can and those who cannot participate in tourism. This currently mirrors the state of affairs in the emerging economies of Asia, South America and Africa. There is a pressing need to consider how exclusionary forces can be reversed and to understand how tourism’s contribution to wellbeing can be integrated into social policies (McCabe & Johnson, 2013). Tourism social researchers do not tend to try to represent all types of tourists, including infrequent travellers or marginal participants, in their analyses of tourist categorizations. A more balanced focus might reveal more basic and fundamental drives similar to early tourists, and less likely to exhibit post-tourist roles. Second, tourist motivations range from purely hedonic experiences (playful, immediate, sensory), to those that are characterized by a need for deeper and more authentic connections between people and places. Implicit in these distinctions are issues of class and social capital (Bourdieu, 1984), in that we tend to think that the former types of experience are the general domain of the poorly educated, working classes and the latter, the middle classes. Yet, the former type of experience can be easily accommodated within the latter and vice versa. The concept of the tourist experience as a ‘life’s journey’ also tends to be overlooked. At different times and junctures in life, people are likely to need, expect and experience different types of tourism. While the concepts of the gaze and authenticity seem incapable of explaining or incorporating these divisions, role theory does offer capacity to explore these questions. The roles adopted across the life-course could add very rich insights into the meaning of touristic actions within the context of biography and identity. Third, tourism can be separated by its physical and psychological dimensions. Being a tourist means that we need to adopt a psychological attitude, as well as take on particular role characteristics in specific places. The concept of the ‘staycation’ is a good example of how holiday attitudes are becoming as important as spatio-cultural experiences. The idea of the staycation is that people think and behave like tourists in their local, ‘home’ environments. Alternately, there is also an increase in the numbers of people seeking to subvert and resist the organizing power of the tourism industry to create uniquely authentic experiences of places and develop new touristic cultures. One example is couch surfing, which has dramatically risen in popularity in recent years and provides new forms of reciprocal hospitality exchanges (Germann-Molz, 2011). As Germann-Molz argues, couch surfing offers researchers a new lens through which to understand how strangers negotiate social relations as hosts and guests. Another example is ‘urban exploration’, the discovery and exploration of unseen parts of the built environment, with a focus on derelict places (Garrett, 2011). Returning to the idea of trespass, urban explorers aim to gain access to and explore areas and aspects of the city that are not generally available to the public. Garrett argues that urban

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exploration offers opportunities to experience the past in a radically powerful, unique sense, to gain an understanding of an industrial past through its post-industrial present. Analysis of resistive and subversive roles could help in understanding the links between tourism and contemporary social relations, mediated largely through the digital sphere. These divisions are not meant to return us to the old binary dualisms, but to highlight some important issues for social theorizing on tourists and the application of the concept of the post-tourist. First, as categories of social actions, constructs of tourists are useful to help clarify the meanings and roles that people attach to such actions. Some categories have all but fallen from general use, such as ‘holiday maker’. But while the post-tourist construct is a perfectly useful explanatory (and hence theoretical) category, its use is somewhat limited in helping to understand tourist experiences, but it is incredibly useful as a construct of role adoption. The idea of the posttourist has come to perfectly encapsulate the post-modern tourist experience, but it is not an essential category, simply an organizing framework for tourist experience. Its value has been in helping us understand how people’s use of member categories can help shed light on the significance of tourist experiences to social identities and roles.

1.2

Those People Were a Kind of Solution: Post-Tourists and Grand Narratives David Dunn

And now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? Those people were a kind of solution. Waiting for the Barbarians (C.P. Cavafy)

Underpinning McCabe’s lead probe into ‘who post-tourists might be’ is the recognition of the fault line that divides the creation of a theoretical

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construct about tourism from empirical research into what tourists actually do and how their experiences fit with their aspirations. He is, quite rightly, suspicious of grand narratives, and acknowledges the problems of overreductivism of tourist types in the context of a post-modernist condition that eschews binaries in favour of de-differentiation; but at the same time he accepts that the catch-all construct of the post-tourist has some uses in categorizing tourist behaviour. His perspective comes from social science. While in broad agreement with him, my own perspective comes from having been both media practitioner and academic with an interest in interactions of the tourist gaze and that of the television camera. Although at the time of writing, television holiday programmes have been eclipsed by other leisure and lifestyle genres, television continues to offer evidence of touristic practices which, in keeping with one assumed truth about the post-tourist, suggests increasing convergence between other lifestyle practices and travel, both real and virtual. I will suggest three things in this response: first, that Tourism Studies, in establishing the grand narrative of a developmental model from traveller to tourist to post-tourist, has created categories that are overly reductive, admit of limited overlap and are, in fact, terms in a discourse of anti-tourism or tourist angst; second, that if there is the need for a narrative to free up the development of new theoretical approaches which, as McCabe argues, are hindered by the stasis of post-modernism, a more appropriate model is that of a life cycle that takes account of changing patterns of supply and demand and of increasingly easy mobility; and third, that while in no way offering a definitive ethnography of tourist experiences, the close study of media representations of contemporary practices can go some way to engaging with the extent to which de-differentiation between the everyday and the touristic is occurring.

Grand Narratives ‘What’s in a name?’ McCabe asks. The enduring binary of the loosely defined traveller and tourist makes agreed terms in tourism scholarship difficult since both terms are informed by the varying cultural and social agendas of commentators. The traveller is ensconced in the bastions of high, purposeful culture, deploying in Barthesian terms active or writerly (Barthes, 1975a) strategies to give meaning to journeys and destinations, the tourist is proletarian with all the kiss-me-quick baggage of low or popular culture, and with holidaymaking strategies that are passive or readerly. Tourism, in the model of traveller, tourist, post-tourist, has thus often been held to be mass tourism, which rather flies in face of the evidence of the variety of contemporary tourisms and raises the question of precisely what kind of tourist the post-tourist is held to succeed with such apparent chronological certainty.

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There is an implicit paradox in the formulation of the ‘post-tourist’ in a context of post-modernism. Setting aside the blurring between post-modernism and post-structuralism that occurs in much of the literature since Urry’s (1990) elaboration of Feifer (1985), logic suggests that to categorize all touristic practice under a ‘one size fits all’ type fails to acknowledge that the post-modern turn does not admit of such reductivism. One explanation for that failure, which may be unpalatable to some, is that post-tourism offered the next stage of a developmental model of progression from traveller to tourist to post-tourist, which was adopted because of a need for a grand narrative that drew on cultural studies to help bolster the study of a subject which came late to the academy, and sat awkwardly over a range of discrete disciplines where practice had been privileged over theory. Perhaps, therefore, the question ‘who are post-tourists’ should be replaced by ‘what is the post-tourist?’, to which my answer would be that it is a reductivist construct whose purpose is to embody a stage in a grand narrative. But even the word post-tourist displays confusion. If read literally, it implies the passing of tourism, whatever that confused practice might have been, but despite Urry’s (1990) suggestion that virtual journeying might mean the end of tourism, this has not meant that physical journeys, or the desire for them, have ceased. The word post-tourist does of course associate itself with the general condition of post-modernism by the inclusion of its preposition, and thus aids credibility to the selective elements of post-modernity including de-differentiation, agency and irony, which it uses to define itself. ‘Posttourism’ may read more neatly than the more accurate ‘tourism in a postmodern condition’, but that, of course, is what post-tourism really is, and as such, given the range of contemporary touristic practices, it seems even more illogical that it should be embodied solely in the notional persona of the posttourist. Even if the tourist is a perfect symbol of post-modernity as McCabe suggests, I am no more persuaded than he is that there are many people wandering around tourist sites who, if asked how they might describe themselves, would reply ‘post-tourist’ unless they had spent longer in university libraries than was good for them. If post-tourism did begin in 1985 with Feifer’s (1985) apocryphal creation, it was one more discourse in the phenomenon of anti-tourism, evidence that the ghosts of the patrician Boorstin (1962) and of the travel writers of the 1920s’ and 1930s’ jeunesse dorée celebrated inter alia by Fussell (1980) continued to hover over the traveller tourist binary where they met MacCannell’s (1976) acolytes sacralizing the altar of authenticity. McCabe suggests that there is, nevertheless, some relevance in Feifer’s model since it resembles how we think about tourism today. I would value more clarity here about who ‘we’ might be, and suggest that more often than not it is the chattering classes. In their search for distinctive cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1984), these socially mobile exemplars of metropolitan middle class life indulge in disingenuous self-deprecation by positioning themselves as a part

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of the all too many tourists who, to their regret, are visiting the latest ‘must visit’ destination, while simultaneously remaining apart from them by virtue of their ironic self-knowing awareness’s.

Post-Tourists and the Marketplace: Cycles of Supply and Demand As Buzard (1993) writes, however much the awareness with which the post-tourist action is done, it remains the action of the tourist: [I]n a cultural practice which engages so many different material and bureaucratic forces and has so many economic, social, and cultural results, the effective difference between the ticket bought in irony and the one bought in earnestness is surely negligible. Money is never ironic; nor is power. (Buzard, 1993: 337) Buzard did well to raise the spectre of money, since tourism involves the buying and selling of products as well as strategies of agency and cultural distinction. Among other critics of the time, Munt (1994: 108) also stopped short of categorizing the post-tourist as a specific type and emphasized the socio-economic. Based on an analysis of tour operators’ brochures aimed at ‘the new middle classes’ who distance themselves from the hordes of mass tourism, he argued that post-modernism, and its emphasis the cultural exchange value of consumption, was creating a new ‘hegemonizing mission’. This had been evidenced by the rise in holidays aimed at ‘the traveller’ in search of the unusual, the potentially difficult and the authentic. Rojek (1993), while acknowledging the existence of a post-touristic discourse, did not see it as replacing all that went before, and he too set the post-tourist in the marketplace: The most that can be claimed is that post-tourist sensibilities are currently evident and growing. This much, at any rate, is clear from the business strategy of tour operators in the 1970s and ‘80s. (Rojek, 1993: 178) So, if there is a developmental narrative concerning contemporary tourism it is, perhaps, the cycle of increasing, and increasingly diverse, supply and demand. Even MacCannell (1999: 195) in the epilogue to his revised version of The Tourist, noted the growth of aggressive commodification and packaging of the tourist destination in the intervening 20-odd years, while more recently Urry and Larsen (2011: 52) have evoked Fordism and post-Fordism in their proposition that the Holiday Camps, which were an example of the former, have been replaced by the ‘holiday-worlds’ of the latter, presenting themselves ‘as places of “choice”, “independence” and “freedom”’.

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Given the increasing convergence between tourism and the surrogate and virtual travels to be experienced on a variety of media platforms, reference to work by media academic John Ellis may be appropriate. Ellis (2000) identifies three stages in the development of television in Britain from strict regulation to a deregulation that is the result of globalization: the era of scarcity ‘when television came from an elite and it remained an honour for anyone outside that elite to be invited to appear on the screen’ (Ellis, 2000: 47); the era of availability in which ‘[t]he market-place accentuates social differences with the inevitable consequence of the intensification of social antagonisms’ (Ellis, 2000: 86-7); and the era of plenty that admits of ‘the customization of consumerism to personal identity, that is, the construction of taste’ (Ellis, 2000: 112). The parallels with the tourist industry and thus with tourist behaviour will be clear enough and Ellis’ eras translate easily to Tourisms 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, terms of evolution that take their inspiration from the universally familiar of Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. My use here of the word tourism to describe each phase of the life cycle is deliberate in that it admits of a range of practices, thus avoiding the reductivism of the emotive binary of traveller and tourist. If Tourism 1.0 reflected limited opportunities for mobility, it offered to the wealthy considerable personal freedom within those limitations. In Tourism 2.0, the market responded to, and nurtured, increasing consumer demand and spending power, moving from a Fordist to an increasingly post-Fordist model which, as in Ellis’ model, created increasing aspirational positioning, and in the search for Bourdieuian distinction, a move towards bricolage, ‘the pleasure in getting around the rules of a constraining space’ (de Certeau, 1984: 18). Empowerment and agency and an increasing range of tourist roles feature increasingly strongly in Tourism 3.0, facilitated both by Web 2.0 with information flows once controlled by the industry now open and participatory (Urry & Larsen, 2011: 59), and the industry itself increasingly fragmented by its focus on niche markets. If Tourism 3.0 is informed by post-modernity, what is the evidence of a specifically post-touristic consumption of place or product? Porter (1993) argues that the dream of travel had already disappeared in the mid-19th century with the rise of modernism and the perception that everything had been seen and explored; the romantic dreamscape having faded before the increasing ease of travel and the rise of tourism. Yet, an unfulfilled need permeated this disappearance of travel as evidenced by Baudelaire’s question in his Journaux Intimes. Those beautiful, tall ships that rock ever so gently on the surface of the still water, those strong ships that look so restful and nostalgic, don’t they ask us in their silent language: ‘When do we set sail for happiness?’ (trans. Porter, 1993: 62) Baudelaire’s answer was that art would provide the voyages of the future, with the language of poems and prose, words with their sensuous sounds, or

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the colours and textures of the painter’s canvas, giving pleasure-inducing images along the way. This is virtual travel, a Barthesian (Barthes, 1975b) triumph of jouissance over plaisir, which although 150 or so years old, resonates with aspects of Tourism 3.0. In a media-dominant society where the tourist gaze and that of the television camera have regularly converged (Dunn, 2005a, 2006), consideration might profitably be given to the extent to which UK television recognizes, either in the positioning of its protagonists or its viewers, that the post-tourist exists.

Post-Tourism and Television’s Surrogate Journey In 2007, the last of the mainstream holiday programmes, BBC1’s flagship series Holiday (1969–2007), ceased production after 37 years of providing resort and destination reports in recognition of the fact that ‘the way people organize holidays is changing and we are looking for new ways of approaching this subject’ (Digital Spy, 2006). These new ways have had a firm consumer focus, with BBC2’s Holiday Hit Squad (2013) billed as ‘following the toughest hotel inspectors in the business’, and tackling issues such as ‘who looks out for terrified teenagers in Majorca’, while in a dedicated tourism strand on BBC1’s Rip Off Britain (2013), another team investigated the costs and complications of checking-in airline baggage. The implicit message that ‘away’ is very different from the comforting familiarity of ‘home’ does not sit happily with post-tourism’s de-differentiations, something with which Channel 4’s Travelog (1990– 1997), a series which offered the televisual equivalent of the authored travel essay, had been happy to engage. In a piece about New Zealand (op.cit. 1995), presenter Pete McCarthy likened it to ‘an intriguing blend of South Pacific and Strathclyde’ while Venice (op.cit. 1996) was contrasted with Birmingham, which also has an extended canal system, prompting the remark, ‘Say what you like about Birmingham, but you’ll never find a decent Balti in Venice’. If any travel series could be said to be post-modern, it was this (Dunn, 2005b), not least for how it deconstructed the conventions of the genre as well as those of the destination, but long before BBC1’s Holiday it had ceased production in 1997, a reflection perhaps more of changing budgetary and scheduling priorities of C4 than changing tourist behaviour. Although travelogues continue to offer viewers mediated surrogate journeys, they are generally presented by celebrities and accompanied by coffee table books that blaze few new trails, geographic or metaphoric. Writing of the ubiquitous Michael Palin’s globetrotting for BBC1 (Michael Palin’s New Europe, 2007; Brazil with Michael Palin, 2012, etc), Lisle (2006: 100–1) does however suggest that Palin’s encounters with cultural difference are ‘accompanied by a healthy dose of self-irony, recognition that the travel narrative has become “superficial” in the age of tourism, and deliberate attempts to undercut the mythical role of the “English Gentleman

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Abroad”’. While such travelogues position the viewer as armchair traveller under the care of an entertaining and undemanding guide, the British love affair with Italy appears to offer particular resonances for surrogate travel. In BBC2’s Francesco’s Italy: Top to Toe (2006), Venetian aristocrat and architect Francesco da Mosto travelled through his native land in his red opentop Alfa Romeo Spyder. As he heads towards a visit to a magnificently restored Palazzo (op.cit. Episode 2), there are moody low key shots of a golden sunrise chasing early morning mist as he tells his viewers, ‘I am entering Tuscany, a little corner of Italy that is forever England. You even call it Chiantishire. You British have a dream, and the dream is you will become rich and move here. You will buy a little villa, become an expert in wine, eat wonderful food and then, if lucky, find yourself a Latin lover’. This is clichéd travel porn, however ironic or detached the delivery, whose images bear little relationship to the realities of ordinary people’s lives, but are enticingly seductive as the programme weaves an undemanding path between snippets of high culture, good living and an aspirational guide. It is the very model of a post-modern journey for the chattering classes, and in its use of ‘glossy’ photography that emphasises sunrises that viewers are saved the bother of getting out of bed early to film for themselves, it gives audiences virtual access to Chiantishire without the trouble of going there themselves and tripping over fellow Brits, their au pairs and precocious children on the plane from Gatwick to Pisa. There is little space to consider other metamorphoses of the travel programme between Tourism 2.0 and 3.0, save the relationship between food and tourism, evidenced in both cookery and property series, and often informed by the trope (Leitch, 2000; Mennell, 1985; Sutton, 2001) of recollection of, or fantasies about, shared meals under Mediterranean skies. Food and tourism are interestingly paired in BBC2’s Sicily Unpacked (2012) and Italy Unpacked (2013) in a post-modern mix of sacred and secular (Urry & Larsen, 2011: 113) where art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon and restaurateur Giorgio Locatelli follow architectural visits with the reward of a dinner sourced and cooked by Locatelli. On a visit to an abbey (op.cit. Episode 3, 2013), on an ancient pilgrim road, Graham-Dixon reflects on the de-differentiation between pilgrimage churches and theme parks, and on how objects in both are rendered as simulacra to which one pays one’s dues in spiritual or fiscal ritual. This suggests a new critical engagement, both with how high artistic purpose and sensual pleasure in eating can co-exist, and also with the nature and purpose of post-modern travel itself.

A Kind of Solution Urry and Larsen (2011: 115) suggest that the ‘post-tourist is above all selfconscious, “cool” and role-distanced’. However limited the evidence above, it

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is tempting to suggest that it is those who frame the television camera’s gaze or perform in front of it who have some claim to that description as they flit from shot to shot, mood to mood, location to location. But that, given the limited sightings of post-tourists in the wider landscape, would be to sideline the post-tourist when what the academy was seeking was a grand narrative. In conclusion, therefore, I will return to the epigraph from which this response’s title derives. The poet Constantine Cavafy (1863–1933) was a diasporic Greek who lived the larger part of his life in his adoptive Egyptian ‘city of memory’, Alexandria (Haag, 2004). He rarely travelled, but his journeys of imagination, poetic invention and historic sensibility allowed him to wander at large in the byways of the Hellenistic world in what was paradoxically a ‘virtual’ post-modern way. In Waiting for the Barbarians (Cavafy, 1904) he describes some imagined small town on the fringes of history, exhausted by its decadence and waiting for the next great historical ‘turn’, the arrival of barbarian hordes who will bring the angst of upholding the older values to a radical conclusion. The sense of anti-climax at their non-appearance, and thus the failure of the grand narrative of history to deliver the coup de grâce of ‘a kind of solution’ to a stagnating culture, is palpable. It offers a metaphor of sorts for the practices of tourism about which many commentators have striven to assuage their ambivalences by identifying a post-modern tourist role, which they would not feel too uncomfortable in assuming. It also suggests that Cavafy’s journeys are evidence that post-tourism is not entirely new.

1.3

Exploring the Post-Tourist: Guidelines for Future Research Natan Uriely

‘I am a traveller, you are a visitor, they are tourists but who are posttourists?’ The title of Scott McCabe’s lead probe is rather confusing. The reader might expect another categorization that sheds light on the diverse nature of tourism in the ‘post-modern’ era, whereas the author places

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doubts on the usefulness of categorical thinking and the proliferation of typologies in tourism scholarship. While McCabe addresses the terms ‘traveller’, ‘visitor’ and ‘tourist’ as categories of human action and identity, he uses the concept of the ‘post-tourist’ (Feifer, 1985) as a theoretical construct. For McCabe, the ‘post-tourist’ is not just another social category or market segment, but an analytical concept that stimulates an epistemological discussion about tourism scholarship. Accordingly, McCabe does not provide a clear answer to the question of who the ‘post-tourist’ is. It seems that this is not the goal of his lead probe. Instead, he questions the applicability of the ‘post-tourist’ concept in tourism scholarship and asks how tourism research should progress in order to provide sufficient answers to the question of who is the tourist of nowadays. In this context, McCabe addresses some actual developments in contemporary tourism, such as the ever-decreasing differences between everyday life and tourist experiences, the impact of information technologies on tourist experiences and the disinclination of many travellers to be identified as tourists. In congruence with the notion of the ‘post-tourist’ (Feifer, 1985; Urry, 1990), the tourist of nowadays is portrayed by McCabe as more sophisticated and less confined by external categorizations than the stereotypical (mass) tourist. As noted above, however, these observations are not part of an attempt to review the current real world of tourism, but serve the author’s attempt to provide the reader with a judgemental ‘state-of-the-art’ paper about the scientific study of tourist experiences and behaviours. Specifically, McCabe criticizes the ‘post-tourist’ concept, which is one of the early manifestations of the post-modern style of theorizing in tourism studies (Uriely, 2005). His negative appraisal of the ‘post-tourist’ concept is less about its utopian and chaotic portrayal of the real world of tourism and more about its destructive impact on tourism scholarship. I argue that although the concept of the ‘post-tourist’ is ambiguous and suffers from perplexed usage, it signifies progress in tourism scholarship. In congruence with post-modernist thinking in the social sciences, the concept of the ‘post-tourist’ places doubts on old conceptions but fails to offer a solid alternative for structuring future knowledge. McCabe’s lead probe focuses on the deficiencies of post-modernist thinking, but ignores its contribution to the study of tourism. In this respect, note that despite their equivocal nature, concepts such as the ‘post-tourist’ and ‘post-modern-tourism’ shed light on the need to refresh the early theories that dominated tourism research since the 1970s. Another contribution of these concepts concerns their tendency to inspire epistemological discussions and self-reflective critiques, including the above lead probe and a previous paper of mine (Uriely, 2005). Undeniably, these ‘post’ concepts fail to provide a comprehensive depiction of the apparently new social and cultural structure that shapes contemporary tourism. In order to fill this gap in the literature, the post-modernist perspective needs to be followed by empirical research of nowadays tourist experiences and

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behaviours. The following sections of my rejoinder address this call by providing guidelines for future research.

From De-differentiation to Re-differentiation The turn away from dichotomies (host–guest, home–away, familiarity– strangeness) and the attention given to the blurring distinctions between tourism and everyday life reflects the appearance of post-modern thinking in the tourist experience literature (e.g. Uriely, 2005). This notion of de-differentiation is evident in the depiction of the post-tourist as one who can easily shift between different and even contradicting experiences (Feifer, 1985). McCabe argues that, although this development in tourism scholarship raises awareness to the variety and the complexity of contemporary tourist experiences, the deconstruction of early theories and concepts might leave tourism researchers without frames of reference for further research and theorization of tourist experiences. In line with this perspective, I call for shifting the academic focus from the depiction of de-differentiation to the exploration of redifferentiation processes. Future research should focus on the remaining differences and the new distinctions that emerge between tourism and everyday life experiences, as well as between different types and forms of tourism. As suggested by McCabe, the study of tourism needs fresh taxonomies that shed light on how tourists and travellers define and classify their experiences. In other words, tourism research needs to apply a ‘grounded theory’ (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) methodology that operates bottom-up and utilizes empirical research of contemporary phenomena to develop new theoretical constructs. A grounded theory approach can be usefully implemented in future empirical research within the mobilities paradigm (Urry & Sheller, 2004). Theoretical work within this paradigm often refers to contemporary hybrid types of travel, such as VFR (visiting friends and relatives) tourism, volunteer tourism, medical tourism and business trips, as illustrations of the blurring boundaries between ‘touristic’ pursuits and other reasons for movement or travel. However, the meanings assigned by travellers to these hybrid experiences are yet to be explored. Future research of these hybrid travel experiences should specify when, where and how the journey is transformed from a family obligation, medical necessity or work requirement to a tourist experience and vice versa. For example, a recent study conducted by a student of mine reveals that business travellers experience ‘moments of relaxation’ and ‘time off’ during airport stay and flight hours, whereas the on-site stage of their trip is fully dedicated to work (Unger, 2013). The results of this research suggest that the use of time-based units, such as ‘trip phases’ and ‘moments’, appears to be useful in the study of tourist experiences. Further explorative research on hybrid travel experiences might capture the remaining, as well as the new emerging, distinctive features of contemporary tourist

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experiences. As noted by McCabe, the shift from deconstruction towards reconstruction of concepts and theories can also be advanced by studies that focus on performativity, body and senses of tourists (Edensor, 2000).

The Consequences and Impact of Tourist Experiences The premise that tourism can shape individuals and societies needs to be substantiated by further studies that focus on the consequences and impact of tourist experiences. Specifically, the ‘time after experience’ phase should draw the attention of tourism scholars. This proposition complies with McCabe’s suggestion to study tourist experiences and roles in the context of personal life-course and biography. How can tourist experiences improve the well-being of the elderly; do young backpackers become more open-minded towards other cultures; can sexual experiences while being on vacation empower women; and what is the role of tourist experiences in advancing peace, patriotism or political awareness. These and other questions regarding the consequences and impact of tourist experiences receive some attention in tourism scholarship, including in the contexts of guest–host contact, pilgrimage, heritage tourism and dark tourism. However, the time after tourist experiences is scarcely addressed by studies that apply phenomenology and qualitative methods. An attempt to measure the impact of tourist experiences is evident in studies associated with the ‘contact hypothesis’ line of research (e.g. Bochner, 1982; Milman et al., 1990; Pizam et al., 2000). These studies examine the results of encounters between tourists and hosts with a hostile background in terms of attitudinal change. This area of research aims to shed light on the role of tourism in advancing peace between countries or groups with a history of conflict. However, the existing research fails to provide clear answers regarding the role of tourism in shaping peaceful relations between people. Also, note that most of the ‘contact hypothesis’ studies are theoretically grounded in the social psychology of intergroup conflict and rely primarily on quantitative methods. While recognizing the contribution of this approach, I call for the implementation of a phenomenological perspective and qualitative research that addresses the tourist–host encounter as one dimension of the tourist experience phenomenon. Additional insight into the minds of those who interact in tourism contexts might shed further light on the role of tourism as a generator of peace between people. For example, an ethnographic study of Egyptian hosts and Israeli tourists in the Sinai Peninsula reveals that external factors, such as terror attacks, cause (negative) attitudinal changes between both sides (Uriely et al., 2009). Yet, the change in attitudes appear to be only temporary, and old (positive) attitudes that derive from providing or

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experiencing a vacation in Sinai return after a few months of serenity. Thus, the consequences and impact of the tourist experience appear to be quite a complex issue of investigation that requires further research.

From ‘The Tourist Experience’ to ‘Experiences in Tourism’ The scientific literature about the tourist experience concerns the existential dimension of tourists’ appraisals of their personal experiences. While research in this area examines tourist motivations, behaviours, and recently also senses and emotions, (e.g. Knudsen & Waade, 2010), the main concern are the meanings that tourists assign to their experiences while travelling or vacationing. The literature consists of numerous conceptual and empirical studies from multidisciplinary perspectives, including sociology, anthropology, human geography and (to a lesser extent) psychology (e.g. Ryan, 2002; Sharpley & Stone, 2010). Most of the research in this area implements a phenomenological perspective, in the sense that the tourist’s subjective experience and consciousness is considered to be the core of the inquiry. In this context, my suggestion is to extend the phenomenological approach from the study of the ‘tourist experience’ to the study of ‘experiences in tourism’. Phenomenology, as a research approach and methodology, should be implemented in the study of experiences among other players in the domain of tourism, such as local residents of tourism destinations, hospitality employees, developers of tourist attractions and even tourism consultants and academics. The potential contribution of experience-oriented studies can be easily seen in the research area of local residents. The well-being of local residents at tourism destinations is often measured by quantitative surveys designed to identify residents’ perceptions of development impacts on the entire destination and the community (Ap, 1992; Milman & Pizam, 1988), whereas little attention is given to the micro-level aspects of everyday life that shape the experience of living in a tourist destination. In response to this lacuna in the literature, a study on the experience of non-commercial hosting was recently conducted among residents of a tourism destination who constantly need to host friends and relatives (Shani & Uriely, 2012). Further studies could focus on the impact of seasonality on everyday life experiences of local residents, as well as on the experience of being a parent, a child or a teenager in a tourism destination. Similarly, the study of managers and workers in the tourism industry should also be stretched beyond their productivity and the impact of their performance on the consumer satisfaction and on quality of tourist experience (e.g. Baum, 2007; Sharpley & Stone, 2010). Tourism scholarship needs more phenomenological studies on the experience of working or having a career in the tourism industry.

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Conclusion The premise of the discussion above is that the concept of the ‘posttourist’ should not be regarded as another social category or a new market segment, but as a theoretical construct that signifies the appearance of post-modern thinking in tourism scholarship. The positive side of this conceptual development in tourism scholarship concerns the inclination of the post-modernist to challenge early ideas and theories that dominated the study area of tourism over a period of more than two decades. Definitely, some of the old concepts in the field require a fresh perspective that captures developments in the real world of tourism. Yet, the post-modernist approach fails to offer a solid theoretical alternative with clear guidelines for future tourism research. To fill this gap, my above reflection on the ‘post-tourist’ concept consists of three guidelines for future research on tourist behaviours and experiences: to shift the analytical focus from the depiction of deconstruction to the exploration of reconstruction processes; to pay attention to the impact of tourist experiences; and to extend the study of the ‘tourist experience’ to the study of ‘experiences in tourism’. Finally, note that there are many other issues to be addressed and additional scientific approaches to be implemented in the study of contemporary tourism. For instance, Bruno Latour’s ‘actor- network’ theory, which takes into account the interaction of human with non-human agencies in the construction of social reality (e.g. Cohen & Cohen, 2012a; Latour, 2005), appear to be a promising approach for the study of tourism in the era of advanced information technologies. Also, the use of role theory in tourism research, as well as the need to study the underprivileged players in the domain of tourism, have scarcely been addressed in my article and are worthy of further discussion as well.

Concluding Remarks This chapter has attempted to push forward the debate about the meaning of tourist experiences. Forty years of theory development and empirical research has created a great wealth of knowledge, first in developing typologies of experience and in creating grand narratives around the meaning of tourism to contemporary cultural life. The introduction of the idea of the post-tourist, offered a tantalizing alternative to the binary concepts of tourist and traveller. However, since this introduction in 1985, it seems to have gained little traction among the academic community. While the old dualisms have been cast away, the relativism of the post-modern era has not propelled compelling new conceptualizations.

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Tourist experience is a valuable and highly valued aspect of modern existence, and is crucially linked to the ways in which we construct our sense of self and how we wish to be seen by others. This performative and role-structured aspect of social identity hangs doggedly on the categorizations we attach to actions. Thus the stage is set to debate the role of theoretical constructs versus lay reasoning and social actions. I have always been in favour of the latter over the former, as a committed advocate of an empirically grounded approach to observation and theory development. David Dunn’s ever eloquent response argues that the post-tourist epithet did not succeed in becoming a lasting category to follow on from the tourist–traveller dialectic, and is instead yet another discourse in the phenomenon of ‘anti-tourism’. He challenges the idea of the relevance of a post-tourist as being perhaps symptomatic of a middle class sensibility. Post-tourists are all too informed and all too aware of their own actions. Dunn points out that writing on the post-tourist has often been conceived within the context of the market, and post-tourist products seem to be little more than repackaged, mass-market experiences in an era of ‘Tourism 3.0’. This piece then moves to assess whether media representations of tourism, which Dunn argues, have been deconstructed and dedifferentiated as if in a blender; a cocktail of travel tropes have become intertextualized with cooking, lifestyle and other types of TV fodder. Dunn concludes that post-tourist thinking has been anti-climactic in yielding new modes of understanding about tourist experiences. Natan Uriely’s response provides a robust defence of the post-tourist categorization, providing a refined set of ideas about the relevance of post-modern thinking to understanding the meaning of tourism that escapes the trap of reductionism. Uriely argues that by thinking about a re-differentiation perspective, the meaning of tourism throughout the life-course and the plurality of tourist experiences for individuals, an analysis of the fluid and hybridized forms of experiences can help reconstruct conceptual ideas about tourist experience. Uriely’s point is that conceptual thinking, such as that which emerged as the idea of the post-tourist (and which epitomizes the role of post-modernist approaches generally), is necessary to create a disjuncture between conventional theorizing and modern practices. This is an important point, because Uriely argues that while not perfect, the types of conceptual categories developed through post-modernist approaches can offer insights into the seemingly unbounded, illogical and contradictory nature of contemporary tourist activity. In fact, both Dunn and Uriely powerfully recognize that through this process of fracturing and deconstruction, new conceptual and

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practical categories of tourist can emerge, based on the apparent contrariness of performances and which are revealed through micro-social, individual level, phenomenological and representational analyses. In this way, it is possible to develop grounded understanding about the meaning of tourism to participants and the place tourism occupies in cultural life.

Discussion Questions (1) What is the contribution of post-modern theory to knowledge about the meaning of tourist experiences? (2) What purposes do categories of tourists serve to academics, the tourism industry and to tourists themselves? (3) How are tourist roles changing in the current era? Do they reflect post-modern theorizing on tourist experience? (4) What is or should be the role of meta-theories or ‘grand narratives’ of tourist experience in knowledge development in tourism? (5) Is it possible to resolve the problems of ‘anti-tourist’ attitudes? (6) Which is more important to individuals, societies and economies: travellers or tourists? Explain and justify your answer.

References Ap, J. (1992). Residents’ perceptions on tourism impacts. Annals of Tourism Research 19(4): 665–690. Barthes, R. (1975a). S/Z. London: Cape. Barthes, R. (1975b). The Pleasure of the Text. New York: Hill & Wang. Baum, T. (2007). Human resources in tourism: Still waiting for change. Tourism Management 28(6): 1383–1399. Baumann, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday. Bianchi, R.V. (2000). Migrant tourist-workers: Exploring the ‘contact zones’ of postindustrial tourism. Current Issues in Tourism 3(2): 107–137. Bochner, S. (1982). Cultures in Contact: Studies in Cross-Cultural Interaction. New York: Pergamon Press. Boorstin, D. (1962). The Image. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Brazil with Michael Palin (2012). Television Series, BBC1, November 2012. Buzard, J. (1993). The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to ‘Culture’. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Cavafy, C. (1904). Waiting for the Barbarians. In E. Keeley and P. Sherrard (eds) (trans. 1984) C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems (pp. 14–15). London: Chatto & Windus. Cohen, E. (1979). A phenomenology of tourist experiences. Sociology 13: 179–201.

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Cohen, E. and Cohen, S. (2012a). Authentication: Hot and cool. Annals of Tourism Research 39(3): 1295–1314. Cohen, S. and Cohen, E. (2012b). Current sociological theories and issues in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 39(4): 2177–2202. de Certeau, M. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life (trans. Stephen Rendall). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Digital Spy (2006). Online at: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a39995/ bbc-axes-holiday-after-37-years.html. Accessed 24 October 2013. Dunn, D. (2005a). ‘We are not here to make a film about Italy, we are here to make a film about ME . . .’: British Television Holiday Programmes’ Representations of the Tourist Destination. In D. Crouch, F. Thompson and R. Jackson (eds) The Media and the Tourist Imagination: Converging Cultures (pp. 154–169). London: Routledge. Dunn, D. (2005b). Venice observed: The traveller, the tourist, the post tourist and British television. In A. Jaworski and A. Pritchard (eds) Language, Communication and Tourism (pp. 98–120). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Dunn, D. (2006). Singular encounters: Mediating the tourist destination in British television holiday programmes. Tourist Studies 6(1): 37–58. Edensor, T. (2000). Staging tourism: Tourists as performers. Annals of Tourism Research 27(2): 322–344. Ellis, J. (2000). Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty. London: I B Tauris. Feifer, M. (1985). Going Places. London: Macmillan. Francesco’s Italy: Top to Toe (2006). Episode 2: A British Love Affair, BBC2, 24 August 2006. Francesco’s Italy: Top to Toe (2006). Television Series, BBC2, August 2006. Fussell, P. (1980). Abroad: British Literary Travel Between the Wars. New York: Oxford University Press. Garrett, B.L. (2011). Assaying history: Creating temporal junctions through urban exploration. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 29: 1048–1067. Germann-Molz, J. (2011). Couch surfing and network hospitality: ‘It’s not just about the furniture’. Hospitality and Society 1(3): 215–225. Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing. Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin. Gottleib, A. (1982). American’s vacations. Annals of Tourism Research 9: 165–187. Haag, M. (2004). Alexandria: City of Memory. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Haldrup, M. and Larsen, J. (2003). The family gaze. Tourist Studies 3(1): 23–46. Haukeland, J. (1990). Non-travelers: The flip-side of motivation. Annals of Tourism Research 17(2): 172–184. Holiday (1969–2007). Television Series, BBC1, Winter/Spring 1969–2007 annually. Holiday Hit Squad (2013). Television Series, BBC2, February 2013. Online at: http:// www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qmzgl. Accessed 24 October 2013. Italy Unpacked (2013). Episode 3: A Land of Many Treasures, BBC2, 25 January 2013. Italy Unpacked (2013). Television Series, BBC2, January 2013. Jacobsen, J.K.S. (2000). Anti-tourist attitudes: Mediterranean charter tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 27(2): 284–300. Knudsen, B. and Waade, A. (2010). Re-investing Authenticity: Tourism, Place and Emotions. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leitch, A. (2000). The social life of Lardo: Slow food in fast times. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 1: 103–182.

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Lett, J. (1983). Ludic and Liminoid aspects of chapter yacht tourism in the Caribbean. Annals of Tourism Research 10: 35–56. Lisle, D. (2006). The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacCannell, D. (1976). The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Shocken Books. MacCannell, D. (1999). The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. McCabe, S. (2002). The tourist experience and everyday life. In G.M.S. Dann (ed.) The Tourist as a Metaphor of the Social World (pp.61–76). Wallingford: CAB International. McCabe, S. (2005). Who is a tourist? A critical review. Tourism Studies 5(1): 85–106. McCabe, S. and Johnson, S. (2013). The happiness factor in tourism: Subjective wellbeing and social tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 41(1): 42–65. McCabe, S. and Stokoe, E.H. (2004). Place and identity in tourist accounts. Annals of Tourism Research 31(3): 601–622. Mennell, S. (1985). All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. Oxford: Blackwell. Michael Palin’s New Europe (2007). Television Series, BBC1, September 2007. Milman, A. and Pizam, A. (1988). Social impacts of tourism on Central Florida. Annals of Tourism Research 15(2): 191–204. Milman, A., Reichel, A. and Pizam, A. (1990). The impact of tourism on ethnic attitudes: The Israeli-Egyptian case. Journal of Travel Research 29(2):45–49. Mitchell, R.D. (1998). Learning through play and pleasure travel: Using play literature to enhance research into touristic learning. Current Issues in Tourism 1(2): 176–188. Munt, I. (1994). The “other” postmodern tourism: Culture, travel and the new middle classes. Theory, Culture & Society 11: 101–123. Pizam, A., Uriely, N. and Reichel, A. (2000). The intensity of tourist-host social relationship and its effect on satisfaction and change of attitudes: The case of working tourists in Israel. Tourism Management 21(4): 395–406. Porter, D. (1993). Modernism and the dream of travel. In M. Hanne (ed.) Literature and Travel (pp. 53–70). Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi. Rip Off Britain (2013). Television Series, BBC1, January 2013. Online at http://www. bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wck32/episodes/guide. Accessed on 24 October 2013. Ritzer, G. and Liska, A. (1997). McDisneyisation and post-tourism. In C. Rojek and J. Urry (eds) Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory (pp. 96–112). Oxon: Routledge. Rojek, C. (1993). Ways of Escape: Modern Transformations in Leisure and Travel. London: Macmillan. Ryan, C. (2002). The Tourist Experience. London: Continuum. Sedgley, D., Pritchard, A. and Morgan, N. (2012). ‘Tourism poverty’ in afluent societies: Voices from inner-city London. Tourism Management 33: 951–960. Shani, A. and Uriely, N. (2012). VFR tourism: The host experience. Annals of Tourism Research 39(1): 421–440. Sharpley, R. and Stone, P. (2010). The Tourist Experience: Contemporary Perspective. New York: Routledge. Sicily Unpacked (2012). Television Series, BBC2, February 2012. Smith, S.L.J. (1995). Tourism Analysis: A Handbook. London: Longman. Sutton, D. (2001). Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory. Oxford: Berg.

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Travelog (1990–1997). Television Series, Domaine Productions for Channel 4, 1990– 1997 annual series. Travelog (1995). New Zealand, Film Report, 15 February 2005. Travelog (1996). Venice, Film Report, 13 March 1996. Unger, O. (2013). The business travel experience. MA Thesis, Ben-Gurion, University of the Negev. Uriely, N. (2005). The tourist experience: Conceptual developments. Annals of Tourism Research 32(1): 199–216. Uriely, N., Maoz, D. and Reichel, A. (2009). Israeli guests and Egyptian hosts in Sinai: A bubble of serenity. Journal of Travel Research 47(4): 508–522. Uriely, N., Yonay, Y. and Simchai, D. (2002). Backpacking experiences: A type and form analysis. Annals of Tourism Research 29(2): 520–538. Urry, J. (1990). The Tourist Gaze. London: SAGE Publications. Urry, J. and Larsen, J. (2011). The Tourist Gaze 3.0. London: SAGE Publications. Urry, J. and Sheller, M. (eds) (2004). Tourism Mobilities: Places to Stay, Places in Play. London: Routledge.

Further Reading Dunn, D. (2006). Singular encounters: Mediating the tourist destination in British television holiday programmes. Tourist Studies 6: 37–58. Edensor, T. (2000). Staging tourism: Tourists as performers. Annals of Tourism Research 27(2): 322–344. Feifer, M. (2005). Going Places: The Ways of the Tourist from Imperial Rome to the Present Day. London: Macmillan. McCabe, S. (2005). Who is a tourist? A critical review. Tourism Studies 5(1): 85–106. Uriely, N. (2005). The tourist experience: Conceptual developments. Annals of Tourism Research 32(1): 199–216. Urry, J. and Larsen, J. (2011). The Tourist Gaze 3.0. London: SAGE Publications.

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Chapter 2

Is Tourist a Secular Pilgrim or a Hedonist in Search of Pleasure? Dan Knox and Kevin Hannam, Peter Jan Margry and Noel B. Salazar

Context The metaphor of the tourist as pilgrim and tourism as a pilgrimage has been an important idea in tourism studies, reproduced in both academic and popular accounts with varying degrees of criticality. This chapter considers a number of different ways of thinking through the degree to which tourists could be said to be either secular pilgrims or hedonists in search of pleasure. As such, it considers the meanings, uses and potential extensions of metaphors of pilgrimage and how these relate to religion, to tourism and to hedonism, as well as how all of these categories interconnect. There is no unity of approach to this question among the authors here and this on the whole makes for a lively and stimulating debate. Knox and Hannam extend the metaphor of the pilgrim into the realm of hedonistic tourism through an account of popular and mass tourist practice, which considers the role of religion and spirituality as objects of tourist practice. Margry makes the case that secular pilgrim is an oxymoron, and that more scholarly effort ought to be expended on identifying the limited but significant commonalities between tourism and pilgrimage. Salazar undertakes an analysis of the emergence and development of metaphors in tourism studies to demonstrate their continued utility, but also the ways in which they shape representations and understandings. The range of opinions here represents a sustained reconsideration of established terminologies. 45

2.1

The Secular Pilgrim: Are We Flogging a Dead Metaphor? Dan Knox and Kevin Hannam

Introduction It is possible to argue that the very act of engaging in the phenomenon of tourism is in itself an act of pilgrimage, in which the ‘faith’ or ‘doctrine’ being reinforced is the notion of the holiday or trip as an escape, as a punctuation mark in a biography or as a rite of passage. People may disagree about which specific kinds of tourism or travel they wish to engage in, but they generally will not disagree about the more general need to engage in some form of going away, whether it is motivated by a desire to engage with local cultures, climb mountains, learn to ski or lounge on a beach with a cocktail. In this probe, we seek to explore the distinction between notions of pilgrimage and hedonism, as well as the intersections between these definitions. In doing so, we seek to playfully extend definitions of both, as well as to encourage further debate. Contemporary tourism is now so diverse that the original terms of the opposition set up between secular pilgrims and hedonists arguably no longer apply. There is hardly any difference between pilgrims and tourists (Santos, 2002) and many pilgrimages are hedonistic (Norman, 2011). It is no longer simply the case, if ever it were, that the tourist can lazily be assigned to either the category of seeking distracting pseudo-events or instead the intrepid traveller seeking adventure. This of course is not necessarily remarkable, in that any time we set out to explore a dualism, we go through a predictable process of arriving at a conclusion whereby we might reject the notion of the categories as mutually exclusive, or discover instead an additional set of categories. Such is the stuff that tourist typologies are made of. What we want to do here is to suggest that it is not so much that the categories are no longer of relevance, but that they have in some cases grown towards and overlap each other so that we can identify elements of the pilgrimage 46

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in hedonistic forms of tourism and hedonistic behaviour among supposed pilgrims.

Hedonistic Tourism It is not necessary to look too hard in order to find manifestations of hedonistic behaviour in tourism. Traditionally, we would look to mass tourism in order to find examples of heavy drinking, casual sex, drug use and wild behaviour. Many authors have already done this and, unsurprisingly, found that British youths travel to Mediterranean mass-tourism destinations for 2 weeks to partake of all of these activities and more (Andrews, 2011; Knox, 2009). Equally, we might look to slightly older representatives of the same kind of tourist pursuit in exploring mass tourism more generally, and witness the apparent debauchery and lack of authentic cultural interest of the hordes that disport themselves on the beaches of Spain, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, etc., each summer. Again, these groups are seen to be simply pursuing basic pleasures, such as high levels of consumption of food and drink, relaxing by the pool, visiting the beach and other mild diversions. We can look elsewhere, too, and find the behaviour of extreme sports or winter sports enthusiasts, of backpackers, or of independent travellers, and recognize a certain degree of risk-taking hedonism in their pursuits (Thorpe, 2012). Note, however, that these kinds of accounts tend to lack the degree of disparagement that is reserved for the package holiday customers in the allinclusive resorts. Après-ski may be as drunken, unregulated and wild as any other tourist night out, but it has never been viewed with the same disdain as what happens après la plage. So far, then, we have established that some tourists very clearly fall into the camp of being hedonists in search of pleasure.

Tourists as Secular Pilgrims That hedonists are in pursuit of pleasure suggests that the lot of the pilgrim, whether secular or otherwise, is somewhat more ascetic as they selfflagellate themselves from museum to gallery to heritage attraction. Contained within the original distinction between pilgrims and hedonists is a moral judgement about the relative worth of such choices, which is made not from the position of religious authority, but from both the privileged position of the academic and that of the well-travelled and self-styled enlightened commentator. Surely, there is significant pleasure to be derived from tourism as pilgrimage? Studies of tourist motivation attest to the pleasure that attaches to visiting heritage sites, sporting venues, wilderness

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landscapes, ‘exotic’ cultures or urban centres. It is simply that these are different kinds of pleasures, that they are imagined to be more refined or to represent a ‘better’ class of tourist, and that they may form part of a programme of education or self-improvement as in many forms of volunteer tourism (see Conran, 2011). They are also, by and large, the pleasures that appeal to the academic or popular commentator on the tourism industry. The idea of the secular pilgrim is probably more reflective of the views of tourism academics rather than of tourists themselves. The same moral distinction noted above applies here and can be characterized as a sense of self-satisfaction. There is a certain irony that churches and other religious sites are such a focal point of cultural and heritage tourism practice in the Christian world. Cathedrals, basilicas, abbeys, minsters, priories and so on are not entirely stripped of their original purpose or meaning, but rather re-oriented towards a different kind of pilgrimage of a secular nature. The act of pilgrimage is no longer always a component part of a Christian lifestyle, but rather a pilgrimage to remember Christians and Christianity of the past (see, for example, Coleman, 2007). This is not to belittle the faith or pilgrimages of practising Christians visiting such sites, but simply to point out that for the majority the practice of visiting such sites is as much about architectural wonder, historical interest or curiosity about the behaviour of adherents. The Rough Guide to Vietnam (Rough Guides, 2013) includes in an entry relating to Notre Dame Cathedral in Ho Chi Minh City the following account: The attractive redbrick bulk of the late nineteenth-century Notre Dame Cathedral straddles the northern reach of Dong Khoi. Aside from the few stained-glass windows above and behind its altar, and its marble relief Stations of the Cross, the interior boasts only scant decoration. There’s plenty of scope for people-watching, however, as a steady trickle of Catholics pass through in their best silk tunics and black pants, fingering rosary beads, their whispered prayers merging with the insistent murmur of the traffic outside. (Rough Guides, 2013) The value of the church as a tourist attraction is based upon not only physical appearance and decoration, but the apparently mystical and spectacular behaviour of the faithful. The implicit peculiarity suggested in this travel guide, in relation to the behaviour of other visitors to the site, is indicative of a relatively dismissive attitude towards believers in contemporary society. Or, rather, it is indicative of an attitude towards particular kinds of ‘believers’ in particular contemporary societies. It is not that the readers of the Rough Guide to Vietnam do not have orienting beliefs, but that they believe in something else. That something else, or an element of that something else, might be characterized as a belief in the power and value of travelling, of undertaking secular pilgrimages, visiting exotic places and ‘people-watching’.

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Extending the pilgrimage metaphor further, there are undoubtedly sets of central beliefs that act as social rules, norms and conventions within specific tourist sectors. These beliefs differ according to the nature of the tourist encounters, motivations and practices of ecotourism, mass tourism or adventure tourism. There is a sense in which such faith is more about the act of travelling or touring than about the objects, cultures, places or peoples toured or visited. Thus, for example, we would be mistaken to overstate the devotion of the average pilgrim to sites associated with Dali, Picasso, Shakespeare, Kafka, Joyce or any other representative of esteemed cultural forms. These high cultural forms potentially encourage us to make the mistake of elevating such practices above those where the nature of the engagement is with more popular or populist forms of culture, such as the world of entertainment. The beliefs are that visiting sites associated with such cultural figures is in some way self-improving, ought to be a part of an itinerary (the guide book says so) and indicates a degree of cultural sophistication. This, in short, is Bourdieu’s (1984) cultural capital thesis. Now, if such acts are secular pilgrimages, to what extent are they characterized by a sense of devotion to the artist, political figure or historical person represented? Visiting a Picasso museum in Malaga or in Paris does not require a lifelong devotion to the oeuvre of Picasso or a deep understanding of his biography. It simply tells us that the individual is a member of a social, cultural, national or international group within which Picasso is considered a worthwhile artist. Equally, few visiting Prague’s Franz Kafka Museum will have dedicated much of their lives to reading his novels or short stories and will instead be working from an understanding that Kafka is a major literary figure of international importance. Many of those visiting, indeed, probably do not want to visit at all, but are simply being taken along by somebody else who does want to visit. Neither is this to say that there are not Kafka or Picasso devotees among the cultural tourism hordes: nor is it to denigrate the desire to learn as a part of the cultural experience of tourism. We make these observations simply in order to avoid the trap of elevating certain cultural forms over others and to demonstrate that cultural tourism is not necessarily any more thoughtful, reflexive or meaningful than beach tourism, sun-seeking or cruising. So, cultural tourists are not always particularly devoted to an artist, an historical period, an architectural movement or a physical place. A greater degree of devotion and dedication can perhaps be found in the realm of practice that has been termed creative tourism (Richards, 2011). At the intersection of serious leisure, tourist practice and lifestyle, participation in acts of creativity during a vacation can be seen as the culmination of a broader set of practices lived out at home. In this context, we see something of the temporal aspect of pilgrimage in the irregular departure from home to participate in acts of great significance, to partake of ritualistic behaviour and to reaffirm a connection. Creative tourists or serious leisure participants engage in

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pilgrimage-like behaviour in relation to a very wide-ranging set of interests – golf, pottery, landscape photography, cookery, language learning, etc. The breadth of these definitions and the relationship they establish between everyday and tourism means that we can even incorporate, not only secular pilgrimage within them, but also traditional faith-based pilgrimage. At the opposite end of this spectrum, it would also be possible to imagine pilgrimages based upon hedonistic behaviour and the opportunity to behave in a similarly hedonistic style as at home, but for a longer period of time, with a different group of co-participants or simply in a place with a hedonistic reputation. Indeed, Jansson (2002) has argued that through mediatization, a shift has come about from realistic hedonism to imaginative hedonism, where the former relies on bodily pleasures and the latter on emotional and spiritual pleasures. But, again, such a distinction can easily be overturned when we examine hedonism in pilgrimage more closely.

Hedonistic Pilgrimages The distinction between the sacred and the profane becomes inherently less important as society becomes ever more secular in Europe, North America and elsewhere. We have argued elsewhere that cultural capital and the idea of serious leisure can apply in the setting of any kind of tourism, including mass tourism, youth tourism or hedonistic tourism, and we want to build on this understanding here to investigate the ways in which the polar opposites of hedonism and pilgrimage have grown together as the tourist market has diversified and become ever-deeper embedded in contemporary societies (Hannam & Knox, 2010). In certain settings, the mass tourist is undertaking a pilgrimage of a sort, to exactly the same extent as the cultural or any other kind of tourist might be (see Obrador et al., 2009). For example, the mediatization of tourist landscapes and particular resorts creates motivations, aspirations and desire to visit those resorts and live the lifestyle represented in popular television programmes, in magazines and newspapers, or on websites. The cultural image of somewhere like Benidorm, for example, is refracted through word-of-mouth reports from associates, television drama, holiday brochures, online reviews and photographs, etc. In addition, we need to note that, in particular social groups, the desire to visit such a resort and to partake of mainstream tourist behaviours constitutes a secular pilgrimage. Furthermore, it has been suggested elsewhere that this kind of relationship applies to a greater extent in the context of youth tourism, particularly where it is motivated by a special interest in musical forms or clubbing culture (Knox, 2009). Thus, visiting Ibiza to experience the annual clubbing season is a pilgrimage for the individual who usually visits similar sorts of clubs and consumes the same sorts of music at home each weekend. It is a

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temporal punctuation mark within the general flow of serious leisure. We can also ascribe similar sorts of motivations and connections for extreme sports enthusiasts who learn to snowboard at home and visit ski resorts each year on vacation (Thorpe, 2012). Who are we to say that visiting a Manumission party or snowboarding a particular run is not as significant as visiting the birthplace of Mozart, the grave of Karl Marx or wandering around the Kremlin? The quest in this kind of pilgrimage might not be for anything recognizable as sacred within conventional definitions, but we can certainly point to these activities being rites that carry significance within distinct, bounded cultural communities. There is certainly a search for authenticity within these activities in the same way that there is in the activities of the culture or creative tourist.

Cultural and Creative Tourism as Orgies of Consumption Tourist typologies would tend to represent cultural tourists as being motivated by authenticity, by cultural engagement and the opportunity to learn something new as a part of their tourist encounters (Cohen, 1979a). The verbal dexterity demonstrated in applying, stretching and murdering half-dead metaphors has not yet come to a conclusion, and we now move to explore the similarities between cultural and mass tourism in terms of motivation, behaviour and pilgrimage. The previous section has shown that we can see correspondences between the behaviour of hedonistic tourists and our understandings of pilgrimage, and we now move to look for manifestations of hedonism in other forms of tourism. We should perhaps take a moment here to reflect on the fact that cultural tourism is no longer clearly separate from mass forms of tourism in that it does not represent a very significant market that continues to grow (Obrador et al., 2009). It is probably more likely that a tourist would find himself in a crush of people when visiting the Louvre, the Vatican or other cultural attractions, than in visiting Mediterranean sun destinations. Manifestations of hedonism in the contexts of cultural and creative tourism are clearly visible, even if we usually decide not to talk about them. They may not quite be ‘the elephant in the room’, but they certainly constitute a trunk sticking through the door. First, the holiday as a period of increased activity and signification points to a rapid uptick in consumption over a relatively short period of time. While this may not be a wild or unrestrained process, there is a sense of hedonism about the content of packed itineraries and tours that provide more information, education and potential selfimprovement than most individuals would reasonably be able to absorb in that time period. Second, there is an increase in alcohol and food consumption as a part of holidays of all kinds and the sorts of situational dis-inhibition

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that this might lead to, whether or not the drunkenness that results is of the respectable middle-class kind. Even something as apparently benign as the tendency of cultural tourists visiting Amsterdam to engage in the smoking of cannabis, or visitors to Thailand to consume live sex or striptease acts, point to a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure at the core of apparently pilgrim-like vacations. Third, and possible most crucially, as flagged earlier, is the sense that the cultural, creative or any other kind of tourist is, to a large extent, motivated by a degree of expected pleasure, regardless of which activities provide them with that pleasure. All are travelling abroad to partake of pleasures they probably would not participate in at home to the same extent – whether these pleasures are based around booze, beaches or Bauhaus architecture.

Widening the Debate We do not pretend to have answered the question originally posed at the opening of this piece, but instead seek to participate in a broader debate about the utility and fit of the terms secular pilgrim and hedonist in 21st century tourist studies. Undoubtedly, many will disagree with our particular take on this debate and we welcome that as much, if not more, than simple agreement. Indeed, we look forward to reading the responses to the issues we have addressed, and to the challenging of our conceptions. We ought to recognize within this discussion, however, that this is a highly situated, contingent and Eurocentric debate that fails to take account of tourist practices outside of the Western World or to consider societies within which shared faith in the form of organized religion remains important or even shows signs of growth. Does this debate have the same resonance in Islamic cultures, or in China, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, or indeed anywhere outside the historical heartlands of tourist studies? As tourist studies internationalizes, we would expect to see accounts of different practices and from different perspectives, or maybe not. Does this debate make sense, for instance, among the masses of people on organized tours to view folk villages and ethnic cultures in China? Undoubtedly, participation in tourism in Chinese society relates to the accumulation of cultural capital, but is this accrued on the same basis as it is in European societies? Do the same outlets for hedonistic tourism exist within other tourism marketplaces? Club 18–30-style booze and sex holidays simply are not an option for some consumers, although gambling, drinking and prostitution exist in all tourism markets and are consumed by some participants in those markets. There remains much more to be unpacked in terms of the religious imagery of the metaphor of the pilgrim and questions as to the extent to which we believe that all acts of historical pilgrimage are motivated by a deep sense of devotion rather than a degree of self-interest, self-preservation or selfimprovement. Pilgrimage as an earlier form of mobility is very clearly an

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ancestral behaviour to the diverse tourism industry of the early 21st century, but this does not mean that we need to remain fixated by the explanatory power of the concept itself if we should find that has become redundant. If society changes, behaviour changes and lifestyles change, we should accept that the ways we categorize and think about cultural phenomena should also change in response. So, we have argued that while the twin concepts of pilgrim and hedonist continue to have some utility, they are not sufficiently nuanced or all-encompassing to describe, let alone explain, the totality of contemporary tourist practice.

2.2 Whiskey and Pilgrimage: Clearing Up Commonalities Peter Jan Margry

I have previously argued that the notion of ‘secular pilgrimage’ is an oxymoron (Margry, 2008: 1–2). The two elements that comprise this concept are contradictory: pilgrimage is inherently a religious/spiritual activity. Postulating a secular pilgrimage (or pilgrim) therefore introduces a vague, unscholarly notion. By analogy, the word pilgrimage has become popular as a term for located practices in which people go somewhere without a religious or spiritual motivation. The notion is then usually applied in a metaphorical way. To clarify this confusing usage, we might also apply a profane metaphor: if we define whiskey as an alcoholic beverage, then secular pilgrimages can be described as alcohol-free whiskey. But can we then still speak of whiskey? Thus, for example, it is misleading to state, as Knox and Hannam do in various phraseologies, that tourists who visit religious buildings and sites perform a pilgrimage of a secular nature while gazing at the architecture or peering at the devotional practices inside. Why call it pilgrimage if such behaviour cannot be accounted for as pilgrimage? Is it simply the lure of an intriguing word replete with expressive connotations, or is it an exercise in presenting superficial analogies, without demonstrating basic commonalities? From a scholarly perspective, both possibilities would imply an unsatisfactory process of analysis. This is also the case for the assignment for the

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research probe of this issue of Tourism Recreation Research: ‘Is tourist a secular pilgrim or a hedonist in search of pleasure?’ This double question, including the oxymoron, is even partly redundant on its face, as modern tourism is often equated with hedonistic endeavour for pleasure and relaxation. It remains unclear why the issue of hedonism is included in this probe, unless it conveys the moral stance of the authors, which surfaces in the text. To my mind, the central issue actually at stake is the question of whether modern tourists are engaged in a religiously inspired journey. In other words: is tourism a sort of religion and does pilgrimage also express forms of tourism? It is necessary then to define pilgrimage: a journey out of religious or spiritual inspiration, consciously undertaken by individuals or groups, to a place or along a track that is regarded as more sacred or salutary than the environment of everyday life, to seek a transcendental encounter with the sacred for the purpose of acquiring spiritual, emotional or physical healing or benefit. With the rise of modern mobility and travel, the notion of tourism has been connected to pilgrimage research for some decades now. It was thought that tourism, with its seemingly comparable characteristics, could generate new insights into the operation of pilgrimage, and vice versa. The French anthropologist, Alphonse Dupront, was the first scholar to put this theme on the research agenda. He sought to investigate how human collective psychology relates to both social mass phenomena and their capability to ‘liberate’ people and widen their horizons (Dupront, 1967: 119–121). His comparison was not convincing, as he neither evaluated the presence of the ‘alcohol’, nor realized that in se pilgrimage is basically an individual practice (Margry, 2012: 282). It was the American anthropologists, Victor Turner and Edith Turner, who in their influential book Image and Pilgrimage remarked that ‘a tourist is half a pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist’ (Turner & Turner, 1978: 20). This frequently quoted assumption has become proverbial and hence usually cited as the ‘proof’ for the similar genes of tourism and pilgrimage. Along with a striking rise in mass tourism and renewed interest in the phenomenon of pilgrimage, this interesting issue was picked up by researchers all over the world. Cohen, for example, argued that secularization robbed pilgrimage from its symbolic and mystical power and therefore sees tourism as a modern metamorphosis of pilgrimage and travel (Cohen, 1992: 58-59). The present day world shows that nothing is less true. Comparative research is, however, important and relevant, as long as the basic intrinsic differences – constitutive for both phenomena – are not overlooked or ignored, which otherwise, as a consequence, would subvert research results. It would be short-sighted not to acknowledge that certain human behaviours can indeed commonly be identified in both tourism and pilgrimage. But it would also be inexpedient to allow derivative aspects of the phenomena to prevail over basic distinctions, as it usually happens. Throughout the

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centuries the repertoire of pilgrims’ collateral behaviours has been comprehensive, and has included aspects of ‘tourism’ as well, notwithstanding that, pilgrims always had one basic, existential, religious motif: arriving at the sacred (shrine). This quest did not exclude that underway they performed practices related to ‘tourism’, whether they were going to Jerusalem, Santiago or Lourdes, as modern research confirms. In the past decades various pilgrimages – for example to Amsterdam, Lourdes, Santiago and Wittem (NL) – have been the subject of sociological research based on multiple-choice questionnaires aimed at collecting data on motivational repertoires (Post et al., 1998: 19–48, 173–203). One reason for choosing such a non-qualitative method was that most pilgrims find it quite difficult to formulate their motives. This difficulty characterizes not only traditional Catholic pilgrims to Lourdes or Fatima, but is equally applicable to more ‘elitist’ present-day journeys to Santiago de Compostela and other spiritual walking routes (Margry, 2014). Nevertheless, in the research performed, the presence of a wide variety of ‘motives’ mentioned by the pilgrims is striking. The number of motives rises as high as 20 when multiple-choice questions were used by social scientists. Applying this method proved to have strong steering effects and leads to facile checking in the line-up of possible motives. All sorts of secondary touristic, cultural or social aspects of a pilgrimage were included by the researchers, and were subsequently dutifully ticked by the respondents. This fed the researcher’s notion that pilgrims are actually more like tourists, as they simply expressed that they indeed liked the beauty of the scenery, bought commercially produced souvenirs, gazed at cultural heritage and admitted that they could also enjoy the sociability of a collective journey (cf. Post et al., 1998: 157–242). It is obvious that all sorts of secondary motives do come in the picture when they are placed next to the main objective, and thus obscure the central religious or spiritual incentive for going on a pilgrimage. Using the method of open questions, by which pilgrims themselves have to reflect and formulate their motivation, produces answers of a more unalloyed and reflective nature, focusing on the pilgrim’s main objective (Margry, 2008, 2014). These answers reflect the principal motives and objectives people have when they do a pilgrimage. Elaborating on Turner and Turner (1978), the anthropologists Badone and Roseman tried to reconcile the conceptual dichotomy between religious travel and secular journeying or tourism. They rightly observe, ‘Rigid dichotomies between pilgrimage and tourism, or pilgrims and tourists, no longer seem tenable in the shifting world of postmodern travel’ (Badone & Roseman, 2004: 2). This is part of what Badone and Roseman call ‘intersecting journeys’. This concept does not imply that tourism and pilgrimage are interchangeable. For Badone and Roseman, intersections only come to the fore when tourists allow themselves to be carried away – intentionally or unintentionally – by sacred, transformative experiences of the pilgrimage or at the shrine, and actually become pilgrims.

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The presentation of Badone and Roseman’s altered perspective on pilgrimage was stimulated by the fact that the new phenomenon of inspirational travelling on old pilgrimage roads had come into being. Since somewhere in the 1960s, the traditional pilgrimage model has been re-enacted in a seemingly recreational manner, its re-invention of the Camino to Santiago created a new format, a genre of which it is both the precursor and example par excellence. This development created a new, non-institutionalized manner of pilgrimage, to one degree or another separate from formal religion. The Camino is now partly a Catholic pilgrimage and partly a ‘new-agey’ or spirituality pilgrimage. The revival and popularity of walking the Camino to Santiago has resulted in the creation of hundreds of ‘historical’ and religious/ spiritual roads and tracks all over the world. Did this change then result in a ‘touristic pilgrimage’ or, if we recall my earlier metaphorical comparison, in ‘whiskey light’? What is actually the case? Apart from the walking and sport enthusiasts, the fans of tranquillity and culture and (art)history lovers, Santiago was discovered and reinvented by spiritual seekers. For many walkers, the journey along the Camino has become an individual rite of passage, or ‘a pilgrimage to one’s self’. Trekking along the European Camino network can thus be described as the practice, inspired by history and tradition, of creating a religiously open ritual format for oneself for reflecting on one’s life and possibly, depending on a variety of spiritual values, for experiencing transcendence in a certain manner. For such individuals, it functions as a pilgrimage. In this way, walking the pilgrim trails has become an inward-orientated activity for questioning oneself or giving meaning to one’s life in relation to the world. These tracks created a possibility to move, to walk, but not so much for arriving at a destination where one would find a shrine. Modern, ‘unchurched’, times have created an alternative for those who do not want to participate in pilgrimages of institutionalized religions. For those who operate within an eclectic religious paradigm, an open manner of overcoming personal problems is to do a pilgrimage on such spiritual tracks. It is not only the Camino network that is populated by groups that exhibit different practices and discourses next to one another. Also, in other seemingly ‘secular’ or mixed places, one should always take into account that there are multiple motif structures present. The graves of Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison, for example, are both tourist attractions where mass tourism is manifestedly present. The visits to Graceland and Père Lachaise are, however, much more diversified than it might appear at first sight. Next to the millions of fans and tourists there exist specific groups of visitors for whom a religious (pilgrimage) factor is in fact the leading motive, employing narratives that are very distinct from those of the fans and tourists. This then makes it clear that ethnography is necessary to clarify whether people who visit specific locations have a religious motive or ‘just’ follow the secular or tourist circuits, and are thus not involved with the ‘essence’ of pilgrimage. Often things are not

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what they seem. For example, despite the fact that the Morrison fan-tribe that was camped out around his grave consumed many bottles of highly spirituous 86-proof Jack Daniels and were depicted as pilgrims, they proved in fact to be very distinct from a group of individuals who had a religious or spiritual motive, who invoked Morrison in a transcendental way and actually constituted a pilgrimage (Margry, 2008). Graceland or Père Lachaise are thus tourist destinations, but also represent – if only for a specific group – a shrine that is not secular at all, and to which they thus make a pilgrimage. And so let us look again at the stance of Knox and Hannam. I think it is problematic to start a scholarly debate on concepts by ‘playfully extend[ing] definitions’, as they write. In this way, they suggestively launch into the metaphorical mode by equalling the escapism of holiday with ‘faith’ (their quotation marks!), thus ignoring the aspect of religion: ‘there is little difference between pilgrims and tourists’, they bluntly state. Just as easily, one could argue that there is no greater difference than between a pilgrim and tourist, maybe apart from the fact that both categories have to come a certain distance to arrive at their destination. Even travelling is a relative concept in this context, as although among the public pilgrimage is best known for its renowned long-distance sanctuaries, quantitatively speaking most pilgrimages are at short or middle-long distance from the pilgrims’ point of origin. Tourism too is varied, local, international and intermediate. In both cases, the exotic and far away often dominate the spotlight of the international media. Thus, when dealing with behaviour, functions and meanings, the differences between the two categories become obvious. The basic mental predispositions are quite opposite. The pilgrim goes to deepening his or her faith or intensify his or her relation to god/the sacred, and/or (s)he is engaged in an existential endeavour related to physical or mental problems or support. In that regard – contrary to what both authors suggest – I would stress the importance to keep up categories as much as is useful and possible, certainly related to the domain of religion. But, of course, it is also not that easy. A major difficulty is that hardly any expression of human activity is unambiguous. As having a job in daily life also means drinking coffee, having lunch, buying objects, experiencing the urban or rural environment, socializing, gossiping, private emailing and checking web news, similarly pilgrims experience all kinds of secular encounters under way or after arrival. They indeed can enjoy the natural and cultural beauties they see while under way, or engage in recreational and socializing activities, aspects that explain why so many boxes on secular motives were checked on the multiple-choice forms. And if they do that, what can then be distilled from that knowledge? Various scholars call them both pilgrim and tourist. However, to keep to clear definitions it is preferable to describe them as pilgrims with additional interests. They do not have a touristic motive, but while on pilgrimage they participate in collateral experiences of a social, cultural, recreational or touristic nature.

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Allowing various categories to overlap makes analysis problematic in general. With hardly any definition of terms, in their probe, Knox and Hannam produce a dysfunctional bricolage, and not only on pilgrimage. How, for example, is hedonism to be understood: in a philosophical way or as a practical container concept for people who like to drink and have sex during holidays? The latter could become quite a category if these are the two criteria. The two-week holidays of British or Dutch youth to mass tourist destinations are neither form of hedonism; they merely engage in a (yearly) holiday within the reach of their budget and social peers, in which all the experiences of a vacation must take place. The moral tone in Knox and Hannam’s text is another questionable way of addressing the topics. How can one make a neutral analysis by using descriptive clichés and derogatory terminology like ‘debaucheries’ or ‘lack of authentic cultural interest of the hordes’? Or did I miss the irony? In conclusion, I must reiterate that without defining and delineating, research cannot be done in a proper way. Therefore Knox and Hannam’s stance is a mistaken one in which basically differing categories are mixed up, resulting in an obfuscating bricolage instead of providing better insight, which should be the major endeavour of scholarly research.

2.3

To Be or Not to Be a Tourist: The Role of Concept-Metaphors in Tourism Studies Noel B. Salazar

Introduction Tourists have been labelled, metaphorically, in multiple ways (Dann, 2002b). This includes descriptions of tourists as (secular) pilgrims in a quest

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of authenticity (MacCannell, 1976), but also as travellers on a sacred journey (Graburn, 1978, 1983, 2001). In contrast, the stereotypical image that tourists are hedonists is related particularly (but not exclusively) with sun, sand and sex, and is associated with, sometimes unbridled, consumerism (Salazar, 2010a). This chapter deals with the question of whether a tourist is a ‘secular pilgrim’ or a ‘hedonist in search of pleasure’. Both descriptors refer to a debate among tourism scholars that started back in the 1970s. It is important to put the question and possible answers to it within the historical context of this discussion. First, I would like to state that, in my humble opinion, this probe is not about tourist typologies. Knox and Hannam suggest otherwise: ‘any time we set out to explore a dualism we go through a predictable process of arriving at a conclusion whereby we might reject the notion of the categories as mutually exclusive or discover instead an additional set of categories. Such is the stuff that tourist typologies are made of’. As taxonomies do not make assertions, they cannot be judged true or false. Like tools, they may be found more or less useful for a particular purpose (e.g. tourism marketing and management strategies). As I will discuss below, the scholars who started this debate had something very different in mind from trying to classify tourists. The descriptions of ‘ideal type’ tourists as (secular) pilgrims or hedonists, however, are related to broader visions of contemporary society. They are best conceived as a concept-metaphor. Henrietta Moore defines concept-metaphors as ‘a kind of conceptual shorthand. . . They are domain terms that orient us towards areas of shared exchange, which is sometimes academically based . . . Their exact meanings can never be specified in advance—although they can be defined in practice and in context— and there is a part of them that remains outside or exceeds representation’ (Moore, 2004: 73). Concept-metaphors act as framing devices, and as such, they are perspectival. The advantage of using them is that they facilitate comparison. The problem with concept-metaphors such as ‘secular pilgrim’, however, is that by their nature they continue to have a shifting and unspecified tie to physical relationships in the world. As Moore argues: If concept-metaphors are to be relevant in a disciplinary context then they must connect to the construction of composite theories. Composite theories are those that contain ontological, epistemological and empirical claims. Concept-metaphors that merely act as a descriptive gloss or posit causal forces that remain unexamined are essentially suffering – at the very least – from under-theorization. (Moore, 2004: 80) In order to answer the research probe properly, we thus need to assess the composite theories underlying the concept-metaphors and the ontological, epistemological and empirical claims they make.

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The Tourist as Concept-Metaphor Although Dean MacCannell (1976) did not coin the term ‘secular pilgrim’, he did provide the theoretical context to conceptualize the tourist as a secular pilgrim in quest of authenticity. Comparing tourism with pilgrimage, he writes: The motive behind a pilgrimage is similar to that behind a tour: both are quests for authentic experiences. Pilgrims attempt to visit a place where an event of religious importance actually occurred. Tourists present themselves at places of social, historical and cultural importance. (MacCannell, 1973: 593) Importantly, MacCannell begins his seminal monograph, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, by specifying that he means two different things by tourist: (1) an ‘actual person’ and (2) a ‘model for modern-man-ingeneral’ (MacCannell, 1976: 1). The notion of ‘secular pilgrim’ is related more closely to the second meaning. In other words, the description of tourist as (secular) pilgrim functions as a concept-metaphor. It is not so much about what a tourist does and is, as tourist, but how the figure of the tourist is emblematic for the times in which we live. This important distinction seems lost in the piece of Knox and Hannam. They argue that ‘contemporary tourism is now so diverse that the original terms of the opposition set up between secular pilgrims and hedonists arguably no longer apply. There is little difference between pilgrims and tourists and many pilgrimages are hedonistic’. That was, of course, not the point of the original argument. Inspired by Emile Durkheim’s study of primitive religion and LeviStrauss’s structural anthropology, MacCannell sees tourism as an icon of the rootlessness and alienation of modern life. The search for meaning in (secularized) modern societies encourages pilgrimage to the sites of differentiation created by modernity and a search for the ‘primitive’ and pre-modern cultures it has displaced – a quest for ‘authenticity’ that is ultimately doomed as it is hindered by locals and tourism service providers that stage reality and ‘real live’ as mere attractions. MacCannell’s work is thus an ‘ethnography of modernity’ (1976: 2) in which tourism functions as a modern surrogate religion in connection with mass leisure. MacCannell’s theory is partially a reaction to the earlier work of Daniel Boorstin (1964), for whom tourism is essentially an aberration, a trivial, frivolous, superficial and vicarious activity. Boorstin bemoans the disappearance of the travelling of yesteryear, which was an individual, painstaking and educational experience. He believes that modern (mass) tourists are no more than sheer hedonists, unable to experience reality directly, thriving on and finding pleasure only in the inauthentic and, therefore, taking pleasure in contrived experiences, attractions and ‘pseudo-events’ created by tourism

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service providers and the media. Early on in the debate, Erik Cohen (1979b) points out that it is inaccurate to assume that all tourists are either dopes or secular pilgrims. According to him, most are simply out to have a good time – ‘travelling for pleasure’. Only a few, of the non-institutionalized variety (also known as ‘independent travellers’), look for meaning in their lives by touring the world inhabited by the ‘Other’. The use of the tourist as a metaphor for larger societal developments has also been popular outside of tourism studies. According to Arjun Appadurai, for example, tourists metaphorically represent ‘the shifting world in which we live’ (Appadurai, 1996: 33). Zygmunt Bauman (1996) takes the pilgrim as emblematic of modernity, the tourist of post-modernity: ‘in the same way as the pilgrim was the most fitting metaphor for the modern life strategy preoccupied with the daunting task of identity-building, the stroller, the vagabond, the tourist and the player offer jointly the metaphor for the post-modern strategy moved by the horror of being bound and fixed’ (Bauman, 1996: 26). For Bauman, the main difference is situated in the kind of mobility that characterizes tourism: The tourist moves on purpose (or so he thinks). His movements are first of all ‘in order to’, and only secondarily (if at all) ‘because of’. The purpose is new experience; the tourist is a conscious and systematic seeker of experience, of a new and different experience, of the experience of difference and novelty—as the joys of the familiar wear off and cease to allure. The tourists want to immerse themselves in a strange and bizarre element (a pleasant feeling, a tickling and rejuvenating feeling, like letting oneself be buffeted by sea waves)—on condition, though, that it will not stick to the skin and thus can be shaken off whenever they wish (Bauman, 1996: 29).

The Tourist as Pilgrim Many scholars have characterized tourism metaphorically as ‘pilgrimages’ (something scholars of religion have repeatedly criticized). Some seem to suggest that tourism evolved out of pilgrimage. While tourist, as a concept, only appeared at the beginning of the 19th century in English and French, one can identify people most of us would call tourists, as well as their actions, long before that. The term itself, derived from the Greek tornos (a carpenter’s tool for drawing a circle), refers to an individual who makes a circuitous journey (usually for pleasure) and returns to the starting point. Pilgrim, on the other hand stems from the Latin peregrinus, which originally meant foreigner, wanderer, exile and traveller, as well as newcomer and stranger. The meaning of pilgrimage historically developed to become ‘a journey claimed to be undertaken for reasons involving religious sacrifice’

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(Palmer et al., 2012: 71). Others use a much broader definition, making the difference with tourism become much smaller: ‘a journey undertaken by a person in quest of a place or a state that he or she believes to embody a valued ideal’ (Morinis, 1992: 4). The metaphorical conceptualization of tourists as pilgrims, like many other aspects of tourism (Salazar, 2013), has largely been influenced by the work of anthropologists (Badone & Roseman, 2004). Victor and Edith Turner famously wrote that ‘a tourist is half a pilgrim, if a pilgrim is half a tourist’ (1978: 20). According to the Turners, pilgrimage, like tourism, is organized, bureaucratized and uses the same infrastructure mediated by travel agencies. They see evident links between tourism and pilgrimage in terms of both the journey and the experience of communitas, although they distinguish between the obligatory nature of many traditional rituals and the voluntary nature of tourism. Victor Turner himself notes that the simultaneous rise of the anthropology of tourism, along with that of pilgrimage, is no accident, since both areas of study have become metaphors for a world on the move, ‘where rapid transportation and the mass media are moving millions literally or mentally out of the stasis of localization’ (Turner, 1992: viii). In a Durkheimian tradition, Nelson Graburn (1978, 1983) maps tourism to Victor Turner’s tripartite structure of rites of passage, situating the tourist’s quest as a pursuit of the ‘sacred’ (non-ordinary), as separate from the ‘profane’ (ordinary). Importantly, tourists are being metaphorically compared with pilgrims as being on a ‘sacred journey’. Tourism is seen as a secular and universal equivalent of religion operating in non-ordinary time: ‘even when the role[s] of tourist and pilgrim are combined, they are necessarily different but form a continuum of inseparable elements’ (Graburn, 1983: 16). Even history-distorting theme parks such as Disney World have been viewed as contemporary secular equivalents of traditional centres of faith, where the icons of civil religion are ritually worshipped and consumed (Moore, 1980). Bryan Pfaffenberger (1983) sees present-day tourism arising out of a long tradition of religious pilgrimage. At the same time, he opposes serious (pious) pilgrims against frivolous (hedonistic) tourists. According to Colin Turnbull, too, tourists travel for ‘hedonistic purposes’. Pilgrims, on the other hand, gain ‘a sense of belonging to a religious or spiritual heritage rather than a cultural one’ (Turnbull, 1981:14). In a special issue of Annals of Tourism Research on the relationships between pilgrimage and tourism, Valene Smith argues that ‘tourist encounters can be just as compelling [as pilgrimage] and almost spiritual in personal meaning’ (Smith, 1992: 2). She sees social approval as the most important factor differentiating tourists from pilgrims. Her observation, similar to the Turners (Turner & Turner, 1978), infers that, from a tourism perspective, there is (superficially) no difference between tourists and pilgrims: they share leisure time, income and social sanctions for travel and, in most instances, the same infrastructure. Pilgrimage and tourism may be conceptualized as ‘two parallel, interchangeable lanes’ (Smith, 1992: 15). People can

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‘travel either lane, or switch between them, depending on personal need or motivation, and as appropriate to time, place, and cultural circumstances’ (Smith, 1992: 15). Smith relies on Durkheim to link pilgrimage to the sacred and tourism to the secular and, in between these two, religious tourism, which is related to the profane. In that same special issue, John Eade (1992) calls to reconstruct the terms tourist and pilgrim in order to capture the lack of harmony that exists between them. Interestingly, Knox and Hannam never fully define how they understand the concepts of pilgrim and hedonist. This allows them to ‘play’ around with the terms (e.g. discussing the hedonistic aspects of pilgrimage). Although they recognize the ‘metaphor of the pilgrim’, they seem stuck in a logic of tourism typologies. That is why Knox and Hannam argue that the ‘categories’ of tourist and pilgrim ‘have in some cases grown towards and overlap each other so that we can identify elements of the pilgrimage in hedonistic forms of tourism and hedonistic behaviour among supposed pilgrims’. Such statements wrongly suggest that there was a time in which ‘pure’ (and, thus, ‘authentic’) types of pilgrims and tourists existed. In addition, pilgrimage is imagined, in an evolutionary fashion, as ‘ancestral’ to tourism. On the one hand, Knox and Hannam seem to suggest that (cultural or creative) tourism has replaced pilgrimage (or, at least, the ‘original’ form of the practice). On the other hand, the ‘mystical and spectacular behaviour of the faithful’ – the pilgrims who are still around – has become part of the attraction for tourists visiting religious sites. Knox and Hannam write that ‘some tourists very clearly fall into the camp of being hedonists in search of pleasure’. This should come as no surprise. For most people, tourism involves more hedonism and conspicuous consumption than learning or understanding. However, with tourism becoming a phenomenon of the masses, the label of ‘tourist’ has received increasingly negative connotations. Middle and higher social classes try to ‘distinguish’ (Bourdieu, 1984) themselves by engaging in tourism activities that are esteemed to be of higher (moral) value (cf. Munt, 1994). This strategy does not always seem to be successful. As Knox and Hannam note, ‘cultural tourism is no longer clearly separate from mass forms of tourism’. Importantly, hedonists and pilgrims are not two ‘types’ of tourists, but concept-metaphors that reflect the societal role that scholars attribute to tourism. Again, Knox and Hannam think otherwise: ‘That hedonists are in pursuit of pleasure suggests that the lot of the pilgrim, whether secular or otherwise, is somewhat more ascetic as they self-flagellate themselves from museum to gallery to heritage attraction’.

Conclusion Knox and Hannam end their piece by arguing that ‘while the twin concepts of pilgrim and hedonist continue to have some utility, they are not

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sufficiently nuanced or all-encompassing to describe, let alone explain, the totality of contemporary tourist practice’. Of course not, because this would imply an essentialist stance according to which tourists should be classified either as (secular) pilgrims or as hedonists. As Cohen noted long ago, ‘tourism spans the range of motivations between the desire for mere pleasure characteristic of the sphere of “leisure” and the quest for meaning and authenticity, characteristic of the sphere of “religion”’ (Cohen, 1979b: 193). Tourism overlaps with pilgrimage, but also with business, migration and other phenomena (Salazar, 2010b; Salazar & Zhang, 2013). The two descriptors of this probe capture the complexity neither of tourists nor, by extension, the society they are supposed to represent. As I made it clear above, this is not a discussion about tourist typologies or, worse, tourism market segments. Instead of asking whether tourists are secular pilgrims or hedonists, we should be asking what we gain, analytically, by using these concept-metaphors. For whom does this matter and how does tourism (or at least the study of it) benefit by the use of these terms? The fruitfulness of the original theoretical discussion is that it opened up an in-depth reflection on the nature of tourism in relation to the wider socio-economic context in which it develops. The role of concept-metaphors such as ‘secular pilgrims’ is to ‘open up spaces for future thinking’ (Moore, 2004: 74). Their ‘purpose is to maintain ambiguity and a productive tension between universal claims and specific historical contexts’ (Moore, 2004: 71). As the text by Knox and Hannam illustrates, however, the concepts have started to lead their own life and have almost become ‘tourism imaginaries’ (Salazar, 2012; Salazar & Graburn, 2014) in their own right – socially transmitted representational assemblages that are used as meaning-making and world-shaping devices in tourism and beyond. Despite my criticism and reservations, there is one point on which I wholeheartedly agree with Knox and Hannam, namely, that ‘this is a highly situated, contingent and Eurocentric debate that fails to take account of tourist practices outside of the Western World’. Indeed, this conceptual discussion has been dominated since the very start by Western scholars and this research probe is a failed opportunity to open up the debate more globally. A similar argument could be made when it comes to gender. These criticisms seriously weaken the universal validity of the arguments made. Or, as Graham Dann argues, ‘because the iconicity of metaphor depends on cultural codes, and cultures themselves vary, there can be no universal metaphors’ (Dann, 2002a: 1).

Concluding Remarks When first considering the question as to whether the ‘tourist is a secular pilgrim or a hedonist in search of pleasure’ we were inclined towards offering a one word answer: No. We now recognize that this is

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a very complicated question that cuts to the very core of contemporary tourism studies. Margry asserts dissatisfaction with the term ‘secular pilgrimage’, with which we would concur, but which fails to engage with the popular currency of the metaphor. Salazar’s account of both the tourist and tourism as pilgrimage as concept-metaphors illustrates that ‘secular pilgrims’ have become ‘tourism imaginaries’. This is an important point since the intentions of the original scholarly arguments have generally been lost in the later adoption and application of those ideas by others,whether in the scholarly community or the travel and tourism industry. For Salazar, however, the debate is not about typologies or market segmentation. Tourism as pilgrimage and the tourist as pilgrim have taken on the status of ready-made ideas in tourist studies as well as in popular accounts of tourism. Our strategy here was to extend the metaphor of the pilgrim far beyond its usefulness in understanding contemporary tourism. A post-secular age is one in which attitudes to religion are characterized by indifference, which is only possible following a period of secularization (Kyrlezhev, 2008). Within secular thinking, religion becomes simply another identity choice open to the individual and was not given prominence over civil institutions. Ironically, this has created a circumstance within which the belief systems relating to post-enlightenment culture and art have taken on some of the characteristics of religion in the sense of requiring belief, commitment and adherence to a moral code. Durkheim (1915) identified the sacred/ profane distinction as a central characteristic of religion, and the decline in the importance in this distinction is not so much concerning the dichotomy itself, but in relation to the dichotomy in the terms of dominant organized religious structures (i.e. Christianity). In societies such as those of Europe and North America, the formal influence of organized religions has tended to wane and more individualistic pursuits of a spiritual nature have come to prominence. In these circumstances, sacred/profane distinctions are evident within cultural fields and artistic movements in the sense of inside/outside distinctions. It was never our intention to suggest that Christian pilgrimage was anything other than ‘alive and well’, nor to denigrate the important spiritual implications it retains for pilgrims. Margry’s statement concerning youth tourism that ‘they merely engage in a (yearly) holiday within the reach of their budget and social peers, in which all the experiences of a vacation must take place’ adds little in the way of critical insight.

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To specifically respond to Margry’s concerns about our own moral tone, while we make no claim for having conducted a neutral analysis, it is possible that a certain degree of irony has been overlooked. The concern over who defines certain tourist motivations and performances as morally superior or inferior was central to our opening article and remains a key concern (see also Mostafanezhad & Hannam, 2014 for further analysis of moral encounters in tourism). The answer to this problem in the short-term, is not to develop further typologies, but to develop research agendas that ask different questions. Finally, we should note that all of the contributing authors were disappointed that the participants in this research probe are Western scholars when other voices might usefully have been incorporated.

Discussion Questions (1) Discuss the everyday forms of consumption that different religions incorporate. (2) Discuss the ritualistic practices that mass tourists may undertake. (3) Discuss the hedonistic practices that contemporary pilgrims may undertake. (4) What is a ‘secular pilgrimage’? (5) In what ways can a holiday be considered a ‘rite of passage’?

References Andrews, H.J. (2011). Porkin pig goes to Magaluf. Journal of Material Culture 16: 151–170. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Badone, E. and Roseman, S.R. (eds) (2004). Intersecting Journeys. The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Bauman, Z. (1996). From pilgrim to tourist – or a short history of identity. In S. Hall and P. du Gay (eds) Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 18–36). London: SAGE Publications. Boorstin, D. (1964). The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in American Society. New York: Atheneum. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Cohen, E. (1979a). Rethinking the sociology of tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 6(1): 18–35. Cohen, E. (1979b). A phenomenology of tourist experiences. Sociology 13(2): 179–201.

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Cohen, E. (1992). Pilgrimage and tourism: Convergence and divergence. In A. Morinis (ed.) Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (pp. 47–61). Westport: Greenwood. Coleman, S. (2007). A tale of two centres? Representing Palestine to the British in the nineteenth century. Mobilities 2(3): 331–345. Conran, M. (2011). They really love me! Intimacy in volunteer tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 38(4): 1454–1473. Dann, G.M.S. (ed.) (2002a). The Tourist as a Metaphor of the Social World. Wallingford: CABI. Dann, G.M.S. (2002b). Introduction: The tourist as a metaphor of the social world. In G.M.S. Dann (ed.) The Tourist as a Metaphor of the Social World (pp. 1–17). Wallingford: CABI. Dupront, A. (1967). Tourisme et Pèlerinage: Réflexion de Psychologie Collective. Communications 10: 97–120. Durkheim, E. (1915). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics. Eade, J. (1992). Pilgrimage and tourism at Lourdes, France. Annals of Tourism Research 19(1): 18–32. Graburn, N.H.H. (1978). Tourism: The sacred journey. In V.L. Smith (ed.) Hosts and Guests: The Anthropology of Tourism (pp. 17–31). Oxford: Blackwell. Graburn, N.H.H. (1983). The anthropology of tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 10(1): 9–33. Graburn, N.H.H. (2001). Secular ritual: A general theory of tourism. In V.L. Smith and M.A. Brent (eds) Hosts and Guests Revisited: Tourism Issues of the 21st Century (pp. 42–50). New York: Cognizant Communication Corporation. Hannam, K. and Knox, D. (2010). Understanding Tourism: A Critical Introduction. London: SAGE Publications. Jansson, A. (2002). Spatial phantasmagoria: The mediatization of tourism experience. European Journal of Communication 17(4): 429–443. Knox, D. (2009). Mobile practice and youth tourism. In P. Obrador, M. Crang and P. Travlou (eds) Cultures of Mass Tourism: Doing the Mediterranean in the Age of Banal Mobilities (pp. 143–156). Farnham: Ashgate. Kyrlezhev, A. (2008). The postsecular age: Religion and culture today. Religion, State and Society 36: 21–31. MacCannell, D. (1973). Staged authenticity: Arrangements of Social space in tourist settings. American Journal of Sociology 79(3): 589–603. MacCannell, D. (1976). The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Schocken Books. Margry, P.J. (2008). Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Margry, P.J. (2012). European religious fragmentation and the rise of civil religion. In U. Kockel, J. Frykman and M. Craith (eds) A Companion to the Anthropology of Europe (pp. 275–294). Malden/Oxford: Blackwell Wiley. Margry, P.J. (2014). To be or not to be, . . . a pilgrim? Spiritual pluralism on the Finisterre Trail. In A. Schöne and H. Groschwitz (eds) Religiosität und Spiritualität. Fragen, Kompetenzen, Ergebnisse (pp. 153–182). Münster: Waxmann. Moore, A. (1980). Walt Disney World: Bounded ritual space and the playful pilgrimage center. Anthropological Quarterly 53(4): 207–218. Moore, H.L. (2004). Global anxieties: Concept-metaphors and pre-theoretical commitments in anthropology. Anthropological Theory 4(1): 71–88.

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Morinis, E.A. (ed.) (1992). Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage. Westport: Greenwood Press. Mostafanezhad, M. and Hannam, K. (eds) (2014). Moral Encounters in Tourism. London: Ashgate. Munt, I. (1994). Eco-tourism or ego-tourism? Race and Class 36(1): 49–59. Norman, A. (2011). Spiritual Tourism: Travel and Religious Practice in Western Society. London: Continuum. Obrador, P., Crang, M. and Travlou, P. (eds) (2009). Cultures of Mass Tourism. London: Ashgate. Palmer, C.T., Begley, R.O. and Coe, K. (2012). In defence of differentiating pilgrimage from tourism. International Journal of Tourism Anthropology 2(1): 71–85. Pfaffenberger, B. (1983). Serious pilgrims and frivolous tourists: The chimera of tourism in the pilgrimages of Sri Lanka. Annals of Tourism Research 10(1): 57–74. Post, P., Pieper, J. and Uden, M.V. (1998). The Modern Pilgrim: Multidisciplinary Explorations of Christian Pilgrimage. Leuven: Peeters. Richards, G. (2011). Creativity and tourism: The state of the art. Annals of Tourism Research 38: 1225–1238. Rough Guides (2013). Rough Guide to Vietnam. London: Rough Guides. Salazar, N.B. (2010a). Envisioning Eden: Mobilizing Imaginaries in Tourism and Beyond. Oxford: Berghahn. Salazar, N.B. (2010b). Towards an anthropology of cultural mobilities. Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture 1(1): 53–68. Salazar, N.B. (2012). Tourism imaginaries: A conceptual approach. Annals of Tourism Research 39(2): 863–882. Salazar, N.B. (2013). Imagineering otherness: Anthropological legacies in contemporary tourism. Anthropological Quarterly 86(3): 669–696. Salazar, N.B. and Graburn, N.H.H. (eds) (2014). Tourism Imaginaries: Anthropological Approaches. Oxford: Berghahn. Salazar, N.B. and Zhang, Y. (2013). Seasonal lifestyle tourism: The case of Chinese elites. Annals of Tourism Research 43(4): 81–99. Santos, X. (2002). Pilgrimage and tourism at Santiago de Compostela. Tourism Recreation Research 27(2): 41–50. Smith, V.L. (1992). Introduction: The quest in guest. Annals of Tourism Research 19(1): 1–17. Thorpe, H. (2012). Transnational mobilties in snowboarding culture: Travel, tourism and lifestyle migration. Mobilities 7(2): 317–345. Turnbull, C. (1981). A pilgrimage in India. Natural History 90(7): 14–20. Turner, V. (1992). Foreword. In E.A. Morinis (ed.) Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage (pp. vii–viii). Westport: Greenwood Press. Turner, V. and Turner, E. (1978). Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture. New York: Columbia University Press.

Further Reading Badone, E. and Roseman, S.R. (eds) (2004). Intersecting Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and Tourism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Bauman, Z. (1996). From pilgrim to tourist – or a short history of identity. In S. Hall, and P. du Gay (eds) Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 18–36). London: SAGE Publications.

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Diken, B. and Lausten, C.B. (2004). Sea, sun, sex and the discontents of pleasure. Tourist Studies 4(2): 99–114. Margry, P.J. (2008). Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Olsen, D.H. (2010). Pilgrims, tourists and Max Weber’s “Ideal Types”. Annals of Tourism Research 39(3): 848–851. Turner, V. and Turner, E. (1978). Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Chapter 3

Do Tourists Travel for the Discovery of ‘Self’ or to Search for the ‘Other’? Gianna Moscardo, Graham Dann and Bob McKercher Context The question of why tourists travel is a fundamental one in tourism that speaks to both how we define tourism as a phenomenon for study and how we build our understanding of its nature, processes, consequences and future. The debate and discussion covered in these three articles take a critical approach to this question, but from three very different perspectives. Moscardo begins by providing a selective review of some of the key articles that have addressed this question, beginning with MacCannell’s (1976) The Tourist, and finishing with discussions of the links between tourism consumption and identity (Bond & Falk, 2012), the new mobilities paradigm (Cresswell, 2010) and research into people who can but do not travel (McKercher, 2009). Along the way she argues that very little progress has been made in addressing this fundamental question. Dann adds a number of significant references to the discussion and suggests a wider range of possible answers can and should be considered. He disagrees with taking a psychological-needs approach to the question of why tourists travel, but concurs with the critique of the way tourism researchers have addressed this question. McKercher argues for a simpler answer, tourism is essentially a selfish pursuit and provides a variety of evidence to support this stance. The overall debate provides important reviews of critical articles in this field, highlights the challenges that exist in addressing this question, offers some ideas for meeting these challenges, and reaffirms the importance of returning to fundamental questions in tourism research. 71

3.1

A Journey in Search of ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ Gianna Moscardo

The first academic text on tourism that I ever read was Dean MacCannell’s (1976) The Tourist. MacCannell argued that tourism was a feature of modern western societies in which alienated individuals sought to bring meaning to their lives through the discovery of others. At first glance this might seem like a neat and clear answer to the question posed in the title of this probe, but this text generated a whole suite of critiques, launched numerous investigations into the nature of tourism and continues to challenge tourism researchers. At the time I first read this text, the argument seemed reasonable in light of my own experiences, but like others, I wondered just how well it explained the wide variety of tourism. Had I been asked the title question then, I would have answered that it is likely that some tourists travel to find themselves, some tourists travel to search for others and other tourists travel for many other reasons. As I write this essay today I find I am drawn to a much simpler response – tourists primarily travel to discover themselves, although they are rarely aware of this. I believe that this discovery of self is often mediated by others, although in many more ways than MacCannell described in 1976. This essay will make the argument that tourists travel mainly to discover themselves. It will do so using a selective review of discussions of tourist motivations in sociological and psychological approaches to tourism, and a brief examination of people who choose not to be tourists. It will conclude with some concerns about the implications of the discussion for the future of tourism research. Given space constraints and the intention of this research probe series to provoke debate and question assumptions, not every claim in the following essay will be qualified in detail, nor accompanied by extensive evidence. Unlike a more traditional article, the aim is not to provide the final definitive answer, but to suggest a wider range of questions, and success should be measured not on the detail and comprehensiveness of the material 72

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reported, but by the extent to which it encourages a re-examination of fundamental aspects of tourism. Before examining the history of travel motivation research, it is important to clarify some key points. First, MacCannell (1976) does not claim that his description of the modern tourist applied to all types of travel. He describes tourists as middle-class sightseers travelling the world and looking for an experience (MacCannell, 1976: 1). Thus he did not include business travellers, people pursuing recreational hobbies or those travelling to meet family obligations. It is important to recognize these distinctions, as defining what we mean when we use the term tourist is an ongoing issue in the wider tourism literature (McCabe, 2005). For the purpose of this essay, a tourist is someone travelling for leisure/vacation/holiday purposes with a substantial degree of control over the destinations they visit and the activities they engage in. It does not include business travel, travel for obligatory family purposes or travel where the individual has not exercised significant direct control over the decisions about where and how to travel. Certainly this definition refers to a much narrower range of behaviours than is generally included in tourism research, but it does focus our attention on the behaviour that is most in need of explanation. Second, MacCannell (1976) did not deny the possibility that a wider range of other individual benefits could accrue from travel experiences, a point reiterated in his subsequent articles (cf. MacCannell, 2001). His prevailing argument was that ‘the act of sightseeing is a kind of involvement with social appearances that helps a person to construct totalities from his disparate experiences. Thus, his life and his society can appear to him as an orderly series’ (MacCannell, 1976: 16). The tourist is seeking to make sense of their life by developing a coherent, socially acceptable identity – tourists travel to find themselves.

Some Key Sociological Approaches to Tourist Motivation MacCannell’s (1976) thesis on the tourist motivation generated numerous critiques. The core challenges argued that tourists were much more heterogeneous than described by MacCannell, not all modern individuals are alienated from their society, and tourists may be driven by things other than the search for authenticity (McCabe, 2005). These critiques have generated a considerable literature on the nature of authenticity (cf. RicklyBoyd, 2012), a large number of tourist typologies (cf. McCabe, 2005; Uriely, 2009) and discussions about other motives, such as the desire to escape the ordinary and experience novelty and difference (Urry, 1990). In exploring this history of sociological approaches to tourist motivation, I would like to highlight two key articles, Cohen’s tourist typologies (1979), which were based on different motives for travel, and Dann’s (1981) review of tourist

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motivation, and two newer areas of interest – the links between consumption and self-identity and the New Mobilities Paradigm (NMP). Cohen’s (1979) five-fold tourist typology extended MacCannell’s work describing a range of different motivations for travel. The first type are recreational tourists seeking to restore their ‘general sense of well-being’ (Cohen, 1979: 183) through entertainment, with travel being one option among a range of recreational pursuits. Second, there are diversionary tourists seeking only to escape meaningless, mundane and routine lives, and lose themselves in travel. The third type is experiential tourists who most closely match MacCannell’s (1976) tourists, seeking to find meaning in other lives and lifestyles. The fourth are experimental tourists, also searching for meaning but who go further and actively try out the alternative lifestyles. There are similarities here with Lett’s (1983) work on ludic and liminoid states, where tourism is an opportunity to play at being someone else. The final group is the existential tourists who adopt an alternative society and identity, albeit temporarily because of constraints that prevent a permanent move. The article is important because it offers several different pathways through tourism that can be used to seek, and sometimes find, oneself. Dann’s (1981) critical review of tourist motivation research is important for four main reasons. First, it summarized a large body of tourist motivation research, and in particular described the different ways in which tourism and individual identity are linked. Second, Dann distinguished between motivation to travel, and other concepts such as destination image, aspirations, expectations and satisfaction, noting that many studies routinely confuse these concepts. The article also provided a detailed critique of relying solely on tourist descriptions of their motives. Finally, the article is important because it generated a response from Iso-Ahola (1982), which has been presented as commencing an important debate in the literature of tourist motivation between sociological and psychological perspectives (Harrill & Potts, 2002; Page, 2011). Iso-Ahola (1982) argued that Dann did not pay enough attention to psychological theory and offered instead a four–fold model of tourist motivation based on whether one was escaping or seeking something and whether this was personal or interpersonal. Interestingly this typology is not actually inconsistent with Dann’s (1981) presentation of travel motives, and Iso-Ahola (1982) does not really address the other aspects of Dann’s review and continues to avoid the issue of the larger social forces that make escaping desirable and tourism a viable option for seeking. Subsequent discussions of tourist motivation argued for a greater convergence of sociology and psychology in this area (Harrill & Potts, 2002), but there is little evidence of this until the emergence of research into travel consumption and self-identity, and the new mobilities paradigm. As a growing middle class has increasingly focused attention on consumption as an important life activity, it has become necessary to understand both the distinction between something we need and something we want and to develop

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explanations as to why these wants are so important. One concept that bridges both psychology and sociology is the importance of consumption as a way to develop and present one’s identity to others (Soron, 2010). Choices of destinations, travel style and travel activity are all forms of consumption that can act as markers for both social status and the presentation of selfidentity to others (Bond & Falk, 2012). The link between tourism and identity is also important in the New Mobilities Paradigm, which argues that movement and travel are fundamental constructs in contemporary life and are necessary to develop and maintain social networks that are in turn critical for individual identity (Cresswell, 2010; Sheller & Urry, 2006). While the work on this new mobilities paradigm is still dominated by sociologists and geographers, there is convergence with work in psychology on the importance of different forms of mobility in human development, self-identity, social relationships, work and well-being (Carr, 2010). This brief overview of sociological approaches to tourist motivation demonstrates the continued centrality of the argument that tourists travel primarily to discover themselves. While this search for the self can be through contact and contrast with distant or exotic others, through engagement in activities that act as markers to confirm social and cultural status, through escaping an undesirable self, or from establishing and maintaining important social networks, it is still primarily a search for the self.

Key Themes in, and Problems with, Psychological Approaches to Tourist Motivation Dann (1981) highlighted a number of problems with studies of tourist motivation prior to 1981, many of which still exist. The following section will briefly examine three of these problems and how they have limited our understanding of tourist motivation, including confusion around motives and related concepts, reliance on self-reports or attributions, and failure to keep up-to-date with relevant advances in psychology. This examination will focus on two key traditions in psychological approaches to tourist motivation – the list approach and research based on Maslow’s (1954) theory of human motivation. The list approach refers to studies that offer lists of what are variously called reasons or motives for travel, destination choice factors or expected benefits. Such lists typically confuse a number of different levels of analysis, combining what would be referred to as motives in sociology and psychology, with aspirations, expectations, decision criteria, destination perceptions and attitudes, and sometimes expressions of personality variables such as novelty seeking and extraversion. The confusion between motivation and personality is especially common. Plog’s (1974, 2001) often cited model is a

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classic example of this confusion. Plog’s proposed continuum was not about what drives people to travel, but about how they decide where to travel. He placed destinations along a continuum from exotic and dangerous to safe and familiar, and argued that people chose a destination to match their own desire for familiarity and comfort versus adventure and excitement. Essentially Plog (1974, 2001) used the personality dimension of extroversion– introversion to explain destination choice, and the work offers little in the way of explanation as to why people choose to travel anywhere at all. Results from the list approach tell us very little about why tourists actually travel, but rather provide descriptions of how tourists express aspects of their values, culture, personality and status through their travel choices. Typically these lists are derived from self-reports, which assume that people are consciously aware of all aspects of their motives and decisions. This assumption is incorrect. While people may be able to provide some insights into their choices and behaviours, there is a substantial literature in psychology describing the limits of conscious awareness of our decision and actions (Custers & Aarts, 2010) and widespread recognition that people’s explanations of their own and others’ behaviours are significantly influenced by social pressures (Sripada & Konrath, 2011). What these studies really tell us, are the reasons that tourists think they should give for their travel. The confusion over what a motive is and how it differs from an attitude, value or personality trait, and the almost total reliance on self-reports, are also problematic for the other key psychological approach to tourist motivation – models based on Maslow. Maslow’s (1954) theory of human motivation has been a major foundation for many studies of tourist motivation and continues to dominate research in this area (Hsu & Huang, 2008; Page, 2011). Maslow centred his theory on the concept of needs. He distinguished between two main sorts of needs – deficiency and growth needs. Deficiency needs were presented as drives that were essential for survival and typically pursued without conscious consideration or deliberate individual control (Maslow, 1954). Drives in psychology are defined as ‘internal states that arise in response to a disequilibrium in an animal’s physiological state’ (American Psychological Association, 2012). Growth needs were those things that matter to us beyond survival and are organized around developing different aspects of identity and self-esteem (Huitt, 2007). Once satisfied, deficiency needs cease to act as drivers for behaviour, while growth needs are the opposite, as they are paid attention they become more important (Macleod, 2012). This is an important distinction that has not been explicitly considered in tourism applications of Maslow. Tourism applications of Maslow all use the original 1954 pyramid (see Figure 3.1), which has three deficiency needs levels at the bottom and two growth needs levels at the top, and is based on the proposal that people must address their needs from the bottom of the pyramid, achieving some resolution at each level before moving to the next. In Maslow-based approaches to tourist motivation, travel behaviour is driven by a desire to achieve some

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Figure 3.1 Maslow’s pyramid: Original version (based on Macleod, 2012)

combination of the different categories of needs identified by Maslow. In Pearce’s (Pearce & Packer, 2012) travel career models, for example, tourists who describe their holiday as a desire to escape stress and enjoy good food and relaxation are seen as driven by physiological needs, while those who describe a visit to a familiar destination or one with a strong reputation for security are seen as driven by a need to be safe or secure. This use of Maslow proposes that tourists travel for a wide variety of reasons beyond the search for either self or others. The various tourism applications of Maslow’s theory are, however, flawed in three main ways: a failure to understand the nature of deficiency needs and the difference between deficiency and growth needs; a total reliance on the 1954 version to the exclusion of the subsequent much different and more sophisticated approaches that Maslow developed in the 34 years following the 1954 book; and the uncritical acceptance that travel works effectively to meet these needs. A fundamental misinterpretation of Maslow is the presentation of tourism as a serious option for fulfilling the immediate survival-focused components of the lower levels of the hierarchy. It is simply implausible to suggest that a person would solve the problem of being hungry and thirsty by deciding to book a package tour to a holiday resort. It may be possible to use Maslow to explain some of the detailed behaviour that individuals engage in while on a holiday, but it is not an explanation for choosing to travel rather than staying at home. Similarly, if an individual’s job is threatened then it is

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hard to imagine them seriously considering a cruise as a solution. There exist some possible exceptions to this conclusion. First, it may be argued that travel could be motivated by the need to relax and escape the pressures of work and home life, and this could be seen as a physiological need. This is said to be a core motivator for wellness tourism, although there is growing evidence that many of those who select labelled wellness tourism options may be more interested in luxury and social status than stress reduction, and many wellness tourists may also be seeking to find themselves through activities such as yoga and meditation (Moscardo, 2011). The second and more likely exception is that related to love and belongingness, where people may use travel to meet, maintain and enhance social and family relationships. While this is a deficiency need, it is less about immediate survival and so is a better fit with tourism as a solution and is consistent with the new mobilities paradigm referred to earlier. Bearing in mind these two exceptions, tourism, in the sense referred to by MacCannell (1976) and defined earlier, is likely to be a better match to Maslow’s growth needs, which are all about the discovery of self. A second problem with the way Maslow has been used in tourism is the apparent ignorance of his later work, which included several more levels with growth needs much more likely to be relevant to tourism (Maslow, 1971; Maslow & Lowery, 1998). The additional growth needs were cognitive, aesthetic and transcendence, all extensions of the fundamental argument that there are different stages in the development of a positive and healthy identity, and through that identity, wisdom. It is only in the final stage of transcendence that people cease the search for themselves and begin to seek to make a contribution to the world beyond themselves (Koltko-Rovera, 2006). Figure 3.2 provides a summary of these additional needs. Maslow also added the dimension of inner- versus outer-directed personalities into his theory. Maslow (1970) recognized this one personality trait as important in directing the way in which individuals sought to deal with their needs. Innerdirected individuals are more autonomous, less aware of and influenced by social cues and conformity pressures, and more interested in judging and acting according to their internal standards. Outer-directed people are the opposite, being much more aware of and influenced by social pressures and standards, and more likely to act and evaluate themselves using external standards. This dimension was applied to all levels of the expanded hierarchy to generate a much more complete set of motivations for behaviour that has not yet been applied to tourists. For example, in the self-esteem stage, an inner-directed person will focus on development of self-confidence and competence, while an outer-directed person will be more interested in social status and the respect of others. If we see this latter version of Maslow as a better fit to tourism, then it can be argued that, on the whole, tourists are motivated by a desire to find themselves. In all these psychological approaches to tourist motivation, there is also the problem of an uncritical acceptance that travel is actually an effective

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Figure 3.2 Maslow’s Pyramid: Adapted Version (based on Macleod, 2012)

way to meet human needs and no consideration is given to the question of why travel should be the preferred option for meeting these needs? One possible way to think about this question is to consider people who could but do not travel and how they meet these needs.

What can we learn from people who choose not to be tourists? Research into people who could but do not travel is very rare in tourism (Pennington-Gray & White, 2001). There is some research into the barriers that exist for people who want to travel but cannot travel (cf McKercher, 2009), but mostly studies of tourist motivation implicitly assume that people will travel if they can. Pennington-Gray and White’s Canadian (2001) study reported that non-travellers were likely to state that where they live was the best place to be and that everything they needed was in their community, suggesting that they simply do not see travel as meeting any needs. Interestingly, this study also found a group of people who reported that they did not actually like to travel but did so anyway, highlighting the considerable social pressure on people in western societies to be tourists. McKercher (2009) also found that most non-travellers did not want to travel and he queries whether or not the number of voluntary non-travellers is higher than usually estimated because people may feel that they have to justify their non-travel with socially acceptable excuses, such as lack of time or money. Moscardo’s (2009) qualitative analysis looked more closely at people who openly expressed a dislike for travel and found two groups. The first group simply did not see any value in being a tourist and were generally sceptical

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of its supposed value, making comments such as ‘there are always new things to experience and discover wherever you live’ and ‘stop relying on travel as your happiness crutch and get yourself a life at home’. These comments echo MacCannell’s (1976) view of tourists as alienated from their social groups. The second group included people who had travelled and found the experience so negative that they did not want to travel again. The very limited evidence available on voluntary non-travel reinforces two recurring themes in this review of travel motivation research – that there is strong social pressure in western societies to travel, and tourism is unlikely to be a very effective option for meeting basic human needs.

Conclusions This critical analysis of approaches to, and studies of, tourist motivation in the 37 years since MacCannell’s argument that tourists travel in search of self and in response to social conditions, finds that this basic proposal still holds true, although it could be argued that there are several different ways in which this search for the self can be conducted. These include:• • • • •

by searching for others in an attempt to find meaning that can be transferred to one’s own life or to reaffirm one’s own identity; by playing with, and trying out, different identities; by enhancing identity and status through socially desirable consumption; by establishing and maintaining the social networks that are critical to identity; or by developing a sense of self through learning, appreciation of beauty and mastery of skills.

The journey to this conclusion also raises some important further questions or concerns that tourism researchers need to address. First, the review of psychological approaches highlights the dangers of not keeping up-todate with advances in the discipline one is drawing from. More recent approaches to human motivation theory have integrated a number of different theories of motivation into single frameworks (Forbes, 2011; KoltkoRovera, 2006) and have focused on combining the social and the individual into more coherent theories of human behaviour (Bandura, 2006; Fiske, 2004; Oishi et al., 2009). Second, we need to test some of our basic assumptions and improve our methodologies. For example, we need to evaluate the effectiveness of tourism at meeting various needs. We need to ask, why tourism rather than other options? To answer these questions we need research that compares tourism to other options and that looks at understanding the profiles and circumstances of people who could but do not

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travel. We also need to recognize and measure motivation separately from personality, culture, values and destination images, and to find ways to operationalize, measure and model the broader social circumstances connected to travel decisions. Finally, there seems to be what might be called a ‘tourism as virtue’ bias underlying several approaches to travel motivation, particularly those in the psychological domain. If researchers assume that tourism is an effective way to meet basic human needs without ever actually testing this assumption, then they can present both the phenomenon and their research into it as serving some greater purpose (Moscardo, 2009). A more complete study of tourist motivation would require us to consider the costs as well as the benefits of tourism for tourists in more detail and with greater sophistication.

3.2

The Quest for the ‘Self’ or the ‘Other’ as Motivation for Travel: Simple Choice or Spoiled for Choice? Graham Dann

Introduction It is quite compatible with her multidisciplinary approach that Moscardo initially chooses three texts from outside her discipline as a framework for her discussion of tourist motivation. All three are sociological in nature, and all three derive from the 1970s and 1980s, i.e. the earliest period of tourism research. Their citation counts indicate that they are virtual classics in the field. Dean MacCannell’s (1976) The Tourist heads the rankings with a

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monumental citation count of 4418 (Google Scholar, 9 January 2013). That influential book, in turn, is followed by two articles that are considered important by Moscardo, namely those by Cohen (1979) and Dann (1981), with respective citation counts of 1190 and 734 (Google Scholar, 9 January 2013). While Dann’s citation count reaches a peak in his 1981 article (marginally greater than his initial 1977 ‘Anomie, ego-enhancement and tourism’ (citation count 712)), Cohen’s (1979) ‘A phenomenology of tourist experiences’ is outscored by his ‘Toward a sociology of international tourism’ (1972) (citation count 1358) and ‘Authenticity, commoditization and tourism’ (1988) (citation count 1225). So why does Moscardo rely so much on these frequently quoted seminal offerings? Her answer is not long in coming, since she firmly believes that many of the issues that they raise have not been adequately tackled by later works of others, notwithstanding the benefit of hindsight. She further maintains that even the voice of critique by a fellow psychologist (Iso-Ahola, 1982) apparently does not fully respond to the issues raised by Dann (1981) (a sociologist) and the terminological confusion between motivation, and such allied topics as aspiration, expectation, reason and satisfaction have still not been satisfactorily resolved by tourism researchers some 30 years or more after they were originally articulated. If there is a notable exception to the foregoing chaotic scenario, it is to be found in the excellent article by Jamal and Lee (2003) in which they make the crucial observation that, while Iso-Ahola and those of similar persuasion can contribute towards an understanding of tourist motivation at the individual personality level, they often fail to take into account the equally or more important macro-sociological dimension, which Dann and his supportive colleagues emphasize. Strangely, Moscardo omits this article by Jamal and Lee and does not make the same reinforcing distinction as before by stepping once more outside her own discipline. A similar significant omission is the key contribution of Ed Bruner (1991) to her topic. Here he convincingly argues that many, including the tourism industry itself, (incorrectly) believe that tourist becomes ‘a different person’ who is ‘changed forever’, while the visited natives are referred to as ‘prehistoric’, ‘primitive’, ‘untouched and unaffected by societal change’ (Bruner, 1991: 239). Moreover, it is this transformation of the touristic self that encourages participation in tourism via the language of brochures, advertising and travel writing, whose discourse attempts to become a motive for travel in encountering the timeless other. This is particularly the case when that other is a denizen of the Third World, such as Africa. However, to Bruner’s way of thinking, ‘despite the claims of touristic discourse, the very opposite occurs in experience, that the tourist self is changed very little by the tour, while the consequences of tourism for the native self are profound’ (Bruner, 1991: 242). In the light of this important contribution, maybe overlooking Bruner’s insights is something of a missed opportunity, since, apart from the relevant case he makes, which, had she known, might have

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persuaded Moscardo to reformulate her position, he would also have afforded her the possibility of including an anthropologist in her eclectic framework. Indeed, at the risk of repetition, multi-disciplinarity is patently and unashamedly one of the strengths of Moscardo’s probe, and by opening up the subject to an even more comprehensive social scientific analysis, this strength would arguably have been even greater. At the same time, both Moscardo and Jamal and Lee (2003) do not appear to have much time for the contemporary (passing?) fad of post-disciplinarity, corresponding perhaps to the post-modern post-tourist. Perhaps she can see it for what it is worth, namely a means for non-disciplines in tourism research to borrow theories and methods from genuine social scientific disciplines and then appropriate them for themselves. That is surely reality rather than conspiracy.

The Principle of Addo Tertium When persons are offered an ‘either/or’ choice, for the selection process to be valid the two alternatives must be comprehensive and mutually exclusive. Thus by opting for one, there is an automatic rejection of the other. Such is the choice offered by Moscardo when she gives her readers the opportunity to opt for either discovery of self or quest for the other in relation to the motivation for travel. What in fact she is saying, is that there are altogether four possibilities, of which she is prepared to entertain only two. (1) Travel is motivated by the search for the self, but not by the quest for the other (except perhaps in a mediative capacity). (2) Travel is motivated by the search for the self and by the quest for the other. (3) Travel is not motivated by the search for the self, but by the quest for the other. (4) Travel is not motivated by the search for the self or by the quest for the other. She then expresses her current preference for option number (1), although in the past, especially in her gap year days, she confesses to being persuaded by option (2). She does not offer a comprehensive explanation for rejecting (3) or (4) beyond asserting that tourism can be inspired by a whole array of motives. Neither does she elaborate on her assumption that the other refers exclusively to destination people. Arguably, however, the remaining binary option, this deceptively simple choice, constitutes an incomplete, and hence false dichotomy, since according to ‘the tourist as child’ perspective adopted by The Language of Tourism (Dann, 1996), the ‘other’, in addition to referring to members of the host society (‘the other as mother’), can also refer to fellow tourists (‘the other as brother’)

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(here, although no sexism is intended, in both cases the strangerhood of alterity is implied) (Dann, 1999). The reason for this state of affairs is that the other in the home society can include minorities based on differences in terms of race, gender, health, etc., some of whom are still persons who go on holiday and who may also be considered as the pre-vacation other, while the other in the destination society may simply exist as a series of responses to the demands of the tourist and never go away at all in order to encounter other others. The debater (now in the role of commentator), in pointing out the need for this further distinction on the grounds of the simple choice, models lack of exhaustiveness (the completeness of which indicates being spoilt for choice), applies the logician’s principle of addo tertium, I (wish to) add a third possibility. The same addo tertium can equally encompass situations where tourists are motivated by both, one or neither of the two alternatives. If this point is taken, we thus have in Table 3.1 the following expanded scenario comprising as many as eight possibilities. Thus, the principle of addo tertium ostensibly offers more of a choice than Moscardo is prepared to

Table 3.1 Variants in the search for self and the two-fold other

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Search for self

Quest for other as brother

Quest for other as mother

       

       

       

(1) Travel is motivated by search for the self, but not by the quest for the other as a fellow tourist or as a host (2) Travel is motivated by search for self and the quest for other as a fellow tourist, but not as a host (3) Travel is motivated by search for self and the quest for the other as a host, but not by the quest for the other as a fellow tourist (4) Travel is motivated by the search for the self and the other as a fellow tourist and a host (5) Travel is not motivated by the search for the self or by the other as a host, but by the quest for the other as a fellow tourist (6) Travel is not motivated by the search for the self or the other as a fellow tourist, but by the quest for the other as a host (7) Travel is not motivated by the search for the self, but by the quest for other as a fellow tourist and as a host (8) Travel is not motivated by search for the self or by the quest for the other as a fellow tourist or as a host.

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entertain. It also allows her the opportunity of justifying or rejecting the options that she has not included in her analysis.

I’ve Got a Little List (with Apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado (1932: 323–324) and to Ko-ko as Lord High Executioner of Titipu) At the methodological level, Moscardo is certainly correct in communicating her wariness of those researchers who base their empirical studies of tourist motivation on lists of questions that have been prepared in the offices of the ivory tower rather than in the field. In order to complete her case, however, she surely needs to argue in respective theoretical terms that the first approach is positivist, a priori and in the words of the researcher, while the second is constructivist, a posteriori and in the language of the respondent. The second situation is thus more likely to yield greater validity since it measures what it purports to measure, in this case the subjective justification for travel. This difference in practice can also affect the way that the data are gathered. Use of the a priori perspective tends to depend to a larger extent on questionnaires or fixed format interviews, while the a posteriori option is more reliant on free ranging stimuli (e.g. open-ended questionnaires, storytelling and projective tests such as evoked responses to pictorial imagery). Data-gathering techniques may also affect the way that the information is analysed – quantitative hypothesis testing for statistical significance in the case of a priori and qualitative grounded theory in the case of a posteriori.

Back to Basics? Having commented on some sociological sources for her probe, Moscardo finally returns to her own discipline and, more importantly, the well-known contribution of Maslow. Here she examines the crucial distinction between deficiency needs and growth needs, mainly because these are outlined in Maslow’s (1954) work on motivation and personality, the early version of which is adopted by most tourism researchers whether of a psychological or other disciplinary persuasion. However, Moscardo argues that, since greater explanatory power can be obtained from Maslow’s subsequent elaboration (Maslow, 1971; Maslow & Lowery, 1998), in which the top (growth) half of his pyramid is enhanced by the inclusion of cognitive, aesthetic and transcendent needs, as well as the distinction between inner and other directedness, it is strange that this later material has not been applied to the study of tourist motivation, at least by psychologists. Her point is well taken. Nevertheless, and if

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greater dialogue with sociologists is contemplated, it might have been more worthwhile for Moscardo to have included the observation that a needs approach in sociology (and anthropology) has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It is, after all, too reminiscent of the largely discredited theory of functionalism and its association with such grand theorists as Talcott Parsons. Partly in recognition of this observation, though for slightly different reasons, Moscardo justifiably reckons that Maslow tells us more about how people choose travel rather than why they do so. That of course is the critique that is often levelled at functionalism (description rather than causation). In rejecting that theory, however, another missed opportunity presented itself whereby an even earlier sociological contribution from Veblen (1899) could have been discussed, since it is precisely his insights on conspicuous consumption that are so relevant to the social aspects of tourist motivation. True, Moscardo did introduce the important contemporary topic of consumption, along with that of mobilities, but she nevertheless overlooked the necessary link to the association between tourist motivation and ego-enhancement (Dann, 1977). She thus appears to oscillate between tradition and change, travelling in between classics of the past and new ideas of the present, but that can represent a position of strength as long as her original classical sources are not neglected.

We Are All Middle Class Here: Reductio ad Absurdum? In critiquing MacCannell and Maslow, Moscardo observes that their incomplete insights into tourist motivation are not just based on selective choices of such themes as alienation, authenticity and self-actualization, accompanied by their partial explanations, but that a number of different types of tourism and tourists have been largely ignored. If a generation of mainly upper middle class, White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants is principally the target of motivational investigation by an investigator of similar profile, then surely the largest segments and devotees of tourism have been decidedly abandoned, namely domestic tourism and so-called mass tourism, along with their adherents. Although she does not make such a point in these terms, Moscardo certainly tries to tackle it by inverting the question into: ‘why do some people never travel?’ This rhetorical device affords her the opportunity for introducing McKercher (2009) and his study of a topic that has become increasingly rare since its initial articulation by Haukeland (1990). It also allows her to reach a conclusion via deviant case analysis. For this and the other possibilities offered by Gianna Moscardo in this chapter, we should be grateful. Together with their evoked responses they contribute to a deepened understanding of choice in tourist motivation.

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3.3

Tourism: The Quest for the Selfish Bob McKercher

Sometimes we academics make life more complicated than it need be. Perhaps it is our nature, where creative people with inquiring minds seek deep understanding. Sheaffer (2008) has written about the fallacy of misplaced rationalism, where researchers tend to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort studying phenomena without first determining whether the phenomenon actually exists in the first place. Other times, we explore legitimately complex issues while, ironically, failing to identify a rather simple core feature that lies at the heart of that complexity. And, because we ignore the simple, we also miss out on some profound observations that can open doors to innovative research areas. Such is the case with understanding why we travel. A great deal of work has been published identifying motives that drive tourism and the deeper socio-psychological reasons why people travel. Yet, we sometimes ignore the obvious. Tourism is one of, if not the most self-indulgent expressions of human behaviour. Tourists are fundamentally selfish individuals, who are permitted a great deal of social and moral latitude by simply invoking the phrase, ‘I am a tourist, therefore, I can do what I want’ (McKercher et al., 2008). Thus, rather than the quest for self, I contend that tourism can often be portrayed as a quest for the selfish. This statement is not made to be pejorative, but instead is an expression of informed opinion. Wheeller (2004: 471) adopts a rather cynical approach when he notes if ‘tourism is the world’s largest industry, then we should remember it is a world driven largely by avarice, greed and self interest’. This article posits a less-derisive point of view and suggests instead that selfishness is not necessarily a negative value-laden term. Instead, it represents a powerful motive, for if we did not receive personal selfish benefits from travelling, we would not participate. Once upon a time, tourism was considered as a discretionary activity, pursued only if enough money and time were available after life’s necessities were taken care of. Relatively few people travelled, and if they did, it was

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often as a once yearly family vacation usually taken to a nearby, domestic destination. Multiple trips, long-haul tourism and air travel were rare. Today, travel has become the norm, and for most people it is an integral part of their lifestyles. Economic development, especially in Asia, coupled with the growth of low-cost carriers and moves towards open skies, have resulted in unprecedented growth of international travel. Tourism has now evolved into an expected and accepted part of the everyday. Few people stop travelling when times get tough and instead, modify their travel behaviours by taking shorter duration trips or traveling shorter distances. The expectation of tourism as the norm is so ubiquitous that the concept of a ‘staycation’ became a newsworthy item during the 2008 financial crisis, when a small number of people chose not to travel. Whereas once, non-travel was the norm, today it is so unusual that it makes headlines. Indeed, the expectation of travel is so strong that some people must resort to offering socially acceptable excuses relating to work and/or family commitments to mask their lack of interest in this activity (McKercher, 2009). Tourism has been recognized as an expression of selfish behaviour since at least the early 1960s, when Matza and Sykes (1961) raised the prospect that minor deviant behaviour was more likely to occur during holidays where so called subterranean values might emerge. Buzzell (2005: 30) added later, holidays ‘include behaviours that are by design out of the ordinary, expressions of misrule rather than rule. These occasions are moments when the dynamics of social control are altered, shifting from normative to acceptable non-normative acts’. Much of this self-indulgence has been attributed to the liminal nature of tourism as an activity that occurs out of normal social and physical space and time, thus allowing the individual to set aside temporarily conventional standards of conduct that would normally be repressed at home (Selanniemi, 2003). Jafari (1987: 152) writes ‘as immersion into touristhood deepens, the tourist further internalizes the idea that he is no longer imprisoned by his former self but is transformed into a new person with a new identity (the tourist), that he is playing on a new stage (the magnet), and that he is living up to the rhythm of a new culture (the tourist culture)’. Entry into touristhood frees the individual and lets the person embrace an alternative set of norms and behaviours associated with being a tourist, and in doing so enables the tourist to behave without fear of external social sanctions (Curtin, 2005). Indeed, the act of ‘being a tourist’ imbues both a sense of freedom – freedom from the drudgery of everyday life and freedom to engage in novel or forbidden behaviours (Urry, 1990, as cited in Caruana & Crane, 2011), and sanctions abrogation of personal responsibility for one’s own behaviour (McKercher et al., 2008). Research into spring break behaviours (Herold et al., 1998; Josiam et al., 1998) supports these ideas, where the perceived temporary abandonment of social norms, coupled with the freedom from potential sanctions, is used to justify a range of behaviours from excessive alcohol

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consumption to unsafe sex. McKercher et al. (2008) determined that the excuse of ‘I am a tourist’ was the most common rationalization offered for climbing Uluru, in Central Australia, even though the local indigenous community requested people not to climb. In fact, the sense of entitlement is so strong that Uriely et al. (2011) comment that deviant behaviour while on holiday is given certain legitimacy. Tourism not only sanctions, but encourages people to act in a self-serving manner. If tourism is the ultimate expression of personal freedom as Caruana and Crane (2011) assert, then tourists must travel to have selfish needs met and are encouraged to participate in activities that will satisfy those needs. It is important to appreciate that selfishness is constructed, packaged and promoted in different ways to invite tourists to achieve a variety of outcomes (Caruana & Crane, 2011). In addition, such a statement cannot be read as being absolute, for depending on how self-centred the individual is, the degree of selfishness in tourism can vary significantly. Bimonte and Faralla (2012) write about differences in values between self-oriented or othersoriented individuals. Self-oriented individuals participate in activities primarily to satisfy their own needs, while others-oriented gain satisfaction from the feeling that participation has had a positive impact on others. Selfishness is much easier to identify among self-oriented individuals, where, for example, hedonism has long been a feature of tourism (Caruana & Crane, 2011). However, selfishness is unlikely to be totally absent among others-oriented individuals, whose actions appear to be less self-serving. Instead, it is often masked. Coghlan and Fennell (2009) remind us that altruism may reflect highly egoistical behaviour because of the expectation of return favours down the road. Fennell (2006), in his excellent book on tourism ethics, suggests that selfishness may be as important or more important than altruism for participation in volunteer tourism. Others suggests a high degree of selfishness, self-serving behaviour and a sense of false altruism, where ostensibly unselfish or philanthropic motives mask more fundamental selfish motives associated with feelings of superiority to other tourists (Campbell & Smith, 2006; Halpenny & Caissie, 2003). Research by Campbell and Smith (2006), on sea turtles for example, found respondents expressed attitudes of feeling superior to and separate from other tourists because they were actively involved in doing science, rather than observing nature. Selfishness is also reflected through the declaration of either being apart from the common, or of being a part of some unique group. The desire to distinguish oneself from other tourists is almost as old as tourism itself, with McCabe (2004, as cited in McCabe, 2005) arguing that there is a tendency to construct one’s own experiences in relation to contrasting with or in distinction from those of others. Nowhere is this more evident than in the artificial distinction between tourists and travellers (Leiper, 2004), when in reality, the only difference is that the tourist represents others, while the traveller represents the individual. An interesting study of German tourists

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conducted by Prebensen et al. (2011) found that almost 90% of respondents viewed themselves as being non-typical tourists yet, no differences were observed between the activities pursued by these two groups. The authors concluded that this desire to set oneself apart reflects the self-serving bias that is well established in psychological research. Similar situations exist in relation to so-called anti-tourists (McCabe, 2005) and responsible tourists (Caruana & Crane, 2011) who exist in opposition to the perceived shallowness and superficiality of the mass tourist. The same situation has been observed in some backpackers who adopt the moral high ground when comparing their experience to those of conventional tourists (Scheyvens, 2002). Indeed, Scheyvens (2002) argues that many backpackers engage in a selfcentred form of poverty tourism by travelling around the world through well-established backpacker ghettos. Alternately, tourists who wish to position themselves as being members of groups that set them aside from other tourists display a variety of signs, signals and signifiers to demonstrate their group membership. Curtin (2010) illustrates how serious wildlife tourists have a culture and identity of their own, replete with certain unwritten rules and codes relating to dress, behaviour and equipment. Lamont et al. (2012), building on the concept of serious leisure, write about the notions of addiction, obsession and selfishness in triathletes, and even went on to say that these individuals would accept trade-offs of reduced leisure time with family and friends, and strained spousal relationships to pursue their activity. These behaviours reflect the unconscious needs of some tourists for achievement and affiliation (Tran & Ralston, 2006). Selfishness can be expressed in a wide variety of ways. If, as Tran and Ralston (2006) suggest, tourist preferences reflect the act of selecting from among a set of choices influenced by one’s motives and, if selfishness is the underlying driver that influences motives, then behaviour can be linked to selfishness. The genesis of this thesis can be traced to Chon’s (1992) work on self-image and destination image congruity. He was the first to demonstrate the relationship between tourist–self-concept and satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the destination area. Tourists who saw a low discrepancy between the destination’s image and their own actual or ideal self-image were most satisfied with that destination. A number of studies have subsequently confirmed this proposition, with Murphy et al. (2007) asserting where the association with a destination’s brand personality and one’s own self-image is consistent with the desired experience. Phillips and Back (2011) build on this idea further in their study of conspicuous consumption. They conclude that people who visit luxury or prestigious destinations do so in part to show their economic success, present a prestigious self-image to others and enhance their own position in society. They will be more satisfied with their visits if they have the opportunity to share their experience with their friends and acquaintances before or after the visit.

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Others have also related perceived style of holiday with the pursuit of selfish goals. Participation in adventure tourism is driven both to explore the outer and inner world; cultural tourists want to broaden their own participation in and knowledge of the arts; while ecotourists have a high preference for appreciating and understanding the environment and natural history (Tran & Ralston, 2006). Perfetto and Dholakia (2010) offer less glowing comments on medical tourists, suggesting they participate in these activities largely for self-serving interests. Why do we travel? This issue has been explored for almost 40 years in the academic literature. The consensus seems to be that we travel because we feel ‘pushed’ to do so and that we are ‘pulled’ to destinations that satisfy our needs. It is human nature to cherish our freedom from these obligations and, instead, to pursue more selfish activities for the personal benefits they provide. We do not have to travel, but we choose to do so because it represents an escape, liberation or freedom from these obligations (Caruana & Crane, 2011). We would not travel if it did not meet these needs, and instead would choose other activities. We would not choose destinations or activities if they did not hold the promise of providing desired personal benefits. The bottom line is that we travel to have our own selfish needs, wants and desires met: in other words, for selfish reasons, or at least for self-interest reasons. Selfishness in this sense does not necessarily have a negative or pejorative connotation, especially if it is placed within the context of pursuing self-interests. Perhaps, though, this assertion is not that surprising given that the boundary between the holiday self and the actual self is blurred (Curtin, 2010). It can be argued that we pursue everything for selfish or selfinterest reasons. Thus, some people may ostensibly travel on a quest for the discovery of self or on a search for the other. But, ultimately, these quests fall under the umbrella of selfish motives.

Concluding Remarks Why does tourism exist? This is the underlying question considered in this chapter. This debate about why tourists travel is an important one because assumptions about when and how people choose to be a tourist are central to our definitions of the phenomenon and are foundations for many of the frameworks that seek to understand where tourists go, what they do and how we might influence and change these patterns. It could be proposed that it is not just a key question, it is the key question, for tourism research. While the three contributions offer very different perspectives on what the answer might be to that question, more importantly, they raise a number of issues in past and current

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attempts to answer this question, highlighting theoretical, logical and methodological challenges across a range of different studies. There is agreement that much of the research that has been done has focused on how tourists travel rather than why, on the expressions of individual travel rather on the fundamental reasons for its existence. In attempting to return the focus on the why, rather than the how, of travel, the debate highlights two critical challenges. First, the debate provides evidence of both the benefits and costs of addressing the question from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Both Dann and Moscardo agree that there is a need to attack the problem from a range of different disciplinary approaches, but that it is necessary to do this carefully. The researcher that crosses disciplinary borders needs to be prepared with some understanding of the language and traditions of the different disciplines and be prepared to both accept a wider range of methodological approaches and to critically reflect on the assumptions of their own disciplines. More importantly in tourism, we need to develop more care and respect when we borrow from disciplines. Moscardo highlights the limited and inappropriate uses of Maslow’s work from psychology in developing frameworks to understand tourist motivation. Dann, in turn, highlights some of the deficiencies of Moscardo’s review of the sociological literature and her unquestioned psychological assumptions. Despite this divergence, both argue that a lack of care in this area has resulted in a situation where much of the research evidence tells us mostly about why people think they should travel rather than why they actually travel. This focus on the social pressures and representations of tourism is an important one and connects to the second key theme. Many researchers have failed to understand this distinction between why an individual tourist travels and the socially acceptable and desirable reasons that they offer for their travel. We have tended to accept at face value that tourists can and will tell us about their motivations and we have rarely critically reflected on our own reasons for studying tourism at all or for studying it in the ways that we do. McKercher’s review and discussion describes many different ways in which tourists are selfish and ego-oriented, yet much of the work on tourist motivation downplays or ignores the role of these more negative motives for travel. The area has also ignored the existence, extent and nature of voluntary nontourism. If, as McKercher argues, tourists travel simply to meet their needs and that tourism must meet these needs or tourists would not travel, then voluntary non-tourists either have different needs or have found different ways to meet these needs. We need to know more about which of these options is more likely.

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In conclusion, regardless of the answer each of these scholars has suggested to the debate question, they each recognize the importance of the interplay between individual identity and the social conditions that have made tourism consumption such an acceptable and desirable option for being selfish. As the world begins to increasingly question our capacity to survive, if we all choose to be selfish it may be that tourism becomes a socially unacceptable behaviour. If tourism researchers do not begin to more critically and carefully analyse the question of why tourists travel, they run the risk of being seen as irrelevant in world where tourism has become a bad habit.

Discussion Questions (1) What are the factors that distinguish between people who can but do not travel for leisure and those who do travel for leisure? (2) What are the attributions that people make about others within their social groups who can but do not travel for holidays or leisure? (3) How closely do people’s explanations of their travel motives match their perceptions of what are socially desirable travel motives? (4) What motives do people ascribe to tourists, based on knowing the decisions that the tourists make? (5) To what extent is travel able to be substituted by other activities to achieve stated motives?

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Carr, S.C. (2010). Introduction: The psychology of global mobility. In S.C. Carr (ed.) The Psychology of Global Mobility (pp. 1–19). New York: Springer. Caruana, R. and Crane, A. (2011). Getting away from it all: Exploring freedom in tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 38(4): 1495–1515. Chon, K. (1992). Self image/destination image congruity. Annals of Tourism Research 19(2): 360–363. Coghlan, A. and Fennell, D. (2009). Myth or substance: An examination of altruism as the basis of volunteer tourism. Annals of Leisure Research 12(3–4): 377–402. Cohen, E. (1972). Toward a sociology of international tourism. Social Research 39: 164–182. Cohen, E. (1979). A phenomenology of tourist experiences. Sociology 13: 179–201. Cohen, E. (1988). Authenticity, commoditization and tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 15: 371–386. Cresswell, T. (2010). Mobilities I: Catching up. Progress in Human Geography 35(4): 550–558. Curtin, S. (2005). Nature, wild animals and tourism: An experiential view. Journal of Ecotourism 4(1): 1–15. Curtin, S. (2010). The self-presentation and self-development of serious wildlife tourists. International Journal of Tourism Research 12(1): 17–33. Custers, R. and Aarts, H. (2010). The unconscious will: How the pursuit of goals operates outside conscious awareness. Science 329: 47–50. Dann, G. (1977). Anomie, ego-enhancement and tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 4: 184–194. Dann, G. (1981). Tourist motivation: An appraisal. Annals of Tourism Research 8(2): 187–219. Dann, G. (1996). The Language of Tourism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Wallingford: CAB International. Dann, G. (1999). “Den Andre” i Turismens Språk [“The Other” in the Language of Tourism]. In J. Jacobsen and A.Viken (eds) Turisme. Stedet i en Bevegelig Verden [Tourism: Place in a Moving World] (pp. 96–108). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Fennell, D. (2006). Tourism Ethics. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Fiske, S.T. (2004). Social beings: A core motives approach to social psychology. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons. Forbes, D.L. (2011). Toward a unified model of human motivation. Review of General Psychology 15(2): 85–98. Gilbert, W. and Sullivan, A. (1932). The Savoy Operas. London: MacMillan. Google Scholar (2013). www.google.com/scholar. Accessed 9 January 2013. Halpenny, E.A. and Caissie, L.T. (2003). Volunteering on nature conservation projects: Volunteer experiences. Tourism Recreation Research 28(3): 25–33. Harrill, R.S. and Potts, T.D. (2002). Social psychological theories of tourist motivation: Exploration, debate, and transition. Tourism Analysis 7: 105–114. Haukeland, J. (1990). Non-travelers: The flip side of motivation. Annals of Tourism Research 17(2): 172–184. Herold, E., Maticka-Tyndale, E. and Mewhinney, D. (1998). Casual sex on spring break: Intentions and behaviours of Canadian students. The Journal of Sex Research 35: 254–264. Hsu, C.H.C. and Huang, S. (2008). Travel motivation: A critical review of the concept’s development. In A.G. Woodside and D. Martin (eds) Tourism Management: Analysis, Behavior and Strategy (pp. 14–27). Wallingford: CABI.

Do Tour ist s Travel for the Discover y of ‘Self ’ or to Search for the ‘Other ’ ?

Huitt, W. (2007). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, educational psychology interactive. Online at: http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cponation/maslow.html. Accessed 22 December 2012. Iso-Ahola, S. (1982). Toward a social psychological theory of tourism motivation: A rejoinder. Annals of Tourism Research 9(2): 256–262. Jafari, J. (1987). Tourism models: The sociocultural aspects. Tourism Management 8(2): 151–159. Jamal, T. and Lee, J. (2003). Integrating macro and micro approaches to tourist motivations: Toward an interdisciplinary theory. Tourism Analysis 8(1): 47–59. Josiam, B., Hobson, P., Dietrich, U. and Smeaton, G. (1998). An analysis of the sexual, alcohol and drug related behavioural patterns of students on spring break. Tourism Management 19: 501–513. Koltko-Rivera, M.E. (2006). Rediscovering the later version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Self-transcendence and opportunities for theory, research and unification. Review of General Psychology 10(4): 302–317. Lamont, M., Kennelly, M. and Wilson, E. (2012). Competing priorities as constraints in event travel careers. Tourism Management 33: 1068–1079. Leiper, N. (2004). Tourism Management (3rd edn) Frenchs Forest, Australia: Pearson Education. Lett, J.W. (1983). Ludic and liminoid aspects of charter yacht tourism in the Caribbean. Annals of Tourism Research 10: 35–56. MacCannell, D. (1976). The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Schocken Books. MacCannell, D. (2001). Tourist agency. Tourist Studies 1(1): 23–37. Macleod, S. (2012). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Simply Psychology. Online at: http:// www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html. Accessed on 20 December 2012. Maslow, A.H. (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper. Maslow, A.H. (1970). Motivation and Personality (2nd edn). New York: Harper & Row. Maslow, A.H. (1971). The Further Reaches of Human Nature. New York: Viking Press. Maslow, A.H. and Lowery, R. (1998). Toward a Psychology of Being (3rd edn). New York: Wiley. Matza, D. and Sykes, G. (1961). Juvenile delinquency and subterranean values. American Sociological Review 26: 712–719. McCabe, S. (2005). ‘Who is a tourist?’ A critical review. Tourist Studies 5(1): 85–106. McKercher, B. (2009). Non-travel by Hong Kong residents. International Journal of Tourism Research 11(6): 507–519. McKercher, B., Du Cros, H. and Weber, K. (2008). Rationalizing inappropriate behavior. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 16(4): 369–385. Moscardo, G. (2009). Tourism and quality of life: Towards a more critical approach. Tourism and Hospitality Research 9(2): 159–171. Moscardo, G. (2011). Searching for well-being: Exploring change in tourist motivation. Tourism Recreation Research 36(1): 15–26. Murphy, L., Benckendorff, P. and Moscardo, G. (2007). Linking travel motivation, tourist self-image and destination brand personality. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 22(2): 45–59. Oishi, S., Kesebir, S. and Snyder, B. (2009). Sociology: A lost connection in social psychology. Personality and Social Psychology Review 13(4): 334–353. Page, S. (2011). Tourism Management (4th edn). London: Elsevier. Pearce, P.L. and Packer, J. (2012). Minds on the move: New links from psychology to tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 40: 386–411.

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Pennington-Gray, L. and White, E. (2001). The leisure behavior paradox. Journal of Teaching in Travel and Tourism 1(4): 77–87. Perfetto, R. and Dholakia, N. (2010). Exploring cultural contradictions of medical tourism. Consumption Markets and Culture 13(4): 399–417. Phillips, W. and Back, K. (2011). Conspicuous consumption applied to tourism destinations. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 28: 583–597. Plog, S.C. (1974). Why destinations rise and fall in popularity. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 14(4): 55–58. Plog, S.C. (2001). Why destinations rise and fall in popularity: An update of a cornell quarterly classic. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 42(3): 13–24. Prebensen, N., Larsen, S. and Abelsen, V. (2011). I’m not a typical tourist: German tourists’ self-perception, activities, and motivations. Journal of Travel Research 41(4): 416–420. Rickly-Boyd, J.M. (2012). Authenticity and aura: A Benjaminian approach to tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 39(1): 269–289. Scheyvens, R. (2002). Backpacker tourism and Third World development. Annals of Tourism Research 29(1): 144–164. Selanniemi, T. (2003). On holiday in the Liminoid playground: Place, time and self in tourism. In T. Bauer and B. McKercher (eds) Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love and Lust (pp. 19–34). Binghamton: Haworth Press. Sheaffer, R. (2008). The fallacy of misplaced rationalism. Skeptical Inquirer 32(4): 23–24, 47. Sheller, M. and Urry, J. (2006). The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A 38: 207–226. Soron, D. (2010). Sustainability, self-identity and the sociology of consumption. Sustainable Development 18(3): 172–181. Sripada, C.S. and Konrath, S. (2011). Telling more than we can know about action. Mind and Language 26(3): 353–380. Tran, X. and Ralston, L. (2006). Tourist preferences: Influence of unconscious needs. Annals of Tourism Research 33(2): 424–441. Urielly, N., Ram, Y. and Malach-Pines, A. (2011). Psychoanalytic sociology of deviant tourist behavior. Annals of Tourism Research 38(3): 1051–1069. Uriely, N. (2009). Deconstructing tourist typologies: The case of backpacking. International Journal of Culture, Tourism & Hospitality 3(4): 306–312. Urry, J. (1990). The Tourist Gaze. London: SAGE Publications. Veblen, T. (1899). The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Macmillan. Wheeller, B. (2004). The truth? The hole truth. Everything but the truth. Tourism and knowledge: A septic sceptic’s perspective. Current Issues in Tourism 7(6): 467–477.

Further Reading Cresswell, T. (2010). Mobilities I: Catching up. Progress in Human Geography 35(4): 550–558. Maccannell, D. (1976). The Tourist. New York: Schocken. Macleod, S. (2014). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Online at: http://www.simply psychology.org/maslow.html. Accessed 15 May 2014. McCabe, S. (2005). ‘Who is a tourist?’ A critical review. Tourist Studies 5(1): 85–106. Moscardo, G. (2009). Tourism and quality of life: Towards a more critical approach. Tourism and Hospitality Research 9(2): 159–171.

Chapter 4

Is Volunteerism a New Avatar of Travelism? Stephen L. Wearing, Simone Grabowski and Jennie Small, Kevin D. Lyons, Daniel Guttentag and Alexandra Coghlan

Context Each year, over a billion people around the world leave their homes for varying periods of time to experience the transience, movement and, perhaps, excitement of ‘being away’, of ‘being there’. Tourism has expanded in recent years in both its scope and significance to become a major social, cultural and economic phenomenon. And yet at the heart of this expansion remain intriguing questions about the cultures of meaning, mobilities and engagement that frame and define the tourist experience and the traveller identity. This investigation of volunteer tourism as travelism offers further insights on this area and the need to understand the subjective realities that are the experiences (imagined or otherwise) of the traveller–tourist – to delve into what it is that ‘they’ are looking for when they travel: places, cultures and lifestyles of the ecological or exotic ‘other’, altruism, personal development, community development or global citizenship. Indeed, the nuances of what being a ‘tourist’ is and its differences from being a ‘traveller’ continue to be explored in both the academic literature and popular imagination. 97

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Volunteer Tourism: Return of the Traveller Stephen L. Wearing, Simone Grabowski and Jennie Small

Introduction The growth of tourism since the mid-20th century is considerable; from a mere 25 million people travelling in 1950 to over one billion international arrivals in 2013. In 2014 and beyond, international tourism is forecasted to grow at a rate of 4%–4.5% (UNWTO, 2014). Over the centuries, young people have comprised a large percentage of those travelling for pleasure. In Australia, today, young people (aged 15–29) account for 26% of international arrivals (Tourism Australia, 2013). As a group, young people have been at the forefront of travel for cross-cultural understanding, with the motivation for travel more likely to be personal development and social interaction than relaxation (Pastor, 1991 cited in Murphy & Moscardo, 1996). In this chapter we discuss the evolution of youth tourism. We propose that one form of travel, volunteer tourism, has become to the youth of today, a cultural and self-defining experience much as ‘Grand Tour’ and ‘backpacker’ travel were for previous generations of travellers.

Travelism In the 17th, 18th and part of the 19th centuries, youth leisure travel was performed in the Grand Tour of Europe for the purpose of education and selfdevelopment by the affluent youth. Through this tour, travel was intended to increase one’s worldliness and sophistication and ‘to confer the traveller with full membership into the aristocratic power structure’ (Weaver & Lawton, 2010: 52). Towards the end of this period, participation in the Grand Tour had shifted from the aristocracy to the more affluent middle classes. This next 98

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generation of young people cared less about worldliness and sophistication and more about sightseeing (Weaver & Lawton, 2010), yet the main premise of the tour remained the same; that cultural education assisted in the development of the youth traveller. Compulsory travel while learning a trade (tramping) also offered an opportunity for education, sightseeing and adventure (Adler, 1985). Originally, these travellers were not the affluent and privileged, however, in the 19th century, the middle class adopted ‘tramping’ as a form of tourism. By the early part of the 20th century, with the decline of craft associations, working class youth who were tramping began to be seen as a social problem, associated with vagrancy and delinquency (Adler, 1985). As in the Grand Tour, the participants were male. As Richter (1994: 147) said of the Grand Tour, ‘It augmented a man’s prestige but it diminished a woman’s reputation’. Cohen (1972), in his typology of tourists, referred to ‘drifter’ tourism as youth tourism. The drifter was often a student or graduate from a middle-class background travelling on a budget. Cohen (1972) depicted the drifter (along with ‘the explorer’) as a tourist role that was ‘non-institutionalized’. Ateljevic and Hannam (2008: 249) refer to this style of travel as an articulation of ‘a quasipolitical statement against the growing political dominance and cultural homogeneity of the Western developed world’. They explain that while the drifter was associated with images of a drug culture and anarchic values, there was also the image of a traveller seeking ‘meaningful; cultural existence’ (Ateljevic & Hannam, 2008: 249). The mobility of travelling assisted in the loosening of ties with the home society. Nonetheless, this youth traveller was often negatively perceived as hedonistic; a ‘dropout’ (O’Reilly, 2005) by moral critics in mainstream society. Vogt (1976) redefined independent youth (mostly middle-class students on a break from study) who were travelling for education and personal growth as ‘wanderers’. According to Cohen (2010: 74), this relabelling was an attempt to ‘defuse the hedonistic connotations of the drifter’. More recently, Riley (1988) recognized that demographics of independent youth travellers had changed to include older travellers and non-students. She used the term ‘long term budget travellers’ to describe middle-class single tourists on the road who were travelling for at least 1 year, seeking self-development. They were not associated with the counter-culture of the drifter. By the 1990s, the budget traveller, on an extended holiday who had an independent and flexible travel schedule and was interested in meeting other travellers and locals and who favoured informal participatory activities, was referred to as the ‘backpacker’ (Loker-Murphy & Pearce, 1995). The backpacker was considered to be an alternative to mass tourism and the contemporary version of Cohen’s (1972) ‘drifter’. As Cohen (2004: 44) later said, ‘If the model for the drifter was the tramp, the drifter is the model for the backpacker’. Like the drifter, the backpacker was seen as mobile, searching for independence and freedom, self-development and cultural connection to

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the host population. As with other earlier youth travellers, travel was a rite of passage. Although more structured than drifter travel, backpacking was still considered an alternative to mass tourism. However, it is questionable whether backpacking ever fitted Cohen’s drifter travel as ‘counter-culture’ (Cohen, 2004). In reality, the backpacker of the 1990s probably grew out of the large group of youth travellers (ignored in the literature) who in the 1960s and 1970s, travelled with a knapsack/rucksack on extended budget holidays (even along the ‘hippy trail’) who were not considered mainstream, but neither were they making a political statement. As with youth travellers then, the backpacker market, even at the end of the last century, was not altogether homogeneous. In Australia, while the largest segment of the market were considered ‘self-developers’, others were identified as ‘social/excitement seekers’, ‘escapers/relaxers’ and ‘achievers’ (Loker-Murphy, 1996). Indeed, Bolin (2001) highlights how backpacking changed in Australia even in a short period, from 1995/96 to 1999. The development of tourism infrastructure for this market, such as transport, tours and accommodation, and the associated promotion and selective distribution strategies have led to the question of whether backpacking can still be considered alternative tourism. Spreitzhofer (1998), in studying backpacking tourism in South-East Asia, came to the conclusion that backpacking tourism in the region was not ‘alternative’ tourism. Backpacking tourism is ‘still no more than a variant of mass tourism on a low-budget level’ (Spreitzhofer, 1998: 981). Indeed, the influence on Third World societies of backpacking tourism ‘proves to be often more lasting and shaping than organized, spatially selective package tourism’ (Spreitzhofer, 1998: 981). The changing profile of backpackers is seen in the changing demographics (age and nationality) and motivations of the group, assisted by increasing institutionalization of backpacking, with managers ‘dropping down’ from the corporate world to develop tourism product (Welk, 2010: 169). In the development of facilities for backpackers, the work of travel has been made easier. Backpackers no longer require the ‘competence, resourcefulness, endurance and fortitude as well as an ability to plan one’s moves even if they are subject to alteration’ (Cohen, 2004: 45) that was required of Cohen’s drifter. Developments in communication and technology blur the boundaries between home and away (Paris, 2010, 2012) and, in allowing the backpacker to stay in contact with family and friends (and all that is familiar), take much of the risk and adventure out of today’s youth travel. The ‘flashpacker’ represents some of these changes, embodying both the backpacker and ‘digital nomad’ cultures (Paris, 2012). At the same time, there is a segment of backpackers who are more closely aligned to the earlier youth travellers and who distinguish themselves from the young party backpacker (Cohen, 2010). Uriely et al.’s (2002) research identified the heterogeneity of contemporary backpacking in motivations and attitudes. Despite the heterogeneity and fluidity of the phenomenon, Sørensen (2003: 848) claims these

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individuals connect to a shared frame of reference whether this is a matter of identity, philosophy, sense of belonging, or sentiments of shared values, and their interaction produces meaning, which influences other elements of the social being. It is clear that youth have been ‘on the road’ for many centuries and, although names and contexts have changed, they have to date presumed the lofty ideal of ‘travellers’ as opposed to ‘tourists’ (Boorstin, 1964). Chard (1999: 11) refers to the distinction between the two that appeared in travel writing towards the end of the period of the Grand Tour (around 1830). The first sees travel as ‘a form of personal adventure, holding out the promise of a discovery or realization of the self through the exploration of the other . . . travel entails crossing symbolic as well as geographical boundaries, and these transgressions of limits invite various forms of danger and destabilization’. The second approach identifies the ‘tourist’. It ‘recognizes that travel might constitute a form of personal adventure, and might entail danger and destabilization, but, as a result of this recognition, attempts to keep the more dangerous and destabilizing aspects of the encounter with the foreign at bay’. In other words, the experience is ‘contrived, diluted and prefabricated’ (Cohen, 2010: 66). Whatever, their behaviour, most youth travellers have viewed their style of travel as alternative to mass tourism.

Volunteer Tourism One form of contemporary youth travel is volunteer tourism, also referred to as ‘voluntourism’ and ‘volunteering for development’. Wearing (2001: 1) defined volunteer tourists as those who ‘volunteer in an organized way to undertake holidays that might involve aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments or research into aspects of society or environment’. This definition has evolved with other authors refining it around their research perspective. For example, McGehee and Santos (2005: 760) define volunteer tourism as ‘utilizing discretionary time and income to travel out of the sphere of regular activity to assist others in need’. Brown and Lehto (2005: 480) offer a tour operator’s perspective of volunteer tourism as a ‘type of tourism experience where a tour operator offers travellers an opportunity to participate in an optional excursion that has a volunteer component, as well as a cultural exchange with local people’. As with earlier youth travellers, the focus for volunteer ‘tourists’ is more on the travel than the tourism. Stoddart and Rogerson (2004: 317) note that ‘volunteer tourists are “new tourists” in search of an experience which is beyond that offered by mass tourism’. This youth market is attracted to volunteer tourism particularly in order to fulfil ‘higher-level’ needs in an altruistic pursuit and an experience that is grounded in the destination

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community. Volunteer tourism offers an opportunity to examine new kinds of cross-cultural relationships, in many cases, through collaborative goalorientated projects that take place inside a community’s own space. Generally, volunteer tourists enter the host space with a valuing of the place and its cultures. In order to understand this, the values of those traditionally ‘othered’ in the experience need to be incorporated into the conceptualization and research. Providing a volunteer tourism experience, where the tourist focus is on the interaction with community members from different cultures, has been praised as an effective means to improve the tourism experience and is expected to improve cross-cultural sensitivity and reduce the ‘othering’ of developing countries’ cultures (Wearing & Grabowski, 2011). For example, Broad (2003: 63) found that ‘volunteers were able to go beyond the superficial interactions that travel is often restricted to’ resulting in personal growth and a changed world view. This was as a result of volunteers being engaged in village life and socializing with the local people. Additionally, Wickens (2011) found that volunteer tourists in Nepal were so immersed in the local community that they experienced culture shock (adding to the authenticity of their experience) as well as self-discovery. McIntosh and Zahra (2007) set out to explore the link between cultural tourism and volunteer tourism in an effort to understand the nature of the interaction between 12 Australian volunteer tourists and their Maori hosts in New Zealand. They found the experience to be mutually beneficial for both host and guest, but more importantly these volunteers gained more from their experience than other ‘tourists experiencing traditional cultural products; specifically, it was more authentic, genuine, reflexive, of contemporary cultural content and a meaningful interpersonal experience’ (McIntosh & Zahra, 2007: 553). Some scholars have examined the effect of volunteer tourism on the development of self (Matthews, 2008; Sin, 2009; Wearing, 2002; Wearing et al., 2008). For example, Sin (2009) found that volunteer tourism appears to be a self-serving endeavour where volunteers are only really interested in experiencing a change in self-perception. Lepp’s (2008) study confirmed this, where a key outcome of the experience of wildlife and community volunteers in Kenya was an enhanced notion of self because of the greater personal reflection undertaken after continual interaction with the environment and people. Continuing this theme of volunteering for self-development, it has been found that volunteer tourism can act as a transformational experience owing to the affective changes to the individual. For example, Alexander’s (2012) research into the impact of the volunteer tourism experience on volunteers in South Africa established that the experience causes significant personality changes to the volunteer tourist; specifically changes in trust, artistic interest, emotionality, activity, adventurousness, anxiety and depression. In addition, Crossley (2012) took a psychosocial approach to examine the role of affect in volunteer tourists’ self-transformation. Crossley found

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that while change was experienced by volunteer tourists in Kenya, this was a ‘moral’ self-transformation, which meant that in order to experience this change, the volunteers needed to be exposed to negative experiences to gain a new perspective on life. These negative experiences included encountering poverty and the difference in materialistic nature of home and host cultures. An argument has been formulated that where there is a focus on self, there is the potential of volunteer tourism to foster cross-cultural misunderstanding (see for example Griffin, 2004; Raymond & Hall, 2008; Simpson, 2004). These studies build on Bochner’s (1982) ‘us’ versus ‘them’ idea of cultural contact. The main argument presented is that these young volunteers are untrained with primarily egoistic motives. Hustinx (2001) claims that this is a new model of volunteering involving a process of individualization and self-exploration. However, in the process, there is the opportunity for cultural exchange. This claim lead Matthews (2008: 108) to argue that volunteer tourism is now a discourse of mutual benefit, which involves a twoway process of knowledge sharing to ‘reinstate a sense of equality between self and other’. As a result, it has been argued that the interaction between host and guest is more profound than in other forms of tourism (Zahra & McIntosh, 2007). Political and community leaders, along with representatives of the tourism industry, are promoting the benefits of a gap year that includes volunteer tourism. Volunteer tourism is seen as a de facto form of civics education that promulgates an acceptance and tolerance of cultural diversity and engenders the development of global citizenship (cf. Georgiou, 2008; Netanyahu, 1998).

Volunteer Tourism as a New Avatar of Travelism? The growing institutionalization of travel and the developments in technology in the 21st century, distance, in varying degrees, today’s youth travellers, including volunteer tourists, from the adventurers and risk takers of the past. However, while there is evidence that many contemporary backpackers appear more as mass tourists than alternative travellers, volunteer tourists, for the most part, appear to approach the experience as travellers, similar to early backpackers, drifters, wanderers and the earlier participants of the Grand Tour. For the volunteer tourist, the primary motivation is self-development (Broad & Jenkins, 2008; Grabowski & Wearing, 2008; Lepp, 2008; Noy, 2004; Rehberg, 2005; Schott, 2011). Volunteer tourism offers participants the opportunity for discovering self and an immersion in another culture with the possibility for adventure and risk taking. Many scholars note that people on the move develop and maintain social relations differently from those in stasis (Conradson & Latham, 2005;

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Smith, 2005; Urry, 2000). Hibbert et al. (2013) found that in some forms of tourism, the development and maintenance of relationships is often more important than experiencing the destination itself. These relationships then affect a traveller’s identity and in turn his/her travel behaviour. We suggest that, in general, volunteer tourists form close relationships with people from the host country in a substantive way. This level of immersion in the host culture is what equates volunteer tourism to drifting. The volunteer tourist is able to penetrate the back region (MacCannell, 1973) of the host community and consequently have an authentic experience (Carter, 2008). In addition to the relationships that volunteer tourists form with the host community, there is very much a solidarity that each volunteer tourist has with other volunteer tourists (Brown & Lehto, 2005). This is similar to the shared experience that connects backpackers, as they temporarily bond and together create a road culture (Loker-Murphy & Pearce, 1995; Riley, 1988; Vogt, 1976). Wearing (2002) explains that volunteer tourism provides an opportunity for self-understanding and independence. We suggest that volunteer tourism facilitates the transition to emerging adulthood of young volunteer tourists. This is the period between school and tertiary education, or work, in the early twenties of a young individual ‘before long-term commitments are made to partners, starting families or establishing careers’ (Wilson et al., 2010: 4). It is a period of identity formation for youth and has gained such attention in academic and popular media that it can be aligned to a rite of passage (van Gennep, 1960): a transition from youth to adulthood often at one of life’s junctures, much like the Grand Tour of the 17th and 18th centuries was for European youth (Reau, 2012) and later forms of youth tourism (Riley, 1988). Reau (2012: 14) explains that for youth undertaking a Grand Tour, ‘travel offered something that could not be learned at home: it allowed the traveller to reflect on himself and his own society, guided by the thought of his eventual return home’. Consequently the increased mobility garnered by travel is essential to developing inner selves and transitioning to adulthood (Thomson & Taylor, 2005). It is typical for young people to rebel, as can be seen in drifter travel in the late 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps a new form of rebellion can be seen in volunteer tourism in relationship to the dominance of a neoliberal society predicated on finance and celebrity. Volunteering from this perspective becomes an act of revolution. In Anderson’s (1991) terms, volunteering has become a resistance movement and a cultural narrative that forges an intangible but stable solidarity between members of a group of like-minded volunteers who might never meet or know each other. For those individuals who take up volunteer tourism experiences by happenchance (Lyons, 2003), they find the experience so radically different from the self-serving experiences of life under neoliberalism that it promotes personal epiphanies in them that change their worldview (McDonald, 2009; Zahra & McIntosh, 2007). It has

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been suggested that the exposure through volunteer tourism to other cultures can lead individuals to re-evaluate life and career trajectories (Lyons, 2005). In some cases this can be seen as a form of reverse culture shock, where volunteer tourists find it difficult to re-assimilate into their home cultures (Gaw, 2000; Leigh, 2006). According to this resistance narrative, such awakenings may lead individuals to join the ‘imagined community’ of volunteers described by Anderson (1991). A key difference between youth volunteer tourists and previous generations of youth travellers might be assumed in their altruistic motivation to work in order to help a community in need of assistance (Wearing, 2001). However, while volunteer tourism is presented as an altruistic pursuit, empirical studies have shown that altruism is only a small component of the motivation of volunteer tourists. Lepp (2009: 258–259) reminds us that volunteer tourism is a leisure pursuit. Volunteer tourists undertake obligatory work, which is ‘agreeable because [it] distinguish[es] the volunteers from more traditional tourists, making the obligations desirable due to the unique status they impart upon the participant’. Lepp’s finding suggests that underneath the altruistic motivation is a desire for alterity as has been found with youth travellers of the past; this is supported by Ooi and Laing (2010) who found many overlaps between the motivations of backpackers and volunteer tourists. It would be a mistake to assume that volunteer tourist experiences are homogeneous. As with contemporary backpacking, there is a range of motivations and attitudes of volunteer tourists. Indeed, many volunteer tourists combine their in-country experience with backpacking, either before or after the volunteer experience. While the youth tourist of today experiences a more institutionalized form of travel than youth travellers of the past, the nature of volunteerism as work for the benefit of a community is more likely to ensure opportunities for cultural immersion similar to those of previous generations of youth travellers. Finally, volunteer tourism is comparable with other forms of youth travel in that it is constructed as what a young person should do in this particular historical and socio-cultural context.

Conclusion Volunteer tourism attracts a similar demographic group to Grand Tour, drifter, wanderer and backpacker travel in terms of age (youth), cultural background (Western) and social class (middle class). The points we raise in this book chapter suggest that youth will pursue volunteer tourism based on some of the leisure travel histories, such as the Grand Tour and backpacking. We conclude here by suggesting that many of the motivations and experiences of volunteer tourists mimic those of youth travellers of the past. As with earlier

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forms of youth travel, volunteer tourism is concerned with ‘drawing people from different cultural origins into close relationships’ (Hermans & Kempen, 1998: 1111). In the search for knowledge and self-development through interaction with other cultures, youth undertaking international volunteer tourism appear similar to youth travellers of the past. Today’s volunteer tourism appears to offer the ideal of understanding through the development of global citizens who challenge paternalistic notions of identity, memberships and obligations to the local. As Matthews and Sidhu (2005: 55) claim, volunteer tourism can be ‘positive if it creates possibilities for dialogue with the traditions and discourses of others and if it widens the horizons of one’s own framework of meaning’. The evidence suggests that the substantive growth in volunteer tourism comes as a result of the motivation of youth in developed countries to move beyond the restrictions of neoliberal societies in order to gain cross-cultural understanding, global citizenship and identity formation. The opportunity to work in other communities allows the volunteers to form close relationships with other cultures. In arguing that volunteer tourism is a new avatar of travelism, we are focusing on the experience of the traveller and comparing volunteer tourists to youth travellers of the past. Further research is required to determine whether the host communities’ experiences of volunteer tourism are a manifestation of the experiences of those communities of the past who hosted the Grand Tour travellers, the drifters, wanderers and backpackers.

4.2

Reciprocity in Volunteer Tourism and Travelism Kevin D. Lyons

Introduction A provocative duality is proposed by Wearing, Grabowski and Small in this volume. The volunteer tourist is presented as an heir apparent hailing

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from a Grand Tourist lineage. This lineage is purported to be constructed on the foundations of an altruistically inclined stance of cultural understanding, albeit coupled with an embedded self-development agenda. In contrast, a more scathing portrayal of the ‘tourist’ is presented as one who seeks to satiate hedonistic desires by engaging in safely packaged experiences that ultimately disempower ‘other’ host communities. This narrative has merit insofar as it represents an ongoing wellintentioned effort among volunteer tourism scholars to ensure this relatively new manifestation of ‘travelism’ is not co-opted by the hegemony of broader commodifying processes in the tourism industry (Lyons & Wearing, 2012). However, relatively simplistic binaries of traveller/tourist and altruist/hedonist mask the dynamic interactions that take place in spaces between. Here, I highlight how altruism and hedonism do not form two ends of a spectrum, but rather a point of connection in an egoistic loop. Reciprocity becomes an important mechanism that disrupts the focus upon altruism and the ‘altruistic pleasures’ it affords, instead placing attention on the nature of an exchange imperative that is central to both volunteer tourism and it’s ‘travelism’ pedigree.

Altruistic Pleasures in Volunteer Tourism One of the defining debates in the volunteer tourism literature, and mentioned by Wearing and colleagues, questions whether altruism is the primary motive of the volunteer tourist. Indeed, almost all scholarship that focuses on volunteer tourist motives agrees that more self-serving rather than altruistic factors alone are at play (Wearing & McGehee, 2013). Motives, such as the opportunity to travel (Tomazos & Butler, 2010), the desire to have authentic experiences (McIntosh & Zahra, 2007), the opportunity to develop skills that will help with one’s career (Söderman & Snead, 2008), coalesce around the broader construct of self-development (Wearing & McGehee, 2013). Conversely, altruism is acknowledged in few contemporary studies as the central motivation of volunteer tourists, and even in those studies, altruism is not the sole motive (Knollenberg et al., 2014; Wakeford, 2013). This strong rhetoric around the altruism embedded in volunteer tourism persists (McGehee, 2014; Mustonen, 2006) and is evident in Wearing and colleagues’ probe where they highlight altruism as a foundational ideal of volunteer tourism. Others have noted that altruism is as much an idealized stance as an actual expressed motive (Coghlan & Fennell, 2009). I propose it has become and remains the dominant paradigm in volunteer tourism. This ongoing preoccupation with altruism relates to an unquestioned logic about volunteerism itself. A ‘volunteer’ is typically portrayed as someone who offers service, time, and skills and ‘help’ to others in what is viewed

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as an act of good samaritanism – by definition, a selfless act (Hackl et al., 2007). This ideal of volunteerism as an expression of a higher order form of altruistic humanitarian effort is rarely challenged (Hackl et al., 2007). However, a more complex philosophical perspective offered by philosophers such as Frederic Neitszche and the lesser known work of Herbert Spencer over a century ago, questions the role and even the existence of altruism in the human condition. Niestzche vehemently argued against the notion that altruism exists as an end-state motive of human behaviour (Nantz, 2007). He argued that all purported altruistic acts are fundamentally motivated by egoistic desires (Moore, 2002). This has been explored by Coghlan and Fennell (2009), who acknowledged an altruism–egoism continuum and that egoism provides a more compelling explanation of volunteer tourism than does altruism. For Neitszche, egoistically motivated heroic acts of generosity are not acts of altruism motivated by concern for the interest of others, but by the actor’s self-interest (Nantz, 2007). Questioning the implied altruism in heroic acts has also been the focus of recent research in volunteer tourism. Tomazos and Butler (2010) draw upon Joseph Campbell’s construct of a ‘Hero’s Journey’ to effectively demonstrate how volunteer tourists seek to fulfil a relatively egoistically grounded hero’s narrative. At the time Neitsczche was developing his views on altruism, Herbert Spencer, a lesser known philosopher, provided an alternative interpretation of an altruism–egoism continuum that dominates current debates. He argued that the pursuit of what might best be described as ‘altruistic pleasure’ has become a higher order form of egoism. Rather than seeing altruism and egoistically fuelled pleasures at opposite ends of a spectrum, he argued ‘. . . the pursuit of the altruistic pleasure has become a higher order form of egoistic pleasure’ (Spencer, cited in Moore, 2002: 20). Altruistic pleasures derived from being a volunteer tourist are evident in the research. Volunteer tourists rarely want to be identified as tourists, rather they unconsciously acknowledge and seek out the social capital associated with being a ‘volunteer’ (Lyons et al., 2012). The pleasurable kudos from being seen as the modern day volunteer ‘hero’ (Tomazos & Butler, 2010) is an example of Spencer’s paradoxical notion of ‘altruistic pleasure’. My argument thus far suggests that the altruistic paradigm that dominates the volunteer tourism discourse, inadvertently positions volunteer tourism as little more than a socially acceptable form of tourism that satisfies a pleasure-seeking motive, which is not far from the pleasureseeking motives of tourism’s ‘hedonists’ scorned by Wearing and colleagues. The following now offers an alternative reciprocity-based consideration of exchange, often overlooked in volunteer tourism, which has potential to form the glue that might help bind volunteer tourism to its ‘travelism’ past.

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Indirect Exchanges Apart from an implied but unsupported altruism, Wearing and colleagues suggest that another tie that binds volunteer tourism to travelism is a ‘project of the self’. Whether it is the Grand tourist, the drifter, the wanderer or volunteer tourist, their ‘journeys of discovery’ (Lyons & Wearing, 2008) have always primarily been journeys of self-discovery albeit for a higher purpose. The transformational learning that takes place when travellers put themselves into situations where they are exposed to other ways of seeing, has been recognized as a powerful product of travelling and volunteer tourism alike (Coghlan & Gooch, 2011). However, what is masked in any project of the self is the oft-celebrated but rarely scrutinized implied reciprocity. One of the more commonly celebrated reciprocal features of travelism and volunteer tourism is the assumed cultural exchange it facilitates (Lyons et al., 2012). However, there is an often unanswered question about who benefits the most in these exchanges. Neitszche warned that reciprocity is likely to be uneven, favouring those in positions of power (Nantz, 2007). In the case of the Grand tourist, they drew cultural knowledge from their travels, but the nature of the exchange given back to their hosts was little more than indebtedness manifest in the form of guilt (Chard, 1999). However, more powerful exchanges take place indirectly and often after travellers resume their privileged lives. As Wearing et al. have noted, the Grand tourist’s engagement with the exotic was a learning experience that ultimately enabled them to return home to assume their aristocratic social positions fuelled with civilizing imperatives. Once home, these former travellers joined the ranks of imperial colonialists who imposed a brutal form of cultural civility upon communities in colonial outposts with often devastating consequences (Newman, 1997). If Neitszche were to jump forward a century or so, he might have observed that little had changed. Volunteer tourists are, like their predecessors, typically educated and privileged young people who engage in travel for the purposes of transformational learning. While they seek out meaningful exchanges with other cultures, they keep one eye on their future careers, building capitalist rather than colonial empires, albeit more ethical ones. As Butcher and Smith (2010) noted, research highlights how a postdevelopment, post-political narrative around global citizenship has emerged as a contemporary form of delayed reciprocity. They note that volunteer tourism experiences sow the seeds of empathy and understanding for ‘. . . people who will, in the course of their careers and lives, act ethically in favour of those less well-off’ (Butcher & Smith, 2010). In short, the global citizen/volunteer tourist of today might be a captain of industry of tomorrow who may affect positive change on a global scale. Global citizenship

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functions as a mechanism by which the traveller develops international and cross-cultural understanding that has implicit, if not explicit, mutual benefit for all parties in the exchange (Lyons et al., 2012; McGehee & Santos, 2005). The recent spate of studies and commentaries on the role volunteer tourism plays in driving a global citizenry celebrates the ‘giving it forward’ construct. A major criticism of these forms of delayed reciprocity is that it is uneven. Significant questions about whether a particular community, who welcomes (or has thrust upon them) well-meaning, but self-concerned volunteer tourists, ever really benefit from the exchange. There is ample research demonstrating how the volunteer tourists lack the skills and capacity to provide the services that host communities mostly need (Butcher & Smith, 2010). Similarly, McGehee and Andereck (2008) noted that volunteer projects in their study promoted dependency and a form of learned helplessness in the host community (McGehee & Andereck, 2008). Some commentators, including colleagues and I, have questioned the reciprocal value of volunteer tourism for host communities pointing the finger of blame at the commodifying processes that have crept into volunteer tourism (Lyons et al., 2012). An insidious feature of the commodification of volunteer tourism is that the exchange between volunteer and host community is formalized and mediated by service providers who package, promote and effectively create distance in the exchange. This further compounds the unevenness between volunteer and host. As McGehee and Andereck (2008: 18) explain, ‘cultural and geographic distance and difference create an atmosphere ripe for the “othering” of the voluntoured by the volunteer tourists’.

Direct Exchange Sin (2009) has noted that volunteer tourism involves the ‘better off’ providing aid in some way to the ‘worse off’; a situation that creates an unequal relationship whereby the giver might appear superior to the receiver. However, one might imagine a time when this may not have been the case. Previous forms of travelism adopted by drifters and wanderers were unencumbered by the packaged and the commodified, and were able to satiate their need for spontaneous and meaningful exchanges learning about themselves while giving back directly to the hosts. A drifter might work picking fruit in exchange for a meal. Even today, the Hostelling International movement provides opportunities for travellers to receive a bed in a dormitory in exchange for a day’s labour in the laundry.

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These direct forms of reciprocity are few and far between within the context of volunteer tourism. However, there is some evidence on the margins of volunteer tourism where direct exchange does occur. For example, WWOOFing (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) is an international movement where host farms exchange room and board for labour. Maybe it is necessary to take a leaf from the book of a growing number of community-based volunteering enterprises globally that have adopted the concept of time-banking as a formal structure that ensures direct reciprocity in the form of time exchanges between volunteers (Seyfang, 2006). Time banks have been found to promote community self-help and are seen as capable of promoting social inclusion more-so than other volunteer programmes. Such initiatives have been found to build social capital through co-production (Seyfang, 2006) – a process that has thus far escaped volunteer tourism. Of course, adapting time banking to volunteer tourism contexts may be difficult. The establishment of time banking systems, attracting both visitors and hosts to join a timebank would be complicated but not impossible. Imagine volunteer tourists undertaking a volunteer task, such as building a community garden, then logging their labour hours and subsequently drawing down those hours in the form of a lesson from a local craftsperson. Alternatively, transportation, food and accommodation services provided by local communities could be exchanged for the time spent in volunteering in a local school. The possible range of exchanges is endless, and each provides opportunities for more direct and even exchanges of time.

Conclusion My intention here was to provoke debate about the discourse of altruism in volunteer tourism and to imagine alternative pathways to direct forms of reciprocity between visitor and host. Of course, WWOOFing and timebanking, and other forms of direct exchange, may provoke questions about the ambiguous boundaries of volunteering and volunteer tourism (Lyons & Wearing, 2012). However, it is at the margins that alternative ways forward might manifest. In this brief response I have attempted to explore a more nuanced consideration of the key construct of an uneven ‘reciprocity’ that bridges the gap between the essentialist notions of altruistically leaning, motivational foundation of volunteer tourism. Just as travellers of the past were never truly altruistic, neither are volunteer tourists. Just like the traveller, the volunteer tourist needs to engage in authentic and equitable exchanges with those they visit.

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4.3

Volunteer Tourism: Insights from the Past, Concerns about the Present and Questions for the Future Daniel Guttentag

Introduction In their lead chapter, ‘Volunteer Tourism: Return of the Traveller’, Wearing, Grabowski and Small present a useful historical perspective on the recent emergence of volunteer tourism (VT) as a popular activity for Western youth. The authors describe noteworthy linkages between today’s volunteer tourists and youth travellers of the past, centred on their shared motives and experiences. However, it is worth critically re-examining some of the authors’ claims by exploring issues related to who volunteer tourists are, the benefits they receive, and VT’s impacts on host communities.

The Volunteer Tourists Wearing et al. liken volunteer tourists with ‘early backpackers, drifters, wanderers, and the earlier participants of the Grand Tour’, largely because of their shared motive of self-development through interaction with foreign cultures. The authors acknowledge volunteer tourists differ from the other groups owing to an additional altruistic motive, but also recognize altruism’s relative insignificance as a VT motive. Researchers have examined VT participants’ motives repeatedly, firmly establishing that participants are motivated by both self-interest (e.g. personal growth, experiential travel and professional development) and altruism (Benson & Wearing, 2012; McGehee, 2014), which is typical of all volunteering (Lockstone-Binney et al., 2010). However, the substantial fees and vacation travel defining VT distinguish it

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from more traditional volunteerism, and render participants’ self-interested motives of much greater consequence. Like other forms of tourism, ‘volunteer tourism is a business’ (Smith & Font, 2014: 6), and in this case the volunteer tourists are the customers. This scenario inherently contradicts Wearing et al.’s description of VT as ‘perhaps a new form of rebellion . . . in relationship to the dominance of a neoliberal society predicated on finance and celebrity’. In actuality, VT is predicated upon financial disparity, and is even sometimes inspired by celebrities (Mostafanezhad, 2013a). Indeed, what could be more quintessentially neoliberal than the globalized commercialization of charitable service, in which the supposed beneficiaries become commodified attractions (Calkin, 2013; Goldsworthy, 2012), and the already privileged participants gain skills and experience that even better position them for professional success (Heath, 2007)? Wearing et al. surely recognize and simply lacked space to discuss the neoliberal character of VT, which has been explored elsewhere (e.g. Lyons et al., 2012; Mostafanezhad, 2013b; Vrasti, 2013). However, the authors would likely maintain that VT participation implies resistance to neoliberal ideology, even if the practice has ironically become a reflection of neoliberalism (Lyons et al., 2012), but even this contention is questionable. Despite VT’s commercialization, more independent and less commercialized forms of VT exist (Schott, 2011), and youth travellers should have no more difficulty today than 20 years ago in simply arriving in a destination and finding an organization with which to volunteer. However, such VT seems quite uncommon, which suggests most volunteer tourists are more reminiscent of ordinary, self-interested tourist consumers than the anti-neoliberal revolutionaries that Wearing et al. describe. Moreover, even independent volunteer tourists may be primarily motivated by self-development (Schott, 2011), and this motive is no more a stand against neoliberalism than it was for participants of the Grand Tour. The independent volunteer tourists just described evoke Cohen’s (1972) ‘drifters’ and Vogt’s (1976) ‘wanderers’, but the more common institutionalized volunteer tourists bear little resemblance. Wearing et al. acknowledge that VT’s institutionalization is inconsistent with drifter tourism, but they still equate the two. This comparison is dubious, as the drifter ’s detachment from the tourist establishment is integral to Cohen’s (1972) definition. Just like Wearing et al. note in distinguishing modern backpackers from drifters, most modern volunteer tourists also do not require the drifter ’s ‘competence, resourcefulness, endurance and fortitude as well as an ability to plan one’s moves even if they are subject to alteration’ (Cohen, 2004: 45). After proposing his original typology, Cohen (1973) realized drifter-style tourism had become more institutionalized in its own way, and he proposed four drifter subgroups (the adventurer, itinerant hippie, mass drifter and fellow traveller). Cohen described the mass drifter as ‘usually the college youth, who spends a limited amount of time to see the world, meet

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people and “have experiences,” but tends to stick to the drifter-tourist establishment’ (Cohen, 1973: 100). Substitute ‘VT and backpacker establishment’ for ‘drifter-tourist establishment’ and this definition describes modern volunteer tourists quite well. In this sense, volunteer tourists are not so much like early Grand Tour participants and early backpackers, as Wearing et al. state, but rather like such travellers’ later, more institutionalized incarnations. Volunteer tourists tend to focus on certain locales and utilize the VT establishment that has emerged (Keese, 2011), much like eventually happened with both Grand Tour participants (Trease, 1967) and backpackers (Cohen, 2004). Wearing et al. excuse VT’s institutionalization when associating volunteer tourists with drifters by focusing on both groups’ significant host culture immersion. However, even here disparity exists between the groups, as volunteer tourists may often fail to become ‘almost wholly immersed’ (Cohen, 1972: 168) in their host culture to the same extent as drifters. Although various studies, some of which Wearing et al. highlight, have described volunteer tourists becoming deeply immersed in their host cultures, other studies have described volunteer tourists whose cultural experiences were far less profound (e.g. Coren & Gray, 2012; Vrasti, 2013; Zavitz & Butz, 2011). There exist numerous reasons to question whether deep immersion is a regular feature of VT. First, degrees of immersion will vary according to factors like personal characteristics (including motives), accommodation type (particularly whether it involves homestay), work type (conservation projects may involve less local interaction) and the host community’s attitudes toward volunteers (Coren & Gray, 2012; Lepp, 2008; Vrasti, 2013; Zavitz & Butz 2011). Second, immersion will be hindered by volunteer tourists’ frequent inability to speak the local language, their commonly short duration of stay, the innate power differential between volunteers and host beneficiaries, and the presence of other foreign volunteer tourists. In fact, Cohen (1972) cites lack of local language knowledge as the key factor isolating mass tourists from their hosts, and he highlights drifters’ extended stays in a single place as critical in permitting their immersion. Third, VT project sites, which may be populated with numerous volunteer tourists and locals accustomed to being around them, may reflect elements of a tourist space rather than being a genuine ‘back region’ (MacCannell, 1973). For example, Daly (2013) describes locals concealing community issues from volunteers in order to maintain an idealistic image for them, and Papi (2012, 2013) describes how some orphanages hosting volunteer tourists are little more than tourist attractions. Nonetheless, volunteer tourists are not the first youth travellers to fail in fully immersing themselves, as Grand Tour participants were often accompanied by tutors and were sometimes criticized for interacting more with their fellow countrymen than with locals (Hibbert, 1969).

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The Volunteers’ Self-Development Self-development is not just a principal VT motive, it is also often posited as a principal benefit, including by Wearing et al. Numerous studies, several of which the authors highlight, have supported the idea that VT promotes self-development, often relating to volunteers becoming more reflective ‘global citizens’. VT certainly precipitates important personal growth for some participants, but there is reason to question the extent of this self-development narrative. To begin, a VT experience may simply fail to be deeply transformative (Gilbert & Hamilton, 2009; Heron, 2011). Additionally, VT may lead to cross-cultural misunderstanding, which Wearing et al. acknowledge but dismiss without a satisfactory rationale. This serious concern, which can involve the reinforcement of cultural stereotypes (Raymond & Hall, 2008; Zavitz & Butz, 2011), actually has a parallel in the Grand Tour; Black (2003) explains, ‘It would not be unfair to claim that many [participants] returned . . . as better informed xenophobes’ (Black, 2003: 12). Also, Wearing et al. describe volunteers’ self-development being fostered by encounters with poverty. However, rather than inspiring volunteers towards social justice, some researchers have found volunteer tourists excuse poverty by perceiving locals as ‘poor-but-happy’ and romanticize poverty as an authentic cultural trait (Mostafanezhad, 2013c; Simpson, 2004). Furthermore, the personal transformations that volunteer tourists perceive during a trip may not last, as personality traits can be highly situational (Brookes, 2003). Some studies have found volunteer tourists’ transformations are enduring (Palacios, 2010; Zahra & McIntosh, 2007), but others have found self-reported transformations are not reflected in post-trip behaviours (Sin, 2009; Ver Beek, 2006). Even if volunteer tourists experience self-development, one can question VT’s role in this growth. Perhaps the VT component of a VT trip is relatively inconsequential; youth travellers, who are in a transitional period of identity formation, may be similarly affected by other types of travel. Indeed, various forms of self-development often associated with VT (e.g. increased selfreflection, confidence and cultural appreciation) have been observed in backpackers and study-abroad participants (Carlson & Widaman, 1988; Pearce & Foster, 2007; Stone & Petrick, 2013; Wilson & Ateljevic, 2008). Also, VT predictably appeals to individuals who already exhibit a predisposition towards self-development, so reported personal growth may be strongly influenced by participants’ self-selection (Bailey & Russell, 2012). Even if a VT experience fosters self-development among such predisposed individuals, it is reasonable to question whether this personal growth would have been achieved regardless, through other avenues. Bailey and Russell’s (2012) study described above compared students who did and did not choose a VT-based spring break, and it represents the

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sort of rigorous approach that is mostly lacking in research on volunteer tourists’ self-development. Existing research has largely involved a small sample of volunteer tourists self-reporting on their personal growth following a VT experience. These studies have established a worthy foundation, but now there is a need for more sophisticated research designs. For example, more studies should examine self-development by comparing volunteer tourists with non-participants and other types of youth travellers. Additionally, there is a need for more longitudinal research examining whether changes are enduring or merely situational. Furthermore, greater caution should be shown towards possible biases in volunteer tourists’ selfreports, owing to the social desirability of becoming a global citizen and volunteers’ own expectations of being transformed (Crossley, 2012). Owing to such concerns, it would be useful to employ more behavioural measures of personal change, as self-reported attitudinal data may be misleading (Ver Beek, 2006).

The Host Communities Wearing et al. devote virtually no attention to VT’s impacts on host communities, which is unfortunately symbolic of VT literature more generally. Wearing et al.’s near omission of a host community perspective is understandable, because their chapter centres on the character and experience of volunteer tourists; however, this narrow focus discounts how volunteer tourists’ personal motives and benefits are deeply intertwined with host community experiences. Volunteer tourists’ self-interested motives are significant because as VT projects strive to meet the self-interested demands of their paying customers, host communities’ needs may be de-emphasized (Guttentag, 2009). The volunteers’ self-development benefit is significant, because if host communities are not also benefitting somehow, then volunteers’ personal growth is achieved at host communities’ expense. For example, if host communities would be better served by backpackers, whose ability to foster development has been more firmly established (Hampton, 2013; Scheyvens, 2002), then perhaps backpacking should be encouraged over VT, particularly if backpackers even enjoy similar personal benefits. Host community benefits have always been integral to conceptualizations of VT (Wearing, 2001), and the existence of beneficiaries beyond volunteers is naturally a core concept of volunteering, as defined by the United Nations (Dingle et al., 2001). However, there is reason to question whether the benefits of VT are truly mutual. For host communities, VT offers three potential benefits – the volunteer work accomplished, the money generated from volunteers and the intercultural experience. Studies have previously identified all three benefits, as VT projects can accomplish valuable work (Lepp, 2008; Singh &

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Singh, 2004), generate income for local individuals and organizations (Barbieri et al., 2012; Rattan et al., 2012) and foster locals’ intercultural understanding and cultural pride (Palacios, 2010; Zahra & McGehee, 2013). Nevertheless, these benefits are far from assured. First, numerous researchers have found that volunteer tourists’ work contributions are minimal, which often leaves volunteers feeling unneeded (Blackman & Benson, 2010; Coren & Gray, 2012; Laythorpe, 2010; Vodopivec & Jaffe, 2011). This finding is unsurprising given volunteer tourists’ frequent lack of applicable skills, inability to speak the local language and short duration of stay. Second, VT’s financial benefits for host communities are difficult to estimate owing to the sector’s limited financial transparency (Benson & Wearing, 2012; Tomazos & Cooper, 2012), but there are indications that these benefits may sometimes be fairly insubstantial (Coren & Gray, 2012; Vrasti, 2013; Zavitz & Butz, 2011), and concerns have been voiced that volunteers may displace local workers (Richter & Norman, 2010). Finally, the intercultural benefits for hosts are uncertain, as there may be little rich interaction between volunteers and locals (Vrasti, 2013; Zavitz & Butz, 2011), volunteers may flout local norms (Nolan & Rotherman, 2012), locals may attempt to culturally imitate volunteers (Wright, 2013) and the inherent power differential between volunteers and locals may erode the latter’s sense of agency (Daly, 2013). If locals are not substantially benefitting in any of the ways described, then the notion of mutual benefit vanishes and locals become merely commodified attractions that volunteer tourists pay to experience as part of their self-development journeys (Goldsworthy, 2012; Vrasti, 2013). In this sense, volunteer tourists are better understood as simply consumers, and locals are the unwitting ‘volunteers’ who provide a service to others with minimal personal gain. Although host communities are often poor, VT’s potential for meaningful development is unfortunately negligible (Palacios, 2010; Vodopivec & Jaffe, 2011). This potential is further hindered by a prevailing distaste for any sort of ‘Western modernization’ that would corrupt the supposedly more authentic and less materialistic host cultures (Butcher & Smith, 2010; Vrasti, 2013). Despite these attitudes, various studies have unsurprisingly found that locals view volunteers and VT projects primarily in financial terms (Ezra, 2013; Gray & Campbell, 2007; Nolan & Rotherman, 2012; Zavitz & Butz, 2011). Economic growth should not be blindly pursued, but in many VT host communities poverty is the fundamental issue that needs to be addressed. Perhaps VT’s greatest potential as a development tool therefore lies in its ability to bring money-spending tourists (who just happen to be volunteers) to communities that would not typically receive such visitors. The dearth of VT research on host communities represents the field’s most pressing need. Researchers must better understand the benefits that host communities may or may not receive, in addition to potential negative

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impacts ranging from general issues like dependency (McGehee & Andereck, 2008) to specific concerns like sexual offenders volunteering in orphanages (Ruhfus, 2012). Questions, like how VT affects local employment, how communities do or do not benefit from different types of volunteer labour and how working with volunteers affects locals’ attitudes toward their own cultures, are ripe for investigation. Existing research has primarily involved interviewing locals in a single host community, but it is time for more ambitious research designs that can better identify factors associated with different positive and negative outcomes. For example, researchers could use input–output modelling to examine VT’s economic impacts (Fletcher, 1989; Klijs et al., 2012), or a sustainable livelihood framework to explore a more comprehensive range of impacts (e.g. financial, social and environmental) (Simpson, 2009; Tao & Wall, 2009). Researchers could additionally draw on methods employed in international development research, such as randomized control experiments (e.g. comparing English learned by students with a local teacher, a local teacher and volunteers, and just volunteers) (Keating, 2014). Also, as when studying volunteers’ self-development, researchers should exhibit increased caution towards possible biases in locals’ comments (Daly, 2009).

Conclusion The need for greater research on VT continues to grow as the activity increasingly establishes itself as a favoured form of travel for today’s youth. Wearing et al. have drawn useful comparisons with youth travellers from the past to illustrate that, although contemporary VT may be a modern phenomenon, some key characteristics of these youth travellers have existed for centuries. This response has shown, however, that VT is indeed reminiscent of other forms of travel, but primarily because it is driven by consumers with self-interested motives and results in diverse impacts for both tourists and host communities alike.

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4.4

Volunteer Tourism: A New Narrative Between Hosts and Guest Alexandra Coghlan

In suggesting that volunteer tourism is the new avatar of travelism, Stephen Wearing, Simone Grabowski and Jennie Small place volunteer tourism in a suite of rite of passage travel experiences for young adults. Drawing on the Grand Tour of the 17th to 19th centuries, Wearing et al. posit volunteer tourism as an opportunity for young adults from predominantly Western countries to engage in personal development through cultural education while travelling and volunteering in host communities. Volunteer tourism experiences offer backstage access to immersive experiences, creating deeper and more authentic interactions that facilitate true cultural engagement. In many ways, this form of travelling represents a return to the art of travelism, where travel was not seen as escapism or relaxation, but instead expanded horizons and challenged the traveller to move outside his or her comfort zone. Travelism occurs as individuals mindfully explore new places, seeking out new experiences beyond hedonic self-gratifying pleasures, and with an active interest in local customs and more. Most importantly, the art of travelism develops a more worldly outlook on life for volunteer tourists as they interact with locals. The depth of these interactions, both with local communities and with other like-minded volunteer tourists, are believed to lead to personal reflection, self-transformation, changes in trust, adventurousness, anxiety and depression (Alexander, 2012). A mix of self-focused personal development and benefits for the host community are expected from these volunteer tourism experiences. Indeed, the importance of altruismrelated travel motivations and benefits to local communities are underscored as a key point of difference between volunteer tourism and other forms of travel. The role of altruism and the desire to perform a civic service for a global community is arguably the foundations of Wearing et al.’s proposition

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that volunteer tourism is a form of counter-culture to a ‘neoliberal society predicated on finance and celebrity’. Yet, despite more than a decade of research into volunteer tourism, there remains unresolved questions regarding the value of this sector. Current criticisms of volunteer tourism focus on four areas; an inappropriate adoption of an outdated development paradigm, an increasing trend towards the commercialization of the sector, a sense of role ambiguity arising from conflicting tourist/volunteer roles and finally, questionable long-term positive outcomes of this sector. First, with regards to the sector itself, the use of a Western development paradigm is repeatedly questioned within volunteer tourism. An important conceptual framework on the relationship between international development theory and tourism is presented by Sharpley and Telfer (2002). They relate tourism as an agent of development to the four key development paradigms of modernization; dependency, structuralism, economic neoliberalism and alternative development. Whereas we would like to see volunteer tourism sit within the alternative development paradigm, there have been concerns that the sector is actually moving towards an economic neoliberal paradigm, whereby market forces determine development agendas and successful projects. It is possible that commercial agendas for tourism brokers who recruit volunteer tourists have come to displace well-intentioned original development agendas of philanthropic host organizations to improve the livelihoods of local communities in poor economic circumstances. Furthermore, authors such as Simpson (2004), Guttentag (2009) and Palacios (2010) argue that volunteer tourism experiences may do more towards fostering a ‘lucky us’ versus ‘poor them’ position than we like to admit. Furthermore, many volunteer tourism providers have adopted a commercialization strategy, producing goods and services with the explicit intent of earning a profit. This strategy is not uncommon with the third sector of the economy, who wish to meet more pressing social needs than is possible with existing organizational resources. However, there is a very real risk that in commercializing, volunteer tourism providers may move away from their original mission (Tuckman, 1998 cited in Coghlan & Noakes, 2012). There does appear to be an increase in the number of for-profit organizations, particularly recruitment/sending organizations, within the sector; these organizations offer packages comparable with mainstream conventional mass tourism in terms of both duration and type of work, and requiring new, more sophisticated approaches to marketing and service management to sell these different packages. Moreover, we are witnessing the rise of cross sector partnerships that join non-profit social ventures with for-profit tourism businesses or even mixed-unit operations with both non-profit and for-profit programmes. This commercialization process may affect the balance of altruistic and self-focused marketing used to sell tours to potential volunteer tourists; a number of authors have questioned the balance of altruistic to self-focused travel motivations driving engagement in volunteer tourism

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experiences. Reviewing 44 volunteer tourism studies, Coghlan and Fennell (2009) found more evidence of the latter than the former, a finding supported by authors such as Mustonen (2007) or Cousins (2007). If not carefully managed, this consumer attitude towards volunteer tourism may lead to negative impacts upon project outcomes and local benefits, as volunteer tourists struggle to balance volunteering and tourism. The tension between the altruistic and self-focused aspects of volunteer tourism may also be responsible for the role ambiguity noted by Lyons (2003); many young travellers engaged in volunteer tourism projects find it difficult to reconcile their identities as tourists with their identities as volunteer tourists, leading to instability around the nature of their travel experience. A number of studies have drawn attention to the hybrid character of volunteer tourism, which combines leisure, fun, self-actualization, travel, volunteering and altruism (Brumbaugh, 2010; Coghlan, 2006; Ooi & Laing, 2010; Tomazos & Butler, 2010). Some research also indicates that, perhaps as a result of this hybrid model, volunteer tourists may experience some level of confusion as to their role and identity during their volunteer tourism experience (Lyons, 2003; McGehee & Andereck, 2009; Mustonen, 2006). Lyons (2003) was one of the first to point out these tensions in his studies of young Australians volunteering overseas. He identified four simultaneous, ambiguous roles for the participants and concluded that ‘the lack of clarity about their roles created frustration and anger that affected the quality of their experience’ (Lyons, 2003: 11). Similar findings suggest that where volunteer tourists did not feel useful at the project (i.e. did not have a defined role), disillusionment with the experience was likely to follow (Blackman & Benson, 2010; Zavitz & Butz, 2011). Mustonen (2006) also acknowledges the shifting roles experienced by volunteer tourists, but accepts that this is part of the experience, as ‘the roles of (volunteer) tourists are prone to fluctuate between conventional and altruistic tourists’ (Mustonen, 2006: 165). Finally, the issue of local benefits and project outcomes has also been questioned by some researchers (Broad, 2003; Guttentag, 2009; Palacios, 2010). It has been suggested that volunteer tourism offers great learning and transformational opportunities (Coghlan & Gooch, 2011; Raymond & Hall, 2008; Sin, 2009). Yet, no studies have explored the longer-term impacts of volunteer tourism on the participants; we know little about how values, attitudes and behaviours change long-term following a volunteer tourism experience. Certainly, in order for significant travel-related change to occur, the volunteer tourism experience must be carefully designed and facilitated by the tour organizers (Coghlan & Gooch, 2011). As personal change can be an emotionally challenging process at odds with the hedonic promises of most tourism marketing, it remains to be seen whether personal change will have a role within an increasingly commercialized form of volunteer tourism. Furthermore, while McGehee and Andereck (2009) suggest that volunteer tourism experiences can lead to a greater sense of agency for returned

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volunteer tourists, it is unclear what proportion of volunteer tourists remain active as volunteers in their home communities. On the contrary, anecdotal evidence suggests that few of these volunteer tourists engage in volunteering activities, even ones similar to that undertaken during their vacation, once home. Further research should be undertaken in the area of long-term benefits from volunteer tourism, both in terms of project outcomes (social, cultural and/or environmental) and impacts on the volunteers themselves. In light of these criticisms, it must be remembered that volunteer tourism was established on the principles of travelism, creating opportunities and personal development through meaningful travel experiences. Tourists, in particular youth, were expected to learn, thrive and flourish through their volunteering efforts, while local communities and environments would benefit as a result of increased funds, labour, as well as less tangible outcomes around intercultural learning. The promise of volunteer tourism remains strong despite the issues outlined above, and broader travel-related issues and social and environmental changes that may affect the tourism system. It is arguably time to interrogate the value of this sector, and ask how we might retain its positive characteristics? In particular, we want to creatively think of how to provide opportunities for personal development for youth travellers, fostering altruistic values as well as benefitting local communities. In addition, we might want to consider how to shape the future of this sector within a broader context of changing tourism trends. Can we encourage a more local approach to volunteer tourism, borrowing from the principles of soft mobility and slow tourism, to benefit local communities? How might we leverage meaningful travel experiences to build personal wellbeing, encourage returning volunteer tourists to get involved in local volunteer activities and aim to build community resilience through volunteer tourism in the face of major environmental and social challenges? In essence, how might we encourage a return to the lost art of travelism, as advocated by Boorstin (1975) and picked up by Wearing et al. in the lead probe. Any solution to these issues must target at least the following areas. First, the sector must reposition itself with regards to the prevailing development paradigm; is it necessary for volunteer tourism experiences to take place in long-haul, exotic destinations, or would experiences closer to home allow participants the same opportunities to reflect on larger social issues without creating an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ dynamic? Do other models exist whereby volunteer tourists might act locally, but have an impact beyond their local region? Second, the sector could reflect on its increasing level of commercialization. Do volunteer tourism providers need to sell scripted experiences that can be bought to provide certain opportunities, or might we allow participants to co-create their own experiences, borrowing from increasingly popular community events, where creativity, playfulness and sense of valuable contribution are highly valued. Third, might we want to consider separating out the volunteering (other-focused)

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and tourism (self-focused) elements of volunteer tourism, as suggested by Lyons and Wearing (2008). An increasingly common model is the ‘charity challenge’ model, whereby participants volunteer their time and effort to raise funds and awareness for the cause before engaging travel-related activities. Furthermore, can we encourage volunteer tourists to continue being involved in the cause after their volunteer tourism experience? Finally, the very nature of tourism and travel may change in the coming decades as large social, economic and environmental changes occur at regional and international levels. Many destinations and origin regions face issues of environmental uncertainty and degradation (e.g. ‘Last Chance Tourism’). Other stressors on our current economic and social fabric have also been predicted; an ageing population and an increase in lifestyle-related diseases, with flow on impacts on our discretionary income and time are some examples. Peak oil predictions and climate mitigation measures may also affect transport systems and travel patterns from relatively cheap long-haul travel. Volunteer tourism will probably not be immune to these changes and will have to adapt to a world where discretionary income has decreased, long-haul travel may be less readily available, and many origin and destination regions face less stable environments. The big questions remains how we might harness the benefits of volunteer tourism, while overcoming this sector’s issues as noted above and keeping volunteer tourism attractive to youth travellers seeking adventure? How do we encourage the personal development of youth, promote a sense of wellbeing, create a greater sense of civic duty and benefit local communities through volunteering and travel? Perhaps eschewing the exotic, long-haul holidays, in favour of a more localized, community-based form of tourism might address many of these issues; volunteer tourists could become involved in local campaigns, driven by local charities, with stronger links within the local communities. Movements such as slow tourism, with an emphasis on soft mobilities, such as cycling and walking, and localized social benefits, may become more mainstream as transport patterns shift and level of discretionary income change. In addition, one major benefit of volunteer tourism is that it seemingly taps into many of the recognized drivers of wellbeing, including doing something meaningful, being active, building relationships with others; volunteer tourism experiences are generally active holidays, requiring a high level of involvement from their participants, in a social environment, working on projects that serve a greater purpose (New Economics Foundation, 2011). Perhaps deliberately linking the development of volunteer tourism to slow travel, wellbeing outcomes and community resilience may represent a pathway for the future development of volunteer tourism. It is likely that the volunteer tourism sector will undergo changes in the future, perhaps with a more commercial ‘volunteer lite’ on the one hand, and on the other hand, a slow travel approach with strong ties to local community, an emphasis on wellbeing and continued participant involvement in

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campaigns. Lyons and Wearing (2008) have argued that charity challenges provide an attractive alternative to traditional travel by combining the experience of travel with a unique life-time experience while raising funds for charity, thereby ‘blending the voluntary act of fund-raising with the more hedonic pleasures of a packaged adventure tour’ (Lyons & Wearing, 2008: 151). As well as providing regional tourism development opportunities, charity challenge events also offer a number of benefits to both participants and the associated charities; they offer two major positive outcomes in the form of funds and awareness-raising for charities that organize them as well as physical and mental health benefits for the event participants (Wharf Higgins & Lauzon, 2003). It is suggested that travel experiences, such as charity challenge events, offer opportunities to implement broad-scale strategies to improve wellbeing, e.g. strengthening community action and developing personal skills as set out in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (World Health Organization, 1986) as a road to increased social sustainability, address important social and environmental causes and boost community resilience. Volunteer tourism researchers moving into alternative research areas, such as charity challenges, may bring with them important lessons for creating a blended volunteer tourism experience that addresses the current issues with this sector while boosting its benefits.

Concluding Remarks In this chapter we argued that volunteer tourism has become the new avatar of youth travelism. It represents the ideal of engagement with other cultures, altruism, personal development, community development and global citizenship. In the responses, Alexandra Coghlan points out that it might just reinforce a ‘lucky’ us versus ‘poor’, and with a more commercial approach it may create a more mainstream tourism attitude of ‘what’s in it for me?’, going on to suggest we may need to look for different models in the future, Daniel Guttentag criticizes the probes positions suggesting that it may not be a ‘new form of rebellion’, it could be quintessentially neoliberal and is ‘. . . more reminiscent of ordinary, selfinterested tourist consumers’. These are all good points and only add to the amorphous boundaries that exist in our attempts to explore this area. It brings to mind the statement in ‘Our Common Future’, sustainability ‘. . . is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs’ (WCED, 1987: 9). Kevin Lyons, in his reply, is more circumspect, suggesting positions proffered by Neitszche and Spencer provide evidence that altruistic ideologies

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should not be abandoned, but reviewed to enable a more critical engagement with an alternative paradigm of reciprocity. This falls in line with the more critical turn that has arrived in tourism research and enables Lyons to suggest that altruism is more than part of a duality of altruism versus egotism, but they are integral parts of each other and hence the need to re-evaluate the positions taken. This provides us with critical new directions for future research in this area. The most rudimentary outcome of the probe has been achieved in that it sort to provide a contribution to the development of a framework for an understanding of volunteer tourism that is subject-centred, and that is dynamic and capable of dealing with the complexity of contemporary tourism and tourist cultures. With the rejoinders this has been achieved, we explore the emerging phenomenon of volunteer tourism and note that important here is the intersection of the past, the present and the future (thanks Daniel), and the real and imagined dimensions of travel and the ways in which new ideologies and technologies are reshaping what it means to travel and to be a traveller. They are fracturing established notions of the real and the imagined and home and away, but Kevin goes further than this and suggests we need to redefine the underlying assumed concepts using altruism as an example. Alexandra reminds us we must go further than this and reminds us that we all need to suggest that it is now necessary to find a new language for talking about the travel space, to reconceptualize the configuration of memory and imagination that constructs the spaces and experiences through, and in, which the traveller self is constituted and exposed. The result, we suggest, is a more nuanced and sophisticated way of understanding contemporary volunteer tourism. Significantly, we argue that the key is not in moving conceptually from understanding foundation themes, but it is to conceptualize travel and the volunteer traveller self simultaneously through the interpretative and sensory ‘thirdspace’ of both.

Discussion Questions (1) What frameworks can we examine that will enable us to explore volunteer tourism from one concerned with a disassociated ‘gaze’ to emphasise a more engaged set of experiences and imaginings, which incorporate all the senses as well as both the imagined-real of the traveller space? (2) How do we understand the subjective realities that are the experiences (imagined or otherwise) of the volunteer traveller–tourist – to

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enable us to delve into what it is that ‘they’ are looking for when they travel? (3) Community participation in tourism development has historically been somewhat problematic and subject to numerous constraints, what appropriate approaches that utilize creative, engaging and educational techniques have the potential to be applied to volunteer tourism? (4) Tourist cultures, and thus the traveller self, are multiple and contradictory, constructed and reconstructed through the negotiation of experience that occurs in the context of tourist space. This understanding of tourism assumes that in the first instance tourism is about engagement. Volunteer tourism has come to be viewed as a process of expanded social interaction whereby self-identity can be enlarged through the intersection of differing places, peoples, cultures and societies. How would ‘critical theory’ analyse this statement? (5) The most spectacular increase in tourism took place in the last two decades of the 20th century and has made it a ‘quintessential feature of mass consumer culture and modern life’ (Britton, 1991: 451). Are alternative approaches to travel such as volunteer tourism just a minor nuance of this rather than an alternative direction?

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Weaver, D. and Lawton, L. (2010). Tourism Management (4th edn). Milton: John Wiley & Sons. Welk, P. (2010). Town of 1770, Australia – The creation of a new backpacker brand. In K. Hannam and A. Diekmann (eds) Beyond Backpacker Tourism: Mobilities and Experiences (pp. 169–186). Bristol: Channel View Publications. Wharf Higgins, J. and Lauzon, L. (2003). Finding the funds in fun runs: Exploring physical activity events as fundraising tools in the nonprofit sector. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 8: 363–377. Wickens, E. (2011). Journeys of the self: Volunteer tourism in Nepal. In A.M. Benson (ed.) Volunteer Tourism: Theoretical Frameworks and Practical Application (pp. 45–52). Oxon: Routledge. Wilson, E. and Ateljevic, I. (2008). Challenging the ‘tourist-other’ dualism: Gender, backpackers, and the embodiment of tourism research. In K. Hannam and I. Ateljevic (eds) Backpacker Tourism: Concepts and Profiles (pp. 95–110). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Wilson, J., Fisher, D. and Moore, K. (2010). The OE goes ‘home’: Cultural aspects of a working holiday experience. Tourist Studies 9(1): 3–21. World Health Organization (WHO) (1986). Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion. Geneva: WHO. Wright, H. (2013). Volunteer tourism and its (mis) perceptions: A comparative analysis of tourist/host perceptions. Tourism and Hospitality Research 13(4): 239–250. Zahra, A. and McGehee, N.G. (2013). Volunteer tourism: A host community capital perspective. Annals of Tourism Research 42: 22–45. Zahra, A. and McIntosh, A.J. (2007). Volunteer tourism: Evidence of cathartic tourist experiences. Tourism Recreation Research 32(1): 115–119. Zavitz, K.J. and Butz, D. (2011). Not that alternative: Short-term volunteer tourism at an organic farming project in Costa Rica. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 10(3): 412–441.

Further Reading Coghlan, A. and Gooch, M. (2011). Applying a transformative learning framework to volunteer tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 19(6): 713–728. Guttentag, D. (2009). The possible negative impacts of volunteer tourism. International Journal of Tourism Research 11(6): 537–551. Lyons, K.D. and Wearing, S.L. (eds) (2008). Journeys of Discovery in Volunteer Tourism. Oxon: CABI. Wearing, S.L. and McGehee, N. (2013). International Volunteer Tourism: Integrating Travellers and Communities. Oxon: CABI. Wearing, S.L. and McGehee, N. (2013). Volunteer tourism: A review. Tourism Management 38: 120–130. Wearing S.L., Stevenson, D. and Young, T. (2010). Tourist Cultures: Identity, Place and the Traveller. London: SAGE Publication.

Chapter 5

Tourism’s Invulnerability: Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics Julio Aramberri, Richard Sharpley and Carson L. Jenkins

Context The initial salvo in this discussion went to Aramberri. In his view the question needed disambiguation as it could address two very different issues: (1) are we talking about the animal itself, or (2) about the methodology used to approach it? As far as our limited evidence goes, the tourism industry is not likely to suffer a systemic downturn any time soon. Using the latitude provided by Tourism Recreation Research (TRR) he therefore decided to dwell on the second. A vulnerable flank in the understanding of tourism is the academic obstinacy in looking at it as an actively globalizing force, both economic and cultural. This belief prevents a proper appreciation of its dynamics. Pace conventional wisdom, mass tourism is, above all, a national or domestic event. Therefore, tourism is neither a global phenomenon, nor a decisive force for global development. Not yet; not in the foreseeable future. However, as Sharpley and Jenkins noted, tourists do not travel to countries, but to destinations. Catering to domestic and/or international consumers, some destinations in the main tourist clusters specialize in providing tourist services. They are the so-called pleasure peripheries. When travel undergoes a slowdown or when an unexpected crisis erupts (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), 2004 tsunami, Fukushima), they are the first to suffer. Should they have a strategy for crisis management? 135

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Is Tourism Vulnerable? Julio Aramberri

A Stress Test Sometimes we say or hear that tourism is vulnerable. What this may mean is not too clear, and reaching for the dictionary does not provide much relief. According to Merriam-Webster Unabridged, the adjective harks back to the Latin word vulnus that meant wound, and is used to signify the capacity of being wounded; of being open to attack, that is, assailable; or exposed to capture. None of these three meanings makes the statement tourism is vulnerable especially understandable. Most beings and institutions, whether man-made or otherwise, are vulnerable in one or all of those senses at some given time. Tourism is one of those man-made institutions; therefore it is vulnerable. So, what is the point? Indeed, most things are or will be vulnerable, but what matters to most of us when discussing vulnerability is something different – when a threat may make its appearance and how. To put it otherwise, anything is eventually vulnerable, but what counts is the likelihood of the threat. So, does tourism face any serious threats now or in the foreseeable future? The question needs additional refinement. When we talk about tourism we need to specify whether we are talking about the animal itself, or about the methodology we use to approach it. My contribution here will mostly address this latter aspect. Using a fashionable expression, what follows is a stress test for some basic notions about tourism development. And the first place where we have to administer it are the building blocks that sustain our knowledge, that is, statistics and the way they are constructed. Everybody in tourism research knows of United Nations World Tourism Organization’s (UNWTO’s) importance. Over the years UNWTO has built a time series that allows following the quantitative development of international tourism. Based on the data for individual countries, it is also possible to garner data for statistics on sub-regions, continents and the world as a whole. Valuable as they are, UNWTO’s data have thus helped to create a 136

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dyed-in-the-wool habit to consider international tourism as a synonym for the whole and to draw conclusions for tourism in general based on such a flimsy base. Why flimsy? Because international tourism represents just about 30% of total tourist flows after discounting domestic tourism. Tourism research pays a high price for this illusion of taking the part for the whole, a rhetoric figure commonly known as metonymy. The obsession with international tourism leaves some basic issues unsolved. In the rush to see tourism as a crucial factor of globalization, not only is domestic tourism sidelined, but international tourism also tends to be seen through the lens of long haul travel. What about international exchanges of tourists among countries that are more or less equal in purchasing power and share a substantially common cultural background? For instance, one of the most visible recent developments in this industry has been the growth of international tourism in East Asia. As Page showed a while ago (2001), the old West–East air travel alignment between Southeast Asia and Europe had already been replaced at the turn of the century by a North–South axis, as a consequence of the growing numbers of intra-regional tourists from Japan, Korea, Taiwan and, more recently, China that have transformed the tourism landscape of the region. This reality has been acknowledged in the change of promotional priorities among many national tourist offices of the area. While in the past Europe and the United States were their main targets, today many put Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the top of their list (Hall & Page, 2000). However, too many researchers, under the spell of the neo- and post-colonial schools keep on working as though international tourism was, above all, the product of unequal West/East relations or of North/South imbalances. UNWTO international arrivals database – the one most often quoted – has a number of weaknesses. To start with, it relies on data gathered by its member governments, and often their collection techniques are questionable. Additionally, excursionists and proper tourists are often bundled under the ‘arrivals’ label. More important, the database only deals with travel that includes border crossing, which is far more limited than the real number of people who travel away from their usual place of residence for a period of over 24 hours and less than one year for purposes other than salaried work (the accepted statistical definition of tourism). UNWTO’s arrival database sidelines travel by residents in their own countries, also known as domestic tourism, at its own risk. It stands to reason that the number of border crossings will be higher in those areas of the world that are densely populated and, at the same time, count a great number of mid- and small-sized states. Europe is a case in point, with nearly 50 states in just 6.8% of the Earth’s landmass and only 11% of the world population. Even if its dwellers did not have their present high level of disposable income, Europe would still flood international tourism statistics. A car traveller from Manhattan spending a few days in Washington DC does not register as a tourist for UNWTO. The same person

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going by car from The Hague in the Netherlands to Paris in France, roughly the same distance, would be counted as four arrivals – twice in Belgium, once in France, once in the Netherlands. If the tourist goes with three additional friends or siblings, there will be 16 arrivals in the roster against none in the first case. No surprise that Europe’s share of the global tourism market has hovered above 50% over the years. A quick thought experiment illustrates the point further. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, the European Union may become one single political entity, and its citizens would not have to cross national borders when they travel from, say, Germany to Greece, or Sweden to France. Were it so, tourism statistics would be exposed to a dramatic downturn. Had it been the case in 2011, the number of accounted international arrivals would have been about half that of 2010. Should we then conclude that the global tourism system would find itself in a tailspin? Would the industry have been dealt a mortal blow? That it is vulnerable? The negative is a foregone conclusion. There would not have been any fewer hotel beds in 2012, nor would airlines have cut their flights in half. The industry itself would have passed the stress test with flying colours.

Statistical Vulnerability Not so much our present statistical system and its ramifications. Indeed, there is no need to wait for a notional United States of Europe to show the fallacy of identifying tourism with international tourism, especially long haul. Following the metonymic mirage, researchers tacitly accept that the relatively few millions of tourists that go continent-hopping are more significant for the study of tourism than the 2.1 billion domestic tourists China generated in 2010 (Chinese National Administration of Tourism, 2012), or the 2 billion leisure trips that Americans took inside the United States in 2006 (US Census Bureau, 2010). Any of those two flows fuels much higher numbers of people than their international counterparts, but theoretical research on tourism’s complex dynamics remains firmly anchored in the latter, and most of the time ignores the former. If one focuses on long haul tourism to some scarcely developed areas of the world, one might find some shred of evidence for the hyped uneven cultural exchanges that apparently are the essence of tourism. However, those are not the places where the overwhelming majority of tourists, even international tourists, are to be found. In assessing the shape of world tourism, similar assumptions do not help much, not just because they are too general, but also because they are not general enough. In fact, the global tourism system has a different and more intricate structure than is usually taken for granted. International trips thus become shorthand for tourism as such. UNWTO has often said that the causes of its non-venturing into the thorny issue of

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real tourist flows (long haul, intra-regional and domestic) are the scarcity of reliable data on domestic tourism and the methodological disparity of the surveys that track it. These two issues are indeed an unpleasant part of life, but UNWTO’s reluctance to tackle them shows a lack of leadership that contrasts with the posturing of its leaders in other areas more likely to attract media attention. The unacknowledged vulnerability of UNWTO’s tourism databases has some serious consequences. UNWTO offered a highly structured picture of the world market share for international arrivals in 2013 (United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), 2013). Europe occupies the top position (52%), followed by Asia/Pacific (23%) and the Americas (15%), with Africa (5%) and the Middle East (5%) at a far distance from the rest. The other main database on tourism found in the public domain is maintained by the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and provides a picture significantly at variance. It should be stressed that WTTC’s TSA-based research (TSA stands for Tourism Satellite Accounts) covers a different ground than UNWTO’s databases. It focuses on the production of tourism goods and services in different regions of the world, not on border crossing, and the receipts it generates. In a WTTC-based graphic, tourism generation is at its top in the Americas (32.6% of the world), followed by Europe (30.8%) and Asia-Pacific (30.3%). Africa (3.3%) and the Middle East (3%) still remain far behind those three regions (Figure 5.1). Bearing in mind that these two approaches differ in methodology, one can anyway find some interesting pointers. The most salient, no matter how well expected, is the exaggerated importance of Europe in the UNWTO database, already explained. From our vantage point, though, it is even more important that two main geographic and economic regions (Africa and the Middle East) have both a very low level of international arrivals and of

Figure 5.1 World tourism industry per region, 2013 (in %) Source: Author on WTTC (2011a–g)

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tourism impacts. This allows concluding that tourism (both international and domestic) only gathers in bulk around some other areas of the world. When compared with similar figures for 2006 (Aramberri, 2010), 2013 Europe shows a considerable decrease (from 40% to 30.8%, nearly 10 percentage points): the Americas decrease slightly (32.6% in 2013 as compared with 35% in 2006); Asia/Pacific shows quick growth (from 22% to 30.3%); and Africa and the Middle East have slowed to below 4% each. But this is only the beginning. If one breaks the five regions just looked at into more detailed areas or sub-regions, this lopsided picture becomes even more unbalanced (Figure 5.2). This regional distribution supports the hypothesis of a very limited globalization of the world tourism system. Far from a generalization of the trend to all its components, it appears that tourism becomes more and more integrated in some areas, of which in 2013 the three main ones were Europe and the Mediterranean Basin (33%); North America and the Caribbean islands reach (26%); and Northeast and Southeast Asia (26.1%). The case of Oceania where Australia and New Zealand act as the anchors of a regional sub-system that includes the rest of the islands of the South Seas seems like a miniature of the bigger picture and its inner trends (Figure 5.3). With the Australian mini-cluster included in-cluster added value generates 87.5% of the world tourism services. The Global Tourism System (GTS) thus appears to be structured around three main regions, each one of them with its hinterland. In every one of these areas, a core of well developed or quickly developing countries, have both an impressive tourism production within their own borders and generate major tourist flows to the rest of their vicinity, whether Less developed Countries (LDCs), developing or developed countries. Regions need to have one or more of such growth engines to secure tourism development (Lew, 2000). Where, as in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia or the Middle East, this core does not exist or is quite remote, tourism remains sluggish.

Figure 5.2 Main world tourism clusters, 2013 (in %) Source: Author on WTTC (2011a–g)

Source: Author’s elaboration (Map from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Worldmap_LandAndPolitical.jpg)

Figure 5.3 The Global Tourism System: Main Clusters (2011)

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From an economic perspective, both the core developed countries and their immediate peripheries, have increasingly close mutual relations and benefit from those tourist exchanges. The rest are mostly excluded. Whether these clusters create uneven exchanges, as per the neo-colonial analysis, or reflect a central or hegemonic relation between the main partners in each one of the regions and their pleasure periphery (Turner & Ash, 1975) as per the post-colonial hypotheses, is not a key question. Just a word of caution – pleasure periphery is an expression that has no other economic sense than naming one or more areas that provide a high number of specialized services in leisure and tourism, in the same way as one could speak of the oil periphery, the steel periphery or the whatever periphery to convey the meaning that some goods or services are the main products of that given area. The pejorative innuendo against pleasure only reveals the basic puritanical approach of many users of the expression (Butcher, 2002) as though some zones in the Maslovian pyramid of needs were more legitimate than others. The expression, therefore, should be used with restraint if it has to keep some meaning. Otherwise, one can see pleasure peripheries in any sunny beach or pleasant coastline in Taiwan (Lin, 2004), in the outer islands of the Netherlands (Ashworth, 2007), or in any other destination where people enjoy themselves. A bit further, the Champs Elysées or Pigalle might be said to be the pleasure periphery of Paris.

The Global Tourist System: Present and Future At any rate, the discussion would be better focused if we knew more about the relation between domestic and international tourism in its double dimension of intra-regional and long haul travel. Unfortunately, this issue is surrounded by darkness. Let us, though, try some probing where there is a modicum of light, in the ratio between intra-regional and long haul tourism. In an already aging table that for some reason has not been reiterated, UNWTO stated that a majority of international arrivals, as measured at the time (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2006), happen overwhelmingly in the same continent where they originate or, in its jargon, that most international tourism consists of intra-regional arrivals while long haul (jargon again for continent-hopping) remains a junior partner. Most African tourists remain in Africa, most Asians in Asia and so on. According to UNWTO (Table 5.1), in all five regions of the world, over 70% of tourists stay within their continent of origin. As could be expected, this is especially true in Europe, given the features (population density and mid-sized national units) already mentioned. In a forecast of tourism development until 2020 (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2011), UNWTO also points out to a similar share. The split between intra-regional and long haul has been changing to make the latter somehow bigger. However, if in 1995 the ratio between the two was 80/20, it will still remain close in 2020 with a 75/25 share.

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Table 5.1 Intra-regional arrivals, 2004 Region

%

Africa Americas Asia-Pacific Europe Middle East

71.4 71.3 78.4 86.1 77.3

Source: UNWTO (2006)

How international and domestic tourism are related is a thornier question. In fact, there is no known or satisfactory calculation of their relative weight. WTTC-TSA, however, estimates that in 2011 their relative share was 70% for domestic tourism and 30% for international World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014a). If one accepts UNWTO’s ratio of 75:25 for intra-regional and long haul, the former might be roughly valued at $420 billion and the latter at $130 billion with respective percentages of 70%, 23% and 7% for each type of tourism (domestic, intra-regional and long haul). If this is the shape of the world travel and tourism (T&T) system, tourism is much less global an activity than usually claimed. Accordingly, we should also re-assess what these economic considerations mean for the unceasing talk about social and cultural gaps between tourists and providers of tourism goods and services. In fact, the vaunted cultural gap would be at its most dramatic in just 7% of cases. Intra-regional contacts would be much more common (and thus cultural distance minimized), covering about 23% of total T&T communication. Domestic tourism would have the lion’s share, therefore, reducing even more the opportunities for cultural dissonance between tourists and locals. Table 5.2 has been calculated according to the 2004 UNWTO breakdown between intra-regional and long haulers per continent (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2006) actualized to 2010 numbers (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2011). If it is right, 76.7% of all world tourism happened within the same continent, while the residual 20.2% was long haul with 3% or of unspecified origin. In this way, 2010 total long haul travel might have reached 190 million. Excluding the 10 million tourists generated in Africa and the Middle East, the remainder – over 90% of all long haul tourists – originated in the Americas, in Europe and in Asia-Pacific. In 2004, the exchanges between the Americas and Europe, not exactly the most culturally distant of places, reached a total of 47.5 million (25.8 million tourists went to Europe from the Americas and 21.7 million Europeans took the opposite route), leaving a total 82.5 million long haul tourists among whom one could eventually find the type of cultural dynamics that neo- and post- colonialist thinkers have in mind. One should discount as well the

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Table 5.2 Long-haul tourists by UNWTO World Regions, 2010 Continent of origin

Arrivals (in millions)

World Africa Americas Asia-Pacific Europe Middle East

190* 5 45 44 70 5

*The difference between the total and the sum of the value of each part reflects the share of people of unspecified origin plus differences in calculating the percentages for each area Source: Author on UNWTO (2011)

24.6 million tourists from Asia-Pacific to the Americas and Europe, plus a flow of 7.1 million from Asia-Pacific to Africa and the Middle East – not exactly the usual suspects of cultural misdemeanors – and then the numbers go down to a total of 47 million. Unfortunately UNWTO does not offer this rare piece of evidence any more, so it is not possible to know the exact figures. The future does not seem to be at a variance. All things equal, the UNWTO estimate that international arrivals will nearly double their present dimension to reach 1.6 billion tourists in 2020 seems correct (United Nations World Tourism Organization, 2011), in spite of the ongoing economic crisis. WTTC reaches a similar conclusion. In constant 2011 prices, the world T&T demand will go from the current 9.1% of world gross domestic product (GDP) to 9.6%. Will it also become more global in the sense we have just discussed? Within the next 10 years, the T&T market share by continents will bring about a loss in the Americas (2%) and a quicker one in Europe (4%), while Asia and the Pacific it will surge five points (from 28% to 33%), pushing this region to the top position in the world. Africa and the Middle East will remain at the very bottom of the table (5% and 4%, respectively). By sub-region, the highest growth will be reached in Asia, where the three regions of the Northeast, Southeast and South will double in 2021, the amount of constant dollars they made in 2011. In percentage, their growth will be about 90%. No big changes in the broader picture either. The three big areas of North America and the Caribbean, Europe and the Mediterranean, and Northeast/ Southeast Asia will still account for 81%, of the entire world tourism; the Oceania mini-cluster will remain at 3%, and the rest will come up with 16%. Finally, the whole tourism global system will apparently remain structured in the same way as it was in 2011. Domestic tourism will lose a couple of percentage points to intra-regional tourism, while long haul will stay put in the 5%–7% it had in 2006.

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Conclusion In brief, developed countries account for the overwhelming majority of long haul travel, but most of it takes place within and between them. Long haul travel from them to the rest of the world, though not negligible, accounts for just 6%–7% of total international travel, if these calculations are accurate. It does not mean that there will not be cross-cultural encounters among tourists and locals within the three main tourism areas, but one should use a lot of caution before claiming that all tourism is a form of colonialism (Gmelch, 2003; Nash, 1996), that it is one of the main means by which the West imposes its hegemony over the rest of the world (Burns, 2001; Hall, 2007), or that it is one of the most powerful sources of globalization (Mowforth, 1997; Mowforth & Munt, 2003; Weaver, 2005). Most of the world lies beyond the pale of international tourism. Hypotheses about tourist behaviour should take into consideration the real structure of world tourism. Getting a better picture of it was the task just attempted. Now it is time to see whether available evidence validates the expectation that, barring serious and unexpected crises, in the mid-run T&T will probably remain the same as it is today. The answer should be a qualified yes. Qualified not so much by doubts about its development, but because the future will hopefully bring along a better knowledge of its structure, and thus force changes in description, making conventional wisdom less vulnerable.

5.2

Tourism and Vulnerability: A Case of Pessimism? Richard Sharpley

Within the literature, there is a tendency to make generalizations about tourism. Indeed, given the focus of this chapter it could be suggested, albeit facetiously, that one of tourism’s vulnerabilities is its susceptibility to such generalization. It is frequently claimed, for example, that tourism is the

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‘world’s largest industry’, an ‘effective vehicle of development’ or, globally, the most valuable ‘voluntary transfer of wealth’. Such claims implicitly attempt to attach an optimistic spin to the phenomenon of tourism, a theme that this response will return to shortly, although tourism is not of course immune to more negative generalizations, particularly with respect to its less desirable consequences. Indeed, tourism has long attracted generalized criticism for its perceived negative impacts, though not all to the extent of the apocalyptic terms used by Croall (1995: 1): ‘A spectre is haunting our planet: the spectre of tourism’. One of the problems with such generalizations is that, by definition, they cannot account for exceptions. Not all forms of tourism are environmentally destructive, nor does tourism always prove to be an effective means of transferring wealth. At the same time, simple generalizations are sometimes definitionally inaccurate or vague. Many argue, for example, that tourism cannot be described as an ‘industry’ (Clancy, 2011), while to claim that tourism contributes to ‘development’ is to confuse economic growth (which tourism may directly stimulate) with wider transformations in a society’s well-being, which may occur only as an indirect consequence of tourism (Sharpley, 2009; Telfer & Sharpley, 2008). Similarly, it is often stated in general terms that tourism is vulnerable, yet what this means is ambiguous. This is not to say that the meaning of ‘vulnerable’ is unclear; indeed, three definitions of the word are helpfully provided in the lead article. Rather, ambiguity surrounds what is meant by ‘tourism’ in this context. Therefore, it is worthwhile to first consider not if but how tourism might be vulnerable. As a starting point, attempts have, inevitably, long been made to define tourism. Typically, such definitions fall under two headings, namely, technical definitions that provide parameters for the measurement of tourism flows and revenues, and conceptual definitions that attempt to capture the meaning or essence of tourism as a human activity. For the purposes of this article, however, it is more useful to consider tourism more simply as either an economic or a social phenomenon. From the former perspective, tourism is seen as a business or economic sector, and it is within this context that the argument put forward in the lead article in this chapter is of relevance. That is, our understanding of the scale, structure and value, and future direction of tourism globally is vulnerable to incomplete, inaccurate or misleading data in general, and a fixation (at least from the perspective of the UNWTO and the WTTC) with international tourism in particular. Conversely, from the latter perspective, primacy is given to tourism as the movement of people, the focus being on the purpose or significance of that movement to those people who engage in travel (tourists) and the consequences for people who receive them (hosts). Of course, it is rather artificial to distinguish between these two perspectives. The movement of large numbers of people as tourists is to a great extent dependent on the variety of services provided by the tourism and

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other sectors. In other words, without a tourism ‘industry’, there would be no tourism (at least, not of the scale and scope we see today). Equally, tourism is an expenditure-driven activity; its contribution to economic growth depends upon the desire of increasing numbers of people to engage in tourism. Nevertheless, the vulnerability of tourism can be considered from either perspective. On the one hand, tourists themselves are vulnerable to a multitude of factors while engaging in tourism, from minor health issues through to more significant threats to their personal safety and security. In short, by placing themselves in unfamiliar surroundings, tourists may become implicitly more susceptible to a variety of risks and hazards than they would be within their normal home environment (Pizam & Mansfeld, 1996). However, as the lead article observes, people are vulnerable most of the time to all manner of hazard, whether as tourists or otherwise; what is important is the likelihood (actual or perceived) of threat. Thus, as some note, the vulnerability of individual tourists should be considered in terms of the manner of their response to perceived risks rather than in terms of the potential risks themselves (Kozak et al., 2007; Lepp & Gibson, 2008). On the other hand, the tourism sector is also vulnerable to a multitude of external forces and influences that, usually temporarily, serve to reduce tourist flows and, hence, impact negatively on income, foreign exchange earnings, tourism-related duties and taxation, employment and so on. Numerous examples of such influences exist, the potential impacts of climate change, widely considered to be the most significant contemporary threat to tourism. Collectively, these influences represent crises that the tourism sector experiences with apparently increasing frequency and to which they must respond (Faulkner, 2001; Glaesser, 2006; Ritchie, 2009; Volo, 2007). Key among the policies and plans for such tourism crisis management is the need for effective communication, the purpose of which is often to lessen potential tourists’ sense of risk; that is, to reduce their perceived vulnerability. The important point is, however, that although tourists and, relatedly, the tourism sector are both vulnerable, it is at the level of the destination where the ‘true’ vulnerability lies. Tourists are vulnerable to threats that may reduce their propensity to travel; in turn, the tourism sector is vulnerable to a fall in demand or tourism activity. However, ultimately it is the destination – the economy and the well-being of its population – that is vulnerable. Thus, when we generalize that ‘tourism is vulnerable’, what we are really referring to is not tourism itself, but destinations and their vulnerability to changes (or, more precisely, a decline) in tourism. Moreover, the use of the word ‘vulnerable’ in this context is, if not inaccurate, then misleading, because in reality, what we are concerned with is not the vulnerability of a destination to a decline in tourism, but its resilience or ability to respond to such a decline. In other words, a destination that is more vulnerable is, in fact, one that is less resilient to transformations/declines in its tourism sector.

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For example, many islands have long been successful tourist destinations, yet it is widely claimed that the very characteristics of islands that contribute to their appeal to tourists also enhance their susceptibility both to dependency on tourism in particular and external forces more generally (Bastin, 1984; Scheyvens & Momsen, 2008; Wilkinson, 1989). Specifically, so-called small island developing states (SIDS) are considered to be vulnerable to, among other things, ‘ecological fragility, proneness to natural disasters, and concentration of exports on limited ranges of products and markets’ (Hein, 2004: 10), while, according to Briguglio (1995), small islands are perhaps best defined in terms of their vulnerabilities. In short, island tourism destinations are generalized as being vulnerable. However, the evidence would suggest that not all island destinations suffer from such vulnerability; the continued success of their tourism sectors reveals their resilience to external forces. For example, McElroy (2006) has demonstrated that a number of islands, particularly those in the Caribbean with a significant dependence on a mature and extensive tourism sector, nevertheless enjoy high levels of socio-economic development. This suggests that the potential vulnerability of tourism destinations cannot be generalized, that their susceptibility or resilience to threats to, or a decline in, the tourism sector must be assessed on a case by case basis. In turn, this suggests that the claim that tourism (or, as proposed here) destinations are vulnerable must be challenged; indeed, is it overly pessimistic to generalize that tourism is vulnerable? In addressing this question, a number of points can be made, the first of which refers to the observation made earlier in this article that many of the generalizations about tourism’s scale, value and growth of tourism, are highly optimistic. Statements that tourism is the world’s largest economic sector (or industry!), that it is an effective vehicle of development or of the voluntary transfer of wealth, all paint an optimistic picture of the potential contribution of tourism to national economies. Moreover, not unsurprisingly, both the UNWTO and the WTTC unashamedly ‘talk up’ tourism in terms of its growth potential. The UNWTO, for example, has long forecast continuing growth in worldwide international tourist arrivals and receipts, expected to reach 1.6 billion and US$2 trillion, respectively, by 2020 (WTO, 1998). Such targets appear achievable given current rates of growth – the one billion arrivals mark was surpassed in 2012 – while the WTTC consistently produces figures that point to increases in tourism-related economic outputs at the national level. Inevitably, the UNWTO’s focus on the global growth of tourism is open to criticism, not only because of both the weaknesses in the data and the manner of their interpretation as argued in the lead article, but also because of the environmental implications of such growth and the infrastructural development necessary to support it, to say nothing of the ‘peak oil’ issue (Becken, 2008). It also explicitly competes with the UNWTO’s own commitment to sustainable development. Nevertheless, the second point to be made here is that, since the 1950s, tourism has proved to be remarkably

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resilient, at least on a global basis. A quick look at the data reveals that negative annual growth in worldwide arrivals has been experienced only rarely, most recently in 2009 as a consequence of the global economic downturn. However, despite continuing fragility in the global economy, arrivals grew by 6.4% and 4.6% in 2010 and 2011, respectively, and the UNWTO forecasts average annual growth of 3.3% between 2010 and 2030. Of course, global figures mask downturns in tourism at the regional or local level. Over the last decade, a number of events, such as the Bali bombings (2002), the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004) and, more recently, turmoil in the Middle East – the so-called Arab Spring – have resulted in more localized reductions in arrivals. For example, in 2011 Egypt suffered a fall of some 33% in international arrivals while, in the first quarter of 2012, arrivals were 25% lower than during the same period in 2011. Nevertheless, such downturns typically prove to be relatively short-lived; destinations that suffer a decline in tourism as a consequence of natural disasters, political turmoil, health scares or economic instability tend to recover relatively quickly. Thus, the tourism sector may be vulnerable in the short-term, but often demonstrates resilience in the longer-term. Indeed, it is often the ability of the tourism sector in particular to rebound quickly that underpins the recovery of destinations more generally. That is, crises and disasters impact widely on the destination economy, environment and society yet, as long as tourists perceive that they will not be at risk, they soon return. Hence, the contemporary decline in tourism to Egypt reflects continuing political instability and, for tourists, safety concerns (or perceived vulnerability). Thus, far from being seen as vulnerable, tourism should be seen in a more positive light as a driver of recovery from crisis. This leads on to the third point, that tourism, generally, should not be viewed from a pessimistic perspective as being vulnerable, but with an optimism that reflects its potential to contribute to a destination’s resilience to, or recovery from, challenges, threats and crises. Tourism destinations do face a variety of potential crises. However, it is the destination as a whole, rather than the tourism sector in particular, that is vulnerable or, putting it another way, it is not only tourism that is ‘at risk’. Although a decline in tourism may, depending on the extent of its role in the local economy, exacerbate wider social and economic problems, more often than not it is tourism that provides the foundation for recovery. Unless a fundamental transformation occurs in the destination’s physical and cultural resources – as threatened, for instance, by climate change – those resources remain in place to be exploited when conditions allow. For example, until 2008, Iceland had experienced relatively high growth in tourism, though the tourism sector contributed just 4.1% of GDP. Following the virtual collapse of the country’s economy in 2008 and the subsequent fall in value of the national currency, however, tourism to Iceland became much more affordable to international visitors and, thus, the

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potential emerged to develop tourism to rebuild the economy. Similarly, once political–economic conditions are appropriate, the tourism sector could provide the foundation for the revitalization of the economy in Greece. More generally, of course, tourism is widely used as a catalyst of economic growth – in many countries it is the principal contributor to GDP, foreign exchange earnings and government revenues. The greater that dependency on tourism, the greater is the destination’s potential vulnerability, although according to McElroy’s work referred to earlier, some of the most tourismintensive island economies are also the most successful and resilient. To conclude, therefore, the answer to the question ‘Is tourism vulnerable?’ must be that it is no more or less vulnerable than any other economic or social activity or institution. Indeed, to describe tourism as vulnerable is to be pessimistic because, more often than not, it is the tourism sector that provides the foundation for economic growth. Destinations may experience a decline in tourism; their vulnerability or resilience is dependent upon the extent to which they are willing or able to exploit the opportunity offered by tourism.

5.3

Is Tourism Vulnerable? An Ambiguous Question Carson L. Jenkins

The question posed by Aramberri in the lead article is perhaps ambiguous because it does not go on to specify what aspect of vulnerability tourism might be subject to, but rather concentrates on the well-recognized deficiencies in the collection of statistics relating to measurement of international tourist arrivals and consequent expenditures. Similarly, the roles of the UNWTO and WTTC as advocates of tourism as a stimulus to development initiatives through the redistribution of wealth on a global scale are equally well known. In this response to Aramberri’s probe, his critique of the available international tourism statistics and the continuing neglect of domestic tourism measurement, are accepted. There seems little value in revisiting this

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topic that he has thoroughly reviewed. The following comments focus on the question of vulnerability and whether tourism is more vulnerable to fluctuations in demand than other traded items; the comments are generally applicable to both international and domestic tourism, as they essentially focus on some of the factors that potential tourists consider before committing to a journey for leisure purposes. Although these factors may equally be considered by business travellers, this latter group is not primarily motivated to travel for leisure purposes, although they may well add on a leisure component to a business trip. The question posed can be answered by a simple ‘no’ or ‘yes’. As noted earlier, the question should be answered in the context of a wider consideration of tourism, its characteristics and impacts that have been extensively discussed in the literature. It is the detail of this context that gives the question its ambiguity and permits a multitude of answers. Aramberri has analysed the statistical underpinning of international tourist flow patterns and as he correctly points out, international tourism is perhaps only 30% of all tourist movements. The development of huge domestic markets in India and China, although both with their particular characteristics, demonstrates the long-held belief of economists that there is a relationship between increases in real per capita income and demand for travel and leisure activities; a second point, less easy to measure, is that when real per capita incomes increase, travel and tourism seem to become highly ranked (and perhaps protected) in personal budgets and become a life-style item. The democratization of travel in post-World War II Europe from the 1950s, and as noted, the rapid growth in Indian and Chinese domestic and international tourism, attest to these relationships. Perhaps a further indication where tourism as a life-style purchase is protected is currently seen in Europe, where owing to the global economic crisis and pressures on personal budgets, many people are substituting domestic holidays or ‘staycations’ for more expensive foreign trips. In the United Kingdom as one example, there has been a remarkable growth in camping and caravanning holidays reflecting budget constraints. A comparison can be made with the ownership of cars, which for some people are essential purchases, whereas for others they are non-essential purchases. We can observe the substitution effect in the car market with many people down-sizing vehicles and looking for cheaper maintenance options. So many of the demand relationships, long posited by economists, seem to be still operating with the substitution effect, protecting a non-essential purchase – the holiday. Much research needs to be done to validate the extent of this trend which, of course, may reverse itself when per capita incomes increase. A further problem is the absence of other-than general statistics on the apparent substitution effect; a great deal of survey research and related personal interviews is required to validate what factors were considered by the tourist in making his or her choice. This brings into question the issue of globalization versus localization.

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Much of the analysis of tourism, certainly by the UNWTO and the WTTC, is focused at the global level for reasons already noted above. However, as Sharpley observes in his article, when market fluctuations occur in tourism, most impacts are noted at the destination that may be a country, city or sub-region of the country. Therefore, unless a disaster has a multicountry impact, such as the tsunami affecting many Asian countries in 2004, efforts to combat and to recover from such an event is usually directed and coordinated in-country (Faulkner, 2001). The organization of the response will depend on the severity of market disruption (usually related to the drop in tourist arrival figures) and the significance of tourism in the national or sub-national economy. It is increasingly argued that tourist destinations should, as part of their planning, prepare a tourism crisis management plan (Glaesser, 2006) specifically aimed at proactively managing tourism market fluctuations; many Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) claim to have such plans, but there is very limited evidence of what these plans contain or how effective they have been in confronting situations, which makes tourism vulnerable to market changes. It should also be noted that DMOs may have tourism as one part of their remit and have wider responsibilities, which might include planning functions for a designated area that constitutes the destination. There is no guarantee that the DMO will be specifically for tourism, which often seems to be assumed. Recent flooding in Queensland, Australia, would have obvious implication for tourism and its infrastructure, but also wider consideration for the agricultural sector and residents. As a general proposition, the advent of a major natural disaster, such as an earthquake, tsunami or outbreak of disease, would require actions well beyond the scope and remit of a DMO and require a national response. Perhaps the more focused role of a tourism DMO would be to deal with market fluctuations and related impacts, and leave non-tourism considerations to other, relevant bodies? Without doubt, focus on the destination is crucial because that is where tourism takes place and where its benefits and impacts are most felt. The management of ‘mad cow’ disease in the United Kingdom in 2001 demonstrated that in many non-urban areas tourism had a greater economic significance than did agriculture, a sector in the economy that had received greater government attention and protection over the years. The absence of strong tourism organizations able to influence government policies was starkly illuminated. The focus on localization is of prime importance to most destinations; as an example, changes in tourist flows between Thailand and Laos or Canada and the United States will have implications for all four countries, but not at the global level? Many multi-national companies, such as airlines and hotel chains, would dispute the down-playing of global trends, but for many tourist destinations these statistics would be of secondary interest. The importance of events ,both exogenous and domestic, that can affect tourism demand are many, and examples have been noted by Sharpley who

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further notes that ‘it is the destination – the economy and the well-being of the people – that is vulnerable’. The question of vulnerability of tourism to ‘shocks’, might also be reversed by asking about its resilience to withstand such shocks. There is considerable evidence that tourism can recover relatively quickly to shocks and it may not be the ‘candy floss’ industry that British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once famously described it as being! It is all a matter of the individual tourist’s perception of the destination and personal risk in travelling there. We attempt to generalize these perceptions through the use of market studies and market profiles to better understand the opinions and needs of the tourist; if we can do this then we have information that we can use and manipulate to make the destination attractive and safe. However, we should acknowledge that we know little about how ‘shocks’ alter these perceptions and which factors in changing attitudes to destinations are likely to be long- or short-term. How will competing destinations react to a changing market scenario where tourists can be diverted from their first choice destination; to what extent can price policies be used to overcome negative perceptions arising from a ‘shock’? These are important questions that do require further research and wider consideration, perhaps encapsulated generally in the question – does tourism at a particular destination have a comparative advantage that makes it less vulnerable and more resilient to withstanding shocks? As ever, one question raises another and to a large extent the answer will depend on the nature and extent of the ‘shock’ or event. So in returning to Aramberri’s question, it is possible, on historical evidence and experience, to answer ‘no’ and ‘yes’ to the question as the following comments indicate. At the global level, we can support the assertion that tourism has not been particularly vulnerable to shocks. Using UNWTO figures forming a series since 1950, it is clearly shown that international tourism measured by visitor arrivals and expenditure have, with the exception of only a few years (oil crisis 1972, world financial crisis 2008), seen consistent increases and often at a rate above that for world trade. Using these figures then, we could argue that over the last 60 years tourism has been a consistent growth activity. Some of the factors underpinning this growth (such as rising real per capita income, improvements in transport links and particularly air transport, package tours, widening range of accommodation options and reduction in relative prices, development of the internet and a growing expectation of, and familiarity with, travel and tourism) are substantial and powerful influences. As noted above, with persuasive evidence that tourism is an important life-style purchase, those predicting the ‘end of tourism’ seem to fly in the face of reality. However, we should recognize that the growth trends do not fall equally on every country and as Aramberri notes, there are still three main tourism hubs that receive a disproportionate amount of travellers. Despite economic and financial cyclical fluctuations, political upheavals, and natural and man-made disasters, tourism has demonstrated a

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remarkable resilience to these problems. In this context, it may be said that, on a global scale, tourism has not been particularly vulnerable to shocks and this reflects again how localized many problems are and have been perceived as such by tourists. It can be argued for example, that the political and consequent economic problems in Zimbabwe have devastated that country’s tourism sector – but not that of the southern African region. The problems in Myanmar had seriously affected international visitors to the country, but not to Southeast Asia. So within the international trends and flow patterns there are winners and losers, but the macro analysis indicates that international tourism has been remarkably robust when compared with many other sectors in the world economy, and is one of the reasons why many countries in the developing world interpret international tourism as a growth industry with potential to offer benefits that many of their traditional exports do not have. The arguments are complex and depend on an analysis of the specific country or location, again showing that within global trends, local circumstances are likely to predominate in any investment and development decisions. A further consideration relating to the vulnerability or resilience of tourism to shocks relates to the nature of the industry, which is predominantly small-scale and characterized by small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and often family-owned and managed. There is a plausible argument that this characteristic of tourism supply is less influenced by global trends and more grounded in local conditions. Competitive pressures come from within the destination community and not from some far away country; supply of skilled and trained personnel to work in tourism is likewise usually a local supply constraint and not something that has an international dimension; price policies will also reflect local conditions and not be greatly influenced by international rates and productivity levels. This argument does not mean that an uncompetitive destination will flourish or even survive, but the nature of competition pressures will be local rather than international. Even in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, which is a high-cost, highprice destination with a mainly international market demand, it has successfully overcome the problems associated with its massive investment in the tourism sector, exacerbated by the global economic crisis, to see growth trends in tourist arrivals re-established. It is interesting that this is happening in a region with the ongoing problems in Syria and Iran, perhaps a further example of a destination United Arab Emirates (UAE) being able to differentiate itself from the political instability that has long been associated with the Middle East region. Any economic activity can be subject to change and become vulnerable although tourism on a global scale has definitely been robust in meeting changing circumstances. Over the last 60 years, tourism has not lost either its dynamism or impact, and many of the changes in circumstances have had only short-term effects. This does not make tourism impervious to

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shocks, but perhaps makes it more resilient an economic activity than many observers give it credit for. The historic arguments against tourism as a development strategy because of its dependent nature (on foreign tourists, foreign investment, foreign travel trade and, sometimes, foreign transport operators) has still some validity. Concern is expressed of foreign exchange leakages from tourism earnings, issues related to ownership and control of the industry, and socio-cultural and environmental impacts arising from tourism development. As problems, they are destination manifestations of the international structure of tourist distribution and tourism investment. However, for many countries, tourism may be one of the few options available to support development and economic diversification. And as a development option, it can be argued that it is investment in a growing sector of the world economy as opposed to investment in a tightly regulated export activity, such as manufactured goods and primary products. It is the unregulated nature of tourism demand (where tourists choose to go) which makes it challenging and dynamic, and destinations will seek to differentiate themselves. Like any other economic activity, tourism can be vulnerable to shocks and market changes, but it has also shown itself to be remarkably resilient to these effects. So Aramberri’s question has no single definitive answer (like so much else in tourism studies!), but is best reflected on within a context.

Concluding Remarks The subject proposed by TRR for this debate was the eventual vulnerability of the tourism industry. My opening remarks suggested that, as far as our limited evidence goes, this industry is not likely to suffer a systemic downturn any time soon. There may and will be future crises, as in the past, but tourism in the wide sense of the term will keep on expanding. The problem is not if, but how this will happen. Sharpley and Jenkins are right in stressing that vulnerability is an ambiguous concept. The initial article wanted to be a limited jab at disambiguation. A vulnerable flank in the understanding of tourism is the academic obstinacy in looking at it as an actively globalizing force, both economic and cultural. This belief prevents a proper understanding of its dynamics. Pace conventional wisdom, mass tourism is, above all, a national or domestic event. When international, it mostly happens within a few geographic clusters anchored by one or more developed economies (as per Alan Lew, I call them the engines). When it comes to long haul, people that travel for leisure shrink dramatically. Therefore, tourism is neither a global phenomenon, nor a decisive force for global development. Not yet; not in the foreseeable future.

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However, as Sharpley and Jenkins rightly note, tourists do not travel to countries, but to destinations. Catering to domestic and/or international consumers, some destinations in the main tourist clusters specialize in providing tourist services. They are the so-called pleasure peripheries. When the engines undergo a slowdown or when an unexpected crisis erupts (SARS, 2004 tsunami, Fukushima), they are the first to suffer. Should they have a strategy for crisis management? Indeed, though real events will usually catch the best plans off guard. But the key issue lies elsewhere. That tourism happens at destinations is somehow a truism. From an economic perspective, what counts is how those destinations, together with many other productive sectors, contribute to national accounts, to per capita income, to income distribution. When one looks at TSAs, the hard truth is that tourism is not equally distributed the world over. Like food production, it happens everywhere, but a global industry it is not. Like food, tourism is mostly consumed locally. Countries where tourism makes a significant contribution to GDP, especially those in the pleasure periphery, rank high in income per capita. Tourism development thus contributes to relative affluence; no surprise, then, that all countries want a piece of the action. Not all will get it, though. When it comes to cultural exchanges with their gossamer contours, the discussion treads onto more slippery ground. As destinations concentrate the bulk of foreign inflows, they are more exposed to cultural shocks than less visited areas. This is obvious. However, generalizing from what happens in Vegas, Macau, Ibiza, Crete or Goa to a whole culture, and even more, to mercurial notions of identity, seems unwarranted. Take India. Weak would its identity be if 6 million international visitors would damage it beyond repair.

Discussion Questions (1) Do UNWTO present statistic databases (international arrivals, international receipts) provide an accurate picture of global tourism? (2) How to improve the present databases (UNWTO, WTTC, World Economic Forum (WEF)) available in the public domain. (3) How to apply Porter’s cluster analysis to tourism. (4) Which is the real weight of long haul tourism? (5) What can academics do to attain a better knowledge of the tourist system? (6) Does our present knowledge of the tourist system support the view that tourism is a global industry?

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References Aramberri, J. (2010). Modern Mass Tourism. London: Emerald. Ashworth, G. (2007). The north: Playground for the Netherlands? In G. Ashworth, P. Grootte and P. Pellenberg (eds) A Compact Geography of the Northern Netherlands (pp. 77–80). Assen: Boekvorm Uitgevers BV. Bastin, R. (1984). Small island tourism: Development or dependency. Development Policy Review 2(1): 79–90. Becken, S. (2008). Developing indicators for managing tourism in the face of peak oil. Tourism Management 29(4): 695–705. Briguglio, L. (1995). Small island developing states and their economic vulnerabilities. World Development 23(9): 1615–1632. Burns, P. (2001). Brief encounters: Culture, tourism and the local-global nexus. In S. Wahab and C. Cooper (eds) Tourism in the Age of Globalization (pp. 290–305). London: Routledge. Butcher, J. (2002). The Moralisation of Tourism: Sun, Sand ... and Saving the World? London & New York: Routledge. Chinese National Administration of Tourism (CNTA) (2012). National Tourism Working Conference 2011 held in Beijing. Online at: http://en.cnta.gov.cn/ html/2011-1/2011-1-20-17-31-45465.html. Accessed 4 February 2012. Clancy, M. (2011). Global commodity chains and tourism. In J. Mosedale (ed.) Political Economy of Tourism: A Critical Perspective (pp. 75–92). Abingdon: Routledge. Croall, J. (1995). Preserve or Destroy: Tourism and the Environment. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Faulkner, B. (2001). Towards a framework for tourism disaster management. Tourism Management 22(2): 134–147. Glaesser, D. (2006). Crisis Management in the Tourism Industry. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Gmelch, G. (2003). Behind the Smile: The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism. Bloomington: Indiana UP. Hall, C.M. (2007). North-South perspectives on tourism. Regional development and peripheral areas. In D. Müller and B. Jansson (eds) Tourism Peripheries. Perspectives from the Far North and South (pp. 19–39). Wallingford: CABI. Hall, C.M. and Page, S. (2000). Introduction: Tourism in South and Southeast Asia – Region and context. In C.M. Hall and S. Page (eds) Tourism in South and Southeast Asia: Issues and Cases. London: Butterworth-Heinemann. Hein, P. (2004). Small island developing states: Origin of the category and definition issues. In UNCTAD Report Is a Special Treatment of Small Island Developing States Possible? (pp. 1–22). Geneva: UNCTAD. Kozak, M., Crotts, J. and Law, R. (2007). The impacts of the perception of risk on international travellers. International Journal of Tourism Research 9(4): 233–242. Lepp, A. and Gibson, H. (2008). Sensation seeking and tourism: Tourist role, perception of risk and destination choice. Tourism Management 29(4): 740–750. Lew, A. (2000). China: A growth engine for Asian tourism. In C.M. Hall and S. Page (eds) Tourism in South and Southeast Asia: Issues and Cases. London: Butterworth-Heinemann. Lin, C.H. (2004). Periphery imbalance in tourism development: The case of Taiwan. Tourism Analysis 9: 285–298. McElroy, J.L. (2006). Small island tourist economies across the life cycle. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 47(1): 61–77.

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Mowforth, M. (1997). Tourism and Sustainability. London: Routledge. Mowforth, M. and Munt, I. (2003). Tourism and Sustainability: Development and New Tourism in the Third World. London: Routledge. Nash, D. (1996). Anthropology of Tourism. New York: Pergamon Page, S. (2001). Gateways, hubs and transport interconnections in Southeast Asia: Implications for tourism development in the twenty-first century. In P. Teo, T.C. Chang and K.G. Ho (eds) Interconnected worlds: Tourism in Southeast Asia. Amsterdam and London: Pergamon. Pizam, A. and Mansfeld, Y. (1996). Tourism, Crime and International Security Issues. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Ritchie, B.W. (2009). Crisis and Disaster Management for Tourism. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Scheyvens, R. and Momsen, J. (2008). Tourism and poverty reduction: Issues for small island states. Tourism Geographies 10(1): 22–41. Sharpley, R. (2009). Tourism Development and the Environment: Beyond Sustainability? London: Earthscan. Telfer, D. and Sharpley, R. (2008). Tourism and Development in the Developing World. London: Routledge. Turner, L. and Ash, J. (1975). The Golden Hordes: International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery. London: Constable United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2006). International arrivals by region of origin and regions of destination. Online at: http://www.unwto. org/facts/menu.html. Accessed 22 November 2008. United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2011). UNWTO tourism highlights. Online at: http://mkt.unwto.org/en/content/tourism-highlights. Accessed 26 May 2012. United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2013). UNWTO tourism highlights. Online at: http://mkt.unwto.org/en/content/tourism-highlights Accessed May 14 2014. US Census Bureau (2010). Domestic travel by US residents households (2000–2006). Online at: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s1225.pdf. Accessed 5 July 2010. Volo, S. (2007). Communicating tourism crises through destination websites. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing 23(2–4): 83–93. Weaver, D. (2005). Sustainable Tourism: Theory and Practice. London: Butterworth-Heinemann. Wilkinson, P. (1989). Strategies for tourism in island microstates. Annals of Tourism Research 16(2): 153–177. World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014a). Travel and tourism economic impact 2014: World. Online at: http://wttc.org/research/economic-impactresearch/regional-reports/world/. Accessed 10 January 2014. World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014b). Travel and tourism economic impact 2014: Africa. Online at: http://wttc.org/research/economic-impactresearch/regional-reports/africa/. Accessed 10 January 2014. World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014c). Travel and tourism economic impact 2014: Americas. Online at: http://wttc.org/research/economic-impactresearch/regional-reports/americas/. Accessed 10 January 2014. World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014d). Travel and tourism economic impact 2014: Asia Pacific. Online at: http://wttc.org/research/economic-impactresearch/regional-reports/asia-pacific/. Accessed 21 April 2014.

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World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014e). Travel and tourism economic impact 2014: Europe. Online at: http://wttc.org/research/economic-impactresearch/regional-reports/europe/. Accessed 21 April 2014. World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014f). Travel and tourism economic impact 2014: Middle East. Online at: http://wttc.org/research/economicimpact-research/regional-reports/middle-east/. Accessed 21 April 2014. WTO (1998). Tourism – 2020 Vision: Influences, Directional Flows and Key Influences. Madrid: WTO.

Further References Aramberri, J. (2010). Modern Mass Tourism. London: Emerald. Aramberri, J. (2013). The global tourist system: Present and future. In T. Mihalič and W.C. Gartner (eds) Tourism and Developments—Issues and Challenges (pp. 15–56). New York: Nova Publishers. Barro, R. and Sala-I-Martin, X. (2003). Economic Growth (2nd edn). Cambridge, US: The MIT Press. Blanke, J. and Chiesa, T. (eds) (2011). The Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2011: Beyond the Downturn. Geneva: World Economic Forum. Oxford Economics (2011). Methodology for producing the 2011 WTTC/OE Travel & Tourism economic impact research. Online at: http://wttc.org/research/economicimpact-research/methodology/. Accessed 27 July 2013. United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) (2013). Tourism highlights. Online at: http://mkt.unwto.org/publication/unwto-tourism-highlights-2013edition. World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) (2014). Travel and Tourism Economic Impact 2014. Online at: http://wttc.org/site_media/uploads/downloads/world2014. pdf. Accessed 25 May 2014.

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Chapter 6

Vanishing Peripheries: Does Tourism Consume Places? C. Michael Hall, David Harrison, David Weaver and Geoffrey Wall

Context The notion of the periphery and its relationship to tourism is one that has been a source of debate for many years. The concept of a periphery obviously raises the question of peripheral to what, while the term is often used in a relatively negative context with respect to levels of development and/or influence on central government decision-making. What the term does raise of course is the extent to which location still matters at a time when physical, virtual, capital and human mobility is supposedly greater than ever before. The four contributions therefore highlight a number of key points and debates surround the relative importance of, and relationship between, location and tourist movement. The lead piece by C. Michael Hall, from the Pacific periphery of the South Island of New Zealand, is charged with the topic of does tourism consume place and therefore lead to the loss of the periphery, and perhaps some of the very qualities that attracted tourists to it in the first place. The first response by David Harrison, also from the Pacific, looks at both the geographical and broader social scientific understandings of periphery. The second response from David Weaver utilizes the concept of experiential consumption to interrogate Hall’s article and also link to Harrison’s reference to the importance of development theory in understanding notions of periphery. The final response from Geoff Wall approaches the topic from an overtly geographical perspective and brings the chapter full circle. 161

6.1

Elaborating Core–Periphery Relations in Tourism C. Michael Hall

The idea that the periphery is vanishing is closely connected with notions concerning modernity, globalization and that there is now no place where tourists do not reach. However, where the periphery is depends on where you stand. Etymologically a periphery is a boundary, the edge of something. More loosely, the term has come to be used to describe the area outside or at the edge of a defined space. Peripherality – the condition of being peripheral – therefore refers to something that is outside of the core or mainstream. This article aims to provide a review of issues surrounding peripheral areas and their social construction and address the ways in which the periphery comes to be valued, commoditized and incorporated into the global economic system. It is divided into three sections. The first section presents some of the various ways in which the notion of periphery and peripherality is used. The second discusses the relationship of peripherality to marginality and the way in which tourism is regarded as a response to the ‘need’ for economic development while the final section addresses how the periphery is valued and its implications.

Dimensions of Peripherality The periphery has long been of major interest in tourism studies (Christaller, 1963; Hall & Boyd, 2005a; Müller & Jansson, 2007; Turner & Ash, 1975; Wall, 2000). However, the term has been used in a number of often overlapping, and sometimes inconsistent, ways. These include reference to an urban periphery, a rural periphery, wilderness as periphery, distance as periphery, core-periphery, and political, economic and social peripheries. In real terms, the ‘periphery’ has long been used to refer to the urban– rural interface, or peri-urban areas. Over 30 years ago, Pigram (1983: 106), writing of the conversion of rural land to urban and built-up uses across the 162

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United States, suggested that the greatest competition over the retention of land for recreational uses is in the ‘city periphery’ or what is termed the ‘urban fringe’. Pigram, a geographer, was heavily influenced by the work of the concentric ring structure of the Chicago School of urbanism (e.g. Burgess, 1925), which was essentially a concept of the city as an organic accretion of concentric zones transitional (industrial, deteriorating housing), workingclass residential (tenements), residential and commuter/suburban zones, around a central, organizing core. More recently, however, the notion of a central core has been challenged by the so-called LA School of urban theory, which identified ‘a post-modern urban process in which the urban periphery organizes the centre within the context of a globalizing capitalism’ (Dear & Flusty, 1999: 65). Such observations proving influential in studies of urban tourism dynamics in particular (Evans, 1998; Page & Hall, 2003; Weaver, 2005) that stressed that much tourism activity was now occurring outside of the core in many metropolitan areas. The notion of being outside of urban centres or cores is also strongly embedded in concepts of rural peripherality, which became a significant concept in rural and tourism studies as a result of the impacts of globalization and economic restructuring from the 1970s onwards (Müller & Jansson, 2007). According to Butler and Hall (1998), in many western regions and countries the structures of the relative homogeneous and distinct rural systems of the post-Second World War period have been either destroyed or weakened. They argued that such weakness is a result of at least three types of economic restructuring, namely: the collapse of peripheral areas unable to shift to a more capital-intensive economy; the selective and reductionist process of industrialization of the remaining agricultural sector; and the pressures of urban and ex-urban development. According to Butler and Hall: suffering absolute decline along its extensive margins and the rural-urban interface, with the intervening core area weakened by decoupling of farm and non-farm sectors and the shift of decision making to urban based corporations and governments. Restructuring has created a fragmented and reduced rural system which seems to lack most of the criteria for sustainability in either economic or community terms. (Butler & Hall, 1998: 252) However, according to Cloke (1992), rural places have long been associated with specific functions and attributes that are peripheral to urban areas: agriculture, sparsely populated areas, geographically dispersed settlement patterns, remoteness from urban areas that have led to rurality being conceptualized in terms of peripherality. Indeed, the two are often treated almost synonymously (Blomgren & Sørensen, 1998; Hall & Boyd, 2005a). A third way in which the notion of peripherality is used is with respect to wilderness areas (Hall & Boyd, 2005b; Saarinen, 2005). Given that

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wilderness areas are, by some definitions, the areas that are remote from human settlement and have a high degree of naturalness, then they are often interpreted as being part of peripheral regions (Hall & Page, 2014). Such an approach also reinforces the periphery as distance approach in traditional regional studies (Hall, 2006), which ‘presupposes a predominantly physical or geometric reading of space, uses the relative positions of each place as the key explanatory factor for understanding its characteristics, and has two relatively analytical dimensions: increased transport costs and remoteness’ (Ferrao & Lopes, 2004: 34). The interrelationships between distance and wilderness go back to the influential work of Christaller (1963), where wilderness occurred outside of the rural boundary and which, more recently, has been a significant component of understandings of ecotourism and naturebased tourism (Garrod & Wilson, 2004; Weaver, 1998a). The way in which some forms of pleasure tourism tends to redistribute away from urban areas towards undeveloped regions in a country has long been noted (e.g. Christaller, 1963). With the core–periphery nature of tourism being an important component of political-economy and world system approaches towards tourism (Britton, 1982; Chaperon & Bramwell, 2010, 2012; Shaw & Williams, 2004), particularly with respect to tourism in island microstates (Connell, 1988; Gössling, 2003; Hall, 2010a; Harrison, 2004a; Jordan, 2004; Weaver, 1998b), but also within developed countries and the European context (Hall & Page, 2014; Müller & Jansson, 2007; Seers et al., 1979). These studies combine an understanding of the economic costs of distance to metropolitan areas and markets with the political implications of control of resources and transport access. Such understandings reinforce the notion of economic and political peripheries and their relationship to tourism (Jordan, 2004). The notion of a pleasure periphery (Turner & Ash, 1975) has also been extremely influential in tourism and is a term that has been used in several hundred papers, although with potentially many users of the phrase never having actually read the original book and utilizing the term for its sensationalist aspect rather than its spatial and cultural connotations. Turner and Ash (1975) delimited their pleasure periphery as a zone a few hours flight away from the industrial northern Europe and the United States, and thus reflected the emergence of short-break aviation-based mass tourism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their book title also recalls the original Mongol golden horde and the threat they posed to Europe. As Müller and Jansson (2007: 5) suggest with respect to perceptions of both hordes, ‘there are thus a number of connotations shared by many regarding these hordes: uncivilized, wild, brutal, ruthless. Hence, tourism to the periphery is here not mirrored as a possibility but as a threat’. It is also in this sense that the notion of tourism ‘consuming places’ is often used (Urry, 1995), referring to the undesirable transformation of place and ‘the thinning of meaning’ (Williams & Kaltenborn, 1999: 217). According to Williams and

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Kaltenborn (1999: 227) ‘Recognizing that circulation and travel are increasingly the norm effectively deterritorializes or dis-places what have long been geographically bounded conceptions of culture, home, and identity’. However, such sentiments are not isolated to tourism alone and instead may be bound up with modernity overall. As Harvey (1996: 246) stated, ‘The foreboding generated out of the sense of social space imploding in upon is . . . translates into a crisis of identity. Who are we and what space/place do we belong?’ The idea of a pleasure periphery was used in a much less emotive sense by Christaller (1963), who sought to relate tourism to his central place theory of service provision. Christaller (1963: 95) argued that the ‘real’ qualities of the periphery – the landscape – attracted visitors from central places. Christaller was utilizing the notion of the periphery in a manner that emphasizes his focus on the productive rural boundary with the wilderness beyond. It is typical for places of tourism to be on the periphery. In this way, regions economically benefit from factors which cannot be utilized otherwise: high mountain chains, barren, rocky landscapes, heather, unproductive dunes . . . it now happens that traffic no longer peters out near the periphery. Instead, during certain seasons peripheral places become destinations for traffic and commodity flows and become seasonal central points (Christaller, 1963: 96). Two key elements exist in this quote and in the wider article (Hall, 2006) – the importance of amenity landscapes in the attraction of pleasure tourists and the temporary flow of people between core regions and the tourism periphery. Christaller’s notion of central places offers substantial clues to the nature of these flows. Christaller (1933) provided for the spatial arrangement of urban places as retail goods and service centres within a framework of nested hierarchies of settlements and market areas. He used the concepts of market range (the maximum distance a consumer would travel to purchase a good or service) and threshold (the minimum volume of business necessary for a firm to be economically viable), and noted that different retail functions had different ranges and thresholds for the goods and service they supplied. It is the amenity services of such peripheral places that allow them to achieve a viable market range and threshold – if sometimes only on a seasonal basis. Indeed, Christaller (1963) did also note the way in which tourism served to change some locations via increased numbers of tourists and the infrastructure required for them in a manner that anticipated Butler (1980) and Stansfield (1978) notion of tourism area and resort cycles of development. Nevertheless, Christaller highlighted the way in which tourism was potentially one of the few ways in which lands that were otherwise uneconomic for much industrial and agricultural activity could be given value.

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Peripherality as Marginality As the range of expressions of peripherality noted above indicate, the notion of peripherality is an essentially contested concept, with the term being open to interpretation from various spatial, economic, social and political perspectives. The concept is closely related to ideas of marginality, which is a condition of disadvantage that may arise from unfavourable environmental, cultural, social, economic and political factors. Mehretu et al. (2000), in their review of the concept of marginality, noted that the literature on uneven development treats the phenomenon of marginality as a generic concept of socio-economic disadvantage in which inequality and inequity are treated as synonymous. Arguably, similar perspectives can be traced in the literature on peripherality (Hall, 2007). At the scale of ‘place’, four different notions of marginality could be applied to peripheral regions: contingent, systematic, collateral and leveraged (Table 6.1). With respect to the role of tourism in peripheral areas, the issue of contingent marginality is clearly a major consideration because of the role that distance and accessibility, as well as other factors, play in the relative attractiveness of locations for tourism. Vulnerabilities to contingent marginality are generally regarded as relatively amenable to amelioration by making places more ‘competitive’. Hence, places will often try to change their relative accessibility via development of new transport and communication infrastructure and/or networks, as well as incentives to use such networks. However, there are a range of innovative responses to peripherality that operate at different scales according to different policy measures and the nature of the policy environment within which peripheral regions are located (Pechlaner & Tschurtschenthaler, 2003; Schyvens, 2007). Systematic and collateral marginalities, for example, may be sought to overcome via a focus on image and perception change (Müller & Jansson, 2007), while leveraged marginality may even serve as the basis for the attraction of firms that want to take advantage of low labour costs or tax regimes. Regions that are generally held to be peripheral, particularly in the developed world, tend to share a number of common characteristics (Hall & Boyd, 2005a; Müller, 2006; Müller & Jansson, 2007) (Table 6.2). They are marked by relatively simple economies that tend to be natural resource based (extensive agriculture and grazing, timber, hydro-electricity), mineral extraction is often highly significant (though short-term) and, where energy is cheap it has often been used to attract processing plants, particularly for pulp and paper, as well as smelting operations. The production of high value products and services tends to be low. Peripheral regions also tend to have a limited transport infrastructure as, almost by definition, they are located at the end of transport networks. In recent years, peripheral regions have also lost significant state services, as well as suffering from out-migration. As a

A condition that results from competitive inequality in which communities are placed at a disadvantage because of the dynamics of the market. Vulnerability to contingent marginality is generally based on disadvantages that develop because of social, cultural, locational and environmental limitations in dealing with the market. Reasons may be such factors as unattractive locations, distance decay, inadequate labour skills, barriers to innovation diffusion and lack of information about opportunities. A condition that results from disadvantages that communities experience in a hegemonic system of inequitable relations that allows one set of individuals and communities to exercise undue power and control over another. May be expressed through markers such as class, culture, race, ethnicity, age, religion, immigration status and gender. A derivative form of disadvantage that depends on the existence of contingent and/or systematic marginality. A condition experienced by communities who are marginalised primarily on the basis of their social or geographic proximity to communities that experience either contingent or systematic marginality. They suffer marginality by ‘contagion’. A derivative form of contingent and/or systematic disadvantage that communities experience when their bargaining position as labour and suppliers to advanced enterprises is weakened by transnational enterprises who possess the ability to be flexible and hence create competitive bidding between places that seek their business. Vulnerability to leveraged marginality depends on location and standards of living.

Contingent

Source: After Mehretu et al., 2000; Hall, 2007

Leveraged

Collateral

Systematic

Description

Type of marginality

Table 6.1 Typology of marginality in relation to place

• Relocation of production to less unionized areas or areas that show greater workforce flexibility. • Relocation to areas that provide better concessions in terms of rents, taxes, repatriation of profits, infrastructure.

• Concerns about collateral marginality may discourage Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and tourist flows into peripheral regions.

• Poor location in terms of access to transport and communication networks. • Environmental constraints on business development combined with poor relative location to market. • Behavioural constraints in dealing with information technology. • Often associated with colonial and neocolonial regimes in the less developed world. • Tribal/ethnic-based marginalization.

Examples

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Table 6.2 Characteristics of peripheral areas for tourism Geographical remoteness

Lack of effective political and economic control over major decisions affecting well-being Economic linkages

Migration flows

Innovation

State intervention

Information flows

Aesthetic values

Peripheral areas are geographically remote from mass markets. This not only implies increased transportation costs to and from the core areas, but also increased communication costs with suppliers and customers. They are particularly susceptible to the impacts of economic globalization and restructuring through the removal of tariffs and the development of free trade regimes; as well as the political and economic decisions of non-local political institutions and firms. Internal economic linkages tend to be weaker at the periphery than at the core, thereby potentially limiting the ability to achieve high multiplier effects because of the substantial degree of importation of goods and services. Migration flows tend to be from the periphery to the core. This can impact not only the absolute population of a given area, but its intangible (social and intellectual) capital as well. Botterill et al. (1997) argued that peripheries tend to be characterized by a comparative lack of innovation, as new products tend to be imported rather than developed locally. However, there has been little empirical examination of this issue and even evidence to the contrary (Hall & Williams, 2008). Because of the economic difficulties experienced by peripheral regions, the national and local state may play a relatively greater interventionist role than in core regions. Information flows within the periphery and from the periphery to the core are weaker than those from the core to the periphery. Such information flows may have implications for political and economic decision-making undertaken in core regions, as well as broader perceptions of place. Peripheral regions often retain high aesthetic amenity values because of being relatively underdeveloped in relation to core areas. Such high natural values may not only serve as a basis for the development of nature-based tourism, but may also be significant for other types of tourism and leisure developments, such as that associated with second homes.

Source: After Hall and Boyd, 2005b; Hall, 2007; Müller and Jansson, 2007.

result of these processes, the relative naturalness of such destinations, as well as the lack of development alternatives and other contingent and leveraged factors, means that tourism becomes one of the few economic policy responses. The impacts of which, like peripherality, itself can be interpreted in numerous ways depending on the framework applied by the viewer. Indeed, in the same way that the tourism-related connectivity of peripheral

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destinations to urban centres can be simultaneously understood as both a transport connection that provides accessibility as well as an economic relationship that makes local tourism businesses increasingly subject to external change, so the connection can also be understood in a more theoretical sense as simultaneously both enabling destination competitiveness and increasing economic dependency on external agents. Given such a situation, the notion of tourism consuming places potentially becomes increasingly problematic and instead should best be understood as only one, albeit important, agent of change in the networked relationships between places and the material and immaterial flows between them. In many cases place change and the disappearance of peripheral places, either real or imagined, is much more a result of other economic and consumer–producer relationships, the availability of an increased range of media sources and the activities of religious and missionary groups than it is of tourism. The de-territorialization and dis-placement of what have long been geographically bounded conceptions of culture, home, identity and even destinations lies much more in the nature of contemporary globalized modernity and neo-liberal capitalism than it does in tourism per se.

Tourism and the Value of Peripheral Places So what of the future of peripheral places? Although tourism is but one of several factors that lead to the consumption of place – meaning the incorporation of place into the global capitalist system – it nevertheless remains important. For many locations, in the absence of increased levels of state intervention to allow non- or part-market lifestyles to continue, it is perceived as the ‘solution’ to the economic implications of peripherality. Tourism, like mining, timber harvesting or energy production, provides for both material and immaterial linkages and therefore incorporation into other ways of doing. Of course, it can be argued that very few locations around the world have ever been absolutely cut off from the rest of the globe. However, what has altered is the rate and amount of connectivity, so that places change to an extent that has becomes noticeable to those that live there and continues to change. Perhaps most significantly, and almost unnoticed in the long tourism discussion on peripherality, is the way that tourism has become used as a means to provide value to lands that are otherwise perceived as waste and unproductive. Without tourism the exchange value of such areas, as well as the places within them, is virtually nil. They cannot be commoditized for consumption. In historical terms, this meant that many of the world’s national parks were created on otherwise worthless land that were given economic value as a result of tourism development and railroad connections (Frost & Hall, 2009; Runte, 1979). More recently, peripheral areas have

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become subject to neoliberal conservation strategies, whereby new enclosures and conservation-based enterprises create ‘new symbolic and material spaces for global capital expansion’ (Corson, 2010: 578). Indeed, the currently dominant ideological context, where it is believed that the attribution of economic value to nature and its submission to market processes is the key to the successful conservation of natural areas, usually via ecotourism development or payment for retention of ecosystem services, may only serve to further commoditize peripheral places (Brockington & Duffy, 2010). ‘By focusing consumers’ attention on distant and exotic locales, the spectacular productions . . . conceal the complex and proximate connections of people’s daily lives to environmental problems, while suggesting that the solutions to environmental problems lay in the consumption of the kinds of commodities that helped produce them in the first place’ (Igoe et al., 2010: 505). Therefore, in a very real sense, rather than being marginal space, the periphery has now become central to our understanding of nature and the values by which it may be conserved rather than consumed. Leading to a question that will affect, not only how biodiversity may be conserved in coming years, but also human’s relationship to areas with high degree of naturalness. Do we value peripheral areas for their intrinsic properties or does their value only come via us being able to consume them?

6.2

Vanishing Peripheries and Shifting Centres: Structural Certainties or Negotiated Ambiguities? David Harrison

Michael Hall suggests it is commonly felt that the expansion of international tourism has had negative impacts on destinations only recently exposed to

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mass tourism. He then relates the spatial nature and dimensions of ‘peripherality’ to the rural/urban interface, and discusses the long-established notion that tourism destinations (especially those in developing societies close to developed industrial centres) have increasingly functioned as ‘pleasure peripheries.’ In his typology, which is highly reminiscent of earlier underdevelopment and world systems theory, especially such continua as centre – periphery and metropole – satellite, he then relates spatial marginality to disadvantageous market position and (the probably inter-linked) social and cultural inequalities that typically reflect colonial and neo-colonial histories. As Hall recognizes, ‘tourism is but one of the several factors that lead to the consumption of place – meaning the incorporation of place into the global capitalist system’. However, its incorporative tendencies are sufficiently important to have dominated much of the literature on tourism’s impacts, especially in developing societies and ‘peripheral’ regions. Early on, MacCannell noted tourism’s role in creating inauthenticy in destination areas (1976: 91–107) and Greenwood (despite his later partial retraction) branded tourism as ‘fundamentally destructive’ in its commoditization of local culture (Greenwood, 1989: 174). Countless critics of tourism – even of ‘ecotourism’ – have concurred (Croall, 1995; Duffy, 2002; Hickman, 2007; McLaren, 1998; Mowforth & Munt, 2009), and the social and cultural negativity of the process whereby tourism destinations are incorporated into the world capitalist system might even be described – despite some notable opposition (Aramberri, 2010; Butcher, 2003) – as received wisdom. Indeed, MacCannell was later to repeat the tenor of his early analysis: Tourism has been the ground for the production of a new global culture. In the name of tourism, capital and modernized peoples have been deployed to the most remote regions of the world. Tourism has coated almost the entire world with decorative traces of the cultures it has consumed. (MacCannell, 2001: 389) However, although Hall implies that tourism does indeed consume places, he carefully avoids such judgements, and in closing, notes that tourism has provided a value to lands ‘otherwise perceived as waste and unproductive’ and that – under neoliberal orthodoxy – this very commercial value could ensure the ‘successful conservation of natural areas’. Other geographers have also focused on patterns of tourism development, emanating from centres of tourist origin outwards to destinations that, at least initially, might be regarded as peripheries. Pearce, for example, presents several typologies and several case studies from developed and developing societies (1989: 57–107). So do Oppermann and Chon, who relate geographic ‘models’ of tourism development to paradigms (‘diffusionist’, ‘dependency’ and ‘sector’) held by the various analysts (1997: 35–51).

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In passing, it is worth noting, with Andre Gunder Frank, that there are chains of centre and periphery status. The capital city in a colony or former colony, for example, may simultaneously be an economic centre, with peripheries in its hinterland, and a periphery of the colonial metropole (Harrison, 1988: 81–84). Centre/periphery status can thus be relative to an overall position in the international pecking order. There is also ample evidence, from developed and developing societies, that over time centres and peripheries change, disappear and reappear, partly through alterations in their structural position and economic and social importance. In some parts of the world, for example, isolated rural areas have initially attracted second home owners only later to become urban centres themselves, either through an intake of new migrants (where the destination acts as a growth pole) or by gradual absorption into the metropole, which has expanded to include its earlier satellites (Pearce, 1989: 78–82). Such incorporation, however, is hardly unique to tourism, and characterized the growth of London and many other UK cities during the 19th century. By contrast, from the latter half of the 19th century, many European ‘peripheral’ areas, including formerly established historical settlements, developed as coastal resorts, primarily through vastly improved road and rail communications, a process further extended by the growth of air travel after the second World War. The result was a very distinctive form of urbanization, where urban areas came to be centres of permanent populations and temporary destinations for large numbers of domestic and international tourists. Rimini in Italy and Alicante in Spain are but two examples of ancient settlements that obtained a new lease of life through tourism, whereas Brighton in England, UK would be a good example of a resort moving from humble origins to becoming (and remaining) prominent despite the vagaries of domestic and international tourism. Other coastal towns were less fortunate. East Kent resorts further along the coast from Brighton reverted to peripheral status, becoming recipients of development aid, and seek to reinvent or rejuvenate themselves (Butler, 1980). Margate, for example, despite once being the home of C. Michael Hall, a well-known tourism academic and humourist (2010b), is now a recipient of European development aid and (boosted with a new art gallery dedicated to Turner, an English painter) is seeking to reinvent itself by developing an Amusement Heritage Park (Wood, 2011). Similar patterns of centre and periphery formation can be seen in the history of tourism in the countries of the former USSR and in developing countries generally. Long-neglected ancient centres of civilization, for example, Carthage in Tunisia and Palmyra in Syria, have become archaeological attractions, and many former centres have been replaced by new administrative capitals, which then compete with other towns for importance. In Fiji, for example, Levuka – the first colonial capital – was soon replaced by Suva as the centre of administration and is now a sleepy backwater anxiously trying to attract tourists (Harrison, 2004b). In turn, Suva itself was briefly

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challenged by Lautoka, which (now in decline) still calls itself the ‘sugar city’ of Fiji, and though Suva remains the formal administrative capital of Fiji, the country’s biggest international airport is in the West, at Nadi, which is now gateway to most of Fiji’s tourism attractions and to other parts of the South Pacific. In short, tourism ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’ may shift in status from one to the other, periodically gaining, losing and (perhaps) regaining administrative and/or economic prominence. The sands of time wait for no one. As Hall acknowledges, a quite different perspective on what constitutes a centre and periphery is obtained by describing and analysing individual and social perceptions of place as held, for example, by a range of social actors, for example, tourists, destination residents or even social scientists. Such a phenomenological approach, based on the assumption that ‘reality’ is socially negotiated, is not new (Berger & Luckmann, 1967; Overgaard & Zahavi, 2009). Rather than being static, then, destinations are best seen as ‘changing, recreated and given meaning through the actions of the people who occupy them’ (Wearing et al. in Thurnell-Read, 2011: 803). Indeed, such an approach emerges from Cohen’s early description of the ‘organized mass tourist’, confined in an ‘environmental bubble’ throughout the vacation. Such tourists take their own centres with them (Cohen, 1972: 167). Similarly, British holidaymakers in Mallorca occupy ‘symbolic landscapes’, characterized by an alcohol-fuelled collective focus on nationalism, ‘Britishness’ and male dominance. These package tourists are surrounded by reminders of home and ‘consume’ and ‘possess’ the resorts they occupy (Andrews, 2011). Nevertheless, like stag tourists in Poland (Thurnell-Read, 2011: 815), they remain subject to controls emanating from staff at bars and night clubs, tour operators and government, and even within their resorts they are aware that, away from the beaten track, on wasteland or even at a different hotel, they are moving from their adopted centre to an unknown and thus uncomfortable periphery (Andrews, 2011: 117). The extent to which, while on vacation, tourists create or recreate centres for themselves – and hence simultaneously establish new peripheries – clearly varies from one type of tourism to another. Over the last five decades, Cohen’s early typology of four tourist roles, that is, organized and individual mass tourists, explorers and drifters (Cohen, 1972: 167–169), has been much developed by Cohen himself and others, leading to far more complex depictions of the range of tourist ‘types’ and their motivations (Mehmetoglu, 2004; Shaw & Williams, 2002: 84; Smith, 2001: 63–67; Williams, 1998: 7–15; Yiannakis & Gibson, 1992), as well as to a wide range of ‘alternative’ and ‘new’ tourisms (Mowforth & Munt, 2009: 94–100; Telfer, 2002: 62–69). Nevertheless, even across Cohen’s four tourist types, the extent to which the (home) ‘bubble’ remains intact during a vacation, or even during one day of the vacation, varies considerably. The bubble of even the most ensconced institutionalized tourist can be expanded, even burst, and then a new reality

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is opened up, with the possibility of an expanded sense of home and the approach of another periphery. For social scientists not to allow for this possibility, even among the most stereotypical package tourists, is to allow personal prejudice, often based on perceptions of social class, to blunt our understanding of human potential and to show contempt for those we study. Put differently, there are always going to be ambiguities of identity and sense of place for tourists in destination areas. This is perhaps especially so for those who take up long-term residence (McWatters, 2009: 143–147). Living in a cultural and environmental ‘bubble’ is not a straightforward matter. Take the case of British tourists in Spain. According to Waldren, in Mallorca, in the Spanish Balearics, British residential tourists are reportedly well integrated and have ‘a commitment to the place and people with whom they share a past and a future. The village [Deià] has been able to continue as a community with its own symbolic boundaries not despite outsiders but because of their presence’ (Waldren, 1996: 250). By contrast, the story of long-term British residents on the Costa del Sol, in mainland Spain, is quite different. There, they have been described as a ‘marginal minority’: They identify as being committed to Spain, but they are not really integrated; they are marginal but deny it. They identify with other Britons but are covert about it. They identify overly with Spanish people but not in their relationships and networks, only in symbols . . . They draw on symbols of holiday and escape and demonstrate that, for them, Spain is somewhere to escape to, and Britain somewhere to escape from. They apply to Britain for help and draw on Britishness while doing so. They spend time with other Britons but run Britain down and identify as different. (O’Reilly, 2000: 143) Finally, at the end of the spectrum, we have largely working class, northern, British holidaymakers on package tours to Magaluf and Palmanova. Ill at ease with the cosmopolitan UK, and having virtually no contact at all with their Spanish ‘hosts’, they prefer instead an artificially ‘British’, alcoholinduced, foreigner-free world in Magaluf, which is predominantly white, working class and heterosexual, and ‘represented and lived through composites of social life, namely space, the body and food and drink’ (Andrews, 2011: 223). Here, if anywhere, perhaps, is evidence of the destructive power of tourism: loutish, apparently sub-human behaviour in complete disregard for local communities. And a visit to some sections of Magaluf at 5am can indeed convey an impression of Armageddon. Yet, even in the admirable study of Andrews, there is hope: There are exceptions; some repeat visitors do penetrate back areas, becoming friends with locals they encounter from year to year. In some

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cases, the penetration is complete when tourists become part of the backstage themselves through, for instance, marriage. In addition, tourists do not always reject the other outright, for example, some will sit and watch Flamenco dancing (although this is not a Mallorcan custom) and sample local food and drink (Andrews, 2011: 13). Other studies of young tourists have reached similar conclusions. Whereas some Israeli backpackers to India, for example, are very much focused on their own group (‘conquerors’), others go to considerable lengths to ‘integrate and learn from local culture, customs or spiritual practices’ (Maoz in Thurnell-Read, 2011: 803). I have suggested that centre/periphery status can change over time, and that perceptions of being in a centre or periphery are very much negotiated, with tourists negotiating their individual and collective centres or homes, often in direct opposition to what they see as the periphery. However, other avenues of discussion are possible. Tourists from the developing world to the developed world, for example, may perceive of the latter as their periphery, and their experience of tourism in London, Paris, Sydney, New York or Moscow will be as meaningful and potentially life-changing as that of an urban city dweller visiting a ‘periphery’ in the Caribbean, the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean. By contrast, residents of tourist ‘centres’ may change perceptions of their own identity, as is reported of the British responding to the 2012 London Olympic Games (Freedland, 2012), and at least some residents of tourist destinations may adapt perceptions of self in line with established and widely held social stereotypes (as with the ‘happy-go-lucky’ West Indian and the ever-smiling Fijian). Somewhat differently, there can be debates about the status of different centres, as occurred at a 2004 conference of tourism academics in Scotland, when our hapless (and nameless) host welcomed visiting colleagues from Australia and New Zealand ‘from the Antipodes’. More than eight years on, some ‘Antipodeans’ are still bristling! Hall closes by asking whether peripheral areas are to be valued for their intrinsic qualities or for their commercial usefulness. However, do they have any intrinsic qualities? Take the case of gorse bushes on the South Downs in Sussex, England, which became a National Park in 2010. Routinely removed by rangers to ensure the countryside is kept ‘beautiful’, they are deemed neither outstanding nor beautiful. Yet, as a simple internet search demonstrates (http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/gorse+bushes/framed+prints: Accessed 18 September 2012) they are not universally despised. It is perhaps reminiscent of Selina Peake’s comment, in Ferber’s novel So Big, that ‘cabbages is beautiful’ (Ferber, 2010); gorse bushes, too, might be considered to have the same intrinsic quality. It may be that, like beauty, centre and periphery status is a reality that is as much the outcome of inter-subjective negotiation as the objective categorization of social scientists.

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6.3

Moving in From the Margins: Experiential Consumption and the Pleasure Core David Weaver

Hall, in his timely discussion of tourism peripherality, reminds us that peripherality is ‘an essentially contested concept’ and that ‘where the periphery is depends on where you stand’. That it situates outside the mainstream or core is only partly helpful by way of clarification, because there remains the question of peripheral or core relative to what? Since its articulation in the 1970s by Turner and Ash (1975), the pleasure periphery has entered the tourism lexicon as a region where economically and geographically marginal places are being mobilized and modified to meet recreational needs of consumers. Peripherality, accordingly, is rightfully understood within an economic and environmental context where economically privileged corporations and tourists from the core engage with economically underprivileged residents of the periphery to consume the local sea, sand, sun, sex and snow. Whether this ultimately redistributes wealth as per the trickledown effects of modernization theory (Mings, 1969), or exacerbates inequalities as per the trickle-up effects of dependency theory (Weaver, 1988), is contestable, but the basic relative positioning of core and periphery in either case is not fundamentally questioned. This rejoinder proposes an alternative and counterintuitive interpretation of ‘pleasure periphery’, essentially augmenting the economic/environmental focus with the experiential focus. Geographically and economically marginal locations, accordingly, are places where various peak sensations and emotions are sought and attained through place ‘consumption’. High mountains and wilderness, for example, associate with memorable experiences such as awe, rush, solitude and spiritual inspiration (Fredrickson & Anderson, 1999; McDonald et al., 2009). Tropical beaches might evoke sensations of deep relaxation, playfulness and indulgence (Lencek & Bosker, 1998). Such emotions and sensations are central elements of destination experience that

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predict satisfaction, recommendation to others, repeat visitation and, potentially, behavioral transformation (Faullant et al., 2011). Is it not therefore logical to characterize these places as the pleasure core rather than the pleasure periphery, even while it remains an economic periphery? A related contribution of this rejoinder is to challenge the taken-forgranted dichotomous structure of the core/periphery relationship. Wallerstein (1974) nuanced this framework by introducing the ‘semi-periphery’ as a transitional and/or specialized place accommodating exchanges between core and periphery. This, and the proposed addition here of the ‘semi-core’, better captures the nature of tourism consumption by incorporating interaction with places that sequentially facilitate the tourist’s transition between core and periphery (Zurick, 1992). By way of personal example, in the late 1970s I resided in the Canadian city of Waterloo, Ontario, for me a place of everyday and usually repetitive and unremarkable experiences, many of them not particularly pleasurable (e.g. driving to university, shovelling snow). Waterloo logically situates as the experiential pleasure periphery in this anecdote, where peak sensations were neither normal nor expected. My first trip to the tropics was to the Caribbean island of Tobago, a pleasure core where I experienced the awe of a tropical sunset, the wonder of a coral reef and the thrill of ‘discovering’ ruined British fortifications in the mountains. Pre-trip anticipation was enhanced when I reached Pearson International Airport in Toronto – the pleasure semi-periphery, and heightened further upon landing at the airport in Trinidad. In this pleasure semi-core gateway, I had my first sensations of pervasive tropical heat and humidity when deplaning, and of being challenged by the first-time sense of being a racial minority. It is appropriate here to reconsider place consumption, also central to Hall’s interrogation. Consumption of place in traditional peripherality discourses has negative connotations of place degradation, destruction, demeaning, displacement and commodification. ‘Consumption’, however, is simply an abstraction (although it encompasses the literal act of consuming resources), like peripherality, that helps to make sense of the world; it is not necessarily negative (Dimanche & Samdahl, 1994). Visitors’ ‘consumption’ of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre may entail acts of assessment, appreciation, affection, assimilation and perhaps enlightenment. There is also the adage that we are more likely to cherish and defend things that we are personally familiar with, including special places consumed through tourism. Hall, perhaps inadvertently, accords to this by emphasizing how ‘tourism has become used as a means to provide value to lands that are otherwise perceived as waste and unproductive’. If such lands are positioned as a pleasure core facilitating positive experiential consumption, this can elevate their importance and help to redress concurrent realities of economic peripherality. The idea of periphery having parallel utility as experiential core is not unique to tourism, being also evident in the creative richness of Europe’s Celtic fringe, the centrality of the western frontier in American mythology,

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and the essential spirituality of mountains and wilderness in major world religions. All three examples nourish a contemporary pleasure core expanding rapidly owing to increased demand and accessibility. Towards interpreting and coping with this expansion, it is helpful to revisit Hall’s Table 6.2, which depicts the characteristics of peripheral areas for tourism and thus defines the respective terms of consumption. Where the economic periphery offers ‘geographical remoteness’, the coexisting pleasure core provides spiritual and emotional intimacy. ‘Lack of effective political and economic control’ is juxtaposed with spiritual, social, physical and psychological emancipation, while weak internal economic linkages contrast with spiritual, social, physical and psychological multiplier effects. Migration flows ‘from the [economic] periphery to the [economic] core’ are offset by temporary and permanent amenity migration from the [pleasure] periphery to the [pleasure] core. Finally, low innovation levels coexist with high levels of inspiration. It is critical to reiterate the co-existence and complementarity of these pairings, wherein geographical remoteness, for example, fosters and facilitates spiritual and emotional intimacy. All contrasts affirm the latent power inherent in the experiential core, which is not constrained by the four marginality types in Hall’s Table 6.1 that characterize the economic periphery. A pertinent question, then, is how to harness this power to counter the dysfunctional characteristics of the latter. Dialectical reasoning that posits two opposing positions and their amalgamation into a compromise synthesis that transcends their parent dualities is warranted (Botterill & Klemm, 2005; Carr, 2000). Economic periphery thus positions as ‘thesis’ and pleasure core as ‘antithesis’, while semi-periphery and semi-core facilitate synthesis. A relevant consideration is scale, given that the gap between economic deficit and experiential surplus – and hence the thesis/antithesis contrast – is greatest at the global level and less pronounced in localized contexts, such as the rural–urban fringe where distinctive tourism development models pertain (Weaver, 2005). Intuitively, there is also a fundamental difference between antithesis manifested in mountain and wilderness settings, and its manifestation in hedonic settings evoking baser consumption instincts. These are some of the issues that emerge from the idea that periphery and core can co-exist in the same place through parallel modes of consumption, a novel contribution to the discourses of peripherality that remain central to our understanding of nature and tourism.

Two Applications These ruminations are illustrated by South Africa’s pleasure periphery as fostered under the pre-1994 Apartheid regime. Ten tribal ‘Homelands’ were established to provide official residency and citizenship for the black African

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majority, thereby in principle rendering South Africa a white-majority state. Crucial for making these impoverished entities more economically viable was the establishment of large casinos in locations accessible to large population concentrations in ‘white’ South Africa. Associated characteristics here therefore include a context of extreme and geopolitically formalized economic peripherality as well as extreme hedonic tourism (Crush & Wellings, 1983). From conventional pleasure periphery perspectives, the consumption of Homeland-based hedonic tourism reinforced Apartheid, amplifying dependency on South African markets while legitimizing the Homelands through revenues obtained from those markets. Prospects of gaining a wealth-generating casino were also used to gain the cooperation of Homeland politicians still recalcitrant about committing to ‘independence’. Finally, the casinos served as ‘safety valves’ by giving white South Africans access to leisure consumption opportunities denied to them in their Calvinist-influenced home country, including gambling and inter-racial sex (Weaver, 2000). From the unconventional perspective of the pleasure core, casinos and other Homeland attractions are vectors of latent subversion, serving as venues for racial mixing in which the black hosts are encountered as relatively free and equal residents of the nominally independent Homelands. The sheer scale and extravagance of mega-projects such as Sun City, moreover, guaranteed a magnetic pull on the white South African market (Rogerson, 1990). Such modes of consumption, as per the contact hypothesis of Allport (1954), would compel some visitors to question prevailing racial relationships within South Africa itself. As such, the consumption provided through casino experiences, potentially, are mutually emancipatory and inspirational. In the post-Apartheid era, these locations continue to function as nodes of inter-racial mixing, as informal sanctions against the same continue to prevail within much of South Africa (Finchilescu & Tredoux, 2010). The combination of this unconventional narrative (pleasure core), with its emphasis on experiential consumption, and the conventional narrative (pleasure periphery), with its emphasis on economic/environmental consumption, provides a powerful framework for assessing the full spectrum of core– periphery relations. Tourism in Antarctica provides another illustration of pleasure core dynamics and their parallel consumption implications, here in a context of extreme geographical peripherality, an absence of local residents and immersive nature-based experiences. As with other wilderness settings, the experiential consumption of Antarctica can provoke deep affective responses, such as awe and humility, which may instigate transformational outcomes that affect settings beyond the place of consumption (Powell et al., 2012). The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators contends in its bylaws that exposure to (i.e. consumption of) the continent through first-hand visits will produce ambassadors for its continued preservation (IAATO, 2012), and therefore supports controlled growth to increase this alleged

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advocacy effect. However, Eijgelaar et al. (2010) question this ‘ambassadorship’ phenomenon and argue that visitors realize dominantly utilitarian outcomes; hence, increased visitation serves only to harm Antarctica by increasing the consumption of the local environment in the more conventional sense. Experiential consumption does not offset economic/environmental consumption if Eijgelaar et al. (2010) are correct. Given that participants in a stakeholder Delphi panel argued that Antarctica should and could serve as a showpiece and exemplar for tourism that fosters science, peace, education and understanding (Liggett et al., 2011), it is therefore worth investigating the transformational experiences, products and interpretation that could be offered by Antarctic tour operators so that ambassadorship outcomes are realized. Some experiences, products and interpretation might be offered in semi-core and semi-periphery settings as ‘proto-consumption’ facilitating higher order outcomes within the Antarctic pleasure core itself. For both South Africa and Antarctica, the idea of pleasure core evokes complex patterns of experiential consumption, the latent power of which has the potential to exercise subversive effects on the associated economic core and the more conventional patterns of economic, cultural and environmental consumption that the economic core imposes on the pleasure core. Parallel constructs of economic core and pleasure core, and the semi-peripheries and semi-cores that mediate their interaction, provide a useful framework for interrogating the ongoing global diffusion of tourism.

6.4

Tourism in Peripheries Geoffrey Wall

As an individual whose career has been based entirely in geography departments, it is natural that ‘periphery’ should be seen as being primarily a spatial concept, albeit one that can be linked to other concepts, such as population density, economic structure, level and type of development, modernization and globalization. As such, peripheries should be understood in relationship to their respective cores, with emphasis on the relationships between centres and edges, leading to issues and debates concerning whether

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development permits cores to exploit peripheries or whether development can ‘trickle down’ from cores to peripheries. Furthermore, as long as cores exist, then peripheries will also exist, although the relationships between them are likely to change, not least because of changes in communication technologies. Sometimes the term ‘periphery’ is used somewhat loosely to denote natural features, such as coastlines that are on the edge of land masses, or mountains that mark the borders of plains that are commonly developed differently and less intensively than the more rugged regions that surround them. Clearly, such peripheral areas are important for tourism, for much tourism takes place on coasts and in mountains. Coasts are usually less intensively developed than mountains where many of the world’s indigenous people reside. However, the utility of such sweeping generalizations can be called into question, for it is not difficult to identify exceptions. When viewed as a spatial phenomenon, it is reasonable to refer to the work of the early spatial theorists for insights into relationships between cores and peripheries. The work of Burgess that is cited by Hall is on the internal structure of the city, says little about tourism, viewed the area surrounding the city merely as a place into which the city can expand, thereby increasing the extent of the built-up area. It was soon replaced by sectoral and multiple-nuclei conceptualizations (Harris & Ullman, 1945), neither of which have much to say explicitly about tourism, although one might see concentrations of entertainment facilities, as in the West End of London, Broadway in New York and Amsterdam’s red light district, as examples of such nuclei (Ashworth et al., 1988). Christaller (1963) was concerned with networks of settlements and the relationships between settlements of different sizes. Certainly, the concept of threshold and range, which are the basis of the market-optimizing case (the case referred to by Hall), can be very useful and help to explain why high order functions, such as professional sports teams, major museums and art galleries, specialized shopping, major airports and the like, are concentrated in major cities. However, Christaller (1963) also examined the transportation-optimizing case (of possible relevance to the establishment of travel routes) and administration-optimizing case (of possible relevance to the delimitation of planning regions), as well as the relationships between them. These variations were commonly covered in introductory geography textbooks (see, for example, Haggett, 1972) and were extended by Losch (1967). Although his article, published by the Papers of the Regional Science Association (Christaller, 1963), is still often cited, it is easy to over-emphasize the influence of Christaller on tourism research, especially that published in English. Christaller’s work was originally published in German and is not readily available in English. Few English-speaking scholars have read the original. While it is true that Christaller identified tourism places as being located in the periphery, this phenomenon was not well-integrated into his

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theories and he failed to develop fully the notions of threshold and range in the context of urban tourism. In fact, in spite of the substantial importance of urban tourism as a proportion of all tourism and the frequent need of tourists to pass through cores to get to peripheries (because of the structure of transport networks), research on such tourism lagged that on tourism in other locations and has only recently come to the fore with the publication of texts on urban tourism. Until recently, there has been a gulf between the work of urban and tourism theorists, as illustrated in the research on urban morphology and resort morphology that have evolved independently (Liu & Wall, 2009). Fortunately, the gap is now closing through the work of such pioneers as Ashworth (Ashworth & Tunbridge, 1990) on heritage and tourism in cities, and Jansen-Verbeke (1986) on culture and tourism in cities. It is a paradox that tourism is both widely distributed and highly concentrated. While there are now few places in the world that are not visited, most tourists are concentrated in a limited number of places. Thus, although peripheries can be viewed as being substantial areas that surround core and intermediate areas, in fact tourism in peripheries is not evenly distributed throughout them and is also highly concentrated in a small number of destinations. The degree of concentration and dispersal is an attribute and outcome of different types of tourism, indicating that it can be misleading to consider tourism as if it is an undifferentiated phenomenon, and that it is necessary to give more attention to different types of tourism (Wall & Mathieson, 2006: 65). Krakover (1985) has provided interesting insights into tourism development in peripheral areas, indicating that in the early stages of development, travel costs in terms of both time and money are likely to be large, and that length of stay is likely to be short because of limited attractions and supporting infrastructure. Thus, the ratio between travel time and length of stay is large initially, making it difficult for such places to be competitive, but this can change over time. In such situations, tourism may not be a pioneer activity, but may rely on the infrastructure developed for other sectors, such as mining or forestry. It is not yet clear whether and in what form development in peripheral areas can be initiated successfully through tourism, to what extent tourism initially uses infrastructure developed by and for other sectors, and what these things might mean for development policies. Obviously, scale is important, and cores and peripheries are nested at different scales and can change over time. At the global scale, with a western bias supported by ‘world systems theory’, western Europe and north-east North America have been conceptualized as the core to which the rest of the world is peripheral (see for example, Klink, 1990). Recently, while presenting at a conference in Urumqi, the major city in Xinjiang, China’s largest and most north-westerly province, the author argued that peripherality was a major development challenge there, with most visitors to the province coming from the more highly developed and urbanized eastern China,

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foreign visitors from Europe flying past the province to hubs in the east of the country before back-tracking, and large distances both to and within the province that required much time and cost in travel. However, others saw the province, and particularly the main city Urumqi, as being located in the centre of Asia, as a core through which the Silk Road passed historically and, therefore, as having an advantageous location. Indeed, Urumqi, as a central city where most people in the province live and through which most visitors must pass, dominates intra- and inter-provincial, as well as international tourism flows to and within the province. It is worth asking, as Richard (1993) has done, whether peripheries have more in common with each other than with their respective cores. Building upon the work of House (1980) on frontier zones and using the terminology ‘borderlands’, he addressed the questions of what conditions and linkages are required for successful trans-border planning, recognizing that administrative boundaries exist at a hierarchy of levels and are associated with the spatial variations in the distribution of power. Not only does such a question focus attention on the utility of ‘periphery’ as a concept, it also highlights certain planning and marketing aspects of peripherality. For example, do the parts of the Great Plains and Prairie Provinces, or the New England–Maritime areas adjacent to the United States–Canada border have more in common with each other than with their respective political cores (Washington D.C. and Ottawa)? If so, are they competing with each other for the same tourists or might it be in their mutual interest to collaborate to attract visitors? In this vein, the author explored the possibility of enhancing collaboration between the peripheral areas of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, which are both separated and united by the sea and, in many international markets, are competitive tourism destinations (Wall, 2008). The aims were to: (1) exploit economic complementarities in the peripheral parts of neighbouring countries by combining factors of production across borders so as to reduce costs of production and increase efficiency; (2) exploit opportunities to develop and manage shared resources or address common problems; and (3) exploit opportunities to promote the area as a whole. Although, a tourism strategy was suggested containing 11 specific components (including development of tours to multiple World Heritage sites, diving, golf and cultural tourism packages, transportation enhancements, human resources development and joint marketing), it was challenging to suggest a productive strategy because there are great similarities in the coastal resource base, administrative challenges related to entry permits that discouraged movement and a transportation structure that made it difficult to travel between peripheral destinations without first going back to the respective cores. It is concluded that it is useful to regard ‘periphery’ as a spatial concept with economic and social attributes, that spatial and tourism theorists have been slow to engage with each other’s ideas, that periphery is a relative rather than an absolute attribute that can change with scale and over time, and that

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it may have differential relevance depending upon the types of tourism under consideration. The extent to which peripheral areas can collaborate to enhance their mutual interests in tourism may also merit further investigation.

Concluding Remarks As all authors have observed, the notion of a periphery is one that is germane to tourism studies and serves to potentially relate a variety of social science perspectives. A critical issue being, of course, the extent to which social, economic, political and spatial understandings of the periphery are connected. A key issue is that the notion of the periphery as well as the centre is always being continually (re)negotiated, making the ‘periphery’, as Harrison rightly observed, something that is inherently ambiguous, both in time as well as very much from a position of the different perspectives that may be applied to it. This ambiguity is well illustrated by the changing positions of some locations within the global economy and transport routes, and also highlights the way that notions of space are not only determined by Euclidean coordinates, but also by economic and perceptual ones (Hall, 2005). In his response, David Weaver connects to some of the influential ideas of a pleasure periphery (Turner & Ash, 1975), but inverts it to highlight the idea of a pleasure core that evokes complex patterns of experiential consumption, but which nevertheless remains on the economic periphery. Such an idea links not only to different understandings of the economic system, but also the functioning of the tourism system at different scales of analysis and the connectivities between locations, which David Weaver suggests provides a useful basis for examining the expansion of tourism to supposed peripheries. Issues of connectivity also figure highly in Wall’s response, with Wall building on the work of Richard (1993) to suggest whether peripheries have more in common with each other than their respective cores (Wall, 2008). This suggestion has been picked up on by other researchers in tourism (e.g. Timothy & Teye, 2004) and is one that is utilized substantially in the European context with respect to the development of inter-regional projects. However, Wall’s comments also indicate the importance, as well as potential differences in interpretation, that may occur as ideas on the periphery are transferred from one discipline or context to another. In particular, there is potentially much more room for critical engagement between spatial and social scientific understandings of space, place and peripheries that takes us all the way back to the work of Christaller (Hall, 2012).

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To Christaller (1963: 95) the ‘spatial analysis of various economic occupations’ could be undertaken in two ways, one in relation to the ‘abstract idea of “pure” space; the other with the “real” area . . . i.e. the landscape’. For Christaller, tourism lay at the intersection between these two approaches because of the extent to which ‘tourism is drawn to the periphery of settlement distric[t]s’ (Christaller, 1963: 95). Indeed, although Christaller is primarily recognized for his contribution to the development of central place theory, it is notable that in an article written in 1967 or 1968, not widely available in English until after his death, he stated: ‘I have tried to develop a polar counterpart to the theory of central places – a theory of “peripheral places”. By this I mean, primarily resort areas, the areas of tourism and summer cottages’ (Christaller, 1972: 610). Unfortunately, Christaller’s polar counterpart was never fully developed, with his 1963 article being his best known contribution to tourism. Some 50 years on, it is perhaps time that Christaller’s ambitions for a renewed theoretical understanding of the periphery and its potential to integrate qualitative and quantitative understandings of tourism came to be realized.

Discussion Questions (1) What are the different ways in which the notion of ‘periphery’ has been applied in tourism studies? (2) To what extent is the notion of peripherality related to accessibility? (3) To what extent is it appropriate to describe tourism as a threat to wilderness and more remote rural areas? (4) Can peripherality be equated with marginality? (5) Do communities in locations distant from large urban centres regard themselves as peripheral? (6) How is peripherality valorized?

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Further Reading Chaperon, S. and Bramwell, B. (2010). Views on the scale and types of tourism development in the rural periphery. The case of Gozo. In D. Macleod and S. Gillespie (eds) Sustainable Tourism in Rural Europe: Approaches to Development (pp. 151–165). London: Routledge. Hall, C.M. (2006). Space-time accessibility and the tourist area cycle of evolution: The role of geographies of spatial interaction and mobility in contributing to an improved understanding of tourism. In R. Butler (ed.) The Tourism Life Cycle: Conceptual and Theoretical Issues Vol. 2 (pp. 83–100). Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Hall, C.M. and Saarinen, J. (eds) (2010). Polar Tourism and Change. London: Routledge. Hall, C.M. and Page, S.J. (2014). The Geography of Tourism and Recreation (4th edn). London: Routledge. Müller, D. (2006). The attractiveness of second home areas in Sweden: A quantitative analysis. Current Issues in Tourism 9: 335–350. Müller, D. and Jansson, B. (2007). The difficult business of making pleasure peripheries prosperous: Perspectives on space, place and environment. In D. Müller and B. Jansson (eds) Tourism in Peripheries: Perspectives from the Far North and South (pp. 3–18). Wallingford: CABI.

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Chapter 7

Tourism is More Sinned Against than Sinning Richard Sharpley, Noel Scott, Jim Macbeth and Peter Smith

Context The purpose of this chapter is to address a simple or, on reflection, perhaps simplistic question. As the editor of this book originally asked when inviting contributions and rejoinders, is tourism a ‘sinner’ or is it unjustly ‘sinned against’? In other words, since the late 19th century, modern tourism has attracted criticism in one form or another, initially in the form of social comment, subsequently in both academic and journalistic circles. Indeed, significant attention has been paid by tourism scholars and others to the negative consequences of tourism (and, of course, means of mitigating such consequences), to the extent that it might be assumed that tourism inevitably ‘sins’ against the places and peoples where it occurs. So, the question is posed – it is appropriate to view tourism as such, as the harbinger of social, cultural and environmental problems, or is this unjust criticism? That is, is tourism ‘sinned against’ by those who focus, on occasion in apocalyptic terms, on the problems that are to a lesser or greater extent the inevitable outcome of the development of tourism, and is it timely to rebalance the debate, to consider whether an assessment of tourism deserves a more supportive or positive foundation? Given the complexity of tourism, the enormously variable forms it takes and contexts within which it occurs and, of course, the multiplicity of perspectives from which it can be considered, there are no simple answers or ways of answering the question. Thus, the lead piece is purposefully written to stimulate debate, to be deliberately provocative. And as the three rejoinders by Noel Scott, Jim Macbeth and Peter Smith demonstrate, it is a question that is worth pursuing.

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In Defence of Tourism Richard Sharpley

In 2000, I presented a conference paper entitled ‘In defence of mass tourism’ (Sharpley, 2000), my purpose being to challenge an argument that had become pervasive during the 1990s, namely, that mass tourism was ‘bad’ and, conversely, alternative forms of tourism were ‘good’. More specifically, the paper sought to redress the balance between, on the one hand, an increasingly negative perspective on traditional mass forms of tourism development – epitomized perhaps by Auliana Poon’s (1993: 3) claim that ‘the tourism industry is in crisis … a crisis of mass tourism; for it is mass tourism that has brought social, cultural, economic and environmental havoc in its wake’ – and, on the other hand, the growing emphasis on alternative, allegedly sustainable forms of tourism. While recognizing the potential benefits of alternative tourism, the paper set out to argue that not only did it represent a micro solution to a macro problem (Wheeller, 1991), but also that, in effect, there was not a ‘problem’ in the first place. That is, despite numerous and often well-publicized examples of its adverse impacts, tourism (mass or otherwise) generally brings significant socio-economic and environmental benefits to destination regions, as well as benefits to tourism generating regions and, of course, to tourists themselves. Given the prevailing support for the concept of alternative/sustainable tourism, the criticism that the paper attracted was unsurprising. Since then, however, the mass/bad-alternative/good argument has become less pervasive. The World Tourism Organization, for example, now states that ‘Sustainable tourism development guidelines and management practices are applicable to all forms of tourism in all types of destinations, including mass tourism’ (UNWTO, 2012) while, reflecting transformations in development thinking more generally, attention is shifting towards the relationship of tourism with more tangible developmental challenges, such as poverty reduction and climate change. Nevertheless, with international tourism continuing its inexorable growth (a cause for either celebration or consternation, depending on one’s perspective), it would seem appropriate to revisit this issue. More specifically, tourism has not only long been vilified in certain quarters for its impacts on environments, societies and cultures; it has also 194

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long been the scapegoat for many other allegedly negative trends and transformations, from cultural homogenization to exacerbating the consequences of natural disasters. For example, the 2004 tsunami had devastating impacts on tourism destinations around the Indian Ocean, yet one report suggested that, in some instances, that devastation was enhanced by the nature of tourism development itself (Miles, 2005). Of course, it would be naive, foolish or both to attempt to argue that the development of tourism – and, indeed, the behaviour of tourists – has not had negative consequences. The concerns of early commentators, such as Mishan (1969), Young (1973) or Turner and Ash (1975), though tinged with traditional elitist criticism of mass tourism, were undoubtedly justified, while Wall and Mathieson’s (2006) updated version of their classic work provides a rigorous analysis of tourism’s impacts. At the same time, the often hidden problems associated with tourism, from the poor conditions of construction workers in Dubai to the environmental costs of ‘ecotourism’ in Costa Rica, have been subject to convincing journalistic scrutiny (Hickman, 2007). The point is, however, that in contrast to this sustained criticism of tourism, more limited attention has been paid to its benefits, not only economic but also social and environmental. In other words, although the potentially positive outcomes of tourism are well known, there has long been a tendency in both academic and journalistic circles to engage in what might be referred to euphemistically as ‘tourism bashing’. Consequently, the positive aspects of tourism have, to a great extent, been played down or lost sight of. The purpose of this short essay, therefore, is to redress the balance, to propose that tourism, if appropriately planned and managed, is fundamentally a good thing. In so doing, it adopts something of a devil’s advocate approach, attempting to stimulate debate rather than to be conclusive, asking questions rather than answering them. And the first such question is, why is it that tourism attracts such a degree of criticism, both in its own right and relative to other economic sectors, which arguably have far greater social and environmental impacts? And why is it singled out as the cause or catalyst of implicitly unwelcome transformations in societies and cultures, when other factors may be of equal if not greater influence? Answers to these questions are undoubtedly elusive, although it is perhaps the very nature of tourism that lies behind the criticism it attracts. That is, although tourism is of undoubted economic significance, the billions of dollars generated annually by tourists’ spending on goods and services that collectively comprise the tourist experience might be widely considered (perhaps erroneously) as discretionary expenditure on a frivolous, unnecessary activity. In other words, although leisure tourism has, over the last half century or so, evolved into an accepted, expected or even habitual/addictive (Henning, 2012) form of consumption, it remains, in a sense, a luxury. People do not necessarily need to consume tourism, but do so in ever increasing

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numbers. Consequently, tourism may not be considered a ‘serious’ industry; nothing is produced as such, while resources are exploited to meet the leisure needs of what is still, in global terms, a privileged minority. Thus, tourism may immediately be more susceptible to criticism than other more necessary or ‘serious’ industries or activities, even though the latter may be more environmentally and socially harmful. Indeed, it is easy to identify a number of industries or sectors, legitimate or otherwise, that arguably have far more deleterious environmental and social consequences than tourism. For example, the negative impacts of the automotive industry or, more precisely, ever-increasing car ownership, have long been recognized, from its contribution to greenhouse gases/global warming and the depletion of non-renewable resources to the social and economic costs of death and serious injury – globally, over 1.2 million deaths are directly related to road transport (Alvord, 2000). At the same time, other seemingly ‘harmless’ industries may incur significant costs. Some claim, for example, that the global livestock industry is, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, land usage and deforestation, the world’s most environmentally destructive activity, yet not only is the livestock sector fundamental to the global agricultural economy, but also the consumption of meat is undoubtedly seen by many as a basic need. Equally, the freedom and mobility afforded by the motor car, its semiotic status as an object of consumption and, of course, its role in facilitating much tourism-related travel, as well as the economic significance of the automotive and associated industries, is such that the production and use of the car is a fundamental need (and right?) in contemporary society. Of course, the debates surrounding these issues are highly complex and value-laden, demanding analysis well beyond the scope of this essay. However, while recognizing the dangers of over-simplification, the point is that the products of the automotive, livestock and other environmentally damaging industries may be seen as meeting essential needs and are hence ‘acceptable’, despite their impacts. Conversely, tourism may be considered a non-essential, frivolous form of consumption, perhaps an illegitimate use of scarce resources and, hence, more susceptible to criticism. Moreover, for this reason, tourism may also be seen as an ‘easy target’ on which to pin the blame for social and environmental transformations and challenges more generally, from global warming to socio-cultural homogenization, enhanced nationalism and even, perhaps, xenophobia. Although research has revealed specific and numerous instances of implicitly undesirable change brought about by tourism (research that, paradoxically, emanates primarily from western countries that have driven the growth of international tourism over the last half century), there is in fact limited evidence of tourism’s contribution to global transformations. Rather, it is technological innovation and advancement, specifically in communication and transport, which has been the principal catalyst of such

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transformations, one of which has, of course, been the remarkable and continuing growth in tourism. Furthermore, it could be argued that tourism has been a positive force. For example, are not some of the most culturally diverse and tolerant nations those which have a long history of international travel? Has not tourism enhanced knowledge and acceptance of, and interest in, different societies and cultural practices, from music or cuisine to religion? And is it not tourism more generally that has provided the foundation for the socio-economic development of numerous nations and sub-national regions around the world? This latter point will be returned to shortly but, first, it is important to address briefly the notion that tourism is an unnecessary, frivolous form of consumption. Simply stated, it is not. Once referred to by the late Jost Krippendorf (1986) as a ‘social victory’, not only has the opportunity to participate in tourism become increasingly widespread, but ever growing numbers of people continue to take advantage of that opportunity. And as a recent survey suggests, they do so, in fact, out of necessity (Daily Telegraph, 2013). That is, tourism has become an essential element of contemporary consumption practices, implicitly meeting a need or fulfilling a specific function within modern social existence. However, although attention has long been paid to what that need/function may be (tourist motivation) and the innumerable ways in which people respond to it, or how they participate in tourism, our understanding of the intrinsic benefits of that participation is perhaps more limited (see Pearce et al., 2011). Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that, for many, tourism is ‘serious’ leisure (Stebbins, 2007), an activity that is as significant and essential as many others in contemporary society. Consequently, the degree of criticism levelled at tourism relative to other industries or activities is, at least from a consumption perspective, unjust. And what about the benefits arising from tourism ‘production’ or development? Few would dispute the potential contribution of tourism in terms of generating income, foreign exchange and government revenues, in providing employment opportunities and, in principle, stimulating wider economic growth and activity. Tourism is fundamentally a business, an economic sector that is promoted and developed for its potential contribution to economic growth, if not development more generally. Moreover, tourism’s role as a vehicle of development is almost ubiquitous. Yet these potential benefits of tourism frequently appear to be only grudgingly accepted. In other words, not only is reference frequently made to the ‘tourism development dilemma’ (Telfer & Sharpley, 2008), or the need to balance the positive outcomes of tourism development with its implicitly inevitable negative consequences, there is also a tendency to focus on or highlight those negative consequences, to view tourism as a ‘last resort’ or necessary evil, and as the direct and indirect cause of undesirable environmental and social change rather than, as this essay set out to suggest, a positive, constructive force or, essentially, a ‘good thing’.

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In this context, two points demand emphasis. First, tourism, whether as a social or economic activity, is not intrinsically ‘bad’; it is not, as it was once described, ‘a spectre … haunting our planet …’ (Croall, 1995: 1). Rather, it is as good or bad as the policies, plans and governance (or policy makers, planners and governments) that guide its development. Although there is undoubtedly some currency to the argument that, as a diverse, fragmented and multi-sectoral industry, tourism is difficult if not impossible to control, there are nevertheless numerous examples of negative impacts of tourism that can be directly attributed to poor planning or, as if often the case, the failure to implement policy. During the 1990s, for instance, Cyprus enjoyed rapid growth in its tourism sector, yet the failure of the authorities to control the development of accommodation facilities in line with policy resulted in an over-supply of hotels, with inevitable consequences on the environment and, perhaps more significantly, on the profitability of the sector, creating a situation from which the island has arguably been unable to recover. At the same time, the failure to establish appropriate institutions, processes or regulatory frameworks to manage tourism effectively – to intervene in the market forces that dictate the nature and scale of tourism development – may also enhance the negative consequences of tourism. Although governments are in the position to impose laws and regulations that may directly or indirectly influence the tourism sector, from minimum wages requirements or licensing hours, to building and land use planning, they often fail to do so, whether through political dogma, a lack of political will or, more simply, to maximize the short-term economic benefits of tourism. Putting it another way, tourism (as an economic sector) is essentially a manifestation of capitalistic endeavour; tourism businesses of any kind seek to exploit resources to maximize returns or profit. Thus, if left unregulated, tourism will, like any other sector, collectively tend towards excess, with inevitable environmental and/or social consequences. Second, far from being a ‘necessary evil’ or intrinsically negative influence, tourism may not only, in fact, represent a force for good. It should, in particular, be celebrated as such, as an opportunity to support the protection and enhancement of the natural environment, as a means by which societies can recover from other ‘evils’, such as war, political or economic turmoil, or natural disasters, to gain value from otherwise unproductive resources, and so on. That is, although it is as equally dangerous to generalize about its ‘good side’ as about its negative consequences, there is no doubt that, if planned and managed appropriately, prominence should be given to the fact that tourism may be harnessed for its social and environmental benefits. Indeed, at the time of writing this piece, the noted UK naturalist Sir David Attenborough was extolling in a newspaper article the contribution of tourism to preserving the Galapagos Islands. According to Attenborough (2013), ‘if it weren’t for the receipts from ecotourism, the islands would already be almost devoid of wildlife’. Moreover, he suggests that the public must

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continue to visit the islands to understand the processes of evolution, an outcome that, as research has shown, does occur as a result of tourism to the Galapagos (Powell & Ham, 2008). There are also innumerable other well-known examples where tourism has acted as a catalyst for economic and social development in general – regions such as the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the South Pacific are all fundamentally dependent on tourism for their economic and social development. None of these regions, of course, have been immune from sometimes significant negative impacts of tourism development, yet, on balance, tourism should be seen as a positive influence. To return to the example of Cyprus, despite the acknowledged problems currently facing the sector, it was tourism that provided the basis for the revitalization of the Greek Cypriot economy following the division of the island in 1974; it was also tourism that transformed Cyprus into the third wealthiest Mediterranean country. Similarly, some peripheral regions within countries owe their socio-economic development to tourism. For instance, the English Lake District, designated as a national park in the 1950s, has not only been attracting tourists for almost two centuries; its environment, economy and society have also long been inextricably linked with tourism, and it is tourism that has underpinned the development and maintenance of its unique landscape and culture. More specifically, tourism frequently provides the foundation for regenerating destinations that have suffered problems or disasters of one form or another. A number of countries, for example, have (re)turned to tourism to revitalize their economy and society following periods of war, civil strife or political turmoil, such as Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Northern Ireland. Perhaps most notably, following the cessation of hostilities in 1995, Croatia has emerged as a successful and prosperous nation, rebuilding its economy and infrastructure on tourism. The country currently attracts around 11 million arrivals annually, with tourism directly and indirectly accounting for almost 30% of employment and 25% of gross domestic product (GDP). In Myanmar too, as the transformation towards democracy gains momentum, tourism will not only provide an added stimulus to economic growth – tour operators are currently reporting high growth in demand for holidays to that country – but will also contribute to the reintegration of Myanmar into the global community. Similarly, numerous examples could undoubtedly be provided of how tourism has underpinned the rebuilding of destinations or countries affected by natural disasters, health scares, terrorism or economic decline – it is highly likely, for instance, that Greece’s economic future will be based upon the revitalization of its tourism sector, once conditions allow. Of course, the potential role of tourism in stimulating development and regeneration is well known. To reiterate, however, the point is that this role deserves more immediate recognition and acceptance, that tourism is fundamentally a ‘good thing’, albeit with manageable impacts, a positive choice to be celebrated rather than the only viable option to be treated with suspicion.

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At the same time, the contribution of tourism to international understanding and relations in general, and awareness of developmental challenges faced by many societies around the world in particular, also demands greater recognition. Certainly, volunteer or philanthropic tourism is an emerging phenomenon, yet how many individuals or communities, specifically in developing countries, have received immediate donations from tourists or become beneficiaries of charitable projects established by tourists following their visits? It is not uncommon to find small projects supporting children, schools or community projects that owe their existence to tourism, yet no research has been undertaken to establish the value and scale of this ‘hidden’ contribution of tourism. To celebrate or praise tourism in this way is not to deny its negative impacts. What this essay is proposing, however, is that a transformation should occur in the way tourism is perceived; that it should be seen as a positive force with potential impacts that can be managed, rather than as a potential good but with inevitable impacts. And perhaps the best way to conclude is with a brief example of such positive tourism. In 1973, Kilimanjaro at 5895 m is not only the highest peak in Africa, but also one of the highest mountains of the world that can be ascended without specialist skills and equipment, was established as a national park. Public access was permitted from 1977 and, currently, approximately 35,000 tourists climb the mountain each year, with increasing numbers doing so to raise funds for charities in their own countries. Inevitably, such large numbers of visitors potentially impact on the environment of the park but, as a result of effective management of the Kilimanjaro experience, not only is the environment maintained and protected, but also significant economic benefits accrue to local people. Specifically, all tourists must climb the mountain as part of an organized tour, with a guide, cook and porters, following designated trails and, in the case of the main tourist route, overnighting in specially constructed huts. Each visitor pays a daily park fee of US$70 plus US$60 per night for the use of designated huts. Much of this income goes towards the upkeep of the park, although around US$1 million a year supports local community projects. In addition, the park authorities regulate minimum daily rates of pay for guides, cooks and porters (US$20, US$15 and US$10 per day, respectively), while much of the food consumed by tourists (the climb usually takes a minimum of five days/four nights) is locally sourced. Kilimanjaro tourism provides employment for an estimated 400 guides, 500 cooks and 10,000 porters; research in 2006, when their wages were half current rates, found that guides, with additional tips, earned an average of US$1830 a year, with cooks and porters earning US$842 and US$771, respectively, all well in excess of the then average annual income of $300 (Mitchell et al., 2009). The same research suggested that almost 30% of what tourists pay directly benefits the poor, while they also contribute to the upkeep of the Kilmanjaro environment. Thus, Kilimanjaro tourism represents a ‘win–win’ – a unique tourism

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experience that brings social, economic and environmental benefits, to say nothing of the funds raised for charities by groups climbing the mountain. How can this not be a ‘good thing’?

7.2

Original Sin: A Lack of (Tourism) Knowledge Noel Scott

This paper responds to the probe, ‘In Defence Of Tourism’ by Richard Sharpley. The essence of Sharpley’s argument is his proposition that ‘tourism, if appropriately planned and managed, is fundamentally a good thing’. This naïve and unworldly statement makes two flawed rhetorical claims: first that tourism (whatever that is) can be fundamentally good given certain conditions, and second these conditions – appropriate planning and management – can be and are, on balance, achieved. While surely Sharpley is playing the role of the devil’s advocate in his article and must intend merely to stimulate debate, the importance of this issue demands a clear and logical response, which I provide here, structured in terms of these two claims. The first claim, that tourism is fundamentally good, is an example of Platonic essentialism (Ross, 1976) and should be rejected, as should any such claim that complex human objects have an essence that we can all identify and agree on. To illustrate some of the problems of this claim, the three major types of tourism benefits that Sharpley identifies are examined in detail and rejected. In view of the rejection of the first claim, Sharpley’s argument is reduced to the lesser claim that tourism can provide better benefits or outcomes if appropriately managed. This is trivially true and circular in its logic: presumably Sharpley would consider appropriately managed as semantically equivalent to providing better outcomes. Given this, what is important is to establish what better management of tourism entails and how this may be achieved. Sharpley acknowledges this point when he writes: ‘if left unregulated, tourism will like any other sector collectively tend towards excess’.

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The later section of this article therefore discusses how tourism management may be improved. Hence, I argue that while tourism has no fundamental quality of goodness, tourism management can be improved, and if this is done (hopefully) it will lead to more benefits for the traveller and the host society, and on this point, Sharpley and I would appear to agree. Putting aside the idea that tourism is fundamentally good, Sharpley also justifies tourism in terms of its benefits. He discusses a number of benefits for tourism, partly to avoid the criticism of tourism as a frivolous and addictive consumption activity. He identifies benefits: (1) for the development of the host society; (2) that improves the physical and mental health of the traveller. In addition, Sharpley argues that criticism of tourism is unfair as: (3) tourism is singled out as the cause or catalyst of implicitly unwelcome transformations in societies and cultures, when other factors may be of equal if not greater influence? If we accept these arguments then we must consider that smoking of tobacco, another frivolous and addictive consumption activity, is also beneficial. We may make an argument that smoking is a significant contributor to the development of a society. Many governments receive significant amounts in tax receipts from the sale of tobacco, and may argue that this tax revenue will benefit the residents of the country through new roads or hospitals. Further, tobacco can be argued to have some partial positive effects on health in reduction of stress (although on balance it has overwhelmingly negative effects) and on feeling comfortable. Tobacco advocates would argue, like Professor Sharpley, that it is the individual’s management of their use of tobacco that is problematic. Further we might argue that smoking is only one factor that contributes to poor health and therefore we should address these other factors. In fact, if your purpose is to benefit from better health then you should strive to eliminate all health risks rather than accepting some and rejecting others. Using this analogy with smoking, we may see better the flaws in the argument overall. The idea that we should accept negatives from tourism development because it also has positive benefits negates the argument that tourism is fundamentally good. Indeed any complex human activity has positive and negative aspects that must be evaluated together. Let us now look more closely at the benefits of tourism that Sharpley identifies. His discussion is set within a worldview of ‘development’, a term redolent with utopian dreams and promising (perhaps) ‘flying atomic powered cars’, a holiday for every person and lions lying down with lambs. The world that I perceive is slightly less idealistic. It is a world where the notions of development have been through several iterations. Hawkins and Mann (2007) have provided an interesting and relevant discussion of the World

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Bank’s role in tourism development. This highlights the different ideologies have been influential in determining how tourism should be funded in developing countries. For example, between 1969 and 1979, the purpose of tourism development was macro development – to stimulate economic growth and generate foreign exchange and employment. Between 2000 and 2006 the focus was on micro development and ‘issues never really thought relevant in the context of stabilizing macro-economies’ (Hawkins & Mann, 2007: 358). The reason for significant changes in the focus of the World Bank in stimulating tourism development appears to be through learning from its mistakes. Perhaps this is the only possible means to manage tourism, but it does bring into question whether tourism can be appropriately planned and managed. A second problem with the benefits discussed by Sharpley is that they appear to be set within a particularly Western view of tourism. Outcomes that one person considers a benefit, another may consider a curse; the Western perspective on individual freedom and rights to self-expression are not universal. Western cultures may seek hedonistic relaxation in a manner suited to their own attitudes and beliefs, but this may clash with the cultural and attitudes of local people. While we may be able to manage such conflict we cannot manage the purpose and benefits that other cultures ascribe to travel. In contrast to the prevailing tourism norms, Din (1989) considers from an Islamic perspective that travel serves the ‘ultimate purpose, of making individuals aware of their rights and responsibilities to God and to other individuals’. Given such a difference in the purpose of travel, we may consider that the outcome of management processes will be determined by power and transformation, rather than management and planning. A third point that Sharpley raises in discussing the benefits of tourism is the economic, social and environmental benefits received, an argument that is vague about how benefits should be measured. Surely benefits should be measured in two ways. First, they should be balanced against costs, and second they should be measured against what was intended. There has been little research on the overall costs and benefits of tourism: this is a question that taxes our abilities both conceptually, methodologically and practically. Certainly the economic benefits of tourism have been found in some situations to be more complex and less than those suggested by boosters of tourism, leading to a call for a more informed and knowledge-based discussion. I would argue that the knowledge base needed to balance the economic costs and benefits of tourism is being constructed through initiatives such as development of Tourism Satellite Accounts and beginning to lead to better policy development. However, how to balance social and environmental against economic costs and benefits is fraught. Sharpley’s argument requires our planners and managers to undertake this measurement after a project has been completed. These managers are not omnipotent gods; instead they are humans making evaluations in a very less-than-perfect world.

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A related fundamental flaw in Sharpley’s argument and one that is a ‘blind spot’ in most academic articles, is his attribution of any benefit from tourism as intentional. His argument is based on the notion that if there is a benefit then it must have been intended and is therefore evidence that tourism is being managed. Here we have a problem of causality: did the actions of managers and planners involved in tourism development and marketing actually lead to the net benefits identified. This is an issue faced by many tourism destination promotion organizations currently. These organizations undertake only part of the overall marketing and promotion activity for a destination and yet will often measure their performance in terms of overall visitor arrivals, nights or expenditure! Thus, some of these managers take credit for favourable changes in exchange rates, economic growth in new markets such as China and the effect of global news stories. There is little measurement against promotional objectives (usually stated as targets) and even less measurement of performance against development objectives by the people who Sharpley wants to manage tourism to ensure that it remains fundamentally a good thing. We should remember that managers of tourism enterprises are rewarded for making a profit, and therefore, it is in their own interests to ensure that that profit is as large as possible. Again in Sharpley’s words: … tourism (as an economic sector) is essentially a manifestation of capitalistic endeavour; tourism businesses of any kind seek to exploit resources to maximise returns or profit. Thus, if left unregulated, tourism will, like any other sector, collectively tend towards excess, with inevitable environmental and/or social consequences. According to Sharpley, the responsibility for planning and management to ensure that tourism is fundamentally a good thing is down to government regulation. An alternative interpretation is that despite the efforts of government tourism managers, there is some net benefit to the local community. Using the examples from Sharpley’s article: Cyprus enjoyed rapid growth in its tourism sector, yet the failure of the authorities to control the development of accommodation facilities in line with policy resulted in an over-supply of hotels, with inevitable consequences on the environment and, perhaps more significantly, on the profitability of the sector, creating a situation from which the island has arguably been unable to recover. I therefore argue that to ensure that tourism is a ‘good thing’, we must first identify the purpose of tourism. As mentioned, this may be assumed to be the purpose found in Western culture, but a number of countries (i.e. Saudi Arabia) are in the fortunate position of being able to question this assumption and plan and manage for a different purpose. Second, I argue

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that, even if we know this purpose, we do not benefit to the extent that is expected, or at least we do not know how much we benefit and who or what is responsible for the outcome we experience. But perhaps we can do better. I have already alluded to one of the main reasons why we are unable to plan and manage tourism: a lack of knowledge and experience. Tourism, and especially mass tourism, is a relatively new activity and unprecedented in its scale and scope. Essentially it involves people travelling away from, and living outside their normal environment. This brings into focus a number of problems: first, when people leave their normal environment they may feel they are able to behave differently; second, the people they meet are different and therefore a cause of potential conflict; and third, there is a need to create new living spaces and services over and above those they already live in, in the origin, and which are exotic or attractive enough to justify the expense of travel. Each of these necessities often creates difficult (wicked) problems that need to be managed. Thus, fundamentally, tourism is difficult to plan for and to manage. In addition, tourism is also a partially industrialized industry (Leiper et al., 2011) consisting of a package of services not all owned by the same manager, and where there are a variety of government jurisdictions involved in policy development, planning, promotion and marketing and so on. Thus, the planning and management of a tourism destination requires collaboration between tourism operators and businesses that also compete with each other in a process known as coopetition, as well as between industry and government as various levels. OECD (2012) has made recommendations as to possible solutions for some of these issues. The problem of lack of cohesion and fragmentation within the organization of tourism has also been discussed through use of network analysis techniques (Scott et al., 2008). In such studies, it was found that stakeholder fragmentation is reduced by centralized leadership that may be found in an industrialized destination, such as the Gold Coast, Australia (Cooper et al., 2009). However, this centralization may be associated with an elite group of powerful stakeholders who effectively control the development and marketing decisions. This emphasizes the need for good governance of these organizations, and effective collaboration with government and the wider industry. Such good governance requires decisions made on the basis of sound knowledge, emphasizing the importance of knowledge management, an area where the tourism industry is notably weak. In one recent study, Thomas (2012) found that ‘business elites not only operate within communities of practice but also tend to learn within their own “meaning perspectives”’ (Thomas, 2012: 553). Thus the knowledge used by planners and managers to make their decisions is biased and incomplete. However, Sharpley has some valid points: perhaps mass, all inclusive, tourism is easier to plan and manage; and additionally, it may be that industrialized tourism destinations catering to all inclusive tourism, where there

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is a commonly understood purpose – that of making money – is easier to plan and manage. This may explain some of the rapid growth of places such as Costa del Sol. The downside to this argument is that it is precisely these types of destinations that are criticized for being unsustainable and failing to plan for the future. Today we can see the failure of the planners and managers who have subscribed to the Sharpley thesis of mass tourism being fundamentally good. I do not wish to leave the discussion without providing some directions that may help to address the problems I raised above. They are indeed wicked problems and perhaps embedded in the capitalist system or simply in our human nature. Here I would like to suggest that better governance and improved management of tourism destinations are possible. Developments in the macro-policy environment favour a more collaborative approach, encouraging policy development by governments in conjunction with the tourism industry, as well as emphasis on regional or local level decision-making. However, developing a multi-actor system that includes public–private partnerships and greater horizontal and vertical coordination of relevant government bodies, requires adoption of accepted elements of good governance – accountability, responsibility, efficiency and effectiveness, responsiveness, forward looking vision and the rule of law. In addition, active cooperation and coordination of activities requires recognition of the legitimacy of organizations’ authority to govern and inclusiveness of stakeholders.

7.3

Tourism: The Good, the Bad and the Sinner? Jim Macbeth

It was put to me, when considering this response to Sharpley, that: [t]he metaphor (tourism as a sinner), has arisen from the thought; ‘Is tourism really so bad and ugly as it has been depicted by social scientists and

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some environmentalists?’ (creates xenophobia, anomie, culturelessness, interfere with social capital, defiles environment, erodes bio-diversity and that it is vulgar, so on so forth). (email, 11 January 2013, 5:22pm) If it is correct that social scientists tend to be more critical of tourism and tourists, may be it has something to do with critical thinking, may be it has something to do with questioning the taken-for-granted and may be it is because there is something that needs this critical eye. Likewise with environmentalists, as they are often called. Does it mean environmental scientists? But, if environmentalists, then why not celebrate their tendency to be advocates for environmentally responsible activities, something that can’t be taken for granted, that the for-profit sector often ignores. I should add here that I have chosen to write this reply using primarily unrefereed sources from the social media site TRINET, and public discourse. Taking this line of thinking a bit further, let me refer to a discussion on TRINET during early March 2013 (subject line: Taking responsibility for the visitor economy). The discussion followed the announcement of a conference that uses the term ‘visitor economy’ instead of tourism and I was the second person to query the discourse impacts of foregrounding ‘economy’, or economics, over other aspects of tourism impacts. My first post on TRINET on 5 March 2013: Language shapes many of our attitudes and it certainly shapes the ways in which policy makers and academics approach issues. Thus, the word ‘economy’ shapes our discourse in a way that is counterproductive to sustainable communities, even to sustainable tourism, because the economic impacts are but one factor. I would argue, contrary to Simon’s earlier post on Trinet, that the term visitor economy is actually narrower than tourism. At least the latter term is not loaded by one discipline and, in this case, not narrowed to the economic. That said, the original email about the conference is much wider than economics. Good; yet the word sustainability, which could always be used as an umbrella term to cover the myriad of purposes of the conference, is but one isolated term. On 6 March 2013, Freya Higgins-Desbiolles posted to TRINET: I don’t have a problem with economy or focusing on economy, the issue for me is what kind of economy or economics. I think Jim and I agree the real issue is neoliberalism which has reified market economics as the arbiter for all value. I see economy from the old root word suggested as the management of the household, which I would translate to well-being and family thriving. Economies are ultimately about exchange which

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makes humans flourish so the focus shouldn’t be economic growth for the sake of growth but actually ensuring we make the world a better place. Unfortunately our current economic paradigm does the opposite of this in ways that many well respected people have documented. I consider the term visitor economy a symptom of this problem and in attempt to use it in a context of talking about making industry, government and tourists more ‘responsible’ is just a sideshow much like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and pro-poor tourism (again all well critiqued already). ... The visitor economy idea is symptomatic of skewered [sic] thinking that comes from worshipping the false god of tourism as economic saviour. Tourism that fits in with local communities rather than invades them is the wave of the future. We need more critical thinking rather than just accepting industry-driven terms. Here, my assumption is that we academics are as much a part of tourism as visitors and business. Yes, tourism is a sinner in this case. I have quoted from the TRINET discussion to illustrate that judging tourism as sinner or saint is a rather pointless enterprise, not only because to do so is to essentialize a very complex set of relationships, but also because the way in which we understand the impacts of tourism is also very complex. As Harold Goodwin (conference organizer) points out, their aim in holding the conference is to engage these very debates, to try and understand the relationships involved. Yes, tourism is this complex! It does all these things and many more that can be judged as negative. So, where does Richard Sharpley’s chapter fit in all this? His essay in defence of tourism addresses the challenge, providing a tilt to the negative while arguing strongly for the positive. Tourism is not simply good or bad, as neither are most other aspects of life. To compound the problem, though, is that tourism is a social phenomenon while being an economic force, an industrial development strategy, a developer’s dream, a nightmare for many residents and a social experience. Tourism is also a major force in globalization and in many cases represents various diasporas and their attempts to remain connected to their homeland, while others travel for a multitude of reasons. I make this comment in order to emphasize that tourists seem to be missing from this discussion; gone missing in action, as it were. To propose that some entity is a sinner, or a benefactor, demands that there be a standard by which to judge the sin. To have such a standard is a political, social and philosophical task of incredible magnitude. While the concept of sustainable development tries to draw such an ethical/moral line in the sand, the sand is shifting. Ironically, sand has been stolen from one country to build tourism infrastructure in another (for example look into

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web page http://grbusinessonline.com/wp/is-singapore-being-built-onstolen-ground/ (Accessed 20 February 2013)). How is that for ethical behaviour? The essay is alarmingly ethically blind, providing us with no framework of analysis, no way to judge the ethical positions being taken. In my view, this is a common problem in tourism (and other) research, especially in the context of the market economy model. There are also signs in the essay of aspects of Jafari’s four platforms model. But, times change, new models are developed and our thinking, and our actions do, although not always, become more thoughtful and responsible. Sounds naïve, doesn’t it? Yes, it is naïve to ignore climate variability, the carbon ‘problem’, the political economy of development, the power of multi-national corporations and the increasingly development-at-any-cost philosophies of all governments, whether democratic, western or not. In Australia, miners and other developers decry the hurdles posed by so-called ‘green tape’ because it holds up their profits. I have previously argued that Jafari’s model no longer represents tourism research, development and policy as well as it did when first presented to tourism academics. Yes, each of the four platforms is represented by researchers, policy makers and business interests: advocacy; cautionary; adaptancy; and knowledge-based. I proposed, however, that for the 21st century we need to account for and use the concept of sustainable development (for all its faults), but that all of us, including policy-makers and operators, need to interrogate and understand the implications of our own ethical beliefs, including those we are willing to interrogate (Macbeth, 2005). I proposed two more platforms (sustainability and ethics) to help us understand where some tourism scholarship has moved while also imploring researchers, operators and developers to know their own ethical stance on issues relevant to tourism – at least if we can articulate our moral positions it is possible to address the issue of this probe – is tourism sinning? (Macbeth, 2005). I return to the question of sustainability later, mainly because tourism scholarship and practice talks about sustainable tourism, not sustainability a la society and environment. Freya Higgins-Desbiolles’ last post to TRINET, quoted above, clearly addresses this issue. Sharpley argues convincingly that tourism is regularly and consistently blamed for a wide range of social, environmental, economic and cultural problems. So what? So is every other industry, so is every other development strategy. So, it is not much use crying ‘poor tourism’, picked on by others. And, in most public discourse, of course, the public rhetoric is how wonderful tourism is as a development strategy. Tourism is a ‘serious’ industry, notwithstanding Sharpley’s masked acceptance that tourism and leisure are not serious, that they are only practiced by a minority (globally). Tourism does provide jobs, does get used to enhance cultural understanding, does contribute to historical and cultural

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renewal and does provide a ‘change’. It can also be seen as a ‘serious’ industry when we recognize, as Sharpley does, that tourism, especially leisure tourism, is imbued with inequality of access and impact, whether we consider gender, nationality, income/class and so forth. Maybe it is tourism scholars who should be judged on their views of tourism as sinner or sinned against, and one way to quickly get a limited view of this is to look at our conferences and the rhetoric embedded in the announcements. To undertake this minor content analysis, I looked at all the conference announcements posted on TRINET in the first three weeks of February 2013. I am less sanguine about tourism as sinned against when I see the topics that do not feature in the announcements: human rights, nature, family, freedom, sustainability, inequality, CSR, global warming and ethics. At the same time, terms like climate change, politics, adventure and ecotourism get a single mention, many from the same conference that included a long list. Coming back to the opening quotation, tourism also does quite the opposite to the Editor’s phrase. Sinner sometimes; saviour at other times, but never a clear-cut one. Which also serves to remind us that decisions about tourism and tourists are political and value based; they involve ethical choices. So, in my view, the real question(s) is how can tourism as an industry, as a social phenomenon, as a consumer product, contribute to sustainability. Yes, not just be sustainable tourism, but rather contribute to the wider challenges around making human society sustainable. Assuming this latter statement as an article of faith, the question is not about who is sinning, but what we do about it, because in reality tourism and tourists contribute to the problems of the globe as much as any other consumer activity or industry. With all the science pointing to a crisis of global warming and climate change/variability, the consumer culture of the West and ‘North’ is a serious part of the problem, one that is being exported to the East and ‘South’. Tourism is a consumer product as dangerous as any of the other high profile consumptive activities – much of which comes from poor public policy (and enforcement) and what could be seen as unethical marketing that sells overconsumption and the ultimate throw-away society. Let me close with a quote from TRINET (11 February 2013) that included a brochure for an adventure conference: The ultimate aim is to determine ways in which educators, tour guides, businesses and participants can drive forward this impactful experiential recreation and tourism sector responsibly, so that the arenas in which it operates remain and are enhanced for the generations of adventurers who will follow in our footsteps. We will also consider the democratization of outdoor leisure, and ways in which this ideal might be realized.

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7.4

In Defence of Tourism: A Reassessment Peter Smith

Sharpley’s defence of tourism is welcome and a timely reminder that in academic studies the vilification of mass tourism remains the normative discourse. Such is the extent of (mass) ‘tourism bashing’, the view taken by key critics of mass tourism cited by Sharpley, such as Poon (1993) and Croall (1995), will be familiar to tourism students everywhere. Tourism it seems is characterized as a sinner against host communities, the environment and what economic benefits it brings are minimal, at best. In contrast in its various alternatives and ethical forms, tourism is frequently seen by academics and observers as a means to solve many of the developing world’s problems; not so much sinner as an answer to prayers. This contribution is less a rejoinder to Sharpley’s defence of tourism, but more a call to be even bolder in our defence of tourism. Sharpley reminds us that for many in the West – and increasingly in emerging economies – today tourism is seen as an essential part of everyday consumption patterns; package holidays are common for families in Europe and the US. Air travel and the growth in low-cost airlines over the last 20 years means travelling to the world’s great cities and sights is no longer restricted to the wealthy. We may, as Sharpley suggests, be past the height of the mass/bad-alternative/ good distinction, yet, certainly in academic studies, Non-Government Organization (NGO) advocacy and media commentary, shrill criticism of mass tourism remains common. It has been suggested this negative assessment of mass tourism is now the normative approach in tourism studies (Butcher, 2007; Liu, 2003; Sharpley, 2002). Alongside the critique of mass tourism, over the last two decades academics have increasingly focused on developing the concept of sustainable or ethical forms of tourism (Mowforth & Munt, 2009). There has been a growing literature on ‘ethical’ tourism that links the behaviour and purchasing habits of consumers to development outcomes in developing countries (Buckley, 2009; Patullo, 1996; Pattullo & Minelli, 2009; Scheyvens, 2002; Wearing & Neil, 2009; Weaver, 2008).

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Perhaps it would be more accurate to consider mass tourism being the sinner, or, as this contribution will argue sinned against. As every tourism undergraduate is taught, mass tourism is bad. Sharpley cites Croall’s (1995: 5) characterization of mass tourism: ‘. . . ruining landscapes, destroying communities, diverting scarce resources, polluting air and water, trivializing cultures, creating uniformity and generally contributing to the increased degradation of life on our planet’. It is worth repeating this quote, as faced with these charges a more perfect candidate for a sinner would surely be difficult to find. While this characterization may seem a little exaggerated, throughout academic studies pejorative descriptions abound: one heavily used undergraduate text bluntly asserts that mass tourism developments are a ‘kind of obvious environmental rape …’ (Cooper et al., 1993: 103). Similarly for a pioneer study of the ‘new’ tourist, mass tourists consume in a ‘robot-like’ manner, lacking any consideration for the norms, culture and environment of the host community and country (Poon, 1993: 4). Here, critique of the cultural practice of tourism merges into a dehumanizing characterization of tourists. The shrill tone of these critiques was set early by foundational texts, such as Turner and Ash’s (1975) The Golden Hordes and Krippendorf’s The Holiday Makers (1987); both pioneered the critique of mass tourism that now adds up to a significant body of work across a number of related disciplines. Sharpley asks why tourism is singled out for particular criticisms and not other industries or sectors – leaving this discussion to one side as other industries do face similar levels of criticism, for example the food industry (Ritzer, 1996; Schlosser, 2002) or supermarkets (Blythman, 2007; Simms, 2007) – for these authors, and much of the criticism since, mass tourism could be said to be the exemplar of mass society (Brooks, 2000: 205–206; Butcher, 2003: 23–24): consumption en masse. Krippendoff sees mass tourism as a, ‘restless activity that has taken hold of the once sedentary human society’ and results in damage to host communities and the local environment as mass migration encounters social and environmental limits (1987: xiii). While for Turner and Ash (1975), simply labelling tourists ‘hordes’ is sufficient to capture the negative view of mass tourism. Mass tourism has, of course, long been criticized and holidaymakers openly despised for their leisure activities. In the 19th century, when Thomas Cook started taking groups of working-class people to the British seaside in organized package holidays, the well-off elites reacted with horror and disdain (Bull et al., 2003: 22–24; Holden, 2005: 28–38; Urry, 2002). The rise of seaside tourism in the UK prompted the clergymandiarist, Francis Kilvert, to write in the 1870s that, ‘of all noxious animals, the most noxious is a tourist’ (Fussell, 1982: 40). Similarly in the 1920s and 1930s, the middle classes were alarmed to see the lower middle-classes following them to their regular European summer residencies; for the poet Edith Sitwell, writing in the 1930s, tourists were ‘the most awful people

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with legs like flies, who come in to lunch in bathing costumes – flies, centipedes’ (Fussell, 1982: 41). It would be too easy to dismiss such comments as outdated snobbery and elitism unpalatable to meritocratic modern sensibilities, yet contemporary news reports from the UK demonstrate the degree to which such scornful sentiments remain alive and well. ‘British arrests soar 32% in Spain’, declared the BBC News in 2008, complete with video footage of drunken holidaymakers abroad (BBC News, 2008); The Daily Telegraph reported a ‘surge in arrests for badly behaving Britons in Spain’ (Daily Telegraph, 2008); The Daily Mail, never known for understatement, bellowed on its front page: ‘Shame of binge-drink Britons abroad’ (Daily Mail, 2008). Similarly the liberal-minded Independent reported: ‘Drunk and abusive Britons wreak havoc in Spain as 2,000 are jailed’ (Independent, 2008). These headlines followed the publication of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO’s) (2008) British Behavior Abroad: Annual Report. According to the report, 17 million British tourists visited Spain between April 2006 and March 2007. France, the second most visited country by British tourists, received 14.8 million British visitors. A closer, and more sober, look at the FCO (2008) figures confirms that over the 12 months to March 2007, a mere 2032 British people were arrested in Spain out of a total of the 17 million visitors to the country. The equivalent figure for the previous year was 1549 arrests, out of 13.8 million visitors. While a 32% year-on-year rise in arrests seems pretty dramatic, the actual increase of 483 arrests, which came alongside an additional three million tourists, is barely worth commenting on; the figure of 2000 arrests among 17 million British tourists in Spain is statistically negligible. Similarly, the figure of a 42% rise in arrests in France actually accounted for just 153 Britons out of a visiting population of 14.8 million. This was an increase from 108 arrests among 11 million visitors during the previous year. Cyprus, where as a proportion British visitors were most likely to be arrested in the 12 months to March 2007, recorded only 377 arrests out of 1.5 million British tourists. So the holiday destination where British tourists were proportionally most likely to be arrested during the time of the study recorded 377 arrests out of 1.5 million visitors – just one arrest for every 4000 people who visited. It is also unclear from the FCO (2008) figures how many of the recorded arrests ended in convictions. That did not seem to matter for the headline-writers taking their cue from academic critiques: mass tourists are guilty as charged. With numbers as insignificant as 2000 out of 17 million, it is clear that there is something else behind the discussion of these figures. The handwringing news reports surely illustrate contemporary snobbery towards mass holidaymakers is as alive today as it was in Thomas Cook’s time. It is striking, for example, that the figures for Spain – where there was a 32% rise in arrests – dominated the headlines, rather than the statistically

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larger 42% rise in France. This might be because a figure of 2000 arrests is a more dramatic headline than a figure of 153; but it might also be because the families and genteel middle classes holidaying in Aix-en Provence do not fit the stereotypical picture of the mass holidaymaker as easily as the people sunning themselves on the Spanish Costas or partying on a Greek Island. Had these figures been published on other social or cultural phenomenon: domestic crime, political voting intentions or race or gender issues, for example, then academics in the field would pore over the figures; deconstruct them in detail and offer trenchant critiques. Here, with mass tourists in the firing line, the news reports tended to confirm pre-existing prejudices and were left completely uncontested. It is of course the case, anyone who has visited or carried out academic research in a major holiday destination will confirm, drunken young tourists sometimes behave badly, even criminally and cause friction with host communities, yet these incidents are normally worked out with little fuss or lasting consequences. It goes without saying that tourist behaviour is only one small part of a much wider academic critique of mainstream tourism; a critique that deals with a whole range of very serious social, cultural and environmental issues. That said, in terms of the question of mass tourism as sinner, the example is illustrative of its standing in much contemporary commentary and academic writing.

Tourism as Sinner Sharpley cites the work of environmental journalist Leo Hickman (2007). Hickman’s contribution is instructive as it could be said to bridge the gap between academic and newspaper columnists. Hickman deals with the more serious problems tourism brings; reporting on these blights, particularly in developing countries: water shortages, poor waste disposal, poor working conditions, threats to natural parks and sex tourism are all discussed. This the academic critiques of mass tourism familiar to readers of this volume (among others see, Buckley, 2009; Patullo, 1996; Pattullo & Minelli, 2009; Scheyvens, 2002; Wearing & Neil, 2009; Weaver, 2008). Yet like much of the academic research, Hickman’s (2007) account is one-eyed. The methodology – locate, research and report – the victims of tourism seems designed to uncover what the author wants to discover: that tourism can be very bad. However, for every put-upon individual or host community Hickman (2007) visits – or indeed academic case studies research and report – an equally readable (or empirical) account could be given of those that have gained through tourism. For example, returning to the mass tourism developments that Cooper et al. (1993: 103) state has destroyed areas of the Mediterranean, the same points could have been levelled at Spain in the 1970s. Sharpley correctly

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states that, on balance, mass tourism to the Spanish Costas should be seen as a positive influence. Tremlett (2007: 96–29) offers an account of the development of tourism on the Spanish Costas; he cites the example of Benidorm – once a ‘modest beach-side village’ the city now boasts 38,000 hotel rooms with Paris and London being the only places in Europe with more overnight accommodation. Benidorm could be said to have kick-started the growth of mass tourism to Spain in the late 1960s and 1970s under the Franco dictatorship. Today, 53 million foreign visitors a year holiday in Spain and it is estimated that more than 11% of the Spanish economy is generated by tourism (Tremlett, 2007: 106). While Benidorm and the surrounding area may not be to everyone’s taste, the mass tourism boom benefitted Spain greatly and, in part, was responsible for making the country the modern European state it is today. With unemployment in Spain currently at a high of 27% (rising to 57% among people under 26), like other Southern European countries with economies in the doldrums, such as Portugal and Greece, increasing numbers of mass tourists are more likely to be welcomed at the moment than rejected owing to the negative impacts (El Pais, 2013). In the literature, most of the studies of tourism’s negative impacts tend to relate to studies drawn from the developing world. Here most of these negative impacts could be better understood as being a consequence of a lack of economic development. There is no automatic reason why a hotel in Cancun or Goa should take water away from local people, any more than a hotel in London or New York takes resources away from those cities’ residents. And perhaps it is not always necessarily a bad thing if governments in the global South decide that biodiversity should take second place to humancentred economic development that favours raising living standards, infrastructure development or urbanization.

Tourism as Saviour? Nor do the various alternative tourism models provide a better outcome for host communities. Indeed the impacts on local people are often assumed rather than researched (Association for Tourism and Leisure Education/ Tourism Research and Marketing, 2008: 39). It might be worth interrogating the claims made for the alternatives put forward to mass tourism. This literature on ethical tourism focuses on small-scale, community-oriented tourism that aims to promote both conservation and community well-being goals (Butcher, 2007; Mowforth & Munt, 2009). Such an approach invariably leaves the poor in the developing world to the vagaries of small-scale marketbased solutions. Any traveller to a developing country will witness local entrepreneurs operating small-scale businesses like Rosa Vasquez’s ecotourism tours in Costa Rica, as reported by Hickman (2007: 263). We may wish them good luck, but the fact remains that small businesses of this type, or

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NGO-funded projects, bring minimal benefit to local communities and fail to transform the economies or infrastructure of developing countries in any meaningful way. This is tinkering at the margins, at best; better than nothing perhaps, but an extremely limited development agenda. More common is the community reliant on NGO-funded tourism projects. From the prolific case studies examined in tourism journals or NGO assessment reports, rarely is there an example of a project breaking free from aid funding and becoming free-standing, operating under the control of the local community and generating sufficient independent income, along the model of sustainable tourism. Many such projects simply rely on revenue from NGO funding directly. It may well be the case that NGOs aim to assist and empower communities in the developing world in contrast to the commercial mass tourism, however, this arrangement frequently involves cooperation based on a preexisting agenda rather than being premised on host communities’ right to define development agendas (Diprose, 2012: 190); perhaps no more or no less than under a mass tourism development. The possibility that indigenous people might not share the same concerns held by NGOs or advocates based in the West is rarely considered in the literature. For example, Smith’s (1992: 136) classic study of tourist development in the Philippine island of Boracay is typical of the criticism, concluding that tourism has created, ‘massive physical and social problems’ and that, ‘physical visitor impact during the three years from the inception of record keeping to the time of this field study had been essentially all negative’. Yet in the same study Smith notes that for local people, ‘the tourist presence was viewed in positive terms’ (Smith, 1992: 152). Furthermore, following extensive empirical research of the local population’s opinions, Smith (1992: 153) concludes, ‘overall, Boracayans like and want tourism for social as well as economic reasons’. It is difficult to agree then that the various alternatives put forward to mass tourism are any better; in fact they are frequently much worse in delivering real benefits to host populations. It is only by reducing the scope of enquiry to the local, through concepts such as ‘community participation’ (Fennell, 1999; Fennell & Weaver, 2005; Jones, 2005; Scheyvens, 2002), an extremely localized interpretation, that any benefits are judged. This localized focus rejects any wider consideration of communities linked at regional or national levels, thus assessments of any meaningful gains from tourism, mass or otherwise, are at best limited.

Conclusion While there are certainly many problems with mass tourism, it remains the case that despite the numerous studies that report its negative impacts on host communities and the environment, it is not ‘a spectre haunting out

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planet that will destroy us’ (Croall, 1995: 1) or the cause of ‘social, cultural, economic and environmental havoc’ (Poon, 1993: 3). Most, although not all, of the studies of the negative impacts, both on host communities and their immediate environment, relate to examples in the developing world. Unfashionable as it may be to argue, these problems tend to be structural and social in origin rather than a consequence of tourism. These undoubted problems can normally be solved through transformative economic development rather than curbing tourism, which is for many communities a vital source of income. As Sharpley states, mass tourism frequently brings much needed income and jobs to destinations and it fosters social and cultural exchanges, some good, some bad. We should welcome this and should challenge the false distinction made in tourism academia between new or enlightening travel and sinning mass tourism. Returning to the growth of mass tourism in Spain in the 1970s, the sight of northern Europeans in bikinis on Spanish beaches sent shivers down the spine of local reactionary clerics, moving one Father Aparicio Pellin to write in The Problems of Youth (1960), ‘Oh! If they erected a black cross on the beach for every mortal sin committed there, the beach would have more crosses than grains of sand’ (cited in Tremlett, 2007: 105). Today the language of sinning may have changed, couching criticisms of mass tourism in cultural or environmental terms rather than an appeal to modesty or religion, but the sentiments remain much the same.

Concluding Remarks As noted in the introductory paragraphs, the purpose of this chapter is to address the question; is tourism unjustly criticized? More specifically, it sets out to challenge what appears to be a predominantly negative perspective in the literature that unfairly represents the social and economic phenomenon that is contemporary tourism as a ‘sinner’. And not surprisingly, perhaps, the responses to the deliberately provocative approach adopted in the lead piece collectively reveal that not only is there no simple answer to the question, but also, as Jim Macbeth suggests, the question itself is perhaps ‘a rather pointless exercise’, reducing as it does an assessment of the complexity of tourism and its consequences to either ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Indeed, he goes on to suggest that it is not tourism, but tourism academics who are the sinners for failing to consider tourism from sustainability and ethical platforms. Certainly, the responses to this probe support the argument that it is over-simplistic to characterize tourism as ‘sinner’ or ‘sinned against’. Not only is it a complex and infinitely variable phenomenon but, as Jim

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Macbeth notes, is of differing significance to various stakeholder groups – it is at the same time a source of profit to businesses/developers, an experience for tourists and a challenge for environmentalists. Equally, Noel Scott correctly points out that questions need to be asked about the alleged benefits of tourism; that is, even if tourism in not an inevitable ‘sinner’, the contribution it makes to development demands interrogation. That is, if tourism is inherently ‘good’, as suggested in the lead piece, questions should be asked about good for whom, against what benchmarks and so on. In other words, a critical perspective needs to be adopted towards the potential benefits of tourism as much as towards the negative consequences. Moreover, the concept of management (as a prerequisite for enhancing tourism’s benefits) should also be critiqued. For example, who (if anyone) ‘manages’ tourism at the destinational level, and are there intended outcomes that guide such management? Conversely, if tourism is viewed fundamentally as an economic sector incurring costs and benefits, it is a truism to state that it is no different from many other industries and, in principle, deserves no more criticism than those other industries. In fact, Peter Smith provides powerful evidence that tourism or, rather, mass tourism, is not a sinner (at least, no more so than any other large-scale economic sector), but is sinned against. He goes on to support the argument that, while it may be unfashionable in academic circles to praise mass tourism or, perhaps, more fashionable to criticize it as a sinner, it may contribute more than alternative forms of tourism, which, though more environmentally and socially benign (or less sinful), often bring fewer benefits. So what can be concluded from this chapter? Two themes in particular emerge. First, all the contributors concur, to a lesser or greater extent, that tourism does not deserve to be considered a sinner, at least no more than any other economic activity. Second, and more significantly perhaps, the responses suggest that the need exists to adopt a more critical, multi-perspective approach to assessing tourism’s contribution (and impacts). That is, tourism may not be a sinner, but the jury remains out on whether it is sinned against.

Discussion Questions (1) Is tourism more environmentally and socially destructive than any other industry? (2) Despite its evident economic benefits, is tourism singled out for criticism because it is considered a ‘frivolous’ activity?

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(3) Does the development of tourism inevitably result in negative consequences, or is it more a case of ineffective management? (4) What realistic opportunities exist for many countries to reduce their dependency on tourism? (5) Does the ‘problem’ lie not with tourism specifically, but with the ever increasing mobility of people, finance, technology and goods more generally?

References Alvord, K. (2000). Divorce Your Car! Ending the Love Affair with the Automobile. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers. Association for Tourism and Leisure Education/Tourism Research and Marketing (ATLAS/TRAM) (2008). Volunteer Tourism: A Global Analysis. Arnhem: ATLAS. Attenborough, D. (2013). It would be disastrous if tourists couldn’t visit the Galapagos. Telegraph Travel (5 January): T1–3. BBC News (2008). British arrests soar 32% in Spain. BBC NEWS (12 August). Online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7553643.stm. Accessed 13 May 2013. Blythman, J. (2007). Shopped: The Shocking Power of British Supermarkets. London: Harper Perennial. Brooks, D. (2000). Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. New York: Simon and Schuster. Buckley, R. (2009). Ecotourism: Principles and Practice. Wallingford: CABI. Bull, C., Hoose, J. and Weed, M. (2003). An Introduction to Leisure Studies. Harlow: Prentice Hall. Butcher, J. (2003). The Moralisation of Tourism: Sun Sand . . . and Saving the World? London: Routledge. Butcher, J. (2007). Ecotourism, NGOs and Development. London: Routledge. Cooper, C., Fletcher, J., Gilbert, D. and Wanhill, S. (1993). Tourism: Principles and Practice (1st edn). London: Pitman. Cooper, C., Scott, N. and Baggio, R. (2009). The relationship between network position and perceptions of destination stakeholder importance. Anatolia 20(3): 33–45. Croall, J. (1995). Preserve or Destroy: Tourism and the Environment. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Daily Mail (2008). Shame of binge-drink Britons abroad as number arrested on holiday soars 15%. Daily Mail (12 August). Online at: http://www.dailymail. co.uk/news/article-1043714/Shame-binge-drink-Britons-abroad-number-arrestedholiday-soars-15.html. Accessed 13 May 2013. Daily Telegraph (2008). Surge in arrests for badly behaving Britons in Spain. Daily Telegraph (12 August). Online at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/ europe/spain/2539841/Surge-in-arrests-for-badly-behaving-Britons-in-Spain.html. Accessed 13 May 2013. Daily Telegraph (2013). We’re all going on holiday – at any price. Daily Telegraph (1 January): 5. Din, K.H. (1989). Islam and tourism: Patterns, issues, and options. Annals of Tourism Research 16(4): 542–563. Diprose, K. (2012). Critical distance: Doing development education through international volunteering. Area 44(2): 186–192.

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El Pais (2013). Jobless claims fall for second month in a row in april thanks to hostelry sector. El Pais (6 May). Online at: http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/05/06/ inenglish/1367849647_859738.html. Accessed 13 May 2013. Fennell, D. (1999). Ecotourism: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Fennell, D. and Weaver, D. (2005). The ecotourium concept and tourism-conservation symbiosis. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 13(4): 373–389. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) (2008). British Behaviour Abroad Report. London: FCO. Online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/192693/BBA_national_release_31_July_08. pdf. Accessed 13 May 2013. Fussell, P. (1982). Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hawkins, D. and Mann, S. (2007). The World Bank’s role in tourism development. Annals of Tourism Research 34(2): 348–363. Henning, G. (2012). The habit of tourism: Experiences and their ontological meaning. In R. Sharpley and P. Stone (eds) Contemporary Tourist Experience: Concepts and Consequences (pp. 25–37). Abingdon: Routledge. Hickman, L. (2007). The Final Call: In Search of the True Costs of Our Holidays. London: Transworld Publishers. Holden, A. (2005). Tourism Studies and the Social Sciences. London: Routledge. Independent (2008). The world has learnt to expect British louts. Independent (12 August) Online at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/ simon-calder-the-world-has-learnt-to-expect-british-louts-891494.html: Accessed 13 May 2013. Jones, S. (2005). Community-based ecotourism: The significance of social capital. Annals of Tourism Research 32(2): 303–324. Krippendorf, J. (1986). Tourism in the system of industrial society. Annals of Tourism Research 13(4): 517–532. Krippendorf, J. (1987). The Holiday Makers: Understanding the Impact of Leisure Travel. Oxford: Heinemann. Leiper, N., Lamont, M. and Hing, N. (2011). Cooperative business organizations: Intrinsic in every strategically functional tourism industry. Tourism Culture and Communication 11(1): 57–67. Liu, Z. (2003). Sustainable tourism development: A critique. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 11(6): 459–475. Macbeth, J. (2005). Towards an ethics platform for tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 32(4): 962–984. Miles, P. (2005). Tourism ‘worsened’ Tsunami, say UN. Daily Telegraph Travel (26 February): 4. Mishan, E. (1969). The Costs of Economic Growth (2nd edn). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mitchell, J., Keane, J. and Laidlaw, J. (2009). Making Success Work for The Poor: Package Tourism in Northern Tanzania. ODI/SNV. Online at: http://www.odi.org.uk/ resources/docs/4203.pdf, Accessed 20 September 2012. Mowforth, M. and Munt, I. (2009). Tourism and Sustainability: New Tourism in the Third World. London: Routledge. OECD (2012). OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2012. Paris: OECD. Patullo, P. (1996). Last Resort: The Cost of Tourism in the Caribbean. London: Cassell. Patullo, P. and Minelli, O. (2009). The Ethical Travel Guide: Your Passport to Exciting Alternative Holidays. London: Earthscan. Pearce, P., Filep, S. and Ross, G. (Eds) (2011). Tourists, Tourism and the Good Life. Abingdon: Routledge.

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Poon, A. (1993). Tourism, Technology and Competitive Strategies. Wallingford: CABI. Powell, R. and Ham, S (2008). Can ecotourism interpretation really lead to proconservation knowledge, attitudes and behaviour? Evidence from the Galapagos Islands. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 16(4): 467–489. Ritzer, G. (1996). The McDonaldization of Society. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Ross, W.D. (1976). Plato’s Theory of Ideas. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. Scheyvens, R. (2002). Tourism for Development: Empowering Communities. Harlow: Prentice Hall. Schlosser, E. (2002). Fast Food Nation: What the All-American Meal is Doing to the World. London: Penguin. Scott, N., Cooper, C. and Baggio, R. (2008). Destination networks: Four Australian cases. Annals of Tourism Research 35(1): 169–188. Sharpley, R. (2000). In defence of (mass) tourism. In M. Robinson, J. Swarbrooke, N. Evans, P. Long and R. Sharpley (eds) Reflections on International Tourism: Environmental Management and Pathways to Sustainable Tourism (pp. 269–284). Sunderland: Business Education Publishers. Sharpley, R. (2002). Sustainability: A barrier to tourism development? In R. Sharpley and D. Telfer (eds) Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Simms, A. (2007). Tescopoly: How One Shop Came Out on Top and Why It Matters. London: Constable. Smith, V. (1992). Borocay, Philippines: A case study in “alternative” tourism. In V.L. Smith and W.R. Eadington (eds) Tourism Alternatives: Potentials and Problems in the Development of Tourism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Stebbins, R. (2007). Serious Leisure: A Perspective for Our Time. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Telfer, D. and Sharpley, R. (2008). Tourism and Development in the Developing World. London: Routledge Thomas, R. (2012). Business elites, universities and knowledge transfer in tourism. Tourism Management 33(3): 553–561. Tremlett, G. (2007). Ghosts of Spain. London: Faber and Faber. Turner, L. and Ash, J. (1975). The Golden Hordes: International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery. London: Constable. UNWTO (2012). Sustainable development of tourism: Definition. Online at: http:// sdt.unwto.org/en/content/about-us-5. Accessed 18 December 2012. Urry, J (2002). The Tourist Gaze. London: SAGE Publications. Wall, G. and Mathieson, A. (2006). Tourism: Change, Impacts and Opportunities. Harlow: Pearson Prentice Hall. Wearing, S. and Neil, J. (2009). Ecotourism Impacts, Potentials and Possibilities. London: Butterworth-Heineman. Weaver, D. (2008). Ecotourism: An Introduction. Brisbane: John Wiley & Sons. Wheeller, B. (1991). Tourism’s troubled times: Responsible tourism is not the answer. Tourism Management 12(2): 91–96. Young, G. (1973). Tourism: Blessing or Blight? Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Further Reading Bramwell, B. (ed.) (2004). Coastal Mass Tourism: Diversification and Sustainable Development in Southern Europe. Clevedon: Channel View Publications.

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Gursoy, D., Chi, C. and Dyer, P. (2010). Locals’ attitudes toward mass and alternative tourism: The case of sunshine coast, Australia. Journal of Travel Research 49(3): 381–394. Hickman, L. (2007). The Final Call: In Search of the True Costs of our Holidays. London: Transworld Publishers. Sharpley, R. (2009). Tourism, Development and the Environment: Beyond Sustainability? London: Earthscan Publications. Weaver, D (2001). Mass tourism and alternative tourism in the Caribbean. In D. Harrison (ed.) Tourism and the Less Developed World: Issues and Case Studies (pp. 161–174). Wallingford: CABI.

Chapter 8

Is the Concept of Sustainability Utopian? Ideally Perfect but Hard to Practice Stephen McCool, Richard Butler, Ralf Buckley, David Weaver and Brian Wheeller Context Sustainable Tourism as a paradigm of development originated from the convergence of several streams of thought nearly three decades ago. It has tended to follow a ‘smaller is better’ theme, but there are significant questions about the saliency of this theme in a 21st world characterized by change, contentiousness, conflict and uncertainty. Sustainable tourism is often linked with ecotourism and a dependency on natural environments as a principal resource providing the basis for an experiential product. The rise of systems thinking has led to new and potentially more useful insights about tourism as an economic development strategy in this context. Questions about the future ability of sustainable tourism to spur, not only progress, but the advancement of knowledge, are presented and debated in this probe. The probe begins with a presentation by Steve McCool, who presents a brief history of the development of the concept of sustainable tourism, provides an overview of how 21st century conditions are significantly different than those in which the term arose and suggests a reformulation of the concept to one of enhancing resiliency in the face of stresses and strains on communities. Responses by Richard Butler, Ralf Buckley, David Weaver and Brian Wheeller suggest that academia has a poor record of performance in addressing the real life issues confronting the globe’s economic woes through sustainable tourism. Several feel that global economic and political power are so overwhelming as to make debates on sustainable tourism irrelevant. McCool responds to these criticisms by suggesting that knowledge is the principal barrier to progress. 223

8.1

Sustainable Tourism: Guiding Fiction, Social Trap or Path to Resilience? Stephen McCool

If the continuing search for sustainable tourism has revealed anything, it is that it is critical that we ask the right questions. Questions frame the dialogue and the pathways we choose to engage research, development and activism. Asking questions about the future of sustainable tourism is important, for as I write this, the term is celebrating one-quarter century since its popularization in the late 1980s following the publication of the Brundtland Commission Report (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) Our Common Future. That report argued for a new mental model, termed sustainable development, to guide policy on environmental, social and economic issues. And too, the UNWTO (2011) has recently issued its new projections for international travel, estimated to rise at an average annual rate of about 3.3% a year out to 2030, stressing the capacity of not only the globe’s transportation infrastructure, but posing significant challenges as well as opportunities for those who seek tourism as an economic development strategy and as a tool to boost revenues for protection and management of the world’s declining natural heritage. Asking the right questions provokes additional ones, e.g. who gets to ask the questions? Why them? Whose definitions ‘count’? How does one secure the intergenerational equity at the heart of the concept of sustainability? What is sustained by sustainable tourism? Who benefits from sustainable tourism? Why shouldn’t all tourism be sustainable? Is sustainable tourism simply a marketing tool designed to appeal to market segments with environmental sensitivities? Or is sustainable tourism simply a ‘guiding fiction’ – a concept that effectively rallies social discourse, but fails when it comes to the specifics of implementation (Shumway, 1991)? I believe the conventional conception of sustainable tourism as small scale tourism at the intersection of economic feasibility, ecological sensitivity and social 224

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acceptability no longer provides a constructive pathway to address these questions. Sustainable tourism is often put forward as the solution for many economic and environmental woes: by creating small businesses employing local people, environmental impacts of tourism are minimized, personal incomes raised and quality of life is enhanced. The ‘smaller is better’ panacea is often promoted in particular by large international conservation organizations seeking to achieve political and social support for lands set aside as parks and other similar protected areas. But in so promoting a particular philosophy of economic development, conservation organizations – whose nearly total focus is on protection of biological diversity – have privileged themselves in advocating a model that actually may be rather narrow in scope and of increasing irrelevance to 21st century needs, as pointed out by Colin Hunter (1995) nearly 20 years ago. In this probe, I suggest that a reformulation of the notion of sustainable tourism will provide more useful insights, be more appropriate for 21st century issues and challenges, and far more relevant to the needs of the world’s 7 billion people. This is not simply a matter limited to the ivory tower of academic discourse: many of these 7 billion people live in or at the edge of extreme poverty, directly depend on natural resources for their daily sustenance and shelter, and engage in livelihoods. Vulnerable to policies and actions initiated elsewhere. The debate begins first by briefly outlining the rise of the term. This provides a foundation for understanding the social and political context out of which the notion of sustainable tourism arose, which I believe is significantly different from what we have now and will have in the future. The next section suggests that applying systems thinking may be helpful in re-framing sustainable tourism into a concept that provides more productive insights. I conclude by arguing ‘we need to reframe the issue of sustainable tourism much more explicitly with a focus on one specific characteristic of the complex socialecological system embedding the search for sustainable tourism’. The essay is impressionistic, based on my involvement in tourism research and other endeavours over the years; it is not intended to provide a long list of citations. Along this journey, I hope to be a bit provocative and raise questions that will form the basis for a badly needed critical dialogue about the character and utility of the term sustainable tourism.

A Brief History of the Development of the Concept of Sustainable Tourism The concept of sustainable tourism ascended out of the confluence of two discrete stories, evolving concurrently, but separately, and eventually

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converging in the late 1980s. One story is that of increasing social attention to tourism and its economic impacts. The other is of accelerating concern about economic development, particularly for nations and regions characterized by high levels of poverty, poor access to health and education, and limited capacity to engage in the global economic system. The two stories each have a series of threads within them that eventually lead to a conjunction of concerns about the future, the environmental and social consequences of tourism development, and the institutional purposes and structures for economic development. For the tourism story, the important threads involve the rapid growth of travel and its mounting penetration into a diversity of destinations, particularly in regions typified by both low incomes and high biological diversity. A second thread includes rising acknowledgement of the financial impacts of tourism and ultimately its potential as an economic development tool. In particular situations, natural and cultural heritage became viewed as an engine of economic growth and therefore exploitation provides useful benefits. The third thread centred on emerging apprehensions about the cultural and environmental consequences of tourism and the messy character of their resolution. Tourism was seen to destroy (or more kindly ‘degrade’) the very basis of a community’s tourism economy. These three threads are well documented in the tourism literature. They converged in the 1980s, ultimately leading to calls for ‘alternative’ forms of tourism, such as ecotourism, responsible tourism and geotourism. At the same time that tourism was receiving increasing scrutiny about its effects, there was mounting unease about the way in which international development – aid to developing countries – was proceeding. Many aid projects were large in scale, moved massive amounts of material (dams, irrigation projects, transportation systems), displaced enormous numbers of generally impoverished people from the project to someplace else and often were implemented with little engagement with the people most affected. This story contains three streams as well. The first involves accelerating reservations about the impacts human activity were having on the natural environment (triggered initially by Rachel Carson’s (1963) powerful documentary, Silent Spring), and because of the scale of international aid projects, these anxieties were also translated to that mode of development. A second stream dealt with the notion of quality of life, that measures of a society’s well-being were often ignored by economic-based quantitative measures, such as gross domestic product. In this stream, access to education, healthcare, rights of minorities and women became a central focus of many activist movements. A third stream encompassed governance, with an increasing consideration focused on the rights of people impacted by various governmental decisions to be engaged in the decision-making process and typified by demands for transparency, accountability and inclusiveness.

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These streams were initially joined in the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference on the Environment. Most importantly, in 1983 the UN formed a World Commission on Environment and Development (informally called the ‘Brundtland’ Commission after the chair Gro Brundtland), which eloquently articulated the integrated character of these threads in its concluding report, Our Common Future. The Commission had been chartered to study how development could proceed that would deal with poverty, rates of resource degradation and consumption, and larger scale environmental issues. While the notion of sustainable development had begun to surface prior to the Brundtland Commission report, it was this narrative that crystallized global interest in a new approach to development. The Commission defined sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. While this statement seems rather straight forward, it has been debated ever since the report was published, raising both an operational and systemic level of scepticism: How can development be sustainable? Are the interests and preferences of the current generation and future generations similar? What are needs? What are desires? What is it that we should be sustaining? The report was perfectly timed to stimulate debate about sustainability and institutional response at the UN Conference on Environment and Development held at Rio in 1992. Commonly termed the ‘Earth Summit’, a principal output was Agenda 21, a set of proposed national, regional and even local policies to achieve sustainable development goals. During the late 1980s and following the Rio Conference, academics, planners and activists began applying the notion of sustainable development to tourism. This idea ripened in the early to mid-1990s. The earliest use of the term ‘sustainable tourism’ in the title of a scientific article occurred in 1990 by J.J. Pigram. A new journal, the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, was launched in 1993. The first world conference on sustainable tourism was held in 1995 in Spain. While these dates seem relatively recent, the seeds for the term ‘sustainable tourism’ were planted early with the trends and themes just identified. At first, sustainable tourism was viewed as a particular form of tourism, one that encompassed elements of social justice, considerations of scale and sensitivity to environmental impact within it. The concept was often viewed as closely related to the notion of ecotourism – although this form of tourism seemed to be more socially prescribed (e.g. travel in small groups, interact with indigenous people, income benefits the resource, eat healthy foods, etc.), while sustainable tourism seemed to be more concerned with the outcomes of a viable tourism industry. In this respect, sustainable tourism was often viewed as the domain of small business, and it was opposed to larger scale, more ‘mass’ oriented forms of tourism. But the notion of sustainable tourism was also grasped by individual firms and destination marketing organizations to mean how a firm can be longer lasting.

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Triggered by the fusing of these two stories, thousands of scientific articles have been produced addressing ‘sustainable tourism’, particularly in rural settings located within lesser-developed countries and emerging economies. Typically, these studies and projects focus on elements of community engagement in tourism decisions, development of small craft and guiding businesses, exhibiting traditional events, customs and festivals, providing income to residents of rural communities, and in some cases raising income to support management of resources at the basis of nature-based tourism operations. For example, the UNWTO programme, Sustainable Tourism-Elimination of Poverty1 focuses almost exclusively on raising income in poverty stricken areas through a variety of initiatives using seven ‘mechanisms’ designed to improve community capabilities in the tourism arena. Sustainable tourism conceived of as a community-level intervention contains the characteristics of a ‘social trap’. A social trap occurs whenever ‘road signs’ or cues to appropriate behaviour in the short-run lead to a situation that is detrimental in the long-run or inconsistent with the needs of the larger social system (Costanza, 1987; Platt, 1973). For example, the initial positive feedback of a newly introduced tourism business may, in the long run, challenge traditional economic and political power in a community leading to conflict. Colin Hunter (1995) makes this point when he criticizes the sustainable tourism development paradigm as parochial, unwittingly focusing efforts on too narrow a pathway: ‘. . . the dominant tourism-centric paradigm encourages and/or causes an inherent and inappropriate limitation of the remit [scope] of sustainable tourism, and that an alternative extraparochial paradigm is a more suitable conceptual vehicle’ for sustainable tourism policy. Hunter’s point is that our efforts to develop sustainable tourism in the shortrun may ignore other important dimensions of sustainable development and that we can inadvertently negatively impact other sectors in the long-run.

Re-characterizing the World Our century differs from the context, and therefore the fundamental assumptions which spiced ‘how we viewed the world within which the sustainable tourism concept evolved’. We recognize, more so than in the early 1990s, that the implicit assumptions we hold about the world influence our behaviour. The rise of systems thinking 2 (see Senge, 1990 for example), together with the recognition that the mental models we carry around influence our behaviour (and even the evidence we may see in scientific exploration) and the increasingly acrimonious debate about tourism development, suggests that a critical examination of sustainable tourism concept is in order. Mental models are our simplified representations of reality that help us work through the complexities of not only everyday living, but also the gruelling problems of development, poverty alleviation and environmental

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protection. Mental models are frequently influenced by our successes of the past, and so strongly held they serve as barriers to seeing evidence that challenges those representations. Conventional sustainable tourism mental models of the late 20th century were constructed out of modernist and post-modernist assumptions that the world is predictable, linear, ultimately understandable and basically stable. This view of the world resulted in complex problems being reduced to ‘digestible’ parts, with ‘solutions’ to each component developed. After solutions for each problem component were found, then components were put back together for a more ‘comprehensive’ solution. These solutions often become the panaceas that Ostrom (2007) critiqued in her insightful essay ‘Sustainable social-ecological systems: An impossibility?’ This reductionism produced policies and development activity that focus on interventions in communities in one particular sector – tourism in this case – with little understanding of the broader scale consequences, both positive and negative, resulting. For example, tourism interventions have been criticized as insensitive to indigenous community cultural norms and values, in other cases as producing low quality jobs, and in still others leading to unacceptable environmental impacts. Communities – even small ones – are incredibly diverse, in terms of norms, affluence, political power, access to education and health care, type of job and so on. Focusing on tourism as an intervention without a broad understanding of the entire system will likely lead to some stresses and strains that one could argue negate the benefit of enhanced income for some. In this sense, the solution, sustainable tourism, becomes the problem. Further, it is unclear how one would measure and assess whether a sustainable tourism initiative was successful and why: interventions often display confusion between inputs and outcomes, and the spatial, temporal and social-organizational scales are often unstated. Implementing an intervention might look good for a government programme or to a non-governmental organization's (NGO) donors, but how do we know it worked? For whom did it work? Who benefited? Who did not? Why? Further, a focus on sustainable tourism as small-scale businesses or community tourism initiatives ignores both the idea of reducing the negative consequences of all tourism in general and how tourism development integrates into the larger economy of a village or region. In one sense, the goal of sustainable tourism has been to ensure economic stability, particularly at the community level – a goal difficult to achieve in a world of globalized financial institutions and processes. Overly simplistic models and panaceas – such as finding the intersection of ecological sensitivity, economic feasibility and cultural acceptability – are deceptive. It is unlikely that economic, environmental and social acceptability concerns can be valued equally in sustainability discussions by different groups. How do constituencies differ in their preferences? Why? What about constituencies not yet alive – those generations the Brundtland Commission

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speaks to? Economic feasibility is so dependent on short-term market and financial conditions as to be counter to the long-term notion of sustainability as intergenerational equity. Social acceptability varies significantly across cultures and even within small communities, so we are confronted with the question of: acceptable for whom? There are no clear, technically based guidelines for answering this question. Dryzek (1987) argues in this context that social choices must be first ecologically rational, for if we lose the environmental basis for human life, there is no future for other considerations. One could argue that the illusion of achieving sustainability (through excessively reductionist approaches) may be its most fundamental obstacle. We have now begun to realize that a new set of assumptions about the world would advance our opportunities to learn and produce insights more beneficial to tourism decision-making. First, we understand that the world is dynamically complex, that is, the world changes in a non-linear rather than incremental manner, that small changes in one variable may lead to large changes in another. This has been popularized by the term ‘the butterfly effect’. Second, for all practical purposes, the world is impossible to completely understand, that is, there will never be enough data or science to completely explain the causes and consequences of events, patterns and structures. Third, the world is ever-changing, by this I mean that we can always expect surprises, that because knowledge is tentative and incomplete, unpredicted consequences will likely arise in places and at times we are least likely to expect. Finally, the world is connected as a giant complex adaptive socialecological system, that numerous drivers and forces acting at the global level influence the effectiveness, usefulness and appropriateness of economic development actions at the local level. Such drivers include changing models of governance, population dynamics (e.g. growth, aging, migration), technological advancement, economic restructuring, climate change and so on. Such systems are comprised of various actors, actions, resources, relationships and influences (Andereis et al., 2004)3; they are subject to a variety of internally and exogenously induced perturbations; and they contain properties characterizing the whole in addition to their constituent parts. Relationships between causes and consequences are often mediated by a number of linkages, which means that cause-effect relationships are loosely rather than tightly coupled. Temporal delays between actions and effects may be long: actions taken by an entity may lead to effects thousands of kilometres distant. Interactions among different scales are typical. Problems apparently ‘solved’ in one location may be simply, and sometimes carelessly, displaced to some other place, sometimes with less capacity to address those problems. Complex social-ecological systems are also characterized as containing emergent properties – attributes of the whole that cannot be predicted from understanding the parts. Just as an understanding of the biology of brain cells does not predict personality of a person, developing new and small tourism businesses may not predict the sustainability of the system as a whole

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or its ability to be adaptive to the inherent turbulence of 21st century earth. In this sense, assumptions about the homogeneity of small villages implicit in many development initiatives are often exposed by rancour, jealousies and conflict introduced by the perceived inequities in resulting incomes and opportunities.

From Sustainability to Resiliency: Redefining the Role of Tourism This social-ecological system can be conceived of as a shallow basin, a metaphor presented by Walker and Salt (2006). The forces and couplings that exist both external4 to the system and within it, define its shape and depth. The basin defines the set of possible states that a social-ecological system may have and still retain its structure and function. At any given point in time, the system will be in a particular state (see Figure 8.1 for depictions of the basin) represented by a ball. The basin shape and depth indicate the range of variability that normally occurs, and as long as the ball remains within the basin, any potential conditions could be described as ‘normal’. People dependent upon the social-ecological system for services and benefits have developed strategies to adapt to changing conditions within this basin. In a very real sense, as long as the ball remains within the basin, the system has achieved a position of sustainability even though there is some variability. However, perturbations (natural disasters, armed conflict, World Bank policies, NGO development initiatives, a new tourism business) may ‘tilt’ the basin, thus changing the range of conditions possible and raising the probability that the ball may fall out of the basin into an adjacent one, which may have very different characteristics. In this situation, the system becomes a ‘different’ one, with dissimilar structures and functions, with potentially an altered mix of ecosystem-based services, social conditions, economic arrangements, political priorities and power relationships. This would place the ball into a different situation and increase risks to those have come to depend upon the relationships, resources and structures provided in the original basin. Given the large amount of uncertainty in the world, a goal then of managing complex social ecological systems would be to enhance their resilience in the face of disturbances, whether they are caused internally or by larger scale forces, such as demands for economic restructuring, global business competition, shifting tourism markets or climate change. The Resilience Alliance defines resilience as ‘the ability to absorb disturbances, to be changed and then to re-organize and still have the same identity (retain the same basic structure and ways of functioning). It includes the ability to learn from the disturbance. A resilient system is forgiving of external shocks. As resilience declines the magnitude of a shock from which it cannot recover gets smaller and smaller’.5

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Figure 8.1 A social-ecological system may be conceived of as a basin, with the condition at any one time represented by the ball Note: Any time the ball is within the basin, the system may be characterized as within the normal range of variability, as depicted in (a). At times, perturbating forces (climate change, political upheaval, economic restructuring) may move the ball to the edge of the basin (b). If a socialecological system has little resilience, the ball may fall into another basin (c) characterized by a different set of economic, political, cultural or environmental conditions, putting at risk the people living there. Suggested by Walker and Salt (2006)

In terms of development, we can alternatively frame tourism as an intervention (which holds economic, social, cultural and political dimensions) used to enhance the system’s resilience. In so framing tourism in this way, we avoid prescriptive judgments concerning scale of the tourism development (sometimes ‘big’ might be appropriate and effective), we focus on what the intervention will do to enhance the ability of the social-ecological system to confront and respond to disturbances, and we may come up with innovative development initiatives that place prominence on learning. This forces those who propose tourism (or any other economic activity for that matter) to consider what elements of the system need strengthening to enhance resilience, to better understand not only the system itself (and the various relationships within it), but also what potential threats exist that might put the system at risk. It requires NGOs and government entities that are charged with economic development programmes to conduct analyses of the system to better understand what interventions may be most effective in enhancing system resilience. These analyses might even find that the biggest threat to system resilience arises from international institutions whose goal is just the opposite!

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This view of sustainable tourism turns the question from one of how to sustain tourism activity to one of what it is that tourism should sustain, and provides a response grounded in a more contemporary mental model of the world, one that arguably inspires more useful insights than the one of the past. Sustainable tourism in this sense is not a type or physical scale of business, rather it is a strategy to build or maintain system resilience. It is built upon a mental model of the world and tourism significantly different than what has been used in the past. Several other authors have argued for using a mental model of tourism development constructed on the notion of complex social-ecological systems (most notably Farrell & Twining-Ward, 2004; Jamal, 2012; Plummer & Fennell, 2009; Saarinen, 2006; Strickland-Munroe et al., 2010). But it is now time to take these proposals more seriously.

Conclusion The concept of sustainable tourism has fuelled many experiments in thinking differently about how the experiences visitors seek can be provided, how society can benefit from this demand and how the environment may be protected as a result of tourism development. And in that sense, the notion of sustainable tourism encourages innovative thinking that has had positive results in many situations. But the insular focus on tourism in isolation to other economic alternatives and the lack of acknowledgement of tourism as one component of a complex social-ecological system impractically and theoretically, compartmentalizes the practice of sustainable tourism. In a century typified by almost complete integration of global, regional and local-level processes, events and patterns, such a narrow prescription of sustainable tourism creates an illusion of success that has become its largest barrier as an effective, salient path to more vibrant and resilient communities. Too, a narrow framing of sustainable tourism places limits on the types of questions we may know to ask. The principal question facing tourism in the 21st century is the extent to which it can contribute to the resilience of communities in this era of integration and globalization. Such contribution may come in the form of labour income – allowing local residents for example to purchase sustenance and shelter, to participate in education, and to access health programmes; it may come in the form of the enhanced problem-solving and critical thinking skills needed to work through complicated social issues, challenges and opportunities; or it may help broaden the adaptation alternatives needed to address threats from a variety of exogenous and internal disturbing forces. In this sense, sustainable tourism is fixated more on building and retaining desired characteristics of a system – such as a local community – than on the scale of an individual business or ensuring the business survives for a period of time. By conceiving tourism as one component of a complex system,

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we change the character of the questions asked and by that process generate responses, develop initiatives and conduct research not previously considered. These activities advance our learning and by so doing, move the notion of sustainable tourism into greater saliency. And yet, there remain significant questions about the capacities needed to think in resilience terms. What capacities at the institutional, entrepreneurial and individual scales are needed? How do we develop them? How can scientists join with activists, NGOs and government in changing our thinking? Is it even realistic to consider sustainable tourism as a path to resilience, or is it simply another in a long list of buzzwords?

Notes (1) See http://step.unwto.org/en/content/background-and-objectives for a full description of the programme. (2) Loosely defined here as the study of how parts of the whole influence each other. (3) A social-ecological system is defined by Andereis et al. (2004) as ‘an ecological system intricately linked with and affected by one or more social systems’. (4) http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/key_concepts. Accessed 18 October 2012. (5) I am reluctant to use this concept as I agree with John Sterman’s (2002) admonition that ‘almost nothing is exogenous’. I use it only for the sake of the argument.

8.2

Sustainable Tourism: The Undefinable and Unachievable Pursued by the Unrealistic? Richard Butler

In the lead probe, McCool notes that his essay ‘is impressionistic . . . (and) . . . a bit provocative’, for which I am most grateful, as it surely allows the respondents to be equally personal and responsive, drawing on their own backgrounds and experience in tourism research. I write therefore, in a personal vein, as an individual trained in geography and who has taught

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tourism (and resource management) for several decades from that perspective. A geographical training at the time of my education involved an understanding of physical and human processes and their interaction. Because of this, almost all those of my ilk have an understanding of how pathetic our human responses often are to the overpowering forces of natural processes, and how many problems we cause because of our refusal to consider what should be basic common sense when dealing with the natural environment. No better elucidation of such a viewpoint exists than the late Ian McHarg’s masterpiece, Design With Nature (1967) and his query, on viewing the first photographs of the earth from space, whether mankind was a planetary disease, given that it was responsible for the analogous brown and black ‘bruises’ on the green ‘apple’ of the earth. I am, therefore, a strong proponent of the principles behind the concept of sustainable development, while remaining an equally strong sceptic of the concept as generally used, misused and promoted by some of its more publicityseeking supporters. In choosing the title of my response I acknowledge Oscar Wilde (1893 cited in Wilde, 1996), who defined fox hunting as ‘the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable’, as sustainable tourism seems to me to be rather like that oft maligned recreation activity. The latter is generally condemned, not because of its purpose (to kill foxes), but because it gives its participants (except the fox) enjoyment. In the same way, sustainable tourism, which is surely both a fiction and a smokescreen, gives encouragement (enjoyment) to its supporters, and frustration to those who genuinely understand and desire the concept to be implemented. To discuss it and respond to the lead of McCool is both frustrating and enjoyable, and, again with acknowledgement to Wilde (1895, cited in Wilde, 1990) ‘On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one’s mind. It becomes a pleasure’. McCool provides a good brief introduction to the concept of sustainable development, a creation acknowledged by Buckley in response as a political tool to direct public attention. The vagueness that Buckley refers to, and the failure of implementation noted by McCool, are key features of what is perhaps the ultimate ‘apple pie and motherhood’ statement of the last century. Precisely because sustainable development (and its off-spring sustainable tourism) is vague, proponents of the concept have been able to garner support from an incredibly wide range of viewpoints, including, inevitably, politicians who dote on such slogans and phrases that are both generalizations and appealing to such a range of views. The support of politicians is, of course, critical to the popularization of any innovation, although equally, such innovations are not normally adopted by politicians until they are popular. The distinguishing achievement of sustainable development is that it has achieved an almost mythical state of approval that has lasted for a quarter of a century, garnering support from most sides of the political spectrum.

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One might well ask why this has come about. The idea of responsible behaviour, conservation for example, was popular at the beginning of the 20th century. A good example is the discussion and controversy that took place over the proposed development of dams and water diversions in Yosemite National Park. The ensuing arguments saw a fascinating debate between proponents of conservation (the wise use of resources as expressed by Gifford Pinchot) and preservation (the non-use and protection of resources as argued by John Muir and others), which still resounds today in many forms (Nelson & Butler, 1974). The debate was kindled anew in the second half of the 20th century following Rachel Carson’s (1963) seminal work (Silent Spring) and other publications such as Meadows et al.’s (1972) Limits to Growth. In the title of the latter, however, is its great weakness, the word ‘limits’ in the context of growth, a view point that few developers would not find acceptable and of which politicians would totally avoid mention. The great success of sustainable development was that it appears to allow growth (development) and could thus meet everyone’s self-focused goals. At the time of writing (late 2012), there is hardly a government in the world that is not pursuing growth following the depression and recession of the past few years. ‘Shoots’ of growth, ideally green ones, but in reality of any colour, are what are being sought, and predictions of growth rates of gross national product (GNP) or gross domestic product (GDP) of ‘only’ 1% or 2% are generally regarded as unsatisfactory. Whether the desired growth rates are sustainable or not does not seem to matter at present, only whether they will create jobs and wealth at the scale seen some years ago. Herein lies the rub. Tourism has been one of the very few economic activities that has seen almost perpetual growth over the last half century (little of it sustainable however) as shown by McCool. Despite wars and recessions, and political, social and economic upheavals, tourism overall has continued to grow. Even in the very few years when international tourism arrivals (whatever they really are) have not grown, domestic tourism has continued to expand and thus tourism as a whole has become ever larger. Despite this, there has emerged the fantasy (guiding fiction is really too polite and flattering a term) of sustainable tourism. If sustainable tourism were to exist in reality, we would have to understand the needs of the present as well as the needs of the future. Can we really talk of ‘needs’ in the context of tourism, or the ‘right’ to a holiday when much of the world’s population is unable to afford even a part-day of leisure a week, let alone a holiday away from home any year? Even if we do accept the need for a holiday or rest and relaxation for human beings, what do we know of the needs of future generations? We do not even know what will be the scale, distribution or nature of future generations. In reality most societies cannot accurately forecast even their total populations 20 years ahead, let alone their economic, social and environmental requirements, so no wonder we talk in terms of generalities and wishful thinking. Sustainability, in

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tourism or anything, is like truth, ‘never pure and rarely simple’ (Wilde 1895 cited in Wilde, 1990). It has never failed to both fascinate and annoy me that many of the awards that are given in the various competitions for sustainable tourism go to operations newly established in developing countries. I have nothing against encouraging new developers in tourism or anything else to adopt sustainable principles, these really should be automatic and taken for granted in this day and age. While many of such award winners operate their establishments in fairly sustainable ways (e.g. using local produce, local labour, local construction materials, community involvement and support, low energy use and recycling outputs), which is a marked improvement over most operations in the countries hosting the awards, there is generally one fatal flaw. That is in the form of transportation, and in particular, access from generally long-haul markets to the operations involved. Such transportation almost inevitably involves non-renewable and non-sustainable fuels, making the whole tourism experience non-sustainable. Even with carbon offsetting, the activity does not become sustainable. Carbon offsetting simply means some companies pay to continue emitting carbon, while others that would not or cannot emit carbon, get paid for not doing so, even when they might not be doing so anyway. As each plane flies, carbon is emitted, whether offset or not. New ‘sustainable’ tourism operations do not reduce emissions or reduce tourism’s impacts on the environment unless places offering an equivalent number of bed nights and involving a similar level of emissions are closed down. The ill-fated efforts in Calvia showed how difficult such good intentions are to implement successfully for a long period (Dodds, 2007). Thus new operations add to tourism travel, generally longhaul travel, aggravating the overall problem, not reducing it. While there may well be desired benefits to local communities and even some added protection of the local environment, such results do not constitute real sustainable tourism, but essentially a green and social wash to tourism that might not be ‘needed’ and that continues to contribute to the global overuse of diminishing resources. The previous discussion should not be interpreted as an anti-tourism diatribe. I regard the global development of tourism to be a considerable achievement in social and economic terms, even if an ever increasing problem from an environmental perspective. To have so many people able to experience travel and enjoy (despite what some academic critics of mass tourism would argue) the experience is a great advance in human well-being. It should not be dismissed because it involves enjoyment, pleasure and freedom of choice, and particularly not dismissed because it involves an increasing proportion (until recently) of lower income earners whose tastes and preferences do not match those of travel writers and tourism academics in general. Academics involved in tourism research perhaps should be more appreciative of the employment generated by tourism, of improvements in transportation

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and other services in what were remote and poorly served areas of the world, rather than focusing on and criticizing the disappearance of ways of life that condemned many people to poverty and subsistence at very low levels. It would be nice and better perhaps if all tourism was ‘fair trade’ tourism, if wage levels in third world tourism operations were equal to those in developed countries and if local communities had control over all operations and divided profits equally and fairly, but if we are honest, such a situation is highly unlikely to exist in any form of economic activity in many countries and the cost of such tourism would inevitably be beyond the means of most tourists, resulting in a reduction in numbers, in income and employment generation and financial viability. We tend to describe sustainable development and thus sustainable tourism as having a triple bottom line, meaning that economic, social and environmental considerations should be equal in importance when decisions are made. There are two problems with such an assumption. One is that without economic viability the other two elements become irrelevant because tourism will not take place, or if it does, it will be short-lived because it will not make a return on investment and thus will not be sustainable economically. The second, and more serious, error in the assumption is that it is a triple bottom line. In reality it is a quadruple bottom line with the fourth element being politics (Figure 8.2). However economically positive, socially welcomed and environmentally benign a development may be, it will not proceed to operation unless it is politically acceptable. Political in this context ranges from the national level down to the most local grass roots level. Sofield (1996) illustrated how local opposition can effectively prevent tourism development from being successful and the with-holding of planning or development permission at various higher levels of government can deny development for a range of reasons, both honourable and corrupt. If we

Figure 8.2 Quadruple bottom line model Source: Author

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ignore this fourth and most critical element when discussing sustainable tourism, we ignore reality. We (academic researchers) need to be honest in our appraisal of tourism, and what passes for sustainable tourism in particular. The concept, like its related concept of ecotourism, has become distorted, expanded, politicized and changed beyond general recognition from what may have been implied in the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). I say implied because of course, there is nothing about tourism in Our Common Future. So much for what many people think (or more likely fail to think) about the subject that drives our academic output. Sustainable tourism is now seen as key to helping solve climate change, or so some publications would have us believe (Ceron & Dubois, 2009; Gössling & Hall, 2006). I have no doubts about climate change (although I do have some doubts about the causes and the predictions made about the subject), but I cannot accept that sustainable tourism will make more than a very slight difference to the continuation of climate change and the problems that it entails. As long as travellers for pleasure use non-renewable energy, tourism will continue to influence climate change (not by much compared with other factors, but certainly to a degree). The greenhouse gas emission reduction from building more sustainable eco-lodges in Amazonia, Southeast Asia or Western Europe will be undetectably small, but that is where major effort is likely to be put judging from what is being written generally. The saving from making one major destination such as Las Vegas even 10% more sustainable or perhaps, more accurately, by reducing energy consumption in Las Vegas by 10%, would have a far greater effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions than the creation of new tourism facilities anywhere, particularly those far distant from their primary markets. Retrofitting existing destinations rather than encouraging new development would be much more effective, although still of minor value, in reducing emissions globally. Yet that, of course, would not be popular as it would involve few positive headlines, added costs to existing operators, reduced appeal perhaps to potential visitors and still allow mass tourism of the most blatant (and academically unpopular) forms. Might we ever move from the ‘guiding fiction’ of McCool to reality? Perhaps, but if we are to make such a step certain issues must be faced. The most effective way to become more sustainable, in tourism as in everything else, is to involve fewer people. Thus any serious attempt to achieve sustainability at the global level has to include population reduction, not just control. China’s one child policy, anathema though it might be to some liberal thinkers and others, has probably done more for global sustainability than anything to date. The failure to significantly reduce population growth, for example in India and in Africa, confirms the unwillingness of governments and societies to grasp the nettle of real sustainability. A reduction in consumption stems from either a reduction in demand or in

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supply, or both. The basic cause of increasing demand is increasing population, and this, combined with decreasing supply in terms of energy, food and potable water, will result in horrors on a scale not yet experienced. Compared with this, tourism, sustainable or otherwise, is really an irrelevancy. Are we talking about sustainable tourism out of a real sense that this is important, or simply to impress on others that tourism researchers also want in on discussions on sustainable development, and most lately, climate change discussions also? Making tourism more sustainable is relatively simple in theory, namely, reduce the numbers of people travelling for tourism. One senses that for some, lower numbers of the ‘right type’ of tourists are what is needed, travellers (not tourists of course) willing to spend large amounts of money, both because prices would be high and consciences would be pricked, for very basic facilities, staying for long periods of time, doing very little, and presumably travelling by train or sailing vessel. In reality, this is a combination of pipe dreaming and wishful thinking, as well as being elitist and condemning millions of those on lower incomes from engaging in tourism, or at least international tourism. An alternative, and surely a more attractive one, is to make participants in tourism realize that a more sustainable form of tourism can and should be economically rewarding. Accommodation establishments operating in a sustainable manner should surely reduce expenditure on energy and perhaps on other utilities such as water if this were charged at its real value over the long-term, if not the medium- and even short-term as well. Utilizing local produce should also see reduced expenditure by savings on ever increasing energy costs for the transportation of food stuffs, and increased investment in local production should raise standards and reliability. At present, however, the reverse seems to be true. The few sustainable holidays that are offered are generally more, not less, expensive, implying either that operators are trying to recoup investment in sustainable features rapidly and/or are ripping off customers who are assuaging their consciences by ‘going green’. Taking a long-term view is one of the key elements of sustainable development, but one that seems to be low on the scale of importance for many operators. The long-term future for tourism clearly faces problems. While peak oil may be much further away than is often threatened, long-haul tourism from major markets to destinations may well be significantly reduced in the years ahead, but sustainable tourism is hardly the answer. It is incapable of greatly affecting world energy supplies or climate change and is therefore, like tourism as a whole, a bit player in the world’s future. That does not mean those involved in tourism should continue to do little other than sign up for the ‘guiding fiction’ (a term McCool first applied to carrying capacity if I recall correctly, which is not too different a concept to sustainability) and espouse unlikely ideals. Rather they should promote and practice the general principles behind sustainable development and thus sustainable tourism,

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concentrating more on the fundamental elements than on later additions, such as political correctness and the ‘small is beautiful’ ideas of latter day hippies. Taking care of the big issues will allow the luxury later of attending to other desirable but less essential details later. Ignoring the big issues will ultimately mean that there will be no tourism to bother about, sustainable or not. Or, as Wilde yet again almost noted ‘we shall have to die beyond our means’ (Sherard, 1906). In short, and to conclude, sustainability is too important a path to be taken lightly or left to academics or worse, politicians or entrepreneurs. It deals with the well-being of the planet, not just its environment but the social and economic structures on which its inhabitants depend. Compared with security, shelter, food and water and the other elements noted by Maslow (1943), tourism is relatively unimportant, yet it is what those reading these probes are concerned with. It is time, perhaps, that we dropped the management speak of concepts that are not blindingly new ideas but mostly deliberately complicated reiterations of basic common sense, such as ‘adaptive management’, ‘resilience’ or ‘critical thinking’. It is hard to see sustainable development as anything other than conservation, ‘the wise use of resources’, acknowledging that some of those resources will be exhausted over time, some should be protected and preserved, and the rest used with a long-term view for the greatest good for the longest time. If you think that is wishful thinking, it probably is, but sometimes dreams come true, and survival has long been mankind’s ultimate fantasy.

8.3

Tourism and the Sustainability of Human Societies Ralf Buckley

The Brundtland definition of sustainable development, as cited by McCool in his lead probe Sustainable Tourism: Guiding Fiction, Social Trap or Path to Resilience? was a political one. In political terms it did serve a useful purpose,

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directing public attention to increasing shortages of natural resources. At the same time, however, it created continuing problems through its vagueness. As noted by McCool, it rallied social discourse but failed the specifics of implementation. From a scientific perspective, the Brundtland formulation is paradoxical, and ultimately either meaningless or impossible. One of the most strongly felt ‘needs’ of the current generation is to produce children, and one of the ‘needs’ of future generations is to produce even more children, and so the planet’s human population increases, and its ability to meet other human needs such as food, water and air supplies decreases. By expressing sustainability in terms of what humans think they need, rather than how the planet actually works, the Brundtland definition gained political acceptability, but at the cost of technical feasibility. Therefore there have been many attempts to translate sustainability into more useful technical terms. Economists speak of weak and strong sustainability, natural and human capital; but these ignore fundamentals. It is easy to buy and sell components of nature while they exist; but expensive, difficult or impossible to replace them, and their functions, when they are gone. Social scientists aim to express sustainability in terms of human rights and equity. These are indeed important to the individual people concerned, but not fundamental to the functioning of planetary ecosystems. A sustainable future is technically possible, because individual people have limited life spans. If everyone were to have fewer children, use less stuff and make less mess, we could hope for a soft landing from our current unsustainable path. But this would require simultaneous individual decisions by billions of people, to sacrifice their personal interests to the general good. This is vanishingly improbable. Therefore, there are two principal possibilities (Buckley, 2012a). The more optimistic is that current political, economic and social systems will very quickly be able to develop suitable incentives, whether carrots or sticks, to persuade people to make these sacrifices nonetheless. The more pessimistic is that human population, consumption and waste generation will continue to increase until catastrophic famine, disease and associated wars cause a sudden massive collapse. Neither path is likely to be easy. This provides the context for considering the sustainability of tourism specifically. Right now, tourism is a global industry worth somewhere up to seven trillion dollars a year, depending what you count and whose statistics you believe. That’s a thousand dollars for everyone on earth, so it is not negligible. But it depends on people taking holidays and travelling. Those things may both disappear. In a more heavily populated and resource-consuming future, tourism is still likely to be a rather weak player relative to the primary industries, manufacturing, health and military sectors. I have argued elsewhere (Buckley, 2012a) that we can assess the sustainability (or otherwise) of tourism through its contributions to five global-scale

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social processes, summarized as: population, peace, prosperity, pollution and protection. Population effects are apparently negligible. We hope that tourism contributes to peace, but nobody knows for sure. It does often contribute to local and national prosperity, with consequent secondary impacts, both good and bad, on both natural and social environments. It generates pollution, ranging from local waste and wastewater to global atmospheric effects (Gössling, 2010; Gössling et al., 2012). Much of the technical practicality of sustainability at the scale of individual tourism enterprises is about managing pollution and other environmental impacts (Buckley, 2009a, 2011). There are indeed many commercial tourism enterprises that have taken steps to minimize their environmental impacts. The reasons may range from simple compliance with enforceable legislation, to personal concern and convictions on the part of owners and managers. Between these lie a wide range of mixed motivations, considered broadly under the heading of CSR, corporate social responsibility (Buckley & Pegas, 2012). The scales, types and intensities, of environmental impacts, as well as the potential mechanisms to reduce them, differ greatly between subsectors and individual enterprises, and also depend upon the timescale considered. In the longer-term, for example, an airline might replace its aircraft with more fuel-efficient designs, as these become available through advances in engineering. In the medium-term, it might change its routes, but these depend on negotiation of landing rights and airline partnerships. In the short-term it can reduce impacts per passenger by keeping its planes full. If this involves getting more people to fly as a result of successful marketing strategies, however, then that actually increases aggregate impacts and reduces sustainability. Similar considerations apply for hotels. In the longterm the most critical question for sustainability is when, where and whether new hotels are built. In the medium-term, existing hotels can use both technological and management measures to achieve limited reductions in water, energy and resource consumption, and generation of wastes. If these are measured per bed night, however, then they can claim improvements simply by filling more beds on more nights, through pricing and marketing strategies. This is good for business, but in terms of global sustainability, more business means more impacts. Prosperity brings improved human material wellbeing, but at the cost of consuming and degrading natural resources and environment (Buckley, 2012a). At a global scale, economic growth has always been associated with reduced sustainability. We have very few historical examples of economic slowdowns in the modern economy with its highly mechanized primary, secondary and tertiary industry sectors. The only examples we have are those of global recessions, and these have indeed slowed the otherwise relentless growth in resource consumption. At a regional scale, economic growth can sometimes improve regional sustainability, if it occurs through a transition between different industry sectors (Buckley, 2012a); but such transitions

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occur through geographical shifts in concentrations of highest-impact sectors, so this improvement is regional, not global. There are also examples where regional economic contractions have reduced sustainability, through abandonment of highly polluting mines and manufacturing enterprises without rehabilitation. Technologies to reduce so-called environmental intensity, the environmental impacts per unit value of production, can indeed show continual improvements; but such improvements are only adopted by some enterprises in some countries, and they are swamped by the overall growth in the aggregate scale of production. Trends in greenhouse gas emissions by the airline industry, or water consumption by the global hotel industry, provide excellent examples (Gössling, 2010; Gössling et al., 2012). There have been significant improvements in the energy efficiency of aircraft engines and fuselages, but at aggregate global scale, such savings are dwarfed by the continuing growth in air travel; and attempts to mitigate climate change impacts of air travel through voluntary customer purchases of carbon offsets are ineffective because of low take-up and dubious validity (Buckley, 2012a; Gössling, 2010). Similar considerations apply for energy- and water-saving appliances in hotels. These can indeed reduce consumption of resources per bed night, but the global growth in bed nights associated with the overall growth in tourism means that aggregate consumption and impacts continue to climb. At the scale of individual enterprises, irrespective of motivations (Buckley & Pegas, 2012), installing resource-efficient and low-waste technologies can indeed reduce impacts. As long as a hotel continues operating in the same place, with the same number of beds and the same occupancy rate, then such technologies can indeed reduce its aggregate on-site impacts. If every other aspect of its customer and resource supply chains remains unaltered, then such improvements may contribute to improved global sustainability. If its markets change, however, so that customers arrive from new source areas, or use different modes of transport, or stay a different number of nights, then at a global scale, these customer supply-chain effects can outweigh any on-site improvements calculated per bed night. Similar effects apply if its resource supply chains alter. For individual tourism enterprises, different aspects of impacts on global sustainability are under very different levels of control. For any fixed-site tourist accommodation or attraction, as noted above, one of the single largest overall impacts is travel to the site by customers. This is under a certain degree of control by the destination enterprise, since it is influenced by marketing. Few tourism enterprises, however, can afford to target their marketing to local sources solely to reduce travel impacts. They are competing with other enterprises, and they have to maintain demand in order to keep prices above costs and maintain financial viability. This paradox is rarely even mentioned within the tourism industry. Even those destinations and enterprises that market themselves as ecotourism, rarely refer to the environmental

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costs of travel (Gössling, 2002; Simmons & Becken, 2004). Indeed, very few commercial tourism enterprises are prepared to reveal the origins of their clienteles (Folke et al., 2006). The same applies for those that market themselves as slow or responsible tourism (Leslie, 2012). Similar considerations apply to material supply chains. Tourism enterprises, like any other business, buy most of what they need as cheaply as they can. They may feature locally sourced food, for example, but only if it is cheaper, or they think that it will attract more customers or support higher prices; and only if they have a consistent and reliable supply. At the on-site scale, i.e. once customers and supplies have arrived, there are indeed many measures that commercial tourism enterprises can and do take to reduce their local environmental impacts (Buckley, 2011, 2012a). In Africa, for example, a number of remote wildlife lodges in Botswana have replaced diesel generators with large-scale banks of solar panels. At the luxurious Zarafa Lodge operated by Great Plains Conservation (2012), for example, the entire power supply is produced from a bank of 136 × 205 W solar panels, with a battery bank, inverters, and a high-tech monitoring and control system operated remotely from South Africa, over an internet connection. There are similar systems at several Wilderness Safaris lodges, notably Kalahari Plains (Ives, 2010). In Chilean Patagonia in South America, the upmarket hotel at Explora Salto Chico (Explora, 2012) provides its entire hot water supply using a high-tech furnace fuelled by sawmill waste. The furnace operates at 680 °C and consumes 3.5 tonnes of woodchips daily, producing hot water at 80 °C and ~350 kPa pressure. Of course, as acknowledged by Explora, the trucks transporting the woodchips from the sawmills run on diesel; and of course, the sawmills consume forest of native Nothofagus species. The forest is being logged irrespective of tourism, however; the sawmill waste is burnt in kilns on-site if not used elsewhere; the trucks use a lot less diesel than a large furnace; and fuel oil for a furnace would also have to be trucked in. So the net outcome is positive for the natural environment, relative to other practicable options available to Explora. Many more examples such as these have been documented in textbooks and case-study compendia (Buckley, 2009a, 2010a). Greenwash is widespread, however, and environmental awards and ecocertificates are not always reliable (Buckley, 2012d). There seems to be no substitute for on-site audit in person, by experienced independent researchers. In addition to reducing local impacts, tourism enterprises can in some cases also make net positive contributions to the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, including threatened plant and animal species. We live in a world where powerful industrial organizations want more and more natural resources, to provide to more and more consumers; where governments are increasingly strapped for cash and beholden to political interests; where the most fundamental of human life support systems are increasingly

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commoditized (Kaufman, 2012); and where conservation funding is an order of magnitude less than needed (McCarthy et al., 2012). In such a world, tourism is one of the few practical tools available to lessen the shortfall in funding for parks and conservation (Buckley, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b, 2012b; Buckley & Pabla, 2012; Buckley et al., 2012; Morrison et al., 2012). With few exceptions, however, the tourism industry does not see itself in such a role. In general, tourism contributes to conservation only where it is harnessed by government legal systems, including fee and tax arrangements (Buckley, 2009a, 2009b). Even for those exceptional enterprises that voluntarily practice conservation tourism (Buckley, 2010a, 2012a, 2012b), commercial viability is a prerequisite for conservation measures, and this depends on successfully outcompeting other enterprises that lack such interests. In addition, even enterprises that make major local contributions to conservation still rely largely on international clients, who generate impacts during their travel to the site. As pointed out by McCool in his lead probe, therefore, the world is indeed highly complicated and highly interconnected. Whether it is adaptive depends on what one means by that term. To call it a social-ecological system is perhaps an oversimplification. Certainly, what people do to each other and the rest of the world, depends on social structures as well as individual interests. But the same applies for mosquitoes and nematodes, which far outnumber humans. Human social structures have changed throughout history, and they can change again. Currently, they differ enormously between countries and cultures, and those differences affect the rest of the world. A person who pays to see live rhinos, tigers or pangolins in the wild has very different impacts from one who pays to consume ground-up rhino horn, tiger penis bone or pangolin soup. And the differences between those persons are social, not physiological. As noted by McCool, we are indeed living in an era of integration and globalization, and sustainability in tourism needs large as well as localscale approaches. As outlined for a few examples above, there are thousands of such practical technicalities in every aspect of tourism, and it is these technical issues that determine how sustainable, or otherwise, the tourism sector may be or become. As noted by McCool in his essay and Buckley (2012a), a number of academics, consultants and industry associations have proposed alternative terminologies or paradigms for sustainable tourism. It is not clear what this achieves. Unless some conceptual insight can reduce the number of people, the amount of stuff they use, or the mess they make, then it does not make human society, including tourism components, any less unsustainable. The same applies to terms, such as adaptive management, which are academic jargon for what people have always done anyway. Even a term such as community resilience, suggested by McCool as a key attribute of sustainable tourism, is perhaps overworked. Historically,

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some human communities and civilizations have proved resilient, in the sense of surviving for a long time in a single place. Many others, however, have vanished. Often this has occurred when they exhausted local natural resources, either through subsistence use or industrial exploitation. In other cases, they were destroyed or displaced through wars and invasions. There are also examples of nomadic communities that have proved more resilient than fixed-site counterparts, because of a greater ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The conclusion reached by McCool, therefore, that ‘the principal question facing tourism in the 21st century is the extent to which it can contribute to the resilience of communities’ deserves close examination. I would argue that it is not the principal question for the tourism industry, but it indeed is an important question for sustainability. To me, the principal questions for the tourism industry seem to be at much larger scales. The overriding question, surely, is for how much longer people will have the discretionary time and resources to travel for pleasure. In the longer-term, if wars, disease, thirst and famine overtake the planet, people may just stay home and buy guns. If by some miracle we avoid that outcome, it will require major changes to human behaviour, and mass-scale holiday travel is likely to be one of the first casualties. If it does happen, then there will be much larger-scale concerns for sustainability than those associated with tourism. At shorter time scales, while human societies are still functioning much as currently, we are likely to see changes to travel patterns owing to increasing fuel costs, initially incremental and ultimately a largescale mode change as air travel becomes largely unaffordable (Buckley, 2012c). If fuel costs reduce travel, that will improve sustainability, though not in a way that the travel industry would like. At more immediate time scales, the biggest changes to global tourism are perhaps those owing to shifts in the relative wealth of nations, with reduced discretionary expenditure in Europe and North America, and greatly increased travel by newly wealthy citizens of the BRICS nations, most notably those of China, India and Brazil. If more and more tourism involves Indian, Chinese and Brazilian tourists, then one new key issue for sustainability will be the rather large differences with regard to attitudes and behaviour towards both natural and human environments, between these cultures and those of Europe and North America. The role of tourism in contributing to the resilience of communities as cited by McCool is indeed significant to sustainability, largely because local community attitudes are commonly critical in conservation. From the perspective of global sustainability, the single most important link between tourism and the environment is surely the use of tourism as a tool to provide financial and political support for conservation of biodiversity. This comes at an environmental cost, largely that of international air travel, and we need to develop better environmental accounting techniques so as to compare

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these costs and benefits in ecological rather than economic terms (Buckley, 2012a). But it seems to play a critical and increasing role, and one that gives tourism its greatest claim to contribute to sustainability. Currently, that contribution is derived only from a very few commercial tourism enterprises. But perhaps part of our hoped-for progress towards sustainability might be a broader adoption of tourism-funded conservation endeavours. The bottom line for sustainable tourism is this, that some tourism businesses do indeed take many commendable steps to minimize negative impacts on both natural and human environments, and a substantially smaller number take even more commendable steps to create net positive outcomes for both (Buckley, 2010a; Explora, 2012; Great Plains Conservation, 2012; Ives, 2010). These enterprises do indeed deserve recognition. In addition, in some countries tourism makes significant funding contributions to public protected area agencies, with consequent gains for conservation of some threatened species (Buckley et al., 2012; Morrison et al., 2012). The tourism industry as a whole, however, is concerned with growth, not sustainability. This is unsurprising: the same applies for businesses in all industry sectors. As academics, however, we have a responsibility to observe, analyse and report accurately. Therefore, we cannot pretend that mainstream tourism is in any way sustainable (Buckley, 2012a). That would be not only a delusion, but a collusion.

8.4

Wither Sustainable Tourism? But First a Good Hard Look in the Mirror David Weaver

Academic discourses on sustainable tourism continue to evolve and challenge established ideas, building on the relevant literature. The energy being injected into the theoretical or academic discourse, however, should be

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matched by the real world application of this knowledge and its monitoring and assessment. This, concurrently, would justify the public resources that sustain the academic enterprise in tourism studies. Since the tenor of this particular set of probe contributions is especially reflective and individualistic, I will continue similarly with some frank, personal, hopefully provocative – and self-critical – comments about the state of play with sustainable tourism and tourism studies more broadly, which I have engaged as student or professor for 36 years. I agree with McCool that new thinking is needed to move beyond what I perceive to be an impasse in sustainable tourism discourses, but that this must be formulated at the fundaments of what it means to be a ‘tourism scholar’, not at the level of academic theory or sub-cultures. This is because of the gaping and growing chasm between what we expound and how this influences the real world. The exponential increase in academic output and its increased sophistication is not widely questioned and is taken as grounds for optimism and field ‘maturation’ (Airey & Tribe, 2005). However, I do not see much parallel evidence of impact on industry or government circles that dictate how tourism develops. Others have expressed similar concerns about this issue of relevance (Pearce, 2005). For those wishing to take exception, I would like to see the evidence of impact. It is surprising that there are no studies (to my knowledge) that assess the contribution of academic writing to the actual development of the tourism sector, nor any metrics to inform such an investigation. Illustrating this alleged irrelevance is the Co-operative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism (STCRC), which federal and state governments funded in Australia between 1997 and 2010. The STCRC promised to deliver relevant and timely knowledge to industry through the efforts of tourism academics. It did produce many academic outputs, but these appear to have had little direct effect on Australia’s tourism sector, despite the millions of taxpayers’ dollars invested. I am unaware of any empirical studies that, in the interests of accountability, demonstrate return on investment or otherwise solicit stakeholders as to the awareness and value of the STCRC. If I am right, then this indicates something amiss with the academic culture itself, and not just with the theories, frameworks or concepts that derive from that culture. These after all have been frequently rethought, and often in fundamental ways, but none seem to be helping the sector. So what are we good at? As mentioned, there is more and better academic output, but this only exacerbates the paradox of irrelevance, since such output should be having more of an influence. But even if our best empirical research occasionally gains the attention of government or industry, I doubt whether this has positive implications for the environmental, sociocultural or economic sustainability of particular destinations, since decision-makers are usually guided by financial or political expediency. Industry stakeholders will consider how knowledge can be mobilized to

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increase profits, and government stakeholders will consider how it facilitates re-election. A counterargument is that we influence industry and government indirectly through well-educated graduates who go on to occupy positions of influence in those sectors. However, disregarding for the moment the mismatch between the number of students majoring in tourism and the number of waiting jobs in tourism planning and management, it seems likely that those students will quickly succumb to the dictates of financial and political expediency if they want to keep their jobs and advance their careers. Where we really excel then is in the expansion and replication of ourselves as an academic entity, indicated by an absurdly large number of departments, peer-reviewed journals, conferences, student majors and, yes, navel-gazing articles about sustainable tourism. This is anything but sustainable (ironically!), but for now the well still seems to have plenty of water, and there is much more apparently to be drawn from China once the domestic supply runs dry. It is the great Chinese hope that keeps us from heeding the cracks in the edifice, evidenced in Australia for example in the growing number of departments and programmes that are being eliminated, consolidated or otherwise ‘rationalized’. Perhaps we need this wakeup call as an incentive to reinvent ourselves in fundamental ways that are more sustainable. Let us take a good hard look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves; when we embark on a research exercise, are we primarily concerned with the impact that the outcomes will have on the real (non-academic) world, or are we more concerned with publishing in a high tier journal that will attract maximized citations, increase our h-index and enhance our chances of tenure or promotion? The recent proliferation of much-pondered articles ranking academics, journals and institutions exacerbates this unhealthy fixation (Murphy & Law, 2008; Park et al., 2011). It really is all about ego, not making the world a better place (except for us), especially as we accept with cynicism the financial and political pragmatism of industry and government. Read any sampling of contemporary academic tourism literature, and be awed by the revealed self-importance, whether expressed in a pretentious writing style, declarations that the research is existentially important or excessive self-citation. We know the answers, if only anyone outside of our small selfreferential circles would care to listen! In reality, our gurus and publishing superstars are mostly unknown beyond academia, and our publications ignored. Regardless of what we write or say, the industry will evolve without us, and few consumers will heed our urgent entreaties about reducing the carbon footprint. And why should they heed us, given the enormity of our own carbon footprint as we embark on all that ‘essential’ conference and research travel? Or do we believe that our emissions are justified by the critical importance of what we have to say? Video conferences would suffice, but we like to travel and network with

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colleagues in person. Most of us in this regard are not the exemplars of sustainability we purport to be. Does this mean that there is no hope for sustainable tourism? Not at all. Regardless of whether we intervene or not, unsustainable tourism cannot stay in that condition indefinitely – unsustainability is unsustainable by definition (Weaver, 2012). If something is unsustainable, it has to change. Occasionally the patient dies, but this rarely happens in tourism. More likely, local stakeholders, who have the most to lose or gain from local tourism activity, find ways to resolve the attendant problems. Consider the hopeless abominations of 1970s mass tourism, such as Benidorm and Calvía, and consider further that now they are not bad places to visit or inhabit (Ivars et al., 2013; Royle, 2009). Ugly or defunct structures have been demolished and replaced by more aesthetically pleasing and environmentally friendly structures, more public green spaces have been created, and the beaches are Blue Flag Certified. The total destruction of tourism is far more likely to result from major natural disasters or wars (think Pompeii or the Varosha district of Famagusta) that have little to do with tourism per se. Otherwise, it appears as if destinations possess a sort of built-in or naïve resilience that comes into play during crises of carrying capacity or other critical times. This contribution may be dismissed by some as a cynical and exaggerated screed. Others may deny the problem or contend that the field in due course will acquire critical mass of knowledge and expertise. However, I argue that looking at ourselves in the academic mirror and acknowledging our essential irrelevance to the sector is an act of emancipation that makes it possible to become more relevant by adopting new perspectives. We need this reality check if our engagement with sustainable tourism is to have any meaning outside our sub-cultures. Once we acknowledge irrelevance, we can try to understand why we are this way, and how we can move forward. A common response for those acknowledging the problem is to blame the increasingly dysfunctional academic system, but this ignores our acquiescence to and integration in that system – we help to keep it going. A two-prong approach may help to resolve this dilemma. First, the awards system for academics in universities should be changed to privilege social impact over academic prestige. New key performance indicators, accordingly, would link research (and teaching) and measurable outcomes for society by considering who has benefited, how and when, and how the research can be leveraged to produce more benefits. Second, we need to engage more with the industries, communities and institutions that embody the real tourism world. Only in this way can we identify what people need and want, what positive and negative effects are resulting from tourism, etc. For this to be effective, however, the spatial scale has to be compressed and the temporal scale expanded. That is, the academic must

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show commitment to particular destinations – perhaps just a single village – for an extended time, perhaps even an entire career, as per the anthropological tradition. Currently, in efforts to maximize output and please bean-counting managers, academics jump promiscuously between destinations and topics, not investing enough time or effort in any place to really understand what is happening there. Sabbaticals should provide ideal opportunities for place/time immersion, and academics, departments and research offices should focus on identifying places that need help and are open to cooperation. By way of illustration, tourism academics from Australia could focus on East Timor, ideal to engage because of its poverty, proximity and tourism potential. Shamefully, a search in the Leisure Tourism abstracts of CABI yielded only a handful of tourism-related articles, most focused on tourists and their possibilities for contacting various nasty diseases (e.g. Visser et al., 2012) – so much for the East Timorese. Why has East Timor been ignored by Australian tourism academics? Similar logic pertains to Haiti with respect to US-based tourism academics – it is not on the radar screen and should be, but hopefully not in the conventional and dysfunctional way that academics currently engage destinations. It also seems logical, given the consensus about properly contextualizing tourism within a broader systems perspective, for tourism academics to work in tandem with academic specialists in agriculture, fishing, etc. During academic review, the question ‘How have you made a positive difference to the people of East Timor?’ would take priority over ‘How many high tier academic articles did you publish?’ Although further tourism journal proliferation should not be encouraged, I do see a role for a new Journal of the Social Impact of Tourism Research that might reconcile the two questions. Perhaps it is too late for those of us who have been playing the game for a long time. But we could contribute to change by reconsidering the individuals and topics we take on for higher degree supervision, and even earlier by what we emphasize in our lectures. At the top end, there are prominent tourism academics who have attained senior leadership roles in university administration – would they challenge the system and try to introduce a more social impacts-focused paradigm? I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the system is broken. We publish a lot, but it is not having any substantial impact on the real world, the well-being of which ought to be our primary directive and the ultimate goal of sustainable tourism discourses. We are a bloated ego-driven field, and if we were a destination we would be transitioning somewhere in the unsustainable space between stagnation and decline, all carrying capacities having been breached long ago. We can rejuvenate by putting our self-importance aside and developing committed relationships with local communities. With more wisdom and humility, and supportive university administrations, we can be agents of social change helping to achieve and not just study sustainable tourism.

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8.5

Sustainable Tourism: Milestone or Millstone? Brian Wheeller

Two recent, pretty much self-explanatory newspaper article headlines say it all. ‘Google boss “proud” of tax-avoiding capitalism’ (Armitstead, 2012: 1); and ‘Lure of jobs and money threatens one of Spain’s last wild beaches with destruction’ (Roberts, 2012: 2). But for further illumination, a little elaboration from the latter reads ‘Valdevaqueros is a surfers’ paradise and a haven for rare wildlife, but local politicians have approved a huge new tourist complex in an attempt to bring work to the crisis-hit area … Opponents claim it is flouting the spirit of planning conditions … “Money is once again being put before urban laws and European environmental directives” … while, with traditional sources of income dwindling, the pro-lobby counter with “… tourism is the only way out, as long as it is sustainable”.’ (My own italics, highlighting the inherent irony.) So Mowforth and Munt (2003: 179) were (of course) correct when, perceptive as ever, they reminded us that ‘The Profit Maximization motive does have a tendency to subvert and subjugate other considerations, ethical and environmental. It is essential to keep this in mind in any analysis of the tourism industry’. How true, and a pertinent quote I often refer to. Despite the shoal of ‘red herrings’ to the contrary, this remains fundamentally the pro forma for much of the tourism industry … it is economics not ecology that is so firmly in the driving seat. And surely even more so if one were to insert, at the beginning of the quotation, an appropriate ‘In the short-term’ the quotation … reflecting the pressing time-frame that most stakeholders (notably the tourists ourselves) operate within. Attending the very enjoyable Tourism, Climate Change and Sustainability Conference at Bournemouth University (September 2012) served to re-affirm many of my fears and convictions. Fine, fine words from many present for the concept of sustainable tourism – for the idea – indeed, the ideal: yet I think it would be fair to say (though, admittedly, my interpretation could of course be wrong) that the overall consensus from the speakers, panels and

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floor (and also expertly articulated by one of the Conference chairs) was that, actually despite all the worthy talk about environmental awareness, when it comes down to the brass tacks of actual ‘customer’ (i.e. tourist) behaviour, then price remains paramount. There may well be exceptions, but these are, indeed, the exceptions: not the rule. And, once again, when considered in the wider arena, at the macro level, such exceptions are so marginal as to be meaningless – except, of course, as fuel for rhetoric. Another article around the time struck me as having universal relevance – ‘When it comes to customers, price is the key’ (Cave, 2012: B10). Albeit, I’m cherry-picking (well, in this case, grapes (but not sour ones) – as the article in question was actually about wine). Such ‘fruity’ talk re-iterates that it is economics not ecology that drives the world. And while McCool, seemingly sagely, cites Dryzek (1987), surely the argument that social choices must first be ecologically rational (for losing that means all else is irrelevant) seems to me to be based on the notion that we, as a society, think in the long term: and not the immediate. Which, I would suggest, is patently not the case: everyday matters dominate. And, going further, turning a blind-eye to this immediacy is a – if not the – fundamental flaw in sustainability thinking. And one not really addressed in McCool’s speculation. ‘When it comes down to it, instant gratification, as Carrie Fisher said in Postcards from the Edge, “just isn’t soon enough”’ (Patterson, 2013: 13). Not directly mentioned, it may appear tangential to introduce the nonsense of Slow Tourism into the proceedings here. But I suggest it is reasonable to do so, not so much as a counter and link with the aforementioned speed and the instant, more on the basis of it being quite legitimate to tar all the goody two shoes, idealistic incarnations of (and spawned by) sustainable tourism – irrespective of their notional nomenclature – with the same thick brush. The list of such phantom ‘manifestations’ is endless (now we even have Hopeful Tourism – dear me, whatever next?). As an answer to the wider issues of tourism impact, all fly in the face of common sense. While all, whatever their fancy name tag, might (or might not) look good on paper, justified in their own ‘write’, in practice they are so marginal as to be irrelevant – of no practical significance whatsoever in tackling fundamental problems of tourism, development and environment: problems that essentially stem from the innate greed and selfishness of ‘humanity’ within an inherently corrupt, unbalanced world. Essentially, as a race, we are human and not humane. Quite the contrary, all seem to rely on a belief of the benign ‘goodness’ of humanity – on a naive delusionary vision of mankind – yet the overwhelming empirical evidence around us points to the absolute opposite. The belief seems to be that people are more interested in others than in themselves; in ecology rather than in economics, and a faith in the (potential) purity of human nature that I do not share. As far as I can tell – and maybe

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I miss the complexities and nuances of these disaggregated niches – whatever the nomenclature, all are afflicted by the same idealistic Never-Never Land delusions that undermine the veracity of the parent, ‘sustainable tourism’ – in itself a phrase, as Humpty Dumpty once remarked, that means all things to all men (Wheeller, 2007). Slow tourism is no exception to this illusion – the incongruity of which is summed up perfectly in the Beach Boys’ ‘Kokomo’: ‘We’ll get there fast and then we’ll take it slow’ (Phillips et al., 1988). Maybe if all the proponents of ‘slow tourism’ travelling, say, to China took a slow boat rather than leaving on a jet plane, then their cause would have more credibility. But even then, once there, do those advocating slow tourism want their service to be slow, too? Presumably they will only be happy with the slowest taxi from the airport, the slowest receptionist when checking in, the slowest waiter/waitress/bar tender in the hotel or cafe? Do slow tourists book holidays on the internet (‘fastest connection possible essential, please’), telephone – or rely on old fashioned, slow, snail mail? Presumably, slow tourists are quite happy, when it suits, to apply the latest technology with no consideration of the social and environmental costs necessary for the production, provision and operation of the same? Is everything about slow tourism slow? Of course, not. Cherrypicking is the name of the game. As it is with advocates of any notional form of sustainable tourism. (And, I readily acknowledge, a process I am again happily adopting here with carefree abandon – hopefully to make the very point.) The rhythm of dance might well be slow, slow, quick, quick slow: the tourist/ traveller being slow but the services looking after them quick, quick – upbeat, prompt and rapid. ‘Now, if not sooner thank you very much’. Further, believers (and there is, in a sense, an undercurrent resembling religious zeal to all this) seem to assume that tourists are – or are potentially – of a ‘mindful’ rather than ‘mindless’ state of mind (see Langer, 1990; Moscardo & Ballantyne, 2008, cited in Ryland 2013). That if ‘we’ educate ‘them’ the way we think (no, know) then ‘they’ will behave better. They will be receptive. Things will improve. And it will be better for them. Such (arrogant) optimism beggars belief. The reliance on the assumption of humane as opposed to human behaviour simply does not ring true. The gap between theory and practice is so glaringly obvious: always has been. And yet, mysteriously, still remains outside the radar of, and blatantly ignored by, blinkered advocates of ‘good’ tourism. And in the wider context? According to Vogt (2013: 16) ‘The Pope said yesterday that he was optimistic that this year will see peace triumph over unfettered capitalism, terrorism and criminality’. Sounds familiar? We shall see what transpires – but don’t hold your breath. Reality would suggest otherwise. And what of the myriad of accords/agreements/summits and conferences ostentatiously concerned with tourism and sustainability? Reeled off as

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‘badges’ of achievement, worn with pride: each presented as a milestone on the route map of sustained progress. Just a few of the plethora are cited by McCool: Bruntland, Rio, Spain, etc. To many, markers of headway and the way forward: to me, rather than milestones, millstones – more akin to a litany of dereliction and procrastination. Failure camouflaged by rhetoric. Each another albatross, deadweight (and worse) around our necks – more useless baggage to saddle us on the doomed journey up a blind alley to the Promised Land of Sustainable Tourism. Again, by way of illustration, a contemporary newspaper reference: The Kyoto Protocol on climate change used to be a big deal. So big that the future of humanity was said to hinge on its implementation. Did you know it expired on New Year’s Day? We’re guessing you didn’t, but don’t worry. It’s no big deal. Adopted in 1997 and in force since 2005, the U.N. compact was intended to lock its signatories into curbing or cutting their greenhouse-gas emissions relative to 1990 levels. It didn’t work out as planned. (Anon., 2013: 15) The damning article continues to highlight the over ambitious initial expedient claims and the reality of subsequent unfulfilled promises. This, of course, mirrors and sums up the dismal track record of sustainable tourism – always claiming ‘potential’ without ever actually realizing it – except somewhere over the rainbow. Promises, promises. Reference to Coleridge’s epic poem, The Ancient Mariner (see Keach, 1997) may (also) appear obtuse: yet an interpretation of his narrative is that it serves as the perfect parable of man’s relationship with the natural environment and our misuse of the same. Written over 200 years ago, it is a perspicacious (yet unheeded) salutary caution. Basically, the eponymous protagonist shoots the benign albatross that has befriended their vessel and, as a result of this dastardly unprovoked act, the Mariner is sentenced, by Nature – cursed and condemned to suffer interminably. Like Coleridge’s Mariner (or Elvis’ ‘Suspicious Minds’) we are caught in a trap, we can’t get out. Sustainability – well, sustainable growth – has become ‘all consuming’: in itself an enveloping (smothering) blanket …, the elusive blueprint for laudable practice (‘Sustainable growth for all is aim of G20 Presidency’, Yakovenko, 2013). Sustainability is, like the Mariner’s albatross, a self-inflicted yoke we cannot escape from. The Ancient Mariner eventually casts off the dead albatross from around his neck, but even then only finds partial reprieve from his torment, not total redemption. Similarly, sustainability, hindrance rather than panacea: instead of salvation, more a liability, endlessly striving for the unobtainable. While we are in effect lost – all at sea, floundering for answers – sustainability, that seductive siren, persuasively lures us, willing victims, onto the rocks.

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Perhaps we should try something more radical. Butler’s thoughts on population control are not necessarily beyond the pale. As a starter, personally I’d probably settle for a reduction (eradication?) in the number of pet dogs and cats – a vast potential saving of resources (not to mention, in the case of the latter, birds and small mammals) if ever there was one. But then again convention has it that one can only achieve so much in practice – as an erudite correspondent, in a pithy letter to The Guardian, put it ‘No matter how much you push the envelope, it will always remain stationery’ (Toppin, 2012: 33). I do like and admire McCool’s acknowledgement of his ‘impressionistic’ approach – far more open, honest and laudable than one based on questionable statistical data purporting fine precision, exactness and accuracy. (The phrase ‘The Challenge of the Illusion of Measurement’, over-arching an installation on the University of Tasmania’s Hobart campus comes, reassuringly, to mind here.) It also affords the leeway of adopting a similar style. McCool argues for a different approach. And should be credited for that. But if I have understood things correctly, still assumes dialogue around ‘sustainability’ can produce a solution. Unfortunately, I see the author’s approach as more of a departure – and, at that, one from the very worthy objective he aspires to earlier in the article. Though McCool makes an incisive point when he posits turning the axis of questioning away from one of ‘how to sustain tourism activity to one of what it is that tourism should sustain’, as I read it, the paper does become (yet another) academic piece, the antithesis of ‘This is not simply a matter limited to the ivory tower of academic discourse’. Maybe I am misunderstanding the situation, but opting for an all embracing, comprehensive systems approach as a solution does not sound too practical to me. For my own impressions, I suppose I go for a chaotic rather than systematic approach to life in general – so I guess, glibly, Chaos Theory over Systems Approach would seem to match my way of thinking best – though, to be perfectly honest, I am not too sure precisely what either actually fully entails in practice. For me, they both continue to inhabit the realms of abstract theory while masquerading as tools for practical application. And I am not quite sure, if confronted, what a ‘typical’ tourist (if such a creature exists in the wild) would make of either. I am conscious though that once again, in an article claiming to distance itself from ivory tower abstraction, tourists themselves do not seem to get much of a mention at all. And, by the time McCool introduces the basin-analogy, he has rather ‘taken his eye off the ball’, so to speak. But maybe I am again missing the point here. And, by so doing, only compounding evidence as to my lack of understanding or even appreciation of the discussion. I sincerely hope this not to be the case … but one must recognize it as always a possibility. McCool’s paper both opens, and closes, with telling sentences. The article gets off to a ‘questionable’ start. A few of us might feel that, actually, we have been asking the right questions for years (Butler, 1990; Wheeller, 2003): it is

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just that the answers have not been forthcoming. The impasse, though, is of no surprise given the cocktail of business/political/academic/sundry interests that constitute the pro-sustainability lobby – a potent mix that has gelled into a self-righteous protective shield (and halo), conscientiously and consistently diverting criticism for so long. Given, also, the fact that some of the questions posed are, of course, uncomfortably unanswerable, has meant that it is no real wonder that, in practice, answers have been lacking. In my view, we have had (albeit stilted) ‘debate’ and ‘badly needed critical dialogue’ – or, rather, perhaps bad critical dialogue – for over 20 years. And, as I say, to my reckoning, often involving the ‘correct’ questions ... it is just that these have fallen on conveniently deaf ears: discussion straight-jacketed primarily only in the sense that there have been no satisfactory answers to basic questions. If, however, McCool’s opening implication that this has not been the case (i.e. it is the correct questions that are lacking) and that it is crucial that we do, indeed, ask the right questions (and that he practises what he preaches), then it seems reasonable to assume – on the basis of leaving the best to the last – his final sentence takes on added significance. For in it he concludes his piece by posing two, presumably particularly pertinent, questions of his own. In my considered opinion, both of these can be easily addressed – emphatically and unequivocally. ‘Is it even realistic to consider sustainable tourism as a path to resilience?’ Well, ‘No’, of course. And my response to ‘… is it simply another in a long list of buzzwords?’ A resounding, ‘Yes’. Straightforward. I reiterate that a number of probing questions were asked by early sceptics, but that these were parried or effectively ignored, subsequently remaining conveniently unanswered over the years. An obvious example being (and here the (polite) reader stifles a yawn, while the more irritable mutters an exasperated expletive) how can we have sustainable tourism when all forms of tourism require some form of transport, yet no form of transport is sustainable. Oh no! That old, tried and tired oxymoron patter. But, really, ‘How can you have sustainable tourism on a realistic, meaningful scale without any form of sustainable transport?’ Answers please. At the more generic level we must ask ourselves, have we as tourism academics actually made much difference in the theatre of sustainable tourism – let alone the staged authenticity of ‘sustainability’? To the ‘debate’? Hardly. To the industry? I doubt it. And to societal/tourist behaviour as a whole – and here I do not just mean the (so-called educated) elite? I’d say an emphatic ‘No’. Our role in the charade is, in effect, peripheral. Weaver suggests we take a good hard look in the mirror – for selfreflection not self-preening. But even if we did do this then most of us academics would probably opt for the one-way looking glass always, as luck would have it, readily to hand. But in that case how many of us would then have the fortitude of Alice? A shame really as a dose of ‘reverse logic’ might not go amiss here.

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Sustainable tourism continues to morph into the white elephant so gloomily predicted years ago ‘Currently on board a bandwagon, many proponents of eco/ego/sustainable tourism will soon discover – if they don’t know it already – that they have been taken for a ride by a stampeding white elephant’ (Wheeller, 1994: 11). In retrospect, I guess, while this prediction was (on the surface) to some extent perspicacious, it was, nevertheless, still lamentably naïve: simultaneously both right and wrong. I thought that by now we would have seen the light – that common sense would surely have prevailed. But clearly this is not the case. Though criticism of sustainability is, thankfully, mounting and, in the meantime, maybe a wheel or two has dropped off the said band wagon, nevertheless nearly 20 years on, unfortunately, the wagon keeps rolling along. But recent articles (see, for example, Driver, 2011) suggest the (similar) ‘fad’ for organic food has peaked and might be on the wane: that, contrary to predictions, demand has gone off the boil. Let us hope, when it too is boiled down to its bare bones, with all the excess flab and fat removed, that the same fate awaits sustainable tourism. Also, predictions too that package holidays (an anathema/scapegoat for many ‘sustainability’ proponents) are in terminal decline may well have been premature (Thomas, 2013) so there might be something positive here to cling to. I know I am in danger of sounding like the record stuck in the groove – repeating itself over and over again. In itself, risking this metaphor dates me – who listens to records anymore, anyway? But maybe the old original, unanswered questions could be re-released? Or better still? Updated cover versions, re-packaged and delivered by bright , young academics more in tune than perhaps I am with ‘today’ – or, more importantly, ‘tomorrow’ – are in order. Actually, in all honesty, I feel that – regardless of whatever questions are formulated and irrespective of how they are broached – satisfactory, clear answers would still prove elusive – with continued obfuscation rife. Like life in general, when it comes down to (the practical implementation of) ‘sustainable tourism’ there are, in the immortal words of Johnny Nash, ‘more questions than answers’. Succinct, wise and apposite words, indeed. Meanwhile, unfortunately, the lame duck that is sustainable tourism survives, to all intents and no purpose. And the canard continues.

Concluding Remarks ‘Optimism’, quantum computationist David Deutsch writes, foresees ‘the cause of failure as insufficient knowledge’. Sustainability and sustainable tourism are very much discussed about the future, a situation that is a function of the choices humanity makes. But that future is unknowable, because we cannot imagine what choices will be made or

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what knowledge will be generated that will affect those choices. An objective of this probe was to provoke a discussion about that future and the role of knowledge in creating it. In general, the respondents of my lead essay acknowledged the challenges confronting the notion of sustainable tourism. Buckley tackled my essay head on, suggesting the importance of considering issues such as population, peace, prosperity, pollution and protection. The others also recognized various challenges, but in ways that I had not expected. Weaver criticized academia for being insulated from the real world and thus resulting in little impact on the course of sustainable tourism. Butler argued that we simply need to practice conservation. And Wheeller felt my proposal was just another academic paper. The latter three were uniform in blaming politics and economics on the failure of sustainable tourism The four reviewers concurred with me that the notion of sustainable tourism is not doing particularly well. We part ways from there though in identifying the cause of these failures. Like Deutsch, I am an optimist, blaming failure on not having the knowledge to implement rather than on the nebulous bogeyman world of politics or economics. I am neither willing to let the dismal politics nor the dreary economics that my contenders blame for tourism’s failures abate my optimism about the role of science and the potential of people to overcome challenges no matter how daunting. If sustainable tourism is failing, it is because we have not generated the right kind of knowledge, a point implied by Weaver. As human beings, we can do anything except violating the laws of physics if we so choose. If there is a reason for not implementing something, we can look to knowledge. Lack of knowledge is the only barrier we face. But has academia contributed to the generation of this knowledge? I share the reviewers’ concerns about academia’s record of performance in the arena of sustainable tourism. Indeed, this record was a motivation for agreeing to the editor’s invitation. But not all tourism academics are embedded in Weaver’s paradigm. For many of us, our mission is to both generate and disseminate knowledge in ways that are useful. This discussion on sustainable tourism may or may not have elevated the dialogue or produced a consensus direction to the future. But it has exposed the need to think differently about our world. Passion trumps politics and economics; it is what makes the world tick – witness the peaceful dissolution of the corrupt Marcos government of the Philippines, the collapse of the repressive Soviet empire, the fall of the infamous Berlin Wall, the blossoming of a hopeful Arab spring. It is this passion and optimistic outlook we need to capture in our dialogue.

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Discussion Questions (1) How can community resilience be enhanced by the tourism sector, and how does this relate to the notion of sustainability? (2) What cross-scale processes and variables affect a community’s ability to strengthen resilience through tourism development? (3) How does tourism development affect intergenerational and intragenerational equity, and to what extent does tourism hinder or facilitate intersectoral economic development? (4) How do various constituencies define and act upon their beliefs about sustainable tourism? (5) What does tourism sustain?

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D.A. and Butchart, S.H. (2012). Financial costs of meeting global biodiversity conservation targets: Current spending and unmet needs. Science. 338(6109): 946–949. McHarg, I. (1967). Design With Nature. Garden City, NY: Natural History Press. Meadows, D.H., Meadows, D.L., Randers, J. and Behrens, W.W. (1972). Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. London: Pan Books. Morrison, C., Simpkins, C., Castley, J.G. and Buckley R.C. (2012). Tourism and the conservation of critically endangered frogs. PLoS ONE 7(9): e43757. Moscardo, G. and Ballantyne, R. (2008). Interpretation and attractions. In A. Fyall, B. Garrod, A. Leask and S. Wanhill (eds) Managing Visitor Attractions: New Direction (2nd edn) Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. Mowforth, M. and Munt, I. (2003). Tourism and Sustainability (2nd edn) (pp. 179). London: Routledge. Murphy, J. and Law, R. (2008). Google scholar visibility and tourism journals. Annals of Tourism Research 35: 1078–1082. Nelson, J.G. and Butler, R.W. (1974). Recreation and the environment. In I. Manners and M. Mikesell (eds) Perspectives on Environment. Washington, DC: Association of American Geographers. Ostrom, E. (2007). Sustainable social-ecological systems: An impossibility? In the Annual Meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ‘Science and Technology for Sustainable Well-Being’ 15–19 February 2007, San Francisco, CA. Park, K., Phillips, W., Canter, D. and Abbott, J. (2011). Hospitality and tourism research rankings by author, university, and country using six major journals: The first decade of the new millennium. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research 35: 381–416. Patterson, C. (2013). Let’s all be realistic about resolutions. Independent (2 January): 13. Pearce, P. (2005). Professing tourism: Tourism academics as educators, researchers and change leaders. Journal of Tourism Studies 16: 21–33. Phillips, J., McKenzie, S., Love, M. and Melcher, T. (1988). Kokomo. Los Angeles: Electra Records. Pigram, J.J. (1990). Sustainable tourism – policy considerations. The Journal of Tourism Studies 1(2): 2–9. Platt, J. (1973). Social traps. American Psychologist 28: 642–651. Plummer, R. and Fennell, D.A. (2009). Managing protected areas for sustainable tourism: Prospects for adaptive co-management. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 17(2): 149–168. Roberts, M. (2012). Lure of jobs and money threatens one of Spain’s last wild beaches with destruction. The Observer (25 November): 2. Royle, S. (2009). Tourism changes on a Mediterranean Island: Experiences from Mallorca. Island Studies Journal 4: 225–240. Ryland, P. (2013). Visitors: Their Choice of Activities … . PhD Thesis, Bournemouth University: 80. Saarinen, J. (2006). Traditions of sustainability in tourism studies. Annals of Tourism Research 33(4): 1121–1140. Senge, P.M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organisation. New York: Doubleday. Sherard, R. (1906). The Life of Oscar Wilde. London: T. Werner Laurie. Shumway, N. (1991). The Invention of Argentina. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Simmons, D.G. and Becken, S. (2004). The cost of getting there: Impacts of travel to ecotourism destinations. In R.C. Buckley (ed.) Environmental Impacts of Ecotourism (pp. 15–23). Wallingford: CAB International. Sofield, T. (1996). Anuha Island Resort, Solomon Islands: A case study of failure. In R.W. Butler and T. Hinch (eds) Tourism and Indigenous Peoples (pp. 176–202). London: Thomson Business Press. Sterman, J. (2002). All models are wrong: Reflections on becoming a systems scientist. Systems Dynamic Review 18: 501–531. Strickland-Munroe, J.K., Allison, H.E. and Moore, S.A. (2010). Using resilience concepts to investigate the impacts of protected area tourism on communities. Annals of Tourism Research 37(2): 499–519. Thomas, N. (2013). Travellers opt for package holidays. Daily Telegraph Business (7 January): 1. Toppin, D. (2012). Letter. Guardian (5 September): 33. UNWTO (2011). Tourism Towards 2030: Global Overview. Madrid, Spain: UNWTO. Visser, J., Narayanan, A. and Campbell, B. (2012). Strongyloides, Dengue fever, and tuberculosis conversions in New Zealand policy deploying overseas. Journal of Travel Medicine 19: 178–182. Vogt, A (2013). Pope: Peace will triumph over capitalism. Daily Telegraph (2 January): 16. Walker, B. and Salt, D. (2006). Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World (pp. 192). Washington, DC: Island Press. Weaver, D. (2012). Organic, incremental and induced paths to sustainable mass tourism convergence. Tourism Management 33: 1030–1037. Wheeller, B. (1994). Ecotourism: A ruse by any other name. In C.P. Cooper and A. Lockwood (eds) Progress in Tourism, Recreation and Hospitality Management Vol. 7. London: Belhaven. Wheeller, B. (2003). Willing victims of the ego-trap. Tourism in Focus 9: 14. Wheeller, B. (2007). Sustainable mass tourism: More smudge than nudge. Tourism Recreation Research 32(3): 73–75. Wilde, O. (1990). The Importance of Being Ernest. London: Penguin Classic. Wilde, O. (1996). A Woman of no Importance. London: Penguin Classic. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yakovenko, A. (2013). Sustainable growth for all is aim of G20 Presidency. Russia Now (18 December): 3.

Further Reading Cochrane, J. (2010). The sphere of tourism resilience. Tourism Recreation Research 35(2): 173–185. Farrell, B.H. and Twining-Ward, L. (2004). Reconceptualizing tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 31(2): 274–295. Jamal, T. and Stronza, A. (2009). Collaboration theory and tourism practice in protected areas: Stakeholders, structuring and sustainability. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 17(2): 169–189. Lambert, E., Hunter, C., Pierce, G.J. and Macleod, C.D. (2010). Sustainable whalewatching tourism and climate change: Towards a framework of resilience. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 18(3): 409–427.

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Ruiz-Ballesteros, E. (2011). Social-ecological resilience and community-based tourism: An approach from Agua Blanca, Ecuador. Tourism Management 32(3): 655–666. Strickland-Munro, J.K., Allison, H.E. and Moore, S.A. (2010). Using resilience concepts to investigate the impacts of protected area tourism on communities. Annals of Tourism Research 37(2): 499–519.

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Chapter 9

What is Wrong with the Concept of Carrying Capacity? Ralf Buckley, Sagar Singh, Gene Brothers and Simon McArthur Context Four authors bring different perspectives to the concept of carrying capacity in tourism. Buckley, an ecologist, argues that while capacity management is commonplace, capacity measurement remains elusive. Singh, an anthropologist, proposes a schematic framework for sustainability that incorporates carrying capacity. Brothers, a park planner, compares carrying capacity to loading lines for cargo vessels. McArthur, a tourism consultant, compares the concept with a car speedometer. To justify setting site capacities in numerical terms, the characteristics of the social and natural environment and the tourism system must first be analysed and understood in detail, and the intended outcome and criteria closely defined. In practice, it seems that it is often more valuable to start with the goal, and work backwards to monitoring indicators and management responses, without necessarily defining a single numerical measure. Carrying capacity is thus more useful conceptually than quantitatively.

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Tourism Capacity Concepts Ralf Buckley

Introduction Tourism produces social, economic and environmental impacts, dependent on tourist numbers. This gives rise to capacity concepts. These effects, however, also depend on other factors, which often outweigh numbers. This creates difficulties in measuring capacities. Capacity management measures using social and economic criteria are commonplace in tourism. Capacity measurement independent of management is much more difficult, particularly where limiting factors are environmental. Social, economic and environmental effects of tourism numbers are observable phenomena with definable contexts and measurable outcomes. For most tourism activities, increasing tourist numbers creates negative impacts on both the physical setting and the social experience. If this reduces product price or popularity, it also affects profitability. Crowding is not universal. Some sites remain uncrowded; some social activities encourage high human densities; and there are cultural differences in perceptions of crowding (Buckley et al., 2008; Seidl & Tisdell, 1999). The dependence of social, economic and environmental effects on tourist numbers led to the carrying capacity concept, that a site can only accommodate a definable number of tourists at any given time (Brown et al., 1997; Canestrelli & Costa, 1991; Logar, 2010; Manning, 2007; Martin & Uysal, 1990; O’Reilly, 1986; Salm, 1986; Stankey & McCool, 1984; WTO/UNEP, 1992). Implementation proved difficult (Buckley, 1999, 2006; Cocossis & Mexa, 2004; Lindberg & McCool, 1998; Lindberg et al., 1997; McCool & Lime, 2001; Seidl & Tisdell, 1999). Management measures to limit numbers of tourists engaged in particular activities at particular sites and times are commonplace (Buckley, 1998, 2003a), but evidence-based measurement of capacity is not (Buckley, 1999). Adding confusion, tourism analysts have used the same name for the different concepts of social, economic and environmental carrying capacity. 268

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Origins and Application of Carrying Capacity Concepts Carrying capacity originated as an agricultural concept: the number of individuals of a particular livestock species that can be stocked over an indefinite (multi-decade) period on a particular area of pasture, maintaining livestock health and condition, and avoiding overgrazing, soil erosion or other pasture degradation. This has several functions: comparing livestock productivity and land value of pasture types; comparing stocking densities of livestock species; and setting stocking rates in agricultural land leases. To be useful in tourism, carrying capacity must first be redefined in tourism terminology. There are three main difficulties. (1) The original environmental concept has been extended to very different social and economic contexts. (2) The original context applies in uncrowded and lightly managed sites, but many tourism venues are crowded and heavily managed. (3) Individual cattle, sheep or goats produce similar per capita impacts, but impacts of individual tourists differ by orders of magnitude depending on equipment and behaviour. To use carrying capacity in tourism, therefore, requires active management to prevent recreational succession, by stabilizing activities, equipment and infrastructure over time. In parks and wilderness areas, for example, a minimal-impact hiker may leave only footprints and take only photographs; but other tourists, legally or not, bring off-road vehicles, pets or livestock, axes and chainsaws, firearms and campfires, creating up to 1000× the environmental impacts per capita (Buckley, 2003a, 2011, 2013). To address this, recreational capacity was proposed as an alternative concept for outdoor tourism sites managed actively for specified activities and conditions (Buckley, 1999, 2002; Sousa et al., 2011; Sowman, 1987; Zacarias et al., 2011). There are few attempts to measure recreational capacity explicitly, though many monitoring and management (M&M) toolkits (Buckley, 1998; Wang & Buckley, 2010) are based on recreational opportunity spectra and limits of acceptable change (Stankey & McCool, 1984).

Crowding and Capacity Management Privately owned venues Crowding occurs in many tourism venues, and commercial tourism operators routinely manage client numbers. For privately owned transport, accommodation, catering and entertainment venues, capacity management is

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integral to sales and operations, especially in developed nations. Examples include advance booking and purchase for airline tickets, hotel rooms and restaurant tables. In many countries there is also safety legislation setting capacity limits for buses and trains, indoor urban venues, and sporting stadia and music festivals. This is not universal. Many trains and buses, including underground train systems in developed nations, pack passengers in until no more can physically fit. Some large entertainment events escape or exceed capacity control, sometimes with disastrous consequences. For most privately owned venues, however, the right to control numbers through booking and allocation systems is undisputed, and capacity is determined by physical features, such as numbers of seats or by safety legislation. None of these cases, however, include mechanisms to measure capacity separately from managing it. Seat numbers in restaurants depend not only on floor area, but also on style and ambience. A pay-at-the-counter café achieves higher customer density and faster throughput than a leisurely fine-dining restaurant. Aircraft passenger density is much higher in economy than first class. In these cases, private owners manage capacity to maximize profits. Capacity is not measurable independently from capacity management systems, which reflect owners’ perceptions of proportions of potential clientele prepared to pay different prices for experiences similar in theme but different in quality. Similar considerations apply for private conservation reserves funded through tourism. The number of tourists on site is set by the owners. They use environmental criteria to maintain the value of the asset, and social criteria to maintain the exclusivity of the experience. Both are needed for maximum profitability, so economic, social and environmental aspects of capacity management are closely aligned. In private reserves, social capacity is managed iteratively without prior measurement: starting with few beds, gradually building more and reconstructing if crowding occurs. Environmental impacts, in contrast, may be irreversible (Buckley, 2003a, 2004, 2011, 2013), even with best-practice management (Buckley, 2009, 2012). If a reserve supports a breeding colony of an endangered species, and disturbance by tourists leads to breeding failure, that may cause complete local extinction of the species concerned. It is thus the environmental aspects of carrying capacity where measurement is most important.

Publicly owned venues A range of capacity management systems are used in public lands. For public recreational areas, such as playing grounds, parklands and outdoor markets, access and parking space are limited, with first-come-first-served allocation. Where access is unrestricted, e.g. urban beaches, extreme crowding can occur, and capacity is set by local social norms of temporary territorial space. For public national parks, fees and access restrictions are rarely used in managing capacity. Fees are commonly low, to maintain social

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equity. Access may be limited by remoteness or poor transport infrastructure, or by deliberately restricting parking facilities for private vehicles. There are, however, many other measures that are indeed designed deliberately for capacity management. Signs are used to limit numbers of people on structures, such as swing bridges or viewing platforms. Quotas and group-size restrictions are used widely. For example, only a set number of gorilla-watching permits are sold each day. Many parks use advance-booking systems for particular activities. These may restrict group size and time of day, or allow for different groups to conduct different activities with minimal overlap. Others restrict the number of camping groups using marked sites and first-come-firstserved permits. Others require advance registration specifying itinerary and overnight sites, as in the Galapagos Islands; or a lottery-based booking system, as in many raftable rivers in the USA. Some very heavily visited parks, such as Jiuzhaigou Nature Reserve in China, control visitor access using turnstiles, and monitor visitor flows in real time. Park managers can control numbers of people in different sections of the park, while still allowing individual tourists to decide when and where they will go. For sites with effective and active on-ground management, therefore, concepts of carrying capacity or recreational capacity as measureable intrinsic characteristics of site and activity becomes largely irrelevant, except as a guide in setting numerical management parameters, such as quotas for particular sub-sites, activities and seasons. Since these parameters depend on managers’ perceptions of appropriate tourist numbers, however, the impact measurements associated with capacity concepts remain relevant, even if they do not set a single numerical figure for carrying capacity. Such measurements are considered below.

Capacity Measurement Social, economic and environmental measures of carrying capacity are very different (Buckley, 1999). For many privately owned venues, notably urban and indoor sites, social and economic aspects of carrying capacity are most relevant (Pullman & Rogers, 2010). In practice, as outlined above, social and economic measures of capacity measurement are inseparable from capacity management. Economic carrying capacity applies where tourists must pay for their experience, and the amount each is prepared to pay decreases with crowding. Economic carrying capacity is then the number of visitors that maximizes real or notional net revenue; that is, number of visitors multiplied by per capita payment, less per-visitor and fixed costs. Social carrying capacity is conceptualized as the visitor density at which the frequency of interactions among tourists, or between tourists and residents, begins to reduce their enjoyment of the experience (Bimonte & Punzo, 2007, 2011; Seidl & Tisdell, 1999). It depends on settings and activities, and

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may differ by five orders of magnitude for different types of tourism (Buckley, 1999). Because of recreational succession, social carrying capacity is unstable, as visitor types change. Social carrying capacities have been estimated for: beaches (De Ruyck et al., 1997); marine environments (Leujak & Ormond, 2007; Needham et al., 2011; Ríos-Jara et al., 2013); hotels and resorts (Pullman & Rogers, 2010; Saveriades, 2000); heritage sites (Manning et al., 2002; Simón et al., 2004); and roads (Hallo & Manning, 2010). Ecological carrying capacity is the number of visitors that produces no detectable, or at least no irreversible, ecological change to the ecosystems in the area concerned (Buckley, 1999). Ecological carrying capacity suffers significant limitations, unless defined precisely for local circumstances (Zhang & Zhu, 2007; Zhou, 2011). All visitors create some impacts, so if ecological carrying capacity is defined as the threshold of zero impact, it will always be zero. Impacts are only identifiable as non-zero, however, if they are detectable; and detection thresholds differ greatly between parameters, depending on detection technologies, patterns of natural variation, sampling design and sampling effort (Buckley, 1999). Because of differences in access to monitoring technologies, the limits of detectable human ecological impact differ between remote and urban areas, and more and less-developed nations. For instance (Buckley, 1999), one measure of impact on wildlife is change in local population. For rare, sparse or cryptic species, however, measuring population size is difficult, even with intensive sampling. In addition, this measure may not detect impacts until already irreversible. Data on population age structure could provide advance warning, but are harder to obtain. Behavioural and physiological measures of stress can also provide indicators of impact and warning of population change. An animal’s pulse or respiration rate can be monitored remotely, and the time it spends moving or looking around rather than eating can be analysed quite precisely. For animals that die of cold and starvation if they cannot eat and rest enough, these factors affect survival, breeding and local population dynamics, which are not trivial. Since they could be measured to an indefinitely fine level, however, the threshold of zero detectable impact is not very useful in this context. For management, it is useful to set impact thresholds as limits of acceptable change (LAC) (McCool, 1994): either as a function of natural variation, or as absolute thresholds. These form part of the widely used ROS/LAC (Recreation Opportunity Spectrum) framework. Well-designed environmental monitoring programmes are needed to establish LAC parameters and determine when they are approached or exceeded. Even if LAC thresholds are specified in absolute terms, baseline information on natural variation in space and time is still necessary to set them, for several reasons. LAC must be specified in terms of particular environmental parameters, and knowledge of ecosystem function in the area concerned is required to select appropriate parameters. If the specified acceptable change is too small relative to natural fluctuations, it will be difficult and expensive to detect. If too large, then

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major environmental damage could result before any remedial action is taken. If the LAC threshold is within natural variation, it may trigger unsuccessful remedial action. One approach is to establish a monitoring and management toolkit (Buckley, 1998). Many such protocols have been proposed and applied, under a variety of names.

Conclusions Overall, it seems that while capacity management is practised widely, capacity measurement remains embryonic. Carrying capacity concepts must become considerably more sophisticated to be used in practical tourism management. Early debates brought attention to relationships between tourist numbers, activities, and environmental and social impacts in different ecosystems and circumstances. The related term, recreation capacity, recognizes that different tourist activities have different impacts and different management systems. That is, it reflects quantifiable characteristics of tourism as well as those of the ecosystem. There have been few attempts to measure recreational capacity numerically, but the concept forms the basis of most capacity management systems for outdoor tourism, especially in publicly owned lands. Carrying capacity concepts have thus proved useful conceptually, even if not numerically.

9.2

A Twist in the Tale of Carrying Capacity: Towards a Formula for Sustainable Tourism? Sagar Singh

Twenty years after I remarked that the concept of carrying capacity for tourism (CCT) is still useful (Singh, 1999), the debate continues. Naturally. The concepts of limits of acceptable change and growth management strategies

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do not replace it, but add to the problem. One reason why many gave up was that CCT was considered ‘too complex and therefore un-implementable’. Getz (1983) said that the ‘real’ question is not just what carrying capacity is about, but how to implement it: that was ‘jumping the (G)un(n) on tourism planning’. Research funding agencies were ready to give it a chance, but wanted a fix-it-all formula. This article argues that though the concept is complex, sufficient effort is needed to map what is entailed, and tourism scholars have limitations. As not here detailed (see Singh, 2006), different scholars came up with different emphases and useful indicators, but no consensus emerged. This contribution is a twist in the tale: just as many seem to have given up, a comprehensive formula is presented, which could, with further and consistent effort in applying it, bring more detailed information and insights on the nature of the problem. One of the central problems has been the emphasis on economics, which competed briefly with concern for the environment, and then later with the social and cultural capacity of tourism destinations, which seem to have been neglected and often thought not measurable; but I have already indicated salient qualitative points (Singh, 2004, 2006).

Problems with the Concept The most common discrepancy was a duality of conceptualization of carrying capacity as a maximum limit and as an optimum. A World Tourism Organization (WTO) report (1984) says detailed policies for carrying capacity assessment ‘must be oriented to development planning and management techniques to achieve the optimum capacity without saturation . . . for achieving the maximum capacity in new tourism areas . . .’ (World Tourism Organization, 1984: 32–33, emphasis added). Scholars do think tourism is a business and it must be made viable. However, a concept that decries tourism but has to be employed to sustain both business and concerns for the natural and social environment . . . well, then it seems (as Hardesty (1977) said of environmental carrying capacity assessment, thought of as an ‘optimum’), we are ‘hopelessly bogged down in confusion’. But there is a solution. Perhaps this can be expressed differently: collaboration in tourism should more often be between scholars from different disciplines – ecology, geography, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, biology – and only then can a formula be derived for tourism locales. Different locales have different combinations of the various environments, so any one formula cannot work for all situations. And that seems to be the problem. However, if the essence remains the same and a qualitative formula worked out, which is then consistently applied, we may get values over time that would give us more than an insight into the numerical values of CCT that often seem misleading. If it can be plotted on a graph and help build models, that is really the solution.

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Then it becomes a relatively easy task to ensure that quantitative techniques and expected solutions to the problem of capacity are likely to vary over area and time: which, precisely, was where people got stuck. According to Hardesty (1977), the concept of carrying capacity was first applied in botany by Justus Liebig in 1840 through the idea of the ‘law of the minimum’ (factors) that inhibit plant growth, and carried forward by ecologist Victor Shelford in 1911, who then formulated the ‘law of tolerance’ (Hardesty, 1977: 196; Shelford, 1931). In geography, the first assessment of population carrying capacity based on land ‘classes’ was made in 1958 (Stamp, 1958) and then 1966 (Dickinson, 1966) and in anthropology in 1953 (Birdsell, 1953) and later (Adams, 1965). Recreation carrying capacity assessment came much later, but as early as the late 1980s, and already, by 1991, WTO consultant Edward Inskeep could put down capacities for various types of recreational tourism environments (Inskeep, 1991: 150). The central problem throughout, however, has been the view that capacity is a potential and therefore a ‘maximum’ that has to be deciphered, instead of, let us say, like drawing a line on the ground. It is for the same reason that CCT is also thought of as an ‘optimum’, which, of course, makes it undecipherable. An optimum is an ideal, like a range, and a maximum is an absolute limit.

Limitation of Limits I will use an example from USA (Singh, 2003: 222). A recreational facility came up near Sequoia National Park despite heavy opposition from the local people and leading environmentalists, such as the Sierra Club. Ultimately, a host of politicians and even the US President himself ensured (after a court battle was lost by the opposition) that the amusement park came up. In other words, policies that favour tourism always win, because all those governments that have ‘a policy on tourism’ are usually those that are pro-development and business lobbies ensure that policies stay pro-tourism. This is one reason why, often, tourism policies are vague and pay only lip service to the natural (and social) environment. It is true, national interests can and sometimes should override local and state interests, but is it not true as well that the nation state rides roughshod over the long-term interest of locals and the natural environment? When we speak of limits of acceptable change (LAC), it is inevitable that the less educated locals who do not even know the meaning of ‘stake’ or ‘stakeholder’ will be marginalized. The LAC is a widely used concept in management of natural recreation areas, especially in USA, were it has been used since the 1980s. The argument that the CCT involved value judgments that LAC avoided can largely be restricted to such uses. In a study of CCT in Venice, calculating and using both economic carrying capacity and an absolute site carrying capacity, Van Der Borg (1992) best demonstrated that tourism management is not only far

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more complex, but must involve a more complex approach than LAC provides. As McCool (1994) earlier emphasized, the LAC approach is most useful for nature-based tourism. At other times, trade-offs are required, and since these are complex, they require a good understanding of the complex interaction of variables, before decisions are made. The most recent example comes from Holbox Island near Cancun, Mexico, which hosts flamingos, manatees and whale sharks, and attracts ecotourists. Locals are disturbed by a development plan to dredge the lagoon for a boat channel that would support a new resort (Stevenson, 2014). The deeper canal would threaten the flamingos, which find the shallow water convenient. Three hotels and an estimated 872 residential units would be built on land now populated only by mangrove trees. The developers say they want to keep their impact minimal, and promote ‘preservation through sustainable tourism based on nature’ (Stevenson, 2014). The area, declared a nature reserve 20 years ago, is already preserved and small-scale tourism hits the right balance between industry and nature, say opponents. Tour operators at the small hotels use golf carts and boats to carry around visitors. Fishermen catch limited seafood for the small hotels and tourist kitchens. Opponents argue that the resort ‘would have negative impacts on the island’s ecosystem and society’. Clearly, ideal small-scale ecotourism is already in place, and only a few shallow-draft tour boats ply the lagoon between the island and the mainland. More boat traffic with larger vessels could hurt the slow-moving manatees. The story is not unique. Clearly, what was required was a firm policy on environment, tourism and the community, backed by independent observers carrying out anCCT assessment. Considering the island’s proximity to Cancun, unregulated tourism is likely to mushroom if corrective action is not taken. It also highlights why the concept of CCT is required: lacking comparable data and case studies of the negative impacts of tourism in similar situations, and without a supporting validated concept that is comprehensive, environmental impact assessment (EIA) and social impact assessment (SIA) would become mere tools in the hands of pro-growth mandarins.

CCT and Life-Cycle CCT goes well with the idea of tourism area life-cycle, since it gives room for directional growth or even maintenance strategies. This is contrary to Wall (1983), who said that the two are contradictory. The idea that all stages of growth have limitations is evident, and the idea that CCT can be unlimited is a vague contradiction, because the core idea of CCT is that ‘everything has a limit’. CCT implies the idea of social and political acceptability, since it is widely known that CCT is not fixed over time. Though little has been written on it, the combination of CCT and social–political acceptability

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introduces the idea that marketing is essentially involved, since what is socially and politically ‘acceptable’ depends on what and how much is being sold (it being presumed that governments do control tourism, first through policies, and latterly through marketing and advertising campaigns). Bhutan is a prime example of how lack of social and political acceptability of tourism, which latter seemed to threaten social norms and customs, managed to limit tourism growth for many years (but that growth took place nevertheless, though minimal over almost a decade) (Singh, 1999, 2004). There is no denying that acceptability has to be the key, but a lot depends on inclusive policies. The idea here is to show how the concept of carrying capacity can be combined with these ideas. The result can be a formula for sustainable tourism management and marketing, or ‘sustainable tourism’ in brief. Before discussing the formula itself, this can be illustrated with a diagram (Figure 9.1). This figure also emphasizes what this author’s contention is: mass tourism is no more (if it ever was) a useful concept (Singh, 2007), especially because it does not help in marketing and de-marketing. The solution to this latter problem is to engage with the various types of carrying capacities, include the less-talked-about political carrying capacity for tourism, which goes hand in hand with social acceptability, and add tourism marketing and marketing management to make the overall concept more useful. Add to this the tourism life-cycle concept and we have, finally, an all-inclusive formula for sustainable tourism. By including the life-cycle, tourism trajectories can more easily be plotted (Butler, 1980), when other factors are taken in conjunction, including carrying capacity for work of those involved in the tourism business (an important human resource management issue). The loss of employment owing to the reported decline in casinos and tourists in 2014 in Atlantic City, USA, is an example of how life-cycle is inextricably linked with capacity and marketing (cf. Stansfield, 1978). An important element in this formula is the qualitative mathematical function of CCT for wildlife parks developed and successfully implemented by Western (1986) in Africa. The most important element is the difference between perceived maximum CCT versus the realizable capacity that depends on limiting factors (cf. Liebig’s ‘law’) and managerial capacity. In previous formulas, such as Western’s, the attitude and behaviour of residents was missing (an important omission, because resources are usually shared between visitors and residents). Second, the formula takes into consideration what often becomes a point of criticism of calculations by planners and consultants (e.g. Inskeep’s calculation for Goa, India (Inskeep, 1991)): maximum CCT is often a vague upper limit that does not seem sustainable in terms of its impact on the natural and social–cultural environment. Third, perceived maximum CCT is often a conflicting idea between planners, managers and consultants, on the one hand, and people at large. Therefore, we have to calculate realizable carrying capacity, which can simply be stated as follows. Where Sustainable

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Figure 9.1 A simplified model of sustainable tourism Source: Author

Tourism Management (STM) equals realizable carrying capacity (which, ultimately is what everyone is concerned with): STM =

Managerial function or capacity = Realizable CCT Perceived maximum carrying capacity

(1)

That is, the more managerial intervention and capacity to manage tourism and the lower the perceived maximum carrying capacity, the more

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sustainable will be tourism (i.e. in this formula, a higher figure). But we know, often planners do not take into account the effects of marketing (most often because marketing is not done in a planned way or its effects not calculable, since it is done without marketing principles in mind) in tourism development, yet tourism ‘multiplies’ with marketing. Therefore, Sustainable Tourism Management and Marketing (STMM): STMM = Realizable CCT × Marketing

(2)

Social and political acceptability in Bhutan kept tourism in check. This was done by regulating infrastructure and keeping management of key tourism businesses in the hands of the government, which itself held the view of Bhutan’s King and the Buddhist clergy that the social and cultural life of Bhutan ought not deteriorate owing to tourism (social and cultural carrying capacity), as is unfortunately often seen in developing countries. Since the number of tourism managers was less and the destination life-cycle in its early stages, this became an effective strategy. Thus: Social − political acceptability =

Destination life − cycle stage Perceived max. CCT at that stage

(3)

This equation explains that a higher stage of tourism development, if not accompanied by a significantly higher perceived carrying capacity, leads to greater social–political acceptability, all other things being equal. So, if the perceived CCT is higher while the stage remains the same, social–political acceptability should decrease. However, the actual realizable capacity, we know now, depends on social–political acceptability. So we can say, based on (1), (2), and (3): STMM = Social−political acceptability × STM × Marketing

(4)

Therefore: STMM =

Destination stage × Managerial function or capacity × Market Perceived maximum carrying capacity

(5) There are usually six to eight stages in the life-cycle of a destination. Since perceived maximum carrying capacity is a mathematical function, k, of physical or site capacity (P1), infrastructural capacity (I), social carrying capacity (S), cultural carrying capacity (C), E1 the ecological carrying capacity, E2 the economic carrying capacity, P2 the perceptual carrying capacity

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and W the working capacity of employees of tourism and hospitality/hospitality-related firms, and if Di is one of the, let us say, six destination life-cycle stages: STMM =

Di =1− 6 × Management function or capacity × Marketing ( 1, I, S, C, E1, E2, P2, W) k P

(6)

Adapting and applying Western’s (1986) formula of carrying capacity (CC = f {Q, T, N, U, DM, AB}), which was held to be a management function (as in mathematical function, though applied qualitatively, but representable on graphs for ease), STMM can be calculated as: STMM =

( , T, N, U, DM , MAB, K ) Di =1− 6 × f Q (P Pi=1,2,3 ,4 ) × m  k (P1, I, S, C, E1, E2, P2, W)

(7)

where f is the management function of Q, the quantity of resources and facilities; T, their tolerance; N, the number of visitors; U, the use type; DM, the design and management of facilities for visitors; MAB, the motivations, attitudes and behaviour of visitors, managers, and residents; and K, the knowledge of managers, visitors and residents. This is multiplied by m, the marketing function that is dependent on Pi or how many of the 4Ps of marketing are being utilized in a marketing strategy. Unlike Western’s formula from which management function has been adapted, this formula covers motivation along with attitudes and behaviour of managers, tourists and residents as well as their knowledge (K), which is essential in maintaining not only parks, but all tourism sites, resources, as well as public facilities. Knowledge management has been considered essential in tourism management, including targeted marketing. It can be ascertained from this formula that even if perceived carrying capacity remains the same but the life-cycle stage and capacity of management increase, tourism will remain sustainable only as long as management offsets the increase in visitation that often results in a latter stage. Here, we are not putting a numerical value for management, but the multiplication mark signifies that the life-cycle stage magnifies the management function (with increase in destination complexity and tourist numbers); while it is presumed that in the last stage of the destination, when growth plateaus off, only the targeted marketing function, taken in conjunction with management of resources and tourists, can stave off decline or help in managing tourism such that the destination does not become a ‘dead resort’. Hence, the multiplication with the targeted marketing function. This also clarifies an important objection to CCT, that since residents are part of the calculation, it does not accurately reflect tourism’s contribution to capacity: however, the calculation is for tourism [or the tourism system, which

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would always include non-tourists] and not tourist, which is why it is rightly known as ‘tourism’ carrying capacity and not ‘tourist’ carrying capacity.

9.3

Tragedy of the Tourism Commons: A Need for Carrying Capacities Gene Brothers

Introduction In the lead probe, Buckley argues that tourism research efforts have resulted in ‘parallel but distinct measures’ of the social, economic and environmental carrying capacity concepts, which are rather different, and that among them there are no stable measurable values owing to ‘a combination of tourism factors and ecological factors’. After his review of some of the tourism carrying capacity concepts proposed and issues addressed over the years, he concludes that these have ‘proved useful conceptually, even if not numerically’. While Buckley provides a reasonable basis for his conclusion, I feel that there are other threads of this carrying capacity construct that, if not woven in here, would be a disservice to those reading this probe. In addition, I argue that with application of tools to examine context-specific indicators to monitor destinations and socially optimal planning guidelines, policy makers and managers are able to address the challenges of carrying capacity measurement and management. Therefore ‘carrying capacity’ should be viewed as a desired state given the current set of circumstances within a defined dynamic system. Setting a number should not be the goal of a carrying capacity analysis. It should be a comparison of the pre-set desired state to the proposed development. First, I would like to qualify this response; it is framed in a tourism planning and destination development perspective rather than a sole proprietor or management unit perspective. So, while I respect that the vast majority of tourism development is dependent upon revenue-motivated business

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sectors that make up the tourism system, my thoughts here will consider the smallest unit of analysis as a community destination and its public resources. So, I will address carrying capacity from where I have focused my academic career – a tourism system, big picture perspective. I argue here that while tourism development is enterprise-focused, a laissez-faire approach to development (one enterprise approval at a time) leads to negative externalities that should be avoided. I would also like to point out that the vast majority of literature on tourism carrying capacity begins with the premise that, by a variety of means, a measure of the number of or amount of tourism activity best suited to a destination can be determined, based on existing environmental/physical, social, political and economic conditions. Buckley points to the development of sophisticated management models or toolkits, using limits of acceptable change (LAC) (McCool, 1994) as an example, to illustrate that ‘capacity management is practiced widely’, while ‘capacity measurement is still in an embryonic state’. Given the fact that tourism data flows are generated on the order of petabytes per day, this ‘measurement’ hurdle is not owing to a lack of information. The challenge is to harness these data through advanced analytics. In this regard, tourism shines as an industry at the corporate scale, yet we fail miserably when it comes to answering the capacity question from a community perspective.

Capacity of Tourism Development Having been a city kid and a ‘boomer’, my first exposer to carrying capacity was neither as a pasture stocking metric nor rural land appraisal/ valuation technique, but rather as a sustainability concept. During my formative years of reading conservation literature (Carson, 1962; Ehrlich, 1968; Hardin, 1968; Leopold, 1949), the term carrying capacity was first brought to my attention when used in explaining the Earth’s limits by Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb (1968). While the premise was the carrying capacity of the Earth’s environmental services relative to the exponential growth in the human population, I was impressionable and stated natural limits that humanity could easily exceed in the foreseeable future was intriguing. Despite the negative reaction to the main premise of The Population Bomb – ‘that it can be a very bad thing to have more than a certain number of people alive at the same time, that the Earth has a finite carrying capacity, and that the future of civilization was in grave doubt’, Ehrlich and Ehrlich (2009: 63) feel that their treatise strengthened Carson’s (1962) warnings regarding the importance of the environment, as well as having brought human population numbers into the debate on humanity’s future. In addition to just the sheer population numbers, they also emphasized the catastrophic consequences of increased per capita consumption of renewable and non-renewable resources.

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While human population has doubled from 3.5 billion to over 7 billion since The Population Bomb was written, international travel arrivals have increased at a far greater pace. International tourist arrivals that were around 150 million during 1968, are expected to reach around 1.1 billion in 2014 (UNWTO, 2014: 14). This new-found freedom to travel has resulted in consumption of carbon resources, dedicated land use change and a shift in attitudes from travel being a privilege to travel as a right. Given the current and projected levels of travel, critics can convincingly argue that the sheer volume resulting from this exponential growth represents excess beyond any reasonable global tourism carrying capacity. While global numbers are staggering, effects are local and should be considered based on local capacity. The specific agricultural analogy of pasture grazing carrying capacity, as Buckley so aptly points out, does not align well as a tourism metaphor. As Buckley discusses, tourists are not grazing stock and community resources are not like availability of grass. The agricultural analogue, which I feel is more appropriate, is Hardin’s theory, ‘The tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin, 1968). In his famous treatise, Hardin lays out his example to illustrate the construct of exploitation of a common resource resulting from human behaviour of utilizing (taking of) more than one’s fair share. Hardin (1968) points out that personal benefits accrue from this exploitation, while dis-benefits are shared at the community level. Brooks (2001) suggests that corporate decisions that focus on shareholders (investors) rather than stakeholders (i.e. community members, employees, customers, etc.) will always exploit the common. Democratic theory suggests that two important factors are necessary to avoid externalities and successfully manage common resources. First, a desired state must be established, based on transparency of the decision process – all stakeholders must be part of the process and agree to the decision (Brooks, 2001). Second, use and effects of use must be monitored to ensure resource limits are respected (Shields et al., 2002). Taking advantage of natural and cultural resources by developing tourism could represent a community decision to pursue long-term economic benefits. On the other hand, it could be a developer’s decision to exploit these community resources for short-term personal gains. The contrast between these two development scenarios is a community development/planning perspective versus a profitdriven perspective. Given these perspectives, I argue that tourism carrying capacity should be focused upon aggregation of tourism enterprises rather than a given number of tourists. In the first scenario, a community’s resources are utilized to benefit residents’ wellbeing and long-term future of the destination’s resources. This requires community stakeholders coming together to agree on strategies for allocation of desirable and often limited resources used to attract tourism to their destination. This stakeholder negotiation is a difficult process that includes setting of a desired state and defined indicators to monitor success. During initial stages of planning and development, it seems that anticipated

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tourist spending and economic benefits to the community outweigh the long-term dis-benefits. The long-term costs are manifested as changes in the character of the community – loss of special places and crowding. Without an initial agreed-upon desired state, strategies developed are driven by more and more of perceived initial good things – tourism spending and jobs. Failure to agree upon a desired state and monitoring of defined indicators of success results, time and time again, in the ‘tragedy’ of tourism development; repeating itself in one community after another, despite best efforts of tourism planning and sustainable development tools. In the second scenario, development is based on a business revenue perspective, where short-term profits drive the feasibility of investment. With profits as the driver, number of tourists attracted is the important criteria for evaluation of success. When it is perceived that a community’s common resources are under-utilized, investors with economic ambitions will literally ‘sell’ communities. Sales promotions are first targeted toward a destination community so that residents may buy into a proposed development plan. Investors focus on economic benefits of tourism – how more money and jobs in the local economy are going to be a good thing. The second sales effort is then designed for tourists who will get what is promised through branding and promotion. The difficulty here is that the driving criteria for sustaining the experience becomes the tourists’ expectations rather than a community’s desired state. Under this scenario, indicators of success become collection of occupancy rates, average daily rates and retail expenditures, rather than indicators of environmental sustainability and community resident wellbeing. Cases of Disney Corporation developments around the world are well documented examples of this profit-motivated development model (d’Hauteserre, 2001; Foglesong, 2001; Synnott, 1995). Tourism development in central Florida has been successful from a profit perspective and has created one of the most visited destinations in the world, with nearly 45 million visitors to various theme parks during 2012 (Angel, 2013). However, secretive, behind the scenes, development strategies used in Orlando backfired for Disney in their attempt to create Disney’s America theme park in Virginia during the early 1990s. It was this attempt by Disney to create their ‘magic’ in Prince William County, Virginia, which led to a coalition of multiple interests opposed to the development. The main issue was legitimacy of purpose – profit versus historic importance and character of the landscape.

Alternative Approaches and Metrics for Tourism Carrying Capacity Despite repeated failure of resident stakeholder involvement in the tourism planning process, Ostrom (1998) suggests that it is still advisable to include local stakeholders in resource allocation decision-making. She insists

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involvement of stakeholders is the preferred choice. First, this process should be institutionalized, to insure transparency in the process suggested by Brooks (2001). Second, local stakeholders are those vested in what happens in the short- and long-term – multiple generations and resource sustainability. So, decisions made by local stakeholders are more likely based on community values as well as the wellbeing of community members. Community stakeholder interests offset conflicts that arise when investor short-term profit motivation challenges long-term community values and wellbeing. Ostrom (1998) also discusses the importance of instilling trust and options for reciprocal behaviour into negotiations among community stakeholders. In the absence of stakeholder-negotiated responsible development alternatives, investors motivated by profit are those who set the course for the successional path of tourism development mentioned by Buckley in his opening probe. Unfortunately, the ‘let whatever happens’ laissez-faire approach to tourism development is the default in many communities, because inclusion of stakeholders’ opinions is time consuming, difficult to implement and although democratic, is not easily managed. One viable method for local stakeholder inclusion and setting destination development priorities is to encourage opportunities for locals to create genuine tourism experiences that are not dependent upon the traditional tourism supply establishment. This approach allows local independent entrepreneurs, who have a stake in the long-term viability of the community, to offer tourists experiences unique to the destination. In development of destination resources, the concept of spatial competition and theory of locational equilibrium, as described by Hotelling (1929), provide a rationale behind location development choices for services. Hotelling’s seminal work explains the tendency for competitors to cluster their locations, and likewise quality of their offers, so that there are just slight differences. Similarities in offers and location clusters maximize proprietor opportunities and control over demand. This theory has been illustrated using the classic ice-cream vendors at a destination beach (Lösch, 1954), but it also holds true with other competing enterprises, such as tourism attractions and services (Brown, 1989). Hotelling (1929) explains that in making rational location choices, carrying capacity is affected in clustering of enterprises by placing an unnecessary burden on transportation and other local resources. In addition, these clusters of touristic services create an artificial crowding by also concentrating visitors. Hotelling suggests that social efficiencies could be captured by offerings that are dispersed throughout a market region rather than by clustering of competitors. A social venture that is creating an alternative to clustering of tourism development is People-First Tourism (P1T). P1T creates opportunities for people with vulnerable livelihoods to improve their lives through tourism micro-entrepreneurship, while also giving them a voice as stakeholders in the destination (Morais et al., 2014). An internet-based system connects people who seek genuine travel experiences with micro-entrepreneurs interested in earning income from sharing their

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communities, lives and skills with others. The web-based technological solution ‘virtually’ clusters tourism offers, rather than physically clustering providers. From the perspective of destination residents, this results in a more socially optimal solution for visitors within a destination region in terms of engaging stakeholder involvement while maximizing opportunities and control over demand. Dispersal of visitors throughout a destination community/region ultimately captures social efficiencies of access to a wider variety of local experiences for tourists, while increasing the regional tourism carrying capacity. Success of this approach depends on an initial agreement among destination stakeholders of the community’s future desired state. Several authors suggest that an appropriate process for formulation of a destination’s carrying capacity includes measures of economic, social and environmental indicators of the system (Giovannini, 2004; Payne et al., 2008; UNWTO, 1996), and to be successfully applied they should be context-specific to the destination (Manning, 1999; Mowforth & Munt, 1998). To incorporate indicators into a holistic or systems-based approach, a conceptual framework is necessary to unite this triple bottom line (Buckley, 2003b). Daly (2008) argues that the scale of human activity is the important factor to be considered, and it should be focused on destination development (increased quality) rather than growth (increased economic output). In addition, Hall (2010) argues that a steady-state approach to tourism development is needed, one in which the traveller, rather than the community at large, bares full costs of the activity. This implies that costs of pollution, crowding, etc., as well as benefits are ‘demonstrated in economic activities rather than being externalized’ (Hall, 2010: 140). To accomplish an integration of tourism development inputs, flow-through and outputs, Greenwood et al. (2008) combined Daly’s (1996) discussion on sustainability based on the Plimsoll Line with tourism industry structural models (Carlsen, 1997, 1999; Gunn, 1994; Sessa, 1988). A Plimsoll Line is a mark on the hull of a ship that indicates an optimal loading or carrying capacity of cargo for a given ship. This framework was based on a set of Driving force–State–Response (DSR) indicator parameters that connote both the positive and negative impacts on social, economic and environmental aspects of development (Mannis, 2002; Mortensen, 1997). Mortensen (1997) defined the DSR as: • • •

Driving force indicators are those human activities, processes and patterns that have an impact on sustainable development. State indicators show the ‘state’ of development or a particular aspect (qualitative or quantitative) of it at a given point in time. Response indicators point toward policy options and other responses to changes in state level indicators.

In their application of the systems hierarchy principle to rural economic analysis, Midmore and Widittaker (2000: 179) postulated that stability of

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the system ‘refers to the ability of entities to maintain self-organization while evolving’. Applied to the metaphor, the boat may rock, however, adjustments may be made to the distribution of the cargo (i.e. through policy changes, market forces and normative rules), and an optimally loaded boat will not capsize. A component of a tourism destination indicates sustainability according to whether or not the component is a driving force of sustainability, an indicator of the state of development or a response to indicators of the state of development. Components of the boat will invariably differ from destination to destination. This differentiation is necessary to maintain the inherently contextual nature of the approach. The UNWTO provides a general set of applicable core/baseline indicators for diverse sustainable development (1996, 2004). However, without an understanding of potential interactions between the economic, social and environmental factors, knowing when an optimal load has been reached is difficult. Optimal loads should be dependent upon the predetermined stakeholders’ desired state discussed above. Therefore, the Plimsoll Line framework provides a structural equation model that is descriptive of the interactions (weighted relationships) of the DSR indicators. The Plimsoll Line model provides a concept of the tourism system that sets it not only in the context of the overall desired state of a destination, but brings with it a concept of adaptability (Greenwood, 2006). Indicators of sustainability will therefore differ from destination to destination, as well as their roles may change as a driving force versus state and response variables. The Plimsoll Line model of tourism development is simply a means for re-evaluating how tourism destinations monitor progress toward their desired state. Conceptually, the model is a way to engage local stakeholders as well as a multidisciplinary team of economists, environmentalists and social scientists to address various components of tourism development with the full knowledge that the model is integrative rather than a summation of the various parts. In addition, the model can inform community stakeholders of the importance of coming to a consensus for a desired state prior to allocation of resources for development (Greenwood et al., 2008).

Conclusion As Buckley pointed out, a tourism carrying capacity concept is accommodation of a certain number of tourists at any given time. The problem with ‘evidence-based measurement’ of some specific capacity number is that it depends on specific circumstances found in the destination. Multiple development scenarios create unique sets of circumstances and challenges, but this should not thwart an attempt at setting capacities. I argue that through a process which: (1) engages local stakeholders; (2) brings into focus the costs

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and benefits of tourism development for residents rather than investors or tourists; (3) institutionalizes and documents a desired state; and (4) monitors indicators that represent DSR of development decisions, then a destination can achieve tourism development within a desired carrying capacity. The capacity should depend on full assessment of costs and benefits by destination stakeholders who then decide on a desired state (development scenarios and tourism experiences) rather than strictly driven by the demands of tourists and profit.

9.4

Why Carrying Capacity Should be a Last Resort Simon McArthur

Introduction If tourists wanted to visit pastures and behave like cattle, then we could all use carrying capacity (CC) and the job of visitor and tourism management would be much easier. We could set a maximum number, erect a fence and gate, and concentrate on other tasks – or nothing at all. Recreational or Tourist CC assumes minimal diversity and minimal change – it is a blunt and simple instrument that was not designed to work in the dynamic world of tourism. Impact monitoring has proven over and over again that environmental resilience ebbs and flows with factors such as seasonality, intensity of use and recovery periods between use. Monitoring has also shown that different people create different impacts, based on a range of variables including type of activity, clothing, behaviour and equipment. Relying on CC as a major way to manage tourism is not a good idea. The objectives of this article are to provide a practitioners’ viewpoint on the following. (1) Why CC in its simplest form and most popular use, is so flawed? (2) Why CC is still occasionally proposed, and very occasionally implemented?

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(3) Why it is better to pursue alternative models featuring management objectives and monitoring? As a practitioner, the author also offers one model highly suited to the management of tourism hotspots. This model could incorporate CC within it.

Implementation of Carrying Capacity The author recently reviewed the implementation of CC in many marine and terrestrial protected areas across the World (Total Tourism Solutions, 2013a). The review found the majority of CC applications were in a relatively dormant state – either forgotten or not serviced. The review also found far less use and successful implementation of CC in marine protected areas compared with terrestrial areas – only seven examples were found to be in active operation. The remote and particularly open system nature of marine areas requires more resources, effort and sophisticated skills to link tourism activity with subsequent changes to the condition of the resource. The implementation of tourism-related CC was found to be: •

• •

•

occasionally proposed in Plans of Management but typically not implemented (for example in Honduras there were six separate proposals for the model to be implemented in six marine protected areas, but none had been implemented); typically set without considering relevant stakeholders, which has reduced stakeholder support for the protected area; typically misapplied to set visitor numbers without considering how these numbers met management objectives, and was subsequently successfully challenged by stakeholders in almost every case to be found overly subjective and precautionary; and sometimes changed in response to political pressure.

The Allure of Carrying Capacity The early tourism application of CC was supposed to create multiple capacities for a site, in order to reflect different dimensions of sustainability or different indicators of the dimensions. Implicit in this multiple use was monitoring, reporting and evaluation of alternative capacities; leading to a multi-faceted perspective of a site and its visitation, which in turn led to a multi-faceted management approach. Somehow, practitioners short cut the multi-faceted approach and instead proceed directly to a maximum threshold of people measured over a given period – such as a year, month, week or day. More problematic again, the maximum threshold has been

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typically set based on the current visitation – perhaps with a little added to accommodate expected short-term visitation growth. One of the author’s earliest requests to implement a simplistic CC was for Green Island (in far north Queensland, Australia) (Figure 9.2). The contained nature of islands offers one of the best settings to try and make CC work. A CC was notionally set and legislated into a Management Plan as 1900 visitors per day, or no more than 800 at any one time. The calculation was unscientific – historic daily visitation of 1700 that was deemed acceptable, with a notional 10% added for growth. Having a daily limit and a limit at any one time was problematic to manage – if 800 visitors arrived all at once at dawn should we be more concerned than normal? If the maximum daily level was reached every day, at what point should we be concerned, if at all? For 15 years, while the CC operated the only monitoring, passenger data from the ferry operator supported the CC – there was no monitoring of independent visitation and no other monitoring of the environment or experience. Similar experiences were encountered working in tourism hot spots within protected areas across the world. So the use of CC in tourism is deficient because it is typically based on untenable assumptions and a lack of recognition of the distinct roles of science and values. Monitoring is essential to establish, defend and use the CC effectively. Generally, the only monitoring used is the number of visitors; and even this data can be rubbery. Perhaps the challenge is to differentiate between a use limit policy, which comes after studied reflection of the use problem, and a CC as an inherent quality of a setting. So why do it? Why establish a CC up without much thought – and why cement it into a legislative structure like a management plan? Why keep it when you know it is so indefensible? As a protected area manager, I recall my colleagues liking CC because it offered the opportunity to set a simple and strong policy in the absence of political support or resourcing needed to

Figure 9.2 Green Island, with a discrete size and controlled access – making it ideally suited to try CC

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conduct a complete impact analysis or ongoing monitoring. Some 20 years later, the allure appears to be owing to: • • •

short term top-down political direction to ‘do something’ in the face of pressure and risk; apathy or laziness to tackle sophisticated problems with sophisticated responses; and/or insufficient resources to support a sophisticated response long enough for it to prove its own worth.

CC has an allure of being simple and powerful, and this allure has drawn most of its applications in tourism to be overly simple and unaccountable. CC has been misinterpreted by some practitioners as offering a simple ‘silver bullet’. This misinterpretation lies at the heart of why CC is so appealing and so inadequate. Buckley’s introduction to tourism capacity concepts offers some excellent points on the application of CC to the tourism environment – in particular he says ‘the concept of CC or recreational CC as a measurable intrinsic characteristic of the site and activity becomes of limited relevance’. The common tendency to leave management objectives and monitoring out of the CC application has been equivalent to leaving the flight plan and navigation system out of a plane, but flying it anyway. Consequently, in most CC applications, we have lacked the ability to predict, in quantitative terms, the consequences of alternative levels, types and patterns of use on the physical–biological environment – a serious shortcoming in our efforts to develop the potential of CC.

Shifting to Better Models Instead of trying to re-educate practitioners to use tourism/recreational CC in the way it was intended, it has been easier to create alternative models that feature the missing flight plan and navigation system. Consequently, we have seen a range of models based on setting management objectives and monitoring programmes that drive informed judgments on visitor management. These models have included the following. • • • • •

Limits of acceptable change (LAC). Visitor impact management model (VIMM). Visitor activity management programme (VAMP). Visitor experience and resource protection model (VERP). Tourism optimization management model (TOMM).

The limits of acceptable change (LAC) dispensed with the notion of more use equals more impact, and generated opportunity classes or zones to

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describe different management approaches to the heritage resource, then varied each class to maximize the conservation of the resource and quality of the visitor experience. The visitor impact management model (VIMM) increased the role of monitoring; identifying the cause of visitor impact and generating strategies to deal with it. The visitor experience and resource protection model (VERP) added to the VIMM approach zoning and legislative linkages with the respective region’s management plan. The visitor activity management programme (VAMP) switched heritage managers from a product to market orientation, offering the opportunity for fundamental change in heritage management planning systems and the culture of heritage management organizations. The tourism optimization management model (TOMM) broadened the coverage and active involvement of stakeholders to include the tourism sector and the local community, and focuses on optimizing performance rather than limiting use. Each model has reflected a ‘flip flop’ response between keeping a narrow scope and simple model, then a broad scope and sophisticated model. Each time a narrow and simple model was rejected as being inappropriate to reflect the complex operating environment, a more sophisticated alternative would be developed. But managers would struggle to implement the sophisticated alternative model, and a simpler version would be ‘reinvented’.

Constraints to Adoption and Successful Implementation of the Models Every observer of these models has their own view of them, and that is why they have not been more widely adopted and implemented. The models are rarely operated long enough to prove their value and secure adequate ongoing resourcing – they typically require several years to be fully implemented to the point where they can demonstrate their value through subsequent decision-making and stakeholder support. As a practitioner, I offer three dominant constraints to successful adoption and implementation. (1) A lack of awareness about the models. (2) Insufficient or inconsistent resources to develop and operate the models. (3) Limiting use to data collection and storage systems rather than to make more informed decisions. These issues are further explained in Table 9.1. To use the mechanism, a proponent evaluates their area against the criteria in each of the three segments. The author uses a highlighter over

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Table 9.1 Three dominant constraints to the wider adoption and successful implementation of tourism/visitor management models (McArthur, 2000a) Critical issue

Explanation of issue

1. Lack of awareness about the models

Most protected area/heritage managers, visitor managers and tourism managers do not know much about the models. Almost none of them know how the models are different to each other. A lack of awareness limits the preparedness to adopt, and worse still, can result in the selection of the wrong model for the situation. Developing a model is not cheap and typically requires external expertise and funding. In the author’s experience, a proponent needs approximately US$50,000 to US$90,000 to develop a model (variation depending on scale, complexity and consultation). The owner of a new model then needs approximately US$30,000–50,000 per annum to operate their model in a developing country region and US$60,000–80,000 in a developed country. Few organizations can source enough resourcing to develop a model and almost none of them can source the resources for ongoing operation – the closest tend to be managers of tourism hotspots where the sustainability is understood and the relationship between the health of the economy, visitor experience, host community and environment is understood and appreciated. Long-term funding for model operation has been typically sourced via a string of unpredictable grants and annual allocations from government. Political shifts ultimately stop this and the model slowly contracts to an irrelevant scale. Funding is best achieved through legislation or policy-based tourism levy – a brave political decision. While the resource-hungry part of the models is the monitoring, this activity is a means to make decisions, not an end in itself. In the author’s experience, most models that have been implemented fail to be used to make better decisions, which in turn provides the most pragmatic justification to continue operation and resourcing. The larger the area, the more expensive it is to run a model, and the more difficult it is to link the data so as to establish relationships critical to an adequate understanding of what is really going on and how adaptive management can be justified. It is therefore better to start a model on a representative pilot area and then expand as the pilot is consolidated. Ultimately, a country or state should strive for a network of regions that can be compared and contrasted.

2. Lack of, or inconsistent resources

3. Limiting use to data collection and storage systems rather than to make more informed decisions

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the most appropriate response, and then looks for which model has received the most shaded responses, and which model has best responded to the criteria that they feel are most important to their area. It is acknowledged that terms used by the author, such as minimal, moderate and major, would ideally come with definitive ranges. These could be further developed as a separate piece of research. Nonetheless, it is likely that the ranges may vary between developed and developing countries. These tools are not perfect, but they do help make the rationale for a decision to become clearer.

A Brief Focus on Tourism Optimization Management Model Having been involved in the development/operation of CC and most of the other models, the author typically now recommends adoption of the tourism optimization management model (TOMM) for most tourismfocused clients, because: • •

the TOMM has the greatest capacity to grow stakeholder understanding and support for sustainable tourism management, particularly among those who may be sceptical of protected areas; and through adaptive management, the TOMM still has a ‘stick’ that can be used to control situations needing it, but this can be done with reference to information that justifies it (McArthur, 2000a, 2004a).

The TOMM has been successfully introduced in various parts of Australia, such as Kangaroo Island (South Australia), Dryandra Woodlands (Western Australia (McArthur, 2008)) and the North Head Quarantine Station (Sydney Harbour National Park NSW (McArthur, 2004b)). An application of the TOMM has just been developed for the Bahamas (Total Tourism Solutions, 2013b). Figure 9.3 presents the three parts of the TOMM and what each part does to create a healthy community, economy, visitor experience and environment. Part 1 of the TOMM states what healthy tourism in the Exuma Cays looks like – each state is called an optimal condition. Optimal conditions are a desirable yet realistic state. Table 9.2 lists some potential optimal conditions. Part 2 of the TOMM measures how close real life is to the optimal conditions. There are five elements of Part 2. (1) Indicators (2) Benchmarks (3) Acceptable ranges

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Figure 9.3 The three parts of the TOMM — emphasizing the staged role of each of the three components

(4) Monitoring (5) Reporting It is not practical to measure everything, so indicators are chosen. Indicators are a tangible measure of the state of an optimum condition – they give an indication of the health. Table 9.2 presents an indicator for each of the optimal conditions. Generally it is better to have several indicators for each optimal condition, to cover the main elements of an optimal condition. Following the identification of indicators, the second element of Part 2 is a benchmark. A benchmark is the first set of data for an indicator – the result Table 9.2 Four indicators of the health of four optimal conditions Optimal conditions

Indicators for each optimal condition

Visitor experience – visitors come to experience nature and beaches, and to interact with locals

The majority of visitors to the Exuma Cays undertook several of the following naturebased activities in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (ECLSP): sailing, snorkelling, diving, wildlife viewing, hiking Number of cays with small scale or minimal development

Environment – the majority of cays have limited or minimal development on them and any new development is small scale and sympathetic to the natural setting Economy – yield is maximized from key visitor markets Community – the majority of businesses have Bahamian ownership

Average length of stay in Exuma Cays by visitors staying at Staniel Cay Proportion of accommodation operators at Black Point that have Bahamian owners/ investors

Source: Adapted from Total Tourism Solutions (2013b)

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of the first monitoring. Sometimes, to get a model started, benchmarks are estimated in advance and then when the monitoring commences, the benchmarks are corrected to the real situation. Depending on the indicator, a benchmark is usually a number, or a proportion (%).1 The third element of Part 2 is an acceptable range. An acceptable range is the minimum and maximum points that stakeholders would like to see an indicator performing. It is just like the desired speed to drive a vehicle (as illustrated in Figure 9.4). The range helps allow for natural fluctuations in the real world that can be expected. The fourth element of Part 2 is the monitoring method – how the data will be collected. Monitoring could be as simple as a log book or more complex, such as a visitor or tourism operator survey or wildlife population count. The fifth element of Part 2 is the reporting of the data. The advantage of using acceptable ranges is that they make reporting very simple – an indicator is either within or outside the acceptable range. Table 9.3 shows how simple this can be for the same indicator shown that was previously in Table 9.4. As long as the data from each monitoring effort suggests that the indicator is within the acceptable range, then it is assumed that the optimum condition is met and we have a healthy situation. Over time, the TOMM can be used to plot the results, and this can be used to identify trends and detect relationships, as shown in the fictitious example in Figure 9.5. Adaptive management is a process designed to handle uncertainties, including natural fluctuation and changing conditions inherent in all managed uses of components of biodiversity. It is an essential part of any management for sustainable use.

Figure 9.4 Concept of an acceptable range, illustrated in the concept of safe but efficient driving

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Table 9.3 Example of a simple reporting system for two indicators Indicators

Benchmark

Acceptable range

Result

Data

The majority of visitors to the Exuma Cays undertook several of the following nature-based activities in the ECLSP: sailing, snorkelling, diving, wildlife viewing, hiking Average length of stay (nights) in Exuma Cays by visitors staying at Staniel Cay

60%

60%–80%



72%

4–6



3

5

Source: Adapted from Total Tourism Solutions (2013b)

If an indicator is outside the acceptable range (as previously shown as a cross in Table 9.4) then it triggers Part 3 of the STM – adaptive management (what to do about it). Figure 9.6 shows the decision-making process that drives the adaptive management. First it needs to be determined if the problem or opportunity is being directly caused by tourism activity (for which the STM is equipped to respond), or if it is being indirectly caused by tourism, or if it is not related at all. So the most important adaptive management response might be to find out more information, through a simple investigation or some research. If the issue is mild then an influential response may be all that is needed (such as advice, training or a change to marketing material). If the issue is bigger and more complex, then a range of responses might be needed, or a more controlling response might be required (such as stopping access or introducing a CC). The TOMM tries to monitor, measure and estimate the divergence from optimal conditions of the amount of human activity that a site can biophysically sustain without severely changing its ecology or affecting the tourism experience. If management notices that some of the conditions we Table 9.4 Benchmark, acceptable range and monitoring method for an indicator Optimal Indicator Benchmark Acceptable Monitoring condition range method Visitor experience – visitors come to experience nature and beaches, and to interact with locals

The majority of visitors 60% (of total to the Exuma Cays respondents) undertook several of the following naturebased activities in the ECLSP: sailing, snorkelling, diving, wildlife viewing, hiking

Source: Adapted from Total Tourism Solutions (2013b)

60%–80% (of total respondents)

Quarterly operator survey coordinated by STM Project Coordinator, asking how many visitor nights sold

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Figure 9.5 Fictitious reporting of an indicator's results over time, using the concept of an acceptable range (shaded like a traffic light as red at the top, yellow in the middle and green at the bottom)

Figure 9.6 Adaptive management decision-making process for poor performing indicators

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set as optimal are in risk, it can check how much apart from an acceptable range they are diverging and then decide on which actions or adaptive management responses to undertake so as to return the indicator to an acceptable range. When introducing adaptive management, it is very important to continue monitoring – perhaps more frequently or over a wider scope. The monitoring will help show if the adaptive management is working, or if further adjustments and modifications need to be made to management actions.

A Final Irony: Putting Carrying Capacity inside the Tourism Optimization Management Model The TOMM provides the clear management objectives and a sound monitoring system typically missing from most applications of CC (McArthur, 2000b). With these in place, it is possible to discreetly use CC as part of the TOMM. In a recent regional application of the TOMM for the Exuma Cays in the Bahamas, the author focused indicators on several hotspot attractions. One of these hotspot sites was Thunderball Grotto, an attraction featuring some very attractive and friendly fish for snorkelers to view, that became a popular tourist attraction after it was featured in the climax of the James Bond film Thunderball. The highly accessible and contained nature of the site offers relative precise monitoring, so the TOMM was able to feature an integrated set of indicators covering all the dimensions of sustainable tourism. Moreover, the TOMM was able to scale a set of carrying capacities to trial and refine, as part of an adaptive management response, should monitoring require it. The indicators are set to trigger CC adaptive management that can scale up and then down and eventually off, similar to Figure 9.4. This approach contrasts with an enforced use of CC, regardless of the use of the TOMM. The author was involved in such a case when developing a TOMM for a private sector client to manage the historic North Head Quarantine Station in Sydney Harbour National Park, Australia (McArthur, 2004b). In this instance, despite developing one of the most substantial and robust examples of the TOMM, the New South Wales State government still forced an abstract CC onto the operator and made it part of an environmental approval and lease condition.

Conclusion Transitioning CC from the management of grazing to the management of visitors was always a huge challenge. To compensate for the significant increase in sophistication and dynamism of a visitor environment, CC needs clear management objectives, monitoring and subsequent decision-making

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system. Stakeholders have not been prepared to do this, so we have ended up with two outcomes: (1) A simplistic and unaccountable version of CC – a maximum number of visitors for a given period; and (2) A sophisticated array of alternative models capable of doing the job, but rarely getting chosen, or if chosen, rarely getting adequately resourced land implemented long enough to prove themselves. The first outcome must be avoided at all costs. Unaccountable management tools are worse than no tools at all. But CC could still have a role to play in tourism and visitor management. Embedded within one of the alternative models, CC could be applied as a temporary adaptive management response, backed up by sound management objectives and monitoring.

Note (1)

Benchmarking involves using year one monitoring results as the point of reference for interpreting future results. For example, if 15% of households have running water in year one and 25% have running water in year two, a positive change of 10% would be noted. This is a very simple analysis process, provides easy-to-use data for graphs and will be understood by the community.

Concluding Remarks Numbers are important in the tourism industry. Intangible experiences are important too, but tourism enterprises are concerned about numbers of clients, tourism destinations are concerned about numbers of visitors and transport operators are concerned about numbers of passengers. Economic, social and environmental aspects of tourism are all highly sensitive to numbers of tourists, as well as their behaviour. In addition, commercial tourism products are highly perishable: they must be consumed both where and as they are produced. Tourism thus involves the provision and enjoyment of bundles of goods and services for specific periods of time. The product vanishes as the time elapses. Tourism is thus highly sensitive to the numbers of tourists at particular places during particular time periods. For most activities, experiences and destinations, both the producers and consumers of tourism products prefer that tourism numbers should remain within particular numerical ranges. These ranges may vary between seasons and they may change over time, but they are not

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random. Tourism operators, host communities and tourists are all affected if actual numbers are substantially higher or lower than these preferred and expected ranges. As a result, various mechanisms are routinely deployed to boost numbers if they are perceived as too low, and to curtail numbers if they are perceived as too high. That is, tourism capacity management is one of the wide class of human endeavours that are regularly carried out in practice, but without any formalized or specifically defined algorithm controlling the process or mechanism. When we choose between destinations to visit, activities to undertake or menu items to eat, for example, we make judgements based on suites of implicit parameters, without using an explicit selection formula. As with other such endeavours, if we can in practice decide that tourist numbers at a given place for a given period are either ‘too high’ or ‘too low’, that has two implications. The first is that this issue is important enough to attract our attention and compel us to make judgements. The second is that we do in fact have a mental balancing process by which to make such judgements, even if we have not yet given it sufficient attention to define what that process is. Comparing the approaches of the four authors represented here, it seems that Buckley, Brothers and McArthur each argue basically that the first step is to decide what you want to happen, the second step is to define measurable indicators to test if it is actually happening and the third is to define management responses if it is not happening. These three authors differ firstly in the criteria they use to set the goal, and secondly in the level of detail in which they present this process. Buckley focuses on environmental criteria, and Brothers on the views of local residents, whereas McArthur adopts a broader basket of parameters. Similarly, Buckley and Brothers use broad brush approaches, whereas McArthur presents more detail. Singh’s approach differs somewhat. He suggests that it is both possible and necessary to measure carrying capacity, if all relevant processes are understood and parameters are compiled. His model is more detailed in concept than any of the other three. In consequence, it is also the most difficult to implement, since it requires the most detailed data. In particular, his framework includes political acceptability, life-cycle stage and marketing components, which he argues have been omitted from previous models. As a qualitative framework, it can provide insights into processes. To yield actual numbers, however, would require conversion to a more closely defined quantitative algorithm. As noted by Brothers, quantitative data are available in abundance in the tourism sector. Most of these data, however, refer to actual tourist

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numbers and expenditure, not to impacts on social or natural environments at destinations. There are lots of numbers, but not necessarily the ones we need. McArthur argues that for carrying capacity approaches to be useful in practical management, they must be more than a good idea. They must also be able to attract adequate resourcing, and to be implemented and followed up. In his view this final practical stage has been missing from most attempts to date. Can we draw an overall conclusion? Can we reconcile McArthur’s view that carrying capacity approaches should be used only as a last resort, with Singh’s view that they are central to tourism sustainability, and could be quantified if only we would make enough effort to do so? All four authors agree that there are some elements of these approaches that are useful, but there is less consensus as to which particular elements. The overall conclusion is perhaps this. Perhaps numerical capacities can indeed be defined, if the characteristics of the social and natural environment and the tourism system are well enough known, and the intended outcome and criteria are closely defined. Perhaps it is more valuable in practice, however, to start with the goal, and work backwards to monitoring indicators and management responses, without ever needing to determine a single numerical carrying capacity.

Discussion Questions (1) From the perspective of destination communities, what policies, regulations and administrative strategies are available to manage land use and property rights in ways that balance the desires of residents, tourists and development investors? (Brothers) (2) Where land managers have selected carrying capacity approaches, why did they make that choice, how well were they informed about alternative frameworks and how did they evaluate the effectiveness of this approach in achieving their management objectives? (McArthur) (3) How much does targeted marketing influence: (a) which particular types of tourists are attracted to different types of destination; (b) how those tourists behave once they arrive; and (c) how this affects numerical carrying capacities? (Singh) (4) Can we measure how reversible different types of tourism impacts may be, if numbers of tourists are reduced or their impact behaviour changed? With a few exceptions, largely for local-scale outdoor recreation, past research has only measured impacts once they have occurred and are continuing. (Buckley)

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Further Reading Buckley, R.C. (2013). Next steps in recreation ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 11(8): 399. Ehrlich, P.R. and Ehrlich, A.H. (2009). The population bomb revisited. The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development 1(3): 63–71. Ostrom, E. (1998). A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of collective action. The American Political Science Review 92(1): 1–22. Manning, R.E. (2007). Parks and Carrying Capacity: Commons Without Tragedy. Island Press. Stansfield, C. (1978). Atlantic City and the resort cycle: background to the legalization of gambling. Annals of Tourism Research 5(2): 238–251. UNWTO (2004). Indicators of Sustainable Development for Tourism Destinations: A Guidebook. Madrid: World Tourism Organisation.

Chapter 10

Knowledge Management in Tourism: Are the Stakeholders Research-Averse? Chris Cooper, Lisa Ruhanen and Noel Scott Context This section provides a thorough examination of the concept of knowledge transfer in tourism, and in particular, shows how it can be applied to both tourism organizations and destinations. The chapter emphasized that tourism has failed to recognize the importance of transferring knowledge around the sector and destinations. In particular, by understanding the concept of knowledge transfer, the gap between research and practice in tourism can be addressed. Yet, this has proven to be difficult in tourism, in part because researchers and the tourism sector can be thought of as different ‘communities of practice’. As Scott notes in his rejoinder, this needs to be understood and research closely targeted to the audience. Nonetheless, there is an urgent need for tourism to leverage the benefits of knowledge transfer – the sector finds itself in transition, in an environment of constant and unexpected change. In her rejoinder to the chapter, Ruhanen stresses the fact that tourism faces environmental challenges – not the least of which is climate change. Tourism also faces challenges through a complete revolution in business practice, consumer behaviour that is increasingly driven by technology and competition from other economic sectors for investment and labour. To survive and successfully compete in this environment, tourism organizations and destinations need to reinvent themselves through knowledge-based innovation. In other words, the effective transfer and use of knowledge contributes to the competitiveness of both organizations and destinations. 309

10.1

Transferring Tourism Knowledge: A Challenge for Tourism Educators and Researchers Chris Cooper

Introduction During 2004, I wrote a review paper linking tourism with knowledge management (KM): a paper that was published in Annals of Tourism Research in 2006 (Cooper, 2006). In 2004, the literature on tourism and knowledge management was sparse but 10 years later the field has attracted more attention. While writing this original review paper, I was optimistic that by importing concepts from knowledge management, and particularly those of knowledge transfer and exchange, the gap between research and practice in tourism could be addressed. Yet 10 years on, this gap is not only still an issue, but also a more urgent one as tourism finds itself in transition, dealing with constant and unexpected change. In this environment, knowledge management can provide distinct competitive advantage and help the sector deal with change. The focus of this chapter is therefore the challenge to tourism educators and researchers to address the issue.

The Issue Quite simply the tourism sector does not engage with tourism researchers: indeed the sector could be seen as a research-averse (Cooper & Ruhanen, 2002). One approach is to take concepts from knowledge management, specifically the notion of knowledge transfer, to examine if it presents a diagnosis and solution. The issue is not new and has been identified by a number of authors who argue that there is a gap between tourism research generation and its utilization (see for example Hudson, 2013; Pyo, 2012; Thomas, 2012; Tribe, 2008). This is an important issue for tourism as it is also clear that the 310

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generation and use of new tourism knowledge for innovation and product development is critical for the competitiveness of both the tourism sector and destinations. This concept of different ‘communities of practice’ (COP) refers to two distinct groups – one who generates tourism knowledge and one who may use it – the practitioners. Each group has different behaviours, language and networks, and so the two groups do not communicate with each other, a fact that may be partly to blame for the difficulties of linking the researcher and practitioner communities. In other economic sectors, such as the primary industries, research is utilized on a day-to-day basis and knowledge transfers efficiently because the gearing between researcher and business is tight and formalized. However, in the case of tourism, this is not the case and academic research seldom influences the real world of tourism. Shaw and Williams (2009), for example, argue that tourism researchers came late to the notion of knowledge transfer for a number of reasons, but primarily owing to the dominance of small firms in tourism and the decoupling of tourism research from mainstream social science research. Hudson (2013) confirms the issue of poor linkages between the two groups and goes on to argue that tourism knowledge production systems are too academic and fail to codify knowledge to be used by practitioners, which at best has led to the inefficient use of research. This view is supported by Thomas (2012), who researched the relationship between business elites and universities. While this goes some way to explaining the poor record of knowledge transfer in tourism, it can also be argued that the very nature of the tourism sector itself is an issue, with many of the prior conditions necessary for the successful transfer and adoption of knowledge absent. The sector is characterized by the following. •

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A dominance of small enterprises, often single person or family owned, lacking managerial expertise or training. They therefore take a singularly instrumental view about knowledge such that it must be highly relevant to their operation if they are to adopt and use it. Delivery of the tourism product is fragmented across a variety of providers with a lack of ownership for the total experience and hence poor coordination for knowledge transfer and adoption across the sector. Vocational reinforcers rooted in poor human resource practices, militating against the continuity of knowledge transfer and adoption. These include the employment of seasonal and part-time workers, high labour turnover and a poorly qualified sector that inhibits absorptive capacity of tourism organizations. It is always difficult to achieve effective knowledge transfer and adoption with employees who have a low commitment to the organization.

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In addition, Weidenfeld et al. (2009) see tourism as a sector characterized by low risk-takers, a low level of resources for investment, lack of trust and collaboration among businesses, and rapid turnover of both businesses and employees.

Knowledge and Knowledge Transfer The foundation of knowledge management is based on the effective transfer and use of knowledge to contribute to the competitiveness of both organizations and destinations. Yet, as noted above, the effective transfer and use of tourism knowledge has proven to be not an easy task.

The Imperative of Knowledge Transfer for Tourism Transferring, exchanging and sharing knowledge is an imperative for a tourism sector in transition as it faces significant external change and competition. This is because knowledge transfer processes underpin innovation, which in turn are the key to competitiveness for tourism organizations and destinations (Hallin & Marnburg, 2008; Shaw & Williams, 2009). In their classic work, Rogers and Shoemaker define an innovation as anything: perceived as new by an individual, and it matters little.. whether or not an idea is relatively new … it is the perceived newness of the idea for the individual that determines his reaction to it. If the idea is new to the individual, it is an innovation. (Rogers & Shoemaker, 1971: 19) While Dvir and Pasher have a simpler definition of innovation as ‘the process of turning knowledge and ideas into value’ (2004: 16). Innovation and its adoption in tourism has been characterized by few leaders and many laggards, leading to a sector that has been both slow to innovate and to adopt new ideas (Hall & Williams, 2008; Hjalger, 2010; OECD, 2006). In part, this can be explained by the newer science of innovation in services as opposed to manufacturing (see Kanerva et al., 2006; Nijssen et al., 2006). Gotvassli (2008) is clear that innovation depends upon accessing knowledge, and Daroch and McNaughton (2002) take this further stating that ‘knowledge dissemination and responsiveness to knowledge have been mooted as the two components that would have the most impact on the creation of a sustainable competitive advantage, such as innovation’ (Daroch & McNaughton, 2002: 211). The critical dimensions of knowledge creation and transfer and its adoption for innovation through learning are therefore keys to this process (Argote et al., 2003).

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Achieving Knowledge Transfer in Tourism The knowledge management literature provides insights to understanding the knowledge transfer process. It is clear that to achieve effective knowledge transfer in tourism, knowledge must be understood as the most important commodity and learning the most important process. Of course, knowledge transfer can happen informally through spontaneous or unstructured processes, but knowledge management does not leave it to chance and creates a structured and disciplined approach where the key element is the imperative of transmission plus absorption. If knowledge transfer is to be effective in tourism then the process needs to be mapped and understood. There have been a number of attempts to do this. First, in his study of innovation in a rural setting, Gotvassli (2008) found two knowledge-based keys to success for innovation: (1) knowledge as a foundation for innovation, with a good learning environment; and (2) membership of a close and tight network, with external links, characterized by trust and interpersonal relationships. One of the keys to understanding the transfer of knowledge within an organization or destination is to recognize the importance of the type of knowledge to be transferred and the medium to be used for the transfer. In other words, the effectiveness of the transfer process depends upon an accurate assessment of the type of knowledge to be transferred and an understanding of the context within which it is exchanged.

Types of tourism knowledge In terms of general tourism knowledge, Tribe (1997) identifies two distinct sources. (1) Knowledge created in higher education institutions based upon disciplines and fields is ‘Mode-1 knowledge’. (2) ‘Mode-2 knowledge’ is generated outside higher education and traditional disciplines by industry, government and consultants. This knowledge tends to be problem-based and set within a specific context. Tribe’s classification is a useful starting point for deciding upon the media and form of knowledge transfer, and makes clear that ‘Mode-2 knowledge’ is more likely to be favoured as a source of knowledge for innovation. For tourism, it is in the area of understanding and leveraging from tacit knowledge sources that the major gap exists (Gotvassli, 2008). Virtually no work has been done in this area and while it represents a major opportunity for tourism researchers, it severely inhibits the adoption of knowledge management approaches in tourism.

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In her review of innovation research in tourism, Hjalger (2010) identifies four sources of knowledge generated by research and development that underpin innovation. These sources combine the previously mentioned organizational approach with Tribe’s Mode-1 and Mode-2 knowledge sources. (1) Embedded knowledge within networks or organizations. (2) Competence- and resource-based knowledge within the organization – often in the form of tacit knowledge. (3) Localized knowledge that is destination specific. (4) Research-based knowledge originating from universities, research institutes and consultancies. Chua (2001) takes these classifications a step further by examining the relevance of type of knowledge for transfer. He identifies three types of knowledge. (1) Codifiable, measured by the extent to which the knowledge can be articulated or represented in documents and words. The more explicit the knowledge is, the greater is its ability to be codified. (2) Teachable, the more tacit the knowledge, the harder it is to teach. (3) Complexity, the more elements needed to complete a task, the more complex the knowledge.

Transfer Media Chua (2001) then categorized media channels used for knowledge transfer according to the type of knowledge to be transferred and by their degree of richness, where: the media richness of a channel can be examined by its capacity for immediate feedback, its ability to support natural language, the number of cues it provides and the extent to which the channel creates social presence for the receiver. (Chua, 2001: 2) Chua found that the more explicit the knowledge, the less rich are the media used to transfer it. Conversely, the richer the knowledge the more technology is needed in the transfer process. Of course technology is at the heart of effective knowledge transfer, exchange and sharing, facilitating more rapid transfer. The most effective use of technology for knowledge transfer and sharing lies in the use of social networks and knowledge portals – an approach that is being adopted by destinations. Portals are a powerful medium for transferring knowledge, providing an integrated framework linking users with knowledge in a single

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point of access, effectively providing a ‘virtual workplace’. Portals use content management tools, online collaboration tools, are secure and can be both customized and personalized. Essentially, portals link the technology and the people elements allowing the producers and users of knowledge to interact. Networks are dealt with below.

Contexts of Knowledge Transfer When considering the contexts of knowledge transfer, the literature on diffusion has much to offer, particularly in the case of the landscape of adoption of innovations, where the whole ecosystem of the barriers, gatekeepers and receptors of knowledge and innovation are critical (see Cooper et al., 2003). The diffusion literature identifies the following elements of this ecosystem as critical in the process. • •

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The sources and legitimacy of knowledge, as well as the quality and reliability of the knowledge – this was dealt with in the previous section. Adopter characteristics and capacity to adopt – in other words the point to which knowledge is transferred to, and how it is deployed. Here, relevant factors include organizational size, structure and competence of the adopter. In tourism, the concept of absorptive capacity is relevant (see Cohen & Levinthal, 1990). Different problem domains (such as routine/non-routine or complex/ basic) will demand different transfer techniques; as Chua’s (2001) research confirms. Here, the nature of the media used for the transfer must be appropriate to the innovation – in particular the use of ‘relational’ channels, where it is possible to develop the frequency and depth of two-way human-to-human contact. The degree of partner similarity in terms of interests, background or education. This relates to the idea of ‘COP’ already discussed and works at both the individual and the organizational level. The level of depreciation of knowledge after transfer. The level of organizational self-knowledge, the more an organization knows the more receptive it tends to be.

Early work on innovation focused on the individual, but it is now recognized that knowledge transfer and innovation take place within networks and COPs. It is, therefore, the articulation of the individual with those networks and COPs that is important in understanding how learning takes place and knowledge is transferred. Beesely (2004) states clearly that actual organizations do not learn, themselves, but rather learning occurs by their members. She adds that often where an individual is faced by knowledge that does not fit with their own knowledge structures, they struggle to deal with it and may reject it. This is echoed by Schianetz et al. (2007), writing on the learning

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destination and recognizing that learning by individuals occurs within the contexts of networks, destinations and COPs – in other words, within a context rather than in isolation, and that these contexts play a major role in the definition and implementation of learning networks and destinations.

Learning networks There is no doubt that networks are a fundamental context and medium for the emergence and diffusion of information (Myers et al., 2012). Effectively, networks allow members to ‘access’ knowledge, as well as in some cases to actually ‘generate’ knowledge. Here, Tsai argues that organizations can be more innovative: if they occupy central network positions that provide access to new knowledge developed by other units. This effect, however, depends on units’ absorptive capacity, or ability to successfully replicate new knowledge. (Tsai, 2001: 996) Reagans and McEvily (2003) agree that network structure impacts fundamentally upon knowledge transfer. They found that over and above the effect of the strength of the tie between two people, knowledge transfer is facilitated by social cohesion among network members and network range. Braun (2004) also found a strong relationship between diffusion and both network and geographic positioning, with successful diffusion strongly influenced by network cohesion and actors’ trust in, and engagement with, the network. This concept of both geographic space and network space is introduced by Huggins et al. (2012). They confirm the idea that networks allow access to knowledge, but see this as occurring in two ways – first through geographical clustering of organizations in, say, a destination; and second within network space that may be a tourism distribution channel. This is implicit within Weidenfeld et al.’s (2009) work on knowledge transfer among attractions. Good governance and management of a network is needed in order to achieve effective knowledge flows within and beyond the network. This will also manage new entrants and ensure that knowledge is not lost to the network’s members (see Eickelpasch & Fritsch, 2005). Participating actively in formal or informal networks is one example of an activity that has been widely recognized in the literature as a common source of knowledge in tourism (Baggio & Cooper, 2010; Presenza & Cipollina, 2010; Scott & Ding, 2008). Social relationships play a critical role in these ‘knowledge networks’, requiring participants to emphasize the management of relationships as well as the management of processes or organizations (Beesley, 2005; Inkpen & Tsang, 2005). Studies of how knowledge is sourced and utilized highlight the importance of these social relationships as personal rather than impersonal sources, confirming the important contribution that networks make to knowledge transfer (Cross et al., 2001; Xiao & Smith, 2010).

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Communities of practice This chapter has already referred to COPs, but in a somewhat negative way, suggesting that they may impede knowledge transfer in tourism (see also Pemberton et al., 2007). However, there are many characteristics of COPs that are analogous with destinations (Gotvassli, 2008). Take the descriptors of a COP for example. •

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A COP is a group of individuals who develop a shared way of working together to accomplish some purposeful activity. COPs therefore differ from networks in that they have a purpose and are not just a set of relationships. Trust and collaboration make effective COPs. COPs need organizational regulation and management. COPs can be cultivated and leveraged for strategic advantage. COPs have: mutual engagement interest; common activity and action; shared history and concepts (Wenger, 1998). ○ ○ ○

The analogy with the destination is a useful one as a context for knowledge transfer. It infers a common purpose and united goal. Belonging to a destination or to a COP implies commitment to that organization, but demands management to both instil and maintain drive, shared vision and leadership to moderate the power structures inherent in all organizations. Perhaps where a COP differs from a destination is in the fact that a COP depends upon a high degree of trust. It is this notion of trust that is central to the issues surrounding effective knowledge transfer in tourism.

The Way Forward This chapter has been concerned with the imperative for the tourism sector to engage with the concept of knowledge transfer, exchange and sharing. This raises a number of issues for the future if the tourism sector is to benefit from the increased transfer, sharing and exchange of knowledge (see for example Johannessen et al., 2000). These issues can be summarized as follows.

Policy As the knowledge-based economy has developed, governments have been faced with the need to develop policy initiatives. Effectively, these policies grapple with the issues surrounding the nature of knowledge as a global public good. These issues include access to knowledge, the removal of

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barriers to knowledge transfer and adoption, and the need to encourage private enterprise to share knowledge. However, they also concern the importance given to research and development within economies and the positioning of tourism in higher education by national governments. Here, we are seeing a more utilitarian tone to the bidding for research funds (Thomas, 2012), the increasing importance of the research ‘impact’ agenda and the juggernaut of research selectivity exercises (Hall, 2011). This direction of travel should be good news for both tourism researchers and educators who will have to demonstrate the impact of their work to the sector, but the key to success will still be the response of the research users.

Core Tourism Knowledge and Decision-making An important task for the future will be evaluating core knowledge for organizations and destinations (see Pyo, 2012) and as part of this, ensuring that tacit knowledge is effectively captured (Yang & Wan, 2004). There should be a greater focus on tacit knowledge and recognition that it is an important aspect of creating and maintaining sustainable competitive advantage in tourism. A related issue relates to assessing the sustainability of tourism knowledge and its application in destinations and organizations – in other words, assessing the ‘shelf life’ of knowledge and beginning to document how decisions are reached. This is a particular issue for tourism and climate change. Destinations and tourism organizations will need to be better at linking knowledge with decision-making; effectively this is where the real benefits of knowledge transfer can be demonstrated. There will therefore be an increased emphasis on two areas. (1) The use of knowledge management to underpin innovation as a means of maintaining sustainable competitive advantage. A future focus here will be on benefiting from the creativity of employees (hence the role of tourism educators comes to the fore). (2) The use of knowledge management to underpin processes of continuous improvement. Tacit knowledge plays an important role in this process.

Learning Organizations and Destinations This chapter has not only analysed the process of knowledge transfer for tourism, but also the contexts for knowledge transfer. There is no doubt that destinations can be viewed as a key building block here. The imperative for destinations is to become learning organizations if they are to be competitive in a time of continuous change. There is a growing body of literature here and much of it focuses upon the importance of knowledge transfer within the

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destination (European Commission, 2006; Nordin, 2003; Nordin & Svensson, 2005; Schianetz et al., 2007). This means that in the future there will be an increased focus on the means by which to achieve both effective ‘learning organizations and destinations’. Here there should be an increased emphasis on the ‘total knowledge base’ emphasizing the fact that knowledge exists external to an organization/destination as well as internally. By increasing the acceptance of external knowledge, the organizations and destinations will be able to place the role of tacit knowledge into perspective; as tacit knowledge alone does not encourage innovation. The future will therefore be characterized by a widening of the sources of knowledge used by organizations and destinations. In particular, there will be an expanded role for customers, suppliers and partners, including universities, and a greater involvement of external stakeholders in the knowledge management process. This leads to two conclusions. First, that by embedding themselves firmly into destinations and the sector’s COP, universities and their communities of educators and researchers will begin to find that trust is enhanced and that transfer will begin to take place (see Hudson, 2013). Second, we must remember that at the end of the day knowledge transfer is a discretionary activity, and along with learning, follows the path of least resistance (Reagans & McEvily, 2003). The lesson is clear: the knowledge that we generate as researchers must be of true relevance to the sector if it is to be utilized.

10.2

Transferring Tourism Knowledge: Research on Climate Change and Sustainability Lisa Ruhanen

Cooper’s lead piece maps the knowledge management literature, highlighting a variety of implications for tourism researchers. In my response, I pick up on Cooper’s comments around the urgency for the tourism sector to adopt principles of knowledge management given that ‘tourism finds itself in

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transition, dealing with constant and unexpected change, with environmental challenges – not the least of which is climate change’. This response therefore focuses on the need to transfer, codify and implement the stocks of knowledge pertaining to climate change and tourism from academia to the tourism sector. Given the symbiotic relationship between climate change and sustainable development, the knowledge management issues surrounding tourism and sustainable development are also considered. The focus on climate change is bringing sustainable tourism back onto the global political agenda (Scott, 2011; Weaver, 2011), or at least stimulating a renewed focus on the environmental aspects of tourism development (Bramwell & Lane, 2008). The synergies between climate change and sustainable development are clear; climate change is the greatest challenge to the sustainability of both tourism destinations as well as the business of tourism (UNWTO and UNEP, 2008) and as Scott (2011) claims, ‘addressing climate change is . . . a prerequisite to sustainable development and therefore germane to advancing sustainable tourism research’. As Cooper quite rightly notes, the ability for the tourism sector to respond and adapt to the changes posed by climate change is paramount. Climate change is considered to be a major issue for the global political and economic agenda, as well as for the tourism industry (Bramwell & Lane, 2012; Scott, 2011; Scott & Becken, 2010). Tourism is expected to be one of the economic sectors that is least prepared for the risks and opportunities posed by climate change. While there has been a considerable increase in climate-related tourism research over the last 25 years (Gössling & Hall, 2006; Gössling & Peeters, 2007), as a proportion of tourism research it is still quite small (Scott, 2011) and as such could be considered to still be in its infancy (Hernandez & Ryan, 2011).

Is Tourism Knowledge Transfer Successful? On the other hand, sustainable development is far more embedded in tourism contexts. Claimed to be the ‘meta-narrative’ of our time (Corcoran & Osano, 2009), since its emergence following the 1987 publication of the Brundtland Report ( World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987), sustainable tourism development has not only come to represent the dominant tourism development discourse, but has also become widely accepted as the key driver of tourism development policy and practice (Lu & Nepal, 2009; Ruhanen, 2013; Sharpley, 2000, 2009). Indeed, Hall (2011: 649) argues that ‘the notion of sustainable tourism development must be regarded as one of the great success stories of tourism research and knowledge transfer’. While nearly three decades ago the concept was virtually unheard of, today sustainable tourism development is embedded in the fabric of tourism discourse in academic, business and governance terms.

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Sustainable tourism development has certainly permeated academic research since the early 1990s. For instance, a Google search identifies in excess of 24.1 million hits for sustainable tourism development and 564,000 results. Figures that, if judged by quantity, confirm sustainable tourism has been a highly influential focus of tourism research. Yet as the volume and breadth of research into sustainable tourism development continues to grow, so too have the criticisms and questions about the usability and relevance of the concept and its practices (Bramwell & Lane, 2013; Buckley, 2012; Cheng et al., 2011; Liu, 2003; Loulanski & Loulanski, 2011; Sharpley, 2009; TorresDelgado & Palomeque, 2012). Many have questioned the extent to which the sector understands sustainability with studies documenting the fact that tourism stakeholders have little understanding of what sustainability actually is and how to implement it in practice (Dabphet et al., 2012; Ruhanen, 2013). As such, the claim noted earlier, that sustainable tourism development can be considered a tourism knowledge transfer success story (Hall, 2011), may be overstated. Certainly the terms ‘sustainable tourism’ or ‘sustainability’ are well known. The terms are also regularly used, as noted previously, in academia, government and business contexts. As Sharpley (2009) notes, academic navel gazing has not advanced the concept beyond the theoretical to explore, among other things, how the concept can be legitimately applied in practice. He further suggests this impasse may be, in part, owing to the difficulties in translating the conceptual principles of sustainable tourism development into a feasible, workable set of policies and practices relevant to the real world of tourism. Not surprisingly then, authors, such as Holden (2009), have concluded that 25 years post-Brundtland the sustainable tourism concept has had little to no impact on the tourism sector and the business of tourism. In a previous paper, exploring knowledge management and sustainability (Ruhanen 2008), I argued that one inhibiting factor is that the wealth of knowledge about sustainable tourism development has not been effectively codified and diffused to those at the destination level (either public or private) to influence the discussions, actions and practices of those that are actually planning for and managing tourism activity. There are several reasons for this. One is noted by Cooper who reports that the tourism sector does not meaningfully engage with tourism researchers; that the sector is in fact research-averse. As such, academic research seldom influences the ‘real world’ of tourism. Other reasons include the fact that the tourism sector generally does not pay much attention to research and there are few instances of real and substantial application of ideas from sustainable tourism research within the tourism sector than might be expected given the breadth of research (Bramwell & Lane, 2012; Buckley, 2008, 2012; Hall, 2011; Lane, 2009; Liu, 2003; Sharpley, 2009). Others have questioned to what extent the tourism

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sector is philosophically driven to address sustainable development objectives given the overt focus on economic objectives at the expense of triple-bottom line considerations (Moyle et al., 2014; Ruhanen, 2013; Weaver, 2011). Notwithstanding the sectors’ reluctance to adopt the vast research produced in universities and research institutions around the world (ironically potentially participating as subjects or case studies of said research), there are clearly deficiencies on the part of the academy to codify, translate and diffuse research into meaningful forms that can be actually adopted by end-users. It has been acknowledged that tourism knowledge systems are too academic and fail to codify knowledge for use by practitioners. The reasons for this and the surrounding debates are well traversed; the nature of academic performance measures, funding and incentives, the separation of academic and practitioner diffusion channels and so forth. But if we are to criticize the sector for being research-averse and not taking up these vast stocks of knowledge then we must acknowledge and recognize our own part in the knowledge management deficiencies of the tourism sector. As Cooper concludes; the lesson is clear: the knowledge that we generate as researchers must be of true relevance to the sector if it is to be utilized. It must be understandable, relevant and legible to the target audience. The issue of relevance is particularly evident in terms of the sustainable tourism development concept. It has long been recognized that sustainable tourism is a meaningless term to the sector unless quantitative indicators, benchmarks, audits, assessments and appraisals can be definitively developed and applied to assess practical progress towards sustainability (McCool & Moisey, 2008). Despite the criticisms, research on sustainable tourism is crucial. As Bramwell and Lane (2005) note, whether the research is directed to affect immediate change in society or to advance our stock of understanding and knowledge, which may have influence in the longer term, there is a responsibility on us to convey our ideas in clear and precise language. While there may be scope to improve knowledge transfer in terms of research, one area where knowledge transfer does take place is through education. Sustainable development is increasingly embedded in education at all levels, including the higher education sector and in all fields of study. We are at the end of the UN decade of ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ (UNESCO, 2014); an initiative to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning. Like tourism research more generally, sustainable tourism has had a major influence on tourism curriculum; some say that sustainable tourism has had one of the most significant impacts on the field of tourism studies and scholarship (Bramwell & Lane, 2012). Contemporary tourism degree programmes will generally have one or more dedicated sustainable tourism subjects, a suite of subjects or sustainable tourism may even form the basis of an entire programme of study or degree. The prevalence of sustainable development into tourism curricula reflects the importance of educating

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future tourism leaders about the principles of sustainable development and how they apply in a tourism context. Increasingly, climate change is featuring in tourism programmes, certainly underpinning studies of transportation, visitor behaviour and ethics. Despite the acknowledged importance of climate change for society in general, and in tourism specifically, the lack of attention given to the knowledge-related aspects of tourism and climate change is quite surprising. Hernandez and Ryan (2011: 86) noted that compared with other economic activities, there is a lack of research on the management of tourism and climate change, and the overriding focus of existing research is on specific tourism activities (beach, alpine tourism) and on specific regions (Europe, UK, USA). The existing research has generally not examined the totality of the impact of tourism on climate, which requires the consideration of effects at the origin, travel and destination of tourists (Hernandez & Ryan, 2011). Weaver (2011) also offers commentary on the knowledge gaps in climate change and tourism research. He sees the gaps as reflecting an absence of peer-reviewed literature upon which to inform the policy and operational decisions. He further points to deficiencies in peer-reviewed publications to provide the basis for properly informing major private and public sector investments in climate change adaptation or mitigation. Arguably though, and as discussed previously, the extent to which the research emanating from peer-reviewed academic publications will be able to fulfil such ‘real world’ objectives is tenuous at best. Much is still needed to codify and transfer academic research into a form that it can be adopted and applied in practice. Turning to the links between knowledge management and sustainability more generally, again, few authors have examined the linkages. Racheria et al. (2008) refer to the concept of a ‘knowledge based destination’ noting a range of social, economic and technical factors, such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), that are essential for transforming the business and social landscape and creating sustainable competitive advantage. Scott et al. (2008) also consider knowledge transfer among tourism consultants, academia and private sector representatives as a key factor. But like Racheria et al. (2008), they note the importance of knowledge from an economic sustainability perspective, as a contributor to destination competitiveness and innovation. As Cooper concludes about tourism generally, there is still considerable scope to explore knowledge management concepts in a sustainable tourism context.

The Way Forward This response has taken a more focused examination of tourism and knowledge management, looking specifically at climate change and

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sustainable development, and the particular knowledge needs, gaps and challenges around these themes. Climate change is a critical (and at times seemingly insurmountable) challenge to sustainable development. How can the sector address climate change when it has yet to come to grips with sustainable development? Optimistically, we might hope that climate change offers more concrete points of action around adaptation or mitigation strategies. But at what point the sector will enact such ‘strategies’ remains unclear. In terms of sustainable development and tourism, it also seems quite bleak. As Gössling et al. (2012) note, there is considerable evidence that tourism is becoming less sustainable, primarily as a result of the sector’s rapid growth and limited progress towards implementing more environmentally friendly operations on a global scale. Or Buckley’s (2012) conclusion that, ‘it is clear that mainstream tourism, like other industry sectors and the human economy as a whole, is far from sustainable’. And finally returning to the role of tourism researchers who generate the knowledge; what is their role in appropriately codifying and transferring knowledge to the sector? Is there a role? Or a responsibility even? Some argue that for many of us working in publicly funded institutions there is, others disagree. Perhaps the industry impact and quality measures that are making their way into research assessment exercises in some parts of the world may go some way to bridging this knowledge gap.

10.3

A Market Approach to Tourism Knowledge Noel Scott

Chris Cooper begins his discussion by writing: ‘Quite simply the tourism sector does not engage with tourism researchers: indeed the sector could be seen as a research-averse’ (Cooper & Ruhanen, 2002). This statement has a number of parts. First, there is a lack of engagement, and second the attributed reason given for the lack is that the sector ‘could be seen as risk-averse’.

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To me this is the ‘pot calling the kettle black’. The engagement between academics and industry is a two way street. Some academics may decide not to engage with industry and they may also be thought of as risk-averse. I do agree with Chris Cooper that the lack of engagement between researchers and the tourism sector is a real phenomenon, a serious problem and not one that tourism academics should dismiss. Indeed, a lack of engagement has caused, in Australia at least, a marginalization of university tourism academics and, at least in part, a loss of support for university tourism departments, which are then either closed or absorbed into a business school. I consider that the reasons for a lack of engagement are not only the risk-averse nature of parts of the tourism sector, but that this is one of a number of antecedents. In effect, I am attributing a portion of the blame to tourism researchers. One reason why academics avoid industry engagement is because they are forced into an instrumental approach to research owing to the current myopic focus in many universities on quantitative outcomes, such as the number of papers produced and the quantum of quality research grants obtained. A second reason is that some academic researchers consider the purpose of universities is to teach and thus may focus their research outputs on improving pedagogy. Arguably however, good teaching in an applied field such as tourism requires knowledge of the practical operation of various organizations, such as National Tourism Offices, five star hotels and so on, and this is best obtained through industry engagement. Third, some academics have no experience in the tourism sector, apart from personal experience of their own holidays or travels, making it difficult to obtain the access and data needed to write a meaningful and practically relevant paper. Lack of knowledge of practical issues of importance to business managers or policy officers engenders further difficulty in engagement and leads to a cycle of increasing isolation. Fourth, academics may conduct research projects and write papers that draw upon data and information from the tourism sector, but may not feel any need to transfer the results and findings back to industry stakeholders. This is more common than may be expected and a source of irritation to tourism managers, leading to refusals to participate in new projects. Alternatively, an academic may undertake research of practical interest, but may be restricted by contractual agreements to not disseminate the information. Finally, academics may feel no need to engage because their areas of interest are theoretically driven and they can write a paper that is accepted in a top ranked journal without the need to collect data or engage with stakeholders. These academics may not be driven by application of the knowledge (Pearce & Benckendorff, 2006), but are curiosity driven. Cooper writes that: ‘The issue of the relevance of research findings is an enduring critique facing many curiosity driven researchers and the knowledge management framework provides a comprehensive answer’. My opinion is that in the field of

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tourism, as an applied area, there needs to be a balance between curiositydriven research and practical outcomes. The counter-argument to a need for practical outcomes is that research produces uncertain outputs and there is always an opportunity in the future for research outputs to make a contribution. Notwithstanding the uncertainty of the future value of tourism research outputs, many papers do provide an assessment of the practical implications of the work. Interestingly, the value of the outcomes is often asserted, but I am unaware of any assessment of the actual impacts of tourism papers against the stated implications. It would be interesting to obtain third party rating of publication outputs on measures of the value of a paper, such those discussed in Scott (2012).

A Contribution to New Knowledge? As mentioned above, there is an argument that the purpose of academic life is to teach students and develop new knowledge. But what is tourism knowledge and especially what is new tourism knowledge? First let us think about three types of knowledge: (1) theories (service chain); (2) concepts (service quality) and typologies (types of tourists, such as backpackers, adventure traveller, etc.); and (3) examples or instances (a particular tourist or a particular service event). While each and every tourist may be considered as a unique instance, in practice they can usually be grouped under a typology heading (this tourist may be classified as a backpacker). It is arguable that most tourism hotel managers do not, in their day-today business, need new knowledge of type one (theories). They generally have a reasonable knowledge about how service quality leads to customer loyalty and repeat visits. Of course, it may be that a particular destination wants to develop a brand (i.e. Brand New Zealand) and therefore hotel managers need to learn about how branding works. It may be that a development of a new form of marketing (social media) requires a manager to know how this fits into theories about how advertising works. But in general, the need to transfer knowledge about new theories might be considered a relatively rare event for most tourism managers (or perhaps not, depending on their training). Perhaps the requirement for new knowledge of this type is becoming more common owing to the increasing pace of technological, social, economic, political, etc., change in society. The second type of knowledge concerns concepts and typologies. Here there is more complexity and variation. A hotel manager may find it very useful to know about a new type of tourist (Meetings Incentives Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) visitor) travelling to their destination that can provide new customers. Similarly, the concepts of brands, experiences, third party marketing and sustainability may be useful for managers or other

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tourism stakeholders. The third type of knowledge about a particular traveller or time bound event is needed for operational reasons. It includes information about a traveller’s travel plans, such as is found in booking systems, customer databases and Passanger Name Records (PNRs), and also in lists services available, such as entertainment sessions, tours departures, flight timetables and so on. However, generally this third type is not the domain of academic study. Much tourism research published in academic journals seeks to test existing theories to confirm they apply; a fact of interest to academics but not tourism stakeholders. Alternatively, some academic research adopts an alternative theoretical framework that challenges the existing accepted paradigm. This is the core of academic endeavour, but usually the results fail to say how much better that new approach is compared with the accepted approach. Instead the contribution of an article is discussed in academic terms, such as its contribution to theory, with any advantageous practical outcome indicated in general terms only, if at all. Thus, while a manager could be expected to be interested in the topic, the results presented in a paper require further processing or interpretation to be useful. As a result, no knowledge transfer will occur because the value of the knowledge embodied in the paper is not understood by the manager. Another type of academic research describes how a particular concept or theory works in a particular situation in a destination, and this may be quite interesting to tourism stakeholders who have a similar problem. For example, the image of a particular destination may be found to be influenced by community attitudes to development. Such findings are, however, embedded in the particular context of that destination and therefore may have a restricted audience. Additionally, owing to the complex and fragmented communities of practice (COPs) in tourism destinations, it is likely that only a small number of tourism stakeholders will be interested and, of course, the information (perhaps in a different language) needs to be found by them. Thus I would like to stress usability in Chris Cooper’s comments that: the concepts of credibility, anticipated usability, and expected usefulness of knowledge, . . . inform judgments about whether or not to use certain sources of knowledge.

Complexity of Stakeholder Needs If we do consider that academics should teach, as well as develop relevant new knowledge and transfer it to industry stakeholders, then we must consider effective means of knowledge transfer. One of the characteristics of tourism is that there are many diverse groups of knowledge users, geographically separated throughout the world’s tourist destinations, with each group

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having different needs and levels of existing tacit knowledge and skills. This complexity of knowledge needs is illustrated here in four projects that I have worked on recently that have involved transfer of knowledge to tourism stakeholders. The first, in the Philippines, required assessing the quality of frontline service staff training in handling of food and customer service provided by other organizations. The second, in Peru, involved training staff from the national tourism organization in tourism marketing; the third, a Masterclass for managers from Gold Coast, Australia, covered aspects of designing more memorable tourism experiences; while the fourth required collection, analysis and reporting of best practice in tourism governance for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Looking across these four projects, it appears that each involves particular stakeholders with its own characteristic knowledge needs and appropriate means for knowledge transfer. An implication is that successful transfer of tourism knowledge requires consideration of the level of expertise and particular knowledge gaps of a distinct COP. I posit that there are only a limited number of distinct types of tourism COPs, such as a government tourism policy COP, a National Tourism Office (NTO) marketing COP and a hotel management COP. The point is that each government tourism policy COP (in Italy, Australia, and so on) has its particular knowledge needs, as well as a general need to transfer best practice between them. The particular knowledge management task depends on the specific COP’s characteristics. This raises a number of interesting questions such as: where within a COP is the best practice knowledge located? Are there organizations (academics or consultants) that specialize in managing knowledge of a type useful for a type of COP? How knowledge is best managed in a particular type of COP – should we try and manage policy-related knowledge differently from marketing related knowledge? There is a lot of complexity in the management of useful new tourism knowledge that has not yet been addressed in the academic literature. In general, there appears to be an assumption that tourism managers do not have the knowledge that they need to manage their businesses. This view is supported by Thomas (2012), who researched the relationship between business elites and universities. This paper found that most of the senior managers obtained information needed for their business from other managers. This may imply that these managers (many operating successful and major tour operations in the United Kingdom) were not accessing useful information. An alternative analysis suggests that the most useful information available to such operators may in fact be the size and growth of particular customer segments, and that this is exactly the information available from other managers. This provides an explanation as to why ‘academic research is usually seen by practitioners as tangential, unnecessarily complex and communicated in a manner that is inaccessible’ (Thomas, 2012: 559).

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Here the issue is not codifying academic knowledge to make it understandable, relevant and legible to the target audience, but in understanding what knowledge is needed in the first place.

Dealing with Communities of Practice with Different Types of Knowledge Management Needs It appears to me that tourism knowledge management should adopt a more nuanced approach in the tourism sector, recognizing and addressing the diverse range of stakeholders and better target particular COPs with relevant knowledge. What type of knowledge does a hotel manager need? A manager’s main objective is to manage a profitable hotel. For hoteliers – it is quite possible to sell a similar room and service to that sold 200 years ago (perhaps with the exception of wireless internet). Additionally, the physical and sensory experience derived from a hotel room may not have changed significantly – at least in terms of the need for quiet and relaxation. So we must ask ourselves – what has changed that a hotelier NEEDS to know about and which academics can effectively answer? Here we should remember that global hotel chains employ experts in room design, customer research and branding. What global hotel chains often cannot provide to their hotel managers is an understanding of destination-related factors that may be important. This analysis would see academics as focusing on destination issues and becoming experts on these. In this way, academics may develop tacit knowledge about a destination that is of value to destination managers. We academics should also remember that the tourism industry in many developed countries has developed many new skills. As Pearce and Benckendorf note: University researchers, as well as consultants and government officials, represent one group with the skills to conduct cross-business surveys and benchmarking for tourist attractions. (Pearce & Benckendorf, 2006: 32–33) Here it is important to emphasize that academics in many destinations are only one of a number of groups that have research skills and there is no mandated reason why they should be used for generating new knowledge. A second point about dealing with COPs is also related to tacit knowledge. Cooper writes: For tourism, it is in the area of understanding and leveraging from tacit knowledge sources that the major gap exists . . .

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What is missing in this idea is that tacit knowledge can be valuable and therefore its possessor may not be inclined to give it away for free. If a business owner has valuable tacit knowledge, we should ask why they should be willing to share it. Generally, knowledge will be shared if its possessors consider they will get adequate recompense for it. An academic can provide some return for acquiring tacit knowledge by amalgamating, analysing and synthesizing knowledge to produce valuable insights. The issue is that these insights should be valuable to the person who is considered to need the tacit knowledge and be recognized as such. Again, this suggests that academics need to focus their attention on a particular COP, such as a destination’s stakeholders. Clearly knowledge is linked to power and influence (Pearce & Benckendorff, 2006). If academics wish to transfer knowledge then they must be aware that this implies possession of power. A study by Marzano and Scott (2009) into the development of a Gold Coast Branding campaign highlighted that the marketing manager responsible for the campaign did not use consumer or advertising effectiveness research. This is shown to be effectively an exercise of positional power, which ultimately failed as the other stakeholders were not involved. Academics face a similar problem in being able to transfer knowledge, as they may not be seen as legitimate stakeholders. Transfer of knowledge requires an understanding of destination’s power and politics.

How to Conduct Best Practice Studies One task that academics may wish to undertake is codification and dissemination of best practice tacit knowledge already in the tourism sector (example: there may be tacit knowledge of a methodology for how to develop new air routes, undertake hotel revenue management and develop a branding campaign). Here, the knowledge is already available, but value is created by comparison of methods and identification of best practice, which is then transferred to the rest of the industry. One such report commissioned by the OECD, examined best practice in tourism governance for National Tourism Administrations (OECD, 2012).

How to Outreach Research Hawkins (2006) considers there can be a wide spectrum of cooperative discovery, application and creative problem-solving interactions between the university and tourism stakeholders. These include policy and applied research, technology transfer partnerships, demonstration projects and creative works in the arts. The discussion above suggests that these projects should be carefully examined to ensure that political agendas are understood and that stakeholders are included in the development of the research brief.

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How to Transfer of New Knowledge from Outside the Tourism Sector One obvious need that academics are ideally placed to fulfil is to bring new ideas from other disciplines into the tourism sector. An example would be introduction of first branding ‘technology’ to a tourism destination management organization and use of social media by Small-Medium Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs). This may be where there is some resistance from tourism stakeholders who are reluctant to change their methods of operation. However, the longer time horizons of academics may suit such a task. Perhaps recent work on emotion elicitation fits into this type (Ma et al., 2013).

Conclusion Knowledge management in tourism is heterogeneous and needs to be understood in detail with the position of university researchers in a COP network being dependent on their perceived skills and the environment. Knowledge transfer is, in part, a political process and set within an environment of competing providers and interests. It will vary between developing and developed destination. Some academics have a production approach, whereby they seek to conduct their research and then wonder if there is a market for it. Knowledge transfer works better when the research project is crafted to meet the needs of a particular COP.

Concluding Remarks I am grateful to Lisa Ruhanen and Noel Scott for their comments and insights on the chapter that began this section. They affirm that the issues surrounding knowledge transfer in tourism are significant and impinge upon the many key challenges facing the sector – not the least of which is climate change, as Ruhanen makes clear in her rejoinder. Scott too raises an important issue, by arguing that researchers could do more to facilitate knowledge transfer to the tourism sector. Indeed, as university research assessment exercises begin to place a premium upon ‘research impact’, then this may herald a shift in the balance between curiosity-driven and practical research – and perhaps a redefinition of ‘tourism knowledge’ (see Hall, 2011). Knowledge transfer does not take place for its own sake. Indeed, the tourism sector is highly instrumental in its use of tourism knowledge and will only adopt if it can see the benefits and relevance of that knowledge for its own objectives. In his rejoinder, Scott argues that for

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knowledge transfer to be effective, the audience must be understood. Here, the notion of organizational capability is about the capacity of organizations to acquire and apply new ideas – a real challenge if, as Ruhanen argues in her rejoinder, the complexities of climate change and the response of both destinations and the sector are to be understood. I believe that one of the keys to achieving knowledge transfer in tourism is an understanding of the ‘contexts’ within which knowledge transfer takes place. Here we can think of destinations and the sector as innovation landscapes comprised of an audience of stakeholders who act as barriers, gatekeepers and receptors of innovation (see Cooper et al., 2003; Rowley, 1997). We can also think of them as networked organizations – loosely articulated amalgams of enterprises, governments and other organizations (Scott et al., 2008). Collectively, their stakeholders have the overall goal of ensuring that their organization is both competitive and sustainable. This can be taken a step further by creating ‘networked learning organizations’ that can adapt to change more quickly and thus can gain competitive advantage. Here, understanding the network architecture is critical in facilitating or impeding the transfer of knowledge throughout the network (Baggio & Cooper, 2010). Increasingly, the context for innovation is less focused on the individual, but rather it takes place within networks and communities of practice (COPs). Real insights into the behaviour of stakeholders in knowledge transfer can be achieved by viewing them as ‘communities of practice’ (Schianetz et al., 2007). Returning to Ruhanen and Scott’s rejoinders brings two conclusions. First, the policy dimension implied by the knowledge economy cannot be ignored. Increasingly, governments are grappling with the issues surrounding the nature of knowledge as a global public good. These include access to knowledge, the removal of barriers to knowledge transfer and adoption, and the need to encourage private enterprise to share knowledge. Second, knowledge transfer is a discretionary activity, and will follow a path of least resistance (Reagans & McEvily, 2003). The lesson is clear: if the knowledge that researchers generate is to be adopted, then it must be of true relevance to the tourism sector.

Discussion Questions (1) How could you ‘map’ a tourism destination to identify suppliers, barriers, gatekeepers and receptors of knowledge transfer? (2) What would you recommend as the best way to transfer knowledge about using social media to small hotel operators?

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(3) Identify examples of knowledge transfer in a nearby tourism destination? (4) Where do universities fit into a destination knowledge management system?

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Reagans, R. and McEvily, B. (2003). Network structure and knowledge transfer: The effects of cohesion and range. Administrative Science Quarterly 48(2): 240–267. Rogers, E.M. and Shoemaker, F.F. (1971). Communication of Innovations: A Cross Cultural Approach. New York: Free Press. Rowley, T.J. (1997). Moving beyond dyadic ties: A network theory of stakeholder influences. Academy of Management Review 22(4): 887–910. Ruhanen, L. (2008). Progressing the sustainability debate: A knowledge management approach to sustainable tourism planning. Current Issues in Tourism 11(5): 429–455. Ruhanen, L. (2013). Local government: facilitator or inhibitor of sustainable tourism development? Journal of Sustainable Tourism 21(1): 80–98. Schianetz, K., Kavanagh, L. and Lockington, D. (2007). The learning tourism destination: The potential of a learning organisation approach for improving the sustainability of tourism destinations. Tourism Management 28: 1485–1496. Scott, D. (2011). Why sustainable tourism must address climate change. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 19(1): 17–34. Scott, D. and Becken, S. (2010). Adapting to climate change and climate policy: progress, problems and potentials. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 18(3): 283–295. Scott, N. (2012). A polemic on the value of academic writing in tourism journals. e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR) 10(4): 4–11. Scott, N. and Ding, P. (2008). Management of tourism research knowledge in Australia and China. Current Issues in Tourism 11(6): 514–528. Scott, N., Baggio, R. and Cooper, C. (2008). Network Analysis and Tourism: From Theory to Practice. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Sharpley, R. (2000). Tourism and sustainable development: Exploring the theoretical divide. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 8(1): 1–19. Sharpley, R. (2009). Tourism Development and the Environment: Beyond Sustainability? London: Earthscan. Shaw, G. and Williams, A.M. (2009). Knowledge transfer and management in tourism organisations: An emerging research agenda. Tourism Management 30: 325–335. Thomas, R. (2012). Business elites, universities and knowledge transfer in tourism. Tourism Management 33: 553–561 Torres-Delgado, A. and Palomegue, F.L. (2012). The growth and spread of the concept of sustainable tourism: The contribution of institutional initiatives to tourism policy. Tourism Management Perspectives 4: 1–10. Tribe, J. (1997). The indiscipline of tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 24: 638–657. Tribe, J. (2008). Tourism: A critical business. Journal of Travel Research 46: 245–257. Tsai, W. (2001). Knowledge transfer in intraorganizational networks: Effects of network position and absorptive capacity on business, unit innovation and performance. Academy of Management Journal 44(5): 996–1004. UNESCO (2014). Education for Sustainable Development. Online at: http://www.unesco. org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/education-forsustainable-development/education-for-sustainable-development/. Accessed 30 May 2014. UNWTO and UNEP (2008). Climate Change and Tourism: Responding to Global Challenges. Madrid: UNWTO; Paris: UNEP. Weaver, D. (2011). Can sustainable tourism survive climate change? Journal of Sustainable Tourism 19(1): 5–15.

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Weidenfeld, A., Williams, A.M. and Butler, R.W. (2009). Knowledge transfer and innovation among attractions. Annals of Tourism Research 37(3): 604–626. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice, Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987). Our Common Future. London: Oxford University Press. Xiao, H. and Smith, S.L.J. (2010). Professional communication in an applied tourism research community. Tourism Management 31(3): 402–411. Yang, J.T. and Wan, C.-S. (2004). Advancing organizational effectiveness and knowledge management implementation. Tourism Management 25: 593–601.

Further Reading Beesely, L. (2004). Multi-level complexity in the management of knowledge networks. Journal of Knowledge Management 8(3): 71–100. Cooper, C. (2006). Knowledge management and tourism. Annals of Tourism Research 33(1): 47–64. European Commission (2006). Innovation in Tourism: How to Create a Tourism Learning Area – The Handbook. Brussels: European Commission. Hjalager, A.M. (2010). A review of innovation research in tourism. Tourism Management 31: 1–12. Shaw, G. and Williams, A.M. (2009). Knowledge transfer and management in tourism organizations: An emerging research agenda. Tourism Management 30: 325–335. Thomas, R. (2012). Business elites, universities and knowledge transfer in tourism. Tourism Management 33; 553–561.

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Chapter 11

Tourism for Whom: The Unmet Challenge Richard Butler, C. Michael Hall, Geoffrey Wall and John Swarbrooke Context This concluding chapter is not about research per se, but rather the responses of researchers, who between them represent almost 200 years of research activity in tourism, to a humorous question on a serious topic. In selecting a topic inspired by British comedians, it was perhaps inevitable that respondents to the probe were, like this author, British, male, Caucasian and at least ‘mature’ in age. Whether the chord that the topic hits only resonates to that subgroup of tourism researchers is unknown, but their responses raise some interesting concerns about tourism, tourism research and attitudes towards both subjects. It is clear that there is some degree of consensus by the authors over the fact that tourism and research on that subject have experienced what is frequently inappropriate and unreasonable criticism and derogation, often from those engaged in such research, as well as often avoiding tackling some of the more difficult problems raised by the phenomena we call tourism. Clearly tourism can create and exacerbate problems in any location, and it almost always results in change in places, residents of those places and people visiting those places. Such change is not necessarily negative, and is often invited and welcomed by residents of tourist destinations. That the resulting changes may not meet the desires of all locals and most likely not those of many tourist researchers, does not mean that tourism is automatically bad. There is clearly a need to evaluate fairly and accurately the effects of tourism, and it would be sensible to do this before development rather than afterwards and certainly not on the basis of a one-time snapshot, which seems to happen far too frequently in the case of tourism research. Thus, in answering the question asked in this probe, the authors suggest that all too often we (tourism researchers) focus on what are regarded as the problems of tourism and tourism research, rather than on an even-handed review of what tourism can and does offer and what effects it has had over a long period. 339

11.1

What Has Tourism Ever Done for Us? Richard Butler

Readers of the probe series in the book may find this probe somewhat more personal than research focused, but some other probes and responses thereto also have been akin to personal statements and somewhat closer to the Socratic concept as suggested by Dann (2013). Thus I responded to the Editor’s request for possible topics for a probe with the view of setting forth some thoughts on where tourism was in terms of its academic position and the contribution it has made over a considerable period to human life and society. In producing this paper, as the title should reveal, I was influenced by that funniest and also most critical of films, the Life of Brian, and the response to the question of what the Romans had done for the residents of Palestine (especially those rebelling against Roman rule at the time). The answer in that case, of course, despite the protagonists’ best intentions, was rather a lot, if one counted as important water, drainage, roads, education, wine and a few other attributes (see Hall, Chapter 11.2). In the same vein I thought of tourism, having read shortly before writing the first draft of this paper a number of critical pieces about tourism, generally expressing negative conclusions about its economic value, its social and cultural effects, and its environmental impacts. While it is easy to be negative about some aspects of tourism, as one might be about many forms of economic activity, it struck me that tourism has rather become the ‘Margaret Thatcher’ of academia. By that I mean that one can always find something critical and negative to say about it (her), sometimes out of context, sometimes missing essential comparisons and almost always stated for an easy laugh or applause. In the same way as the ‘Iron Lady’ has been blamed for causing economic imbalance, abolishing society and establishing unfair taxation, tourism has been blamed for encouraging economic dependency, representing a new form of colonialism, ruining traditional cultures and ways of life, and contributing significantly to global warming and climate change, as well as endangering heritage (in human, 340

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environmental and physical forms). And that list is just from those involved in researching tourism, to say nothing of those who are in the more ‘traditional’ disciplines or the news media, to whom tourism is mostly either both trivial and not worthy of academic attention, or an extremely problematic and undesirable phenomenon. So perhaps we should ask ourselves if that really is all tourism has been or done, i.e. become a butt for jokes and insults, and/or an economic, cultural and environmental disaster? Or are students (in particular) and others being misinformed, accidentally or deliberately, about some of its positive features and effects? At this point some readers will be girding their loins or other parts in preparation for launching a response to what they assume will be a polemic about how great tourism is and why it is saving the world from economic and possibly other forms of disaster. I would ask them to unbind or at least loosen their knots for a short while. I certainly do not wish to play a role as a booster for tourism, nor do I wish to discuss only good things about tourism, but I do feel it is necessary to present a more balanced and less polar viewpoint of tourism phenomena if it is to be portrayed accurately as the major global social and economic activity that it has become. It is difficult to do this with any feeling of certainty because of the dubious nature of many of the tourism statistics that exist. Despite the best efforts of colleagues involved in working on the value of tourism, the average tourism scholar cannot access totally reliable figures on the real value of tourism at any level. Thus, trying to say how much income tourism has generated or how many jobs it has created is impossible, unless one is satisfied with a response such as ‘a lot’. This goes back to an inherent fault in tourism, clearly stated many years ago by the late Neil Leiper (1998), namely, the fact that tourism researchers cannot agree on a definition of tourism, and thus logically therefore cannot define what it does, or measure accurately what value it has or what its effects are. Thus, statements that tourism is the biggest item in world trade are still made (McKercher, 2009), along with other myths about the rates of growth of specific subsets of tourism. Multiple counting of what are clearly overlapping forms of tourism allow proponents to produce widely exaggerated estimates of the value of elements of tourism, such as wildlife or culture. Thus anyone entering a museum may be counted as a ‘cultural’ or a ‘heritage’ tourist (and sometimes both), even if they have only entered to escape inclement weather or to find a toilet, and then may be counted again as another cultural/heritage tourist when they enter an art gallery. Yet tourism does have some positive effects in terms of economic development, taxation and job creation, along with the revitalization of communities if not regions, unless many governments and businesses at all levels are sadly mistaken (not that this is impossible, although unlikely). Tourism and its related elements (leisure and recreation) are frequently the focus of urban regeneration schemes in many cities and regions across Europe and in other parts of the world. While not all such efforts are successful, many are, or are

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perceived to be, as illustrated by the ambition of many cities to be nominated as one of such tourist inspired creations as ‘Cities of Culture’. At the very least, tourist promotions, which is what these really are, represent a way of reallocating wealth from one region to another, from one economic level of society to another, as shown by the temporary movement of people on vacation from England’s south east to the peripheries of Britain, or of residents of Northern Europe to Southern Europe for their holiday experiences. Thus, one might make an argument for the fact that one of the things tourism has done for us has been to assist in the redistribution of wealth, often to areas most needing financial income and investment, notwithstanding the fact that a considerable amount of that money eventually returns to its origin regions, but after having provided employment and markets for products. That, however, is no different to any other export industry, where it is rare for any product to have no economic leakage. Having completed this paper in the South Pacific, it became abundantly clear that many of the small island groups in that ocean have virtually no external sources of income beyond remittances and tourism, thus to them, tourism is certainly the main, if not the only, one, of an extremely limited number of ways to generate income and employment. What might critics say of this? Yes, well it has brought money, but it has also brought tourists and crowding and litter and crime and so on, of which the attraction of tourists is probably the most damning criticism. One is reminded of the television programme Yes Minister in which it was pointed out to the minister concerned that the ideal hospital was one without patients as this avoided many problems. Many critics of tourism, particularly mass tourism, would appear similarly to desire destinations without tourists. Are the results of tourism really worse than no economic activity and the permanent unemployment and despair this accompanies this, or alternatively perhaps, industrial development and resulting air or water pollution? Does tourism promote crime? Does crime not accompany money wherever it goes? Most tourists are not criminals, they are more sinned against than sinning. The fact that they have money hardly justifies them being victims of crime, any more than one could accept the argument that the way a person looks causes them to be victims of assault or other criminal acts. So if tourism generates crime (a questionable proposition at best), it is generally because tourism generates money which attracts criminals, as do other economic activities, and not solely because of the nature of tourism. One of the major benefits of developing tourism is the generally accompanying improvements in transportation and access to a location. If such improvements mean additional traffic and expense, they also normally mean additional jobs. Improved access to a location also implies improving access from a location, providing residents with improved contact with the outside world. Some of the most ardent supporters of improved transportation links are local residents, particularly those in remote areas who for years may have suffered inadequate and expensive limited access to markets, medical,

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education and other services, as well as retail opportunities. The development of transportation services for tourists also serves local residents. Here of course is one, perhaps the major, problem with tourism for many who see it as a negative influence. Tourism causes change, and to some (academics in particular), change is almost always seen as negative. One sometimes gets the impression that the impoverished peasants in potential and current tourism destinations should be allowed (or even required) to continue in their hard but traditional ‘authentic’ lifestyles, even if they do not wish to do so. Improved access to and from a region, increased contact with other lifestyles, more money and different employment patterns all result in change, but this is not a prerequisite of tourism alone. This may result in local residents moving to more attractive options once they are able to do so, and in immigration by outsiders who see opportunities provided by tourism in such locations. People sell houses when they move or when they inherit them; if such premises become second homes, creating demand for renovation work and other services, is this better or worse than them remaining empty properties of absentee owners? Many of the ‘problems’ of second home communities derive from former residents being content to sell unwanted or surplus residential properties or land to those wishing to visit and stay, temporarily perhaps, in the community. The increase in value of such properties, ultimately reflected in increased taxation at various levels, may indeed prevent generally low-paid local residents from purchasing these properties for residential purposes, but is that effect any different from that of a new industrial plant or government office creating employment and increased demand and prices for housing? It is inappropriate to criticize tourism for causing change when change may well be desired by residents of impacted areas, and unfair to blame tourism as if it alone is responsible for impacts that are common to most forms of development. Thus the issue of ‘what has tourism done for us’, with its sometimes negative rather than positive connotations, perhaps arises because it is about pleasure, generally other peoples’ pleasure, and is thus open to criticism from many quarters, especially where the pleasure of tourists results in change for residents of destinations. The frequent criticism, and down playing of, or ignoring the success and positive effects of, tourism by tourism scholars is, to say the least, hypocritical. We (tourism academics) have our specific jobs and if we are lucky, careers and reputations, because of tourism, as well as the opportunity, not always realized by some, to conduct research in what are often the most attractive and desirable places on the planet. That does not mean we should sycophantically eulogize tourism, but it does suggest that we should be honest and unbiased (perhaps impossible for most academics) about the full legacy of tourism. As a geographer, this author is particularly interested in the effect of tourism on places, destinations, origins and the locations in between. Any student of natural processes (and mankind is a natural species despite performing some apparently unnatural actions) will be very aware that nature

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is not static, but highly dynamic. Change is inevitable regardless of human intervention, even trying to prevent change is an aspect of change in itself, and the fact that tourism causes change is neither automatically good nor bad, but inevitable. If tourism has no effect, there is no point to it. It should result in increased pleasure for tourists, and presumably at least financial benefit for those living in tourist destinations. This does not mean every resident will benefit from tourism, such a situation is rare for almost any form of economic activity, yet many scholars seem to delight in ignoring what would be a reasonable comparison with other forms of development to determine if the positives outweigh the negatives resulting from tourism development. To do so accurately would require longitudinal studies, and scrutiny not only in the specific destinations but in much wider areas. Many years ago, Wall (1981) noted how environmental effects that might be attributed to or blamed on tourism might well have other causes. We have to face how ill-prepared tourism researchers in general are to really identify the true environmental impacts of tourism. The classic review of the effects of tourism by Mathieson and Wall (1982) represents one of the few attempts to examine tourism’s impacts in a holistic context, as distinct from the many one-time one-off studies that often illustrate only what are perceived as the negative effects of tourism on specific destinations, sometimes out of temporal and even spatial context, as well as sometimes simply being inaccurate. To be fair, one should also consider what tourism has not done for us. Peace is perhaps the obvious thing, for despite protestations to the contrary (Wohlmuther & Wintersteiner, 2013), there is no evidence that tourism has brought about peace. Tourism and war rarely coincide, but the aftermath of war (including castles, battlefields, cemetaries, prisons) generally represents a tourist bonanza (Butler & Suntikul, 2013). Arguments that tourism is a force for peace are essentially wishful thinking, as the presence of tourism between countries has never been shown to have prevented war. Most tourism is between neighbouring countries and so too are most wars, with the last three global conflicts beginning with countries being invaded by their neighbours despite the fact that there was considerable tourist activity between them or within them. Neither can we prove that tourism has a health benefit, although a holiday or at least a rest from work may be necessary for mental and physical health reasons, such as by exposing sun-starved northern dwellers to much needed Vitamin D. However, the lives thus saved are probably outnumbered by deaths relating to travelling to and from holiday destinations, and accidents on site (e.g. from drowning, falling and overindulging in alcohol and drugs with unfortunate consequences). So what has tourism really done for us? In short, it has made millions of people happy, if only briefly and temporarily. It has provided participants with new experiences, some limited knowledge about places and people, exposed them to new food, sights, sounds and smells, enabled new friends,

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lovers and business partners to be made, and hopefully sent most, if not all, back home uplifted in one or more ways. The fact that it does that each year for many millions of people (UNWTO, 2014) in an international setting, and considerably more in a domestic setting, is proved by the repetitive participation on an annual or more frequent basis by those fortunate enough to be able to travel. However, part of the ‘problem’ that is tourism, appears to be the fact that over time more and more people have been able to participate in travel for pleasure and the fact that this now includes many who do not fit the apparent ‘approved’ or ‘desired’ model of the appropriate tourist makes some commentators uneasy, to say the least. One cannot avoid the conclusion that it is often not tourism per se or even tourists who are the ‘problem’, but rather it is the fact that the mass can and do participate in tourism that is seen and cited as the problem. No-one has as bad a name as a tourist except a mass tourist who is often made out to be the cause of all that is evil. These poorly educated, poorly behaved plebeians with poor taste and a lack of appreciation for the finer things in life, who continue to behave abroad as they do at home, and want the comforts of home while on holiday, would seem to be the scourge of the planet, equivalent to modern day Vikings or Mongols, characterized by the oft-cited title ‘Golden Hordes’ of Turner and Ash (1975). A more lengthy and well-supported discussion of the effect of tourism on destinations is contained in Chapter 6 of this volume, ‘Vanishing Peripheries: Does Tourism Consume Places?’ (Hall et al.), to which the interested reader is directed. Not only do mass tourists now generally travel to their destinations by plane or car rather than by train, bicycle or foot, they do so en masse and often at the same time, thus requiring considerable investment and change in otherwise unspoilt and ‘authentic’ local communities. To some academic commentators, who of course have more freedom to choose their timing of travel, this means that their own preferred holiday destinations are now changed forever, geared to catering to the lowest common denominator. Even worse, the ‘mob’ is now beginning to set their horizons ever further afield, and by engaging in ‘binge’ flying, not only travel more often, but also travel more widely. Africa, Asia and even Antarctica are now within their sights (sites), and soon nowhere will be safe from the average person. If one thinks these comments are unfair, attention might be drawn not only to academic tomes on tourism, but also to the travel supplements and guides in the popular media (especially the upmarket segment of the media), where one rarely finds any kind words about the destinations to which the vast majority of people travel, but rather endorsement only of places currently beyond the reach of the great unwashed (‘The sort of people you really don’t want to bump into on holiday’, as one travel writer put it recently; Hemming, 2014: 9), either because of temporal or budgetary constraints. To make the hypocrisy worse, most of the commentators in the media (and sometimes us

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academics) have visited the locations they describe favourably as guests of the operators or employers. Despite the great dislike for large scale tourism and its consequences (often the result of the efforts of university educated politicians, developers, managers and planners, trained by tourism academics in many cases), tourism has continued to grow continually for many years. It is unfortunate that many exponents of tourism research denigrate this accomplishment and focus on finding problems resulting from tourism and encouraging their students to follow similar patterns of activity. But then, of course, most academics see themselves as not tourists but ‘travellers’, and thus view with disdain the pleasure spots and activities of the mass while continuing to protest about residents of such locations desiring to benefit, at least economically, from development associated with tourism. So the answer to the question posed by the title of this polemic, ‘What has tourism done for us?’ can be concluded as ‘Nothing, apart from employment, investment, enjoyment, improved access to destinations, improved services in destinations, greater interaction between people, and increased ability for many people to make a living in their own place of residence’. This can be summed up perhaps by that phenomenon much loved by local peasants but much hated by some academics, ‘development’.

11.2

What’s Tourism Ever Done for Us? Depends Where You are Looking From and Who’s Looking C. Michael Hall

Life of Brian Script, Scene 10: Before the Romans Things Were Smelly Reg: All right … all right … but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order … what have the Romans done for us? Xerxes: Brought peace!

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Reg: (very angry, he’s not having a good meeting at all) What!? Oh … (scornfully) Peace, yes … shut up! (Another Bleeding, Monty Python Web Site http://montypython.50webs. com/scripts/Life_of _Brian/10.htm; also see Chapman et al., 2001: 29).

The issue of what tourism has done for us is simultaneously personal, humorous and serious. This is not primarily a personal account of tourism or a form of autoethnography/autobiography (Hall, 2010a), as significant as they may be in explicating and backgrounding my position (Hall, 2013a). Instead, this response to the research probe focuses on the critical, but often ignored, issue of positionality. Whether something is good or bad is not implicit in the thing. It depends on the viewpoint of the beholder. We may be interested in that perspective alone or we may seek to probe deeper and attempt to understand how it has been socially constructed. In the case of tourism, whether something is good or bad depends at least in part on where you are situated in the tourism system, the distribution of benefits and externalities; your socially constructed understanding of tourism and its impacts; and such constructions intersects with the broader contexts of structure, values and interests. The latter comment not being to deny agency per se, but to note that if one’s understanding of the value of something is socially constructed, then, to what extent? Have social and economic structures and the interests that have served to reinforce them affected the perceptions of those constrained by such structures? In other words, in seeking to understand the costs and benefits of tourism at both an individual and collectively level, we also need to consider the alternatives, counterfactuals and opportunity costs. But, let us be in honest, in tourism that hardly ever happens. At least by the majority of tourism academics who, you would think, should be the very ones to ask such questions. As argued previously, ‘Any analysis of academic responsibility related to broader debates on global issues of importance must, of necessity, deal with ethical issues. But just as significantly we need to understand positionality and the location of individual academics, as well as academic institutions, within broader webs of power, values and interests’ (Hall, 2010b: 298). Yet, in tourism, academics have not substantially involved themselves in such debates, at least in print: Every field of endeavour has its history of ideas and practices and its traditions of debate. These act as a store of experience, of myths, metaphors and arguments, which those within the field can draw upon in developing their own contributions, either through what they do, or through reflecting on the field. (Healey, 1997: 7) Barnes similarly observed with respect to economic geography: Historical knowledge of our discipline enables us to realize that we are frequently ‘slaves of some defunct’ economic geographer; that we cannot

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escape our geography and history, which seep into the very pores of the ideas that we profess; and that the full connotations of economic geographic ideas are sometimes purposively hidden, secret even, revealed only later by investigative historical scholarship. (Barnes, 2012: 1) Unfortunately, in the case of tourism studies, the author would argue that there is not enough reflection and debate (Hall, 2005a, 2013b) (although see the various contributions in Hall, 2011a, as a very notable exception). We do not know who we are slaves too. Or, to be more precise, we do not publically acknowledge in our writings enough to whom we have a debt of intellectual or other bondage. There is, unfortunately, as yet no sociology of tourism knowledge in the same way that other social science fields have reflected upon themselves. I am not sure why this is (Hall, 2005a). Perhaps some do not find it interesting. Perhaps, like much of the tourism industry itself, there seems a desire not to debate what may be seen as potentially negative subjects, such as contestation, power, why and why things do not get published, and the positions that are taken with respect to tourism development, as this may somehow detract from what is often portrayed as the rational production of tourism knowledge, especially when it comes to dealing with government and industry and not biting the hands that feed (Hall, 2005a). Perhaps it also relates to individual career paths. If I criticize someone else or not reference their work, then maybe they will hold it against me? Indeed, increasingly around the world there seems to be positive incentives not to debate because of the potential fallout in academic reviews through either what or where you publish or how much money you attract (Hall, 2005a, 2011b). The latter now being a major or even essential criteria for gaining professorships in the field of tourism rather than being able to ‘profess’ and communicate one’s knowledge, i.e. we do not really care too much about what you say, so long as you bring money in to cover the institutional costs that government, the private sector and/or student fees are not covering. (And, of course, you do not open the university up to legal action!) These are not idle reflections, as the growth of academic capitalism (Rhoades & Slaughter, 1997; Slaughter & Lesslie, 1997; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004) strikes at the core of understanding how tourism knowledge is produced, what it is that we study and how we see tourism (Hall, 2010b). Knowledge creation and management in tourism is therefore definitely not value free, despite the pretences of some for objectivity. Questions must be asked such as for whom we are producing such knowledge and how it will be used. Reflections on academic debates in tourism are often presented as part of a rational discourse in which the role of interests, ideologies and institutions are minimized or not noted at all, and in which the positionality of disciplinary gatekeepers are ignored (Hall, 2010b, 2013b). (See for example

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the critique of climate change denial papers in Tourism Management that noted, not only the financial and political interests associated with the paper, but also argued that it should never have been published (Hall et al., 2015).) This may also be because of fears of economic or professional repercussions, especially from granting institutions and gatekeepers such as journal editors (Hall, 2013b). Alternatively, things may have reached such a stage that to even ‘speak out’ is frowned upon in an academic climate in many countries in which the research problems and therefore answers are being framed as rational and value-free in the sense that they should not affect the neoliberal status quo that is increasingly dominated by business and conservative political interests. Rational accounts of the development and growth of tourism as a field of study, including for example with respect to citation analysis, therefore stand ‘in stark contrast to the discussions that occur “backstage” at conferences, on emails and in general conversation between colleagues with respect to who and what is being published and research, where, how and why. You are not told who drank with who, who slept with who, and who is pissed off with who – and why’ (Hall, 2013b: 609). Despite how science methods are often taught with respect to the rationality of the scientific method, it is also not how science really works (Feyerabend, 2010). Tourism knowledge is not neutral. There is no neutral way of understanding theory. The ability to separate facts and values is rejected, as is the positivist basis to the distinction between substance (analysis) and procedure (process) (Allmendinger, 2002). No research, tourism or otherwise, takes place in a philosophical vacuum. Even if it is not explicitly articulated, all research is guided by a set of philosophical beliefs and values. Neither does tourism knowledge develop in an institutional or environmental vacuum. Instead there is enormous influence at both the personal level, in terms of values, career and relationships, as well as in the environment within which tourism occurs (Hall, 2004). Institutions such as universities, government, industry and interest groups, as well as significant individuals (Hall, 2005a), have considerable influence on the development of tourism knowledge, particularly through assessment and funding of research and how this influences career reward systems and what is studied and where it is published (Hall, 2005b, 2011b). This is not to say that institutions are solely responsible for the generation of tourism knowledge and what academics produce, but that they are extremely influential. In addition, such factors also affect the disciplinary boundaries within which we operate. It is no accident that growth in tourism as an academic study and tourism as an academic unit within universities and college has paralleled growth in international tourism and corresponding government interest in using tourism as a means of economic development. So in that sense, for those of us that study and write on tourism, tourism has clearly done something for us! Moreover, government and industry are interested in funding tourism education and research

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(of a certain kind), not just because of the results of research, but also because it provides industry with an educated labour force. As Massey (1999: 5) also noted with social science research in general, ‘The disciplines into which we are, with varying degrees of success, today corralled are inherited from a particular period and a particular history. And it was a history in which, of course, institutional arrangements and struggles for power played at least as strong a part as any search after the best way of enquiring into the world around us’. For this author, thinking about tourism therefore has a number of implications in terms of theory development, the practice of tourism and how we consider its effects (Hall, 2005a). First, tourism is grounded in contemporary capitalism (Britton, 1991). Thinking about tourism therefore means thinking about the constructions and processes of capitalism and the implications of this for tourism phenomenon, including aspects of consumption and production, as well as identity and class, and the interaction of structure and agency, at various scales (Hall, 2011c). Second, tourism is global in scope. This implies understanding the processes of mobility as well as globalization and its corollary of localization and the significance of place competition (Hall, 2007a; Hall et al., 2011). Moreover, a third implication that arises from considerations of mobility has to be asking why people are immobile (Coles & Hall, 2006; Coles et al., 2006). What are the constraints that prevent people from travelling? (Hall, 2010c). Fourth, ultimately tourism production is grounded in human interaction within the natural environment. Acknowledging the grounding of production in nature has far reaching implications that imply conceptualizing production in terms of relations between the social, spatial and natural. Moreover, introducing environmental concerns raises issues of equity and social justice as well as sustainability (Gössling et al., 2013; Hall, 2014a; Harvey, 1996) and form the basis for a broader understanding of the relationship between tourism and security (Hall, 2013b; 2014b). Fifth, different forms of mobility are interrelated, movement leads to further movement, this means that the interrelationships between tourism and migration, as well as diaspora, transnationalism and the very notion of home are of enormous significance for tourism studies (Coles et al., 2004, 2006; Hall, 2005a, 2008). Sixth, concepts of space and time, as well as an understanding of the body moving through space and time, are also essential to understanding tourism in different locales and at different scales of analysis (Hall, 2005a, 2005b, 2007b; Hall & Lew, 2009). Seventh, the above list and associated citations also highlights that I am a part of these implications in that I am both a producer of tourism knowledge, and participate in intellectual debates and struggles as to the competing merits of approaches and theorizations of the subject, which includes how we frame tourism and its values, and I am also a tourist. This means that positionality is extremely significant when I, or anyone else for that matter, is seeking to respond to the question of what has tourism ever done for us. And, it needs to be remembered that even though

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the Romans did, in historical terms, bring infrastructure and other aspects that may have improved material wellbeing, the Jews, along with other subjects of Imperial Rome did also revolt. A sentiment that could easily be applied in a present-day tourism context to occupied Tibet or some of the western provinces of China. Inherent in the above discussion is also the notion that the scope of tourism studies is more than just an applied business discipline and producing a labour force for the industry. It is a means of constructing how we come to understand a far wider phenomenon that has enormous impacts on contemporary society and the environment. This does not mean, of course, that what occurs in tourism studies should be irrelevant to industry and those that aspire to work in it. Understanding the environment within which the industry operates is essential for the development of strategy. In particular, an understanding of human mobilities in time and space can contribute not only to marketing, but also firm location, innovation and competitiveness, and destination success. Critically thinking about tourism should also be part of lifelong learning and developing better managers, as well as having intrinsic value in its own right. This is especially so when many in the tourism industry encourage university tourism programmes to have more workready graduates, while simultaneously having reduced their own investment in staff training and research and development. Or perhaps, in some cases, they would rather not employ people who think critically? Tourism and its study is about the generation of new relationships between places and people over time. Ultimately, therefore, thinking about tourism implies connecting perspectives with an understanding of their origins, connecting empirical research with theory building and connecting tourism with theory, and ensuring that our work is relevant (Hall, 2005a). Clearly that begs the response of to what and for whom? For example, the seemingly hegemonic discourse of regional and place competitiveness needs greater interrogation and reflexivity than has often been the case by policy-makers and academics alike (Hall, 2007a, 2014c). This is not just an issue of the logic of some of the arguments that move beyond a clear concept, such as price competitiveness of destinations to embrace hazier neoliberal thinking as to what countries and their governments should do to promote tourism, as embraced by the World Economic Forum for example (see Markusen, 1999, on the issue of fuzzy concepts, something that is readily applied to notions of non-price destination competitiveness). Such an analysis should also raise concerns about the positionality of those who contribute towards such discourses and the institutions and interests that enable the credibility of some research to become mobilized and not others. If we are concerned with the positionality of those who engage in climate change denial (Hall, et al., 2015), why then isn’t there concern over positions with respect to tourism development; wage and employment structures in the tourism industry; the distribution of economic benefits from tourism; and a

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constant focus on growth. Issues that are no less political in scope and which also frame how we gauge the benefits of tourism. This contribution therefore shares with other writings (e.g. Gibson & Klocker, 2004; Rose, 1997; Sidaway, 2000), the need to end the denial of the need for reflexivity, particularly by those who might seek to evade the subjectivity and situatedness of their own theories and standing. This also means dealing with the denial enacted by many academics and policy-makers in ‘semiperipheral margins of academic knowledge production’ (Gibson & Klocker, 2004: 433). For Gibson and Klocker this is Australia. For me this is not just a place, though I also see the ‘cultural cringe’ of many policy-makers and academics in other locations as well, including in New Zealand, but it is also like a number of other areas that have uncritically adopted an increasingly strong market orientation, the field of tourism (Hall, 2007a, 2010b). In seeking to respond to the question of what tourism has ever done for us, I have sought not to try and universalize a response. It depends on where and when we are looking to answer the questions, as well as noting the importance of whom for? Whether it be for those that are affected as locals or tourists, or those of us who both study tourism (and who are also tourists). This response has emphasized that positionality and political-temporal contingency is essential in understanding research and teaching work, i.e. how we both interpret and produce tourism knowledge. This also means understanding our situatedness, not only to place and people, but also with respect to how we both fit into and come to understand structures of power, interest and values and how they influence our individual agency. This situation may be because the tourism methodology literature is not sufficiently sensitive to political-temporal contingency in the research process. There may be a need for a more overtly political approach to the relations of research production, by problematizing ‘research situatedness’ vis à vis the timing of research enquiry (Darbi & Hall, 2014; Hall, 2011d; Ward & Jones, 1999). Such timing, Ward and Jones (1999) argue, plays a key role in the ‘critical positioning’ of the researcher within the governance structures of local power, which are process-based and fluid (Hall, 2011a; Hoogendoorn & Visser, 2012). Such observations do not mean that tourism is suddenly politicized – it always has been – it is just that usually tourism scholars do not want to admit to the fact that there are potential political implications arising from our work and that political assumptions are embedded in our work. Moreover, to examine the political dimensions of who wins and who loses in tourism at any particular time and space more thoroughly, does not mean that the theoretical house of cards on which tourism studies will automatically come crashing down (Sandbrook & Adams, 2012). Rather, it is made more transparent with respect to the arguments of assumptions, problem definition, analysis, the acceptability of results and examining institutions, interests and structures rather than just consumers (Hall, 2011d, 2013c, 2014d).

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So what has tourism ever done for us? Michael: All right … all right … but apart from restaurants, and better roads, and airports, and shopping malls, and coffee shops, and imports of fine wine and spirits, and a freshwater system, and having the beaches cleaned regularly, and public order, and cheap holidays … what has the tourist industry ever done for us? Richard: Gave you a job! Michael: (very angry, he’s not having a good day at all) What!? Oh … (Scornfully) paid my mortgage and allows me to travel, yes … shut up!

11.3

Tourism has Done A Lot for Us, Both Good and Ill Geoffrey Wall

People with similar backgrounds often hold similar views reflecting the socialization processes to which they have been exposed. As a geographer of similar age to the author of the position paper, also born and raised in the United Kingdom and much of whose academic career has been based in southern Ontario, it should not be surprising that there is much in common in the academic perspectives that we hold. We have read, drawn upon and contributed to similar literatures. However, in my experience it has been particularly productive to collaborate with others with different backgrounds, who read different literatures, and who may have novel insights and approaches to a project. While my own research activities have always had tourism as the primary focus, my collaborators have included climatologists, water resources specialists, resource managers and local experts in the cultures with which I have engaged in my international activities. Unfortunately, in my opinion, as tourism scholarship and education have matured they have become more inward-looking. Fifty years ago, it was

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necessary to read broadly to find materials on tourism. Now, there are more than 100 journals devoted to the topic. Where there were once few academic tourism departments, now there are many, albeit housed in a diversity of faculties and sometimes linked with other fields. While the increase in opportunities to study tourism is welcome, it may well have reduced the breadth of the context in which tourism is usually placed. It is sometimes said that ‘Having a degree in engineering may or may not mean that one knows something about engineering, but it guarantees that one knows nothing about anything else!’ Such a charge may be increasingly applicable to tourism. Butler and I may have selected two short straws: electing to study tourism within departments of geography, as to some both tourism and geography, like the late Rodney Dangerfield, have no respect. On the other hand, perhaps this gave us freedom to explore more widely on the margins of our core discipline. Neither of us actually took courses on tourism in our formative academic years, which led us to reach out widely for insights, thus developing courses on tourism with limited guidance other than from our own reading and research experiences. Current requirements on young scholars to read, reference and publish in a limited number of narrowly focused journals to gain personal prestige may contribute little to the broader reputation of tourism scholarship. For this to occur, it is necessary for tourism scholars to engage with those in other fields and to publish in their journals, thereby demonstrating that they have something to offer to the broader world. Butler’s (1980) widely quoted paper on tourism life-cycles was not published in a tourism journal and is, therefore, not counted in many of the misguided research rankings of recent years. Much the same can also be said about the important scholarship of Erik Cohen among others. I concur that definitions and data are important. I do not find it necessary to have one unwavering definition of tourism, as some variation may be appropriate depending upon the needs of the study, but it is necessary to know what is included and excluded in any particular case. As someone who has long tried to promote an understanding of a broad range of tourism impacts in a balanced way, I may have given undue attention to those that are often perceived to be negative at the expense of more positive outcomes. The way in which issues are framed will influence what is studied and even the outcome of investigations. I believe strongly that positive consequences of tourism development initiatives are unlikely to occur by chance and that it is necessary to actively seek positive synergistic relationships between various parts of the tourism system and other systems with which tourism engages. It is never easy to move from data to information to knowledge. Tourism, especially international tourism, is blessed with a plethora of numerical data, but they are seldom at the scale, in a form or about the research topics than one might wish to pursue, especially if one is interested in understanding

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tourism at the local level. Furthermore, the insights that are derived from them may be incorrect. Consider the oft-stated claim that tourism is the largest industry in the world. Leaving aside the debate concerning whether or not it meets the criteria necessary to be considered an industry, there are still more people employed in farming and food processing globally than in tourism. Nor is it the fastest-growing sector: I suspect that information technology outpaces it substantially. In part, such false claims may be underpinned by sloppy quotation: for example, ‘may be one of the largest industries in the world’ is often reduced to ‘one of the largest industries in the world’ to ‘the largest industry in the world’. In one of my first publications, as a cautionary note on the application of distance decay curves when I found that few car-owners travelled a very short distance on day trips, I suggested that perhaps they had to travel about 30 miles to leave their accustomed environment before they even considered that they had taken such a trip at all. I have been erroneously quoted as stating that a trip must be at least 30 miles one way for it to be considered a day trip. However, the problem is deeper than misquotation. Claims that ecotourism, heritage tourism, marine tourism, cruise tourism and the like are the fastest-growing types of tourism cannot all be correct. Yet such contradictory claims are published repeatedly and uncritically in our top journals for self-serving purposes (to emphasize the importance of the topic that is being addressed by the author), thereby, again somewhat paradoxically, undermining our collective credibility. Respect must be earned and the proliferation of outrageous claims does little to garner the respect that is desired, particularly among critical readers from elsewhere in academia. The fact that a statement can be supported with a citation (sometimes a self-citation) does not necessarily make it correct! I may have exaggerated this problem, for our journals are not as widely read as we would like in other disciplines, nor among industry operators. The tourism industry has not historically been a major user of research, exceptions being some large tourism corporations, such as airlines, that have their own research departments. Industry spokespersons, probably correctly, have often suggested that academic research that is published does not adequately address their needs. Much is not intended to. It is underpinned by a broader search for understanding, and industry needs do not drive such investigations. Much of my research has attempted to give a voice to those whose interests have been overlooked, even suppressed on occasion, by ill-conceived government and industry initiatives. Of course, industry needs are legitimate, worthwhile and merit attention, as do their needs for a trained workforce, but industry also bears responsibilities to address its own needs and it is not necessary for all researchers and educators to bow to their demands. In fact, to do so would be the quickest way to ensure the creation of only a partial understanding of tourism and its manifestations.

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At this point, paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, I am tempted to state: Ask not what tourism can do for you, ask what you can do for tourism! Who is the ‘us’ in the question that was been posed to Butler? The human population, past, present and potentially future? Tourists? The industry and its constituent parts? Tourism destinations? Researchers? The tourism academic community? The environment? The economy . . .? Clearly, there are many stakeholders who are involved in tourism in different ways and the answer will vary depending upon which group one has in mind and the nature of their interests and involvements. The trend to consider the perspectives of a wider variety of stakeholders is a welcome one, for it can be an antidote to overly simplistic statements about the implications of tourism. Tourism is a collective word and a label for a complex phenomenon with many constituent parts. Use of the word by itself invariably involves over generalization. Hence, it is usually associated with a modifier: mass, sustainable, eco, responsible, community-based and so on. Even then, there is a danger of over simplification and circular argument. It is often difficult to separate the consequences of tourism from those that may be attributable to other causes of modernization. I think of villages I studied in Indonesia, especially Bali, that experienced within a very short time period the paving of roads, electrification (including movies and television, and more recently computers and cell phones), the introduction of family planning and the green revolution, as well as tourism, and wonder exactly what was cause and what was consequence, as well as how local residents interpret their changing circumstances. Did the paving of roads result in more tourism or did tourism create the need for road improvements? These are researchable topics, but the research still needs to be done in Bali and elsewhere, and should encompass more than tourism. On observing young Balinese men in jeans and leather jackets, I was told that this was an example of the demonstration effect. Perhaps this was true with respect to movies and television, but not in relationship to tourism. Most tourists in Bali change immediately into shorts and colourful shirts and some western women wear unaccustomed sari-like garments that they commonly find difficult to keep on. Balinese people do not dress like this! Who is demonstrating what to whom in this situation? It is probably helpful to discuss types of tourism rather than tourism as if it were an undifferentiated phenomenon. Tourism can generate economic benefits and impose costs, it can both undermine and revive cultures, and it can destroy or be used to protect fragile environments. These statements are not contradictory, rather they are contingent, their appropriateness varying with the circumstances. The outcome depends on both the type of tourism and the attributes of the places in which it occurs. It is inevitable that the forms that tourism will take, and what it will do for us, will be different on a coral reef from a desert or a snow-covered mountain. Similarly, it is not unusual to find that significant differences in perceptions of tourism with gender, age, education or some other socio-economic

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variable found in one place cannot be corroborated elsewhere. Rather, the relationships may be real differences that exist between places, reflecting different types of tourism, different environmental settings and different development options. Such interpretations reveal how easy it is to over generalize from case studies (which dominate the tourism literature) and the need for public input into decision making, for it cannot be assumed that the detailed findings for one place at a particular time will remain unchanged or can be applied uncritically elsewhere. I describe my own research agenda as the exploration of the implications of different types of tourism for places with different characteristics. If one has some understanding of these things, then one may have something to contribute to planning, although few planning initiatives are solely about tourism so the ability to put one’s tourism insights into a broader context is vital. Although planning systems vary, done well, the creation and implementation of plans can help to create circumstances in which there is a greater likelihood of a wider variety of stakeholders benefitting from the initiatives that are taken, including those pertaining to tourism. Although I have been dismissive of some of the outlandish claims that are made in the name of tourism, the very fact that they are made is an indication of tourism’s importance. Although tourists’ engagements with destination people, cultures and environments are often superficial, the fact that tourists spend money, exchange ideas, require services and take things home with them (suntans, souvenirs and sometimes spouses) has substantial implications. In fact, it may be useful to regard much tourism as a form of urbanization, for tourists need a temporary home, transportation, use water and electricity, and generate waste, usually in greater magnitude per capita than residents. There are few parts of the world, except perhaps the deepest oceans, that are unaffected by tourism. The impacts of tourism are so far-reaching and of such magnitude that tourism can be regarded as an agent of global change. It also interacts with many other forms of global change – including demographics, urbanization, globalization, politics, migration, deforestation, desertification, species extinction and climate. Furthermore, these changes are often superimposed upon one another, particularly in coastal and mountain areas. It is crucial to acknowledge that not all people are able to be tourists and some work for low pay in menial jobs to meet the demands of those from elsewhere, in tourism and in other sectors. Tourism has done a lot for us and to us, for both good and ill, the outcomes depending very much upon how we, as stakeholders, engage with the tourism system, both as individuals and societies. It is a force for change but it does not act alone. While it is natural for tourism scholars to probe deeply into tourism phenomena, it is clear that understanding, let alone resolution, of the most pressing and important tourism-related problems requires engagement with a very wide range of

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subject matter. This is both an attraction and challenge of tourism scholarship. Tourism is far from being a frivolous matter, but its importance is rarely as widely appreciated as it should be except when the tourists fail to come. Greater recognition of what tourism does will occur when more tourism scholars look outward and engage with the pressing problems that face societies, thereby demonstrating the importance of tourism and the utility of the insights that many tourism scholars possess, rather than looking inward to address the more picayune interests of academia and the so-called tourism industry.

11.4

Are We Going to Use Tourism or Be Used by Tourism? John Swarbrooke

My contribution may not be well received by those seeking an objective theoretical discussion concerning the impact of tourism, for, what follows are my personal thoughts about the impact of tourism to date and the future, and these are the thoughts of a middle-aged Caucasian man from the UK. I begin by looking at the impact that tourism has on the tourists themselves, as I think this aspect of tourism has been rather neglected. I grew up in Britain when most holidays were taken domestically, but international travel was just starting to be accessible to people on ‘normal’ incomes. I recall the excitement I felt as a child when I glimpsed the sea from the bus at the start of our annual family holiday. At the age of seven, my grandparents took me on my first ever flight. Pilots in leather jackets flew a 28-seat aeroplane that had seen service in World War II, an experience that truly changed my life. Perhaps nothing shows the evolution of tourism as much as clothing. When I was young, people dressed up to travel, an occasion that merited the wearing of one’s best clothes, whereas today, travel has become so commonplace that people seem to dress down to fly. I see this as the triumph of democratization in the tourism market. Vacations are an opportunity to discover new places and cultures and broaden our horizons. My contention is

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that all travel enriches the life of the traveller, albeit in very different ways, whether it is the student on a gap year, the couple on a city break or the family in their all-inclusive resort. This is why people look forward to their vacation for months and make sacrifices to afford the kind of trip they want. I sense that we are seeing a change where the actual destination is becoming less important than what the tourist is doing there and who is doing it with them. Destinations are becoming the frame for the picture rather than the painting itself. In ‘less-developed’ parts of the world, as economic development occurs and people begin to have disposable income, they seem to want to use at least part of this income to travel. This represents our greatest challenge, namely, how to accommodate the legitimate aspirations of the citizens of the world to travel while ensuring that tourism can be sustainable. We tend to talk a lot, quite rightly, about tourists having responsibilities, but we rarely hear about their rights, such as the right to be safe and the right not to be ripped off just because they are tourists. I do not believe that ‘the customer is always right’. We need to challenge some tourist behaviours; the idea that because I have paid for my vacation I can do what I like in someone else’s place of residence is not acceptable. I do think that sometimes our views as tourism researchers have been too judgemental about the consumer behaviour of those whose choices and preferences are at odds with our own. This is natural, but it is not a sound basis for the development of theory. We have too many ‘sacred cows’, ideas with little empirical underpinning, but which seem to have become established as facts, no longer open to challenge. Then there are the ‘mad cows’, ideas that appear to fly in the face of all political reality, such as the imposition of huge eco-taxes on aviation as a demand-reduction tool. In addition, of course, there are the ‘cash cows’: terms such as ‘ecotourism’, which the industry uses to allow its products to command a higher price. Sometimes actions appear to be proposed without thought about the consequences. We are told to reduce long-haul flying for reasons that make sense in terms of the environment. However, if this campaign were to be successful, what would the social and economic consequences be? Many countries in Asia, Africa and South America, which rely heavily on tourists who travel a long way to reach them, would lose out dramatically, while the relatively affluent countries of Europe would see an increase in numbers from neighbouring countries. So the poor would get poorer and the rich richer; is this the only, or an appropriate, way for tourists to save the planet? This example illustrates one of the major challenges in managing tourism impacts, namely, balancing the environmental, social and economic impacts. On most occasions, I would suggest that, overall, the impacts of the first are negative, the last positive and the social effects too close to call between the two. However, it is not overall that matters but what happens in specific

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localities, and this is difficult to identify and measure. The ability of any destination to absorb tourism varies based on a myriad of factors, from the political system to the geography. The first (1978) tourism research I conducted was my undergraduate dissertation (‘The social, economic and environmental impacts of tourism on a host community – A case study of Perranporth, Cornwall’). Six months of fieldwork revealed that in most places there is no such thing as ‘the community’ and most of my work subsequently has reinforced this view. Yet much tourism planning theory seems based on the idea that there is such a thing, that communities are generally benign, and that if only we listen to them everything will be fine. If we are going to make tourism more sustainable, perhaps we need a change of mindset. We need to recognize fully that sustainability is a political issue rather than a technocratic challenge. We need to get away from the idea that sustainability is something that can be achieved through top-down action from governments alone. This also means, perhaps, moving away from the term ‘sustainable tourism’ to talking about ‘responsible tourism’ instead, which acknowledges the reality that every stakeholder, including governments, industry, tourists, and local communities all have a responsibility for what tourism does. Sustainable tourism sounds like something that can be attained, but the reality may be that it is an impossible dream or a journey to an ever-changing destination at which one never actually arrives. I would like to see ‘aspirational regulation’ for tourism to make industry best-practice the norm. Such regulation is needed because the risk now is that companies at the forefront of responsible operations are in danger of being undercut by less scrupulous competitors. This would not matter if we had informed consumers pressurizing industry to take action, as they would reward the ‘good guys’ by buying their products. If anyone thinks we are already at or near this stage in the leisure tourism market, then I suggest they are dreaming rather than making an evaluation based on empirical evidence. New forms of enlightened regulation could help such organizations benefit from their pioneering work while penalizing the ‘green washers’. In the business tourism market, the situation is a little different. Here there is market demand for change. An increasing number of conference organizers representing organizations with their own corporate social responsibility policies are insisting that they can only contract venues that share their values. This has been a major motivator for many hotels to develop more substantial and less tokenistic approaches to responsible business. Before ending, I would like to move on to consider the statement ‘ask not what tourism can do for us but rather what we can do for tourism’. The ‘we’ standing for the academic community of researchers and educators. It is easier for me to make these remarks as I move towards the end of my career than it would be for a younger colleague. I believe that tourism researchers have largely failed to meet the challenge of making their work relevant and

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of value to society. In areas such as sustainability and consumer behaviour, published tourism research lags behind activity in the forward-looking parts of the industry. The obsession with journal publishing has meant that where we have undertaken valuable research, our writing has often alienated those who might have used this research. While we stress correctly that tourism is constantly changing, research in journals is months, sometimes years, old when it is published. We have struggled to develop the truly inter-disciplinary approach that tourism requires. There are not enough research teams comprising anthropologists, political scientists and psychologists, for example, working with other tourism researchers to develop theory credible in established disciplines beyond tourism. Finally, there is still an unhelpful gulf between tourism and hospitality research. Tourism research is often seen as being rooted in the social sciences, focused on policy and often critical of industry and governments, while hospitality research has tended to be rooted in business, focused on operations and less overtly critical of industry. Yet, tourism and hospitality are inextricably linked and should learn from each other, for their strengths and weaknesses are almost perfect mirror images. Tourism researchers can, and should, make major contributions to how tourism evolves. Instead of ploughing and re-ploughing already well-worked soil, we need to be breaking new ground. We need to be at the forefront of research on issues ranging from water resources in the tourism product to labour conditions, from human rights in tourism to social inclusion in the tourism market, and to applying the concept of fair trade in tourism. More fundamentally, we need a change in the role of some tourism researchers from passive observers to activists. Perhaps naively, I believe that our research can actually change the world as well as creating new knowledge. We should be prepared to disseminate our work widely in language designed to engage rather than alienate. If we believe in the quality and validity of our work, we should use it to lobby for change within industry and government. The challenge of making tourism more sustainable or responsible is the greatest test we face, and we, as tourism educators and researchers, need to ensure that we rise to this challenge. We need to send students out into the world properly equipped to deal with the world in which they will be working, with appropriate knowledge and skills such as the ability to lead and manage change. We also need to continuously expose them to debates between tourism academics to show there are no easy answers and very few facts, just matters of opinion and judgement. Furthermore, we must not see tourism as an ‘island’; our students need to see that tourism is part of many people’s lifestyle and its consumption shares many similarities with everything from fashion to food. In our understandable desire to protect our subject areas, we may have created fences around tourism that protect its distinctiveness but do not allow us to see its synergies with other activities and sectors.

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So what has tourism done for us? I would like to offer what I hope would be a balanced and brilliantly inspired answer. However, there is no real answer, because the impact of tourism is obviously different, for every individual is different and changing all the time. With my tongue pushed just a little way into my cheek, I could suggest that one of the main beneficiaries of tourism has been ourselves as tourism academics, for it has given us livelihoods and the opportunity to travel. Perhaps a more important question is to ask: ‘what will tourism do for us in the future?’ and ‘what will we do for tourism in the future?’. Alternatively, maybe the key question is, to quote my colleague, Professor Harold Goodwin, ‘Are we going to use tourism or are we going to be used by tourism?’

Concluding Remarks In concluding this chapter one can identify more areas of agreement and shared concern than disagreement. All the authors recognize that tourism itself has changed massively, not only in scale, since the advent of the modern form of tourism, which was of course driven by increases in affluence and leisure time, and major innovations in transportation and communications. These changes extend to the tourists themselves, not only in numbers and origins, but also in behaviour, dress and expectations. Most tourist destinations have changed dramatically, generally they have grown, been redeveloped, in some cases several times, seen both temporary and permanent influxes of people, gained many attributes and services including improved accessibility, and seen increased employment opportunities, although they may well have lost some of their original charm. That some destinations have declined in appeal and visitation is almost inevitable, for tourism is an economic activity as well as a social phenomenon, and all enterprises experience changes in markets, in methods of production and promotion, and inevitably some examples fall by the wayside and become redundant. There is no reason that tourism should be different. When it comes to understanding tourism and its complex linkages, as Wall notes, relatively few tourism researchers have a sufficiently broad background to be able to examine these relationships in the critical detail that is necessary. One might feel that those who have had all of their university education in tourism programmes may have been poorly served because of the issues that Wall describes, including the multiplicity of material on tourism in the present, which encourages surface exploration rather than mining the depths of knowledge, both in tourism and in related fields.

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Tourism is a rich and rewarding topic to research, and despite the biases we all have in terms of outlook, experience, expertise and ideologies, we owe it ourselves and the subject to treat it appropriately and fairly in our research, acknowledging the importance of positionality, as noted by Hall above. In conclusion, I would return to comments made by my colleagues above, by arguing that we should ask ‘not what has tourism done for us, but rather what we can do for tourism?’. The ‘we’ here being the academic community of researchers and educators, and the assumption being that we can surely do better.

References Allmendinger, P. (2002). Towards a post-positivist typology of planning theory. Planning Theory 1(1): 77–99. Barnes, T.J. (2012). Reopke lecture in economic geography: Notes from the underground: Why the history of economic geography matters: The case of central place theory. Economic Geography 88(1): 1–26. Britton, S.G. (1991). Tourism, capital and place: Towards a critical geography of tourism. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 9(4): 451–478. Butler, R.W. (1980). The concept of a tourist area cycle of evolution: Implications for management of resources. Canadian Geographer 24(1): 5–12. Butler, R.W. and Suntikul, W. (2013). Tourism and War. London: Routledge. Chapman, G., Palin, M., Cleese, J. and Jones, T. (2001). The Life of Brian Screenplay. London: Methuen Publishing. Coles, T. and Hall, C.M. (2006). The geography of tourism is dead. Long live geographies of tourism and mobility. Current Issues in Tourism 9(4–5): 289–292. Coles, T., Duval, D. and Hall, C.M. (2004). Tourism, mobility and global communities: New approaches to theorising tourism and tourist spaces. In W. Theobold (ed.) Global Tourism (3rd edn) (pp. 463–481). Oxford: Heinemann. Coles, T., Hall, C.M. and Duval, D. (2006). Tourism and post-disciplinary inquiry. Current Issues in Tourism 9(4–5): 293–319. Dann, G. (2013). Probing the historical context of research probes. Tourism Recreation Research 38(1): 99–100. Darbi, W.P.K. and Hall, C.M. (2014). Elite interviews: Critical practice and tourism. Current Issues in Tourism. 17(9): 832–848. Feyerabend, P. (2010). Against Method (4th edn). London: Verso. Gibson, C. and Klocker, N. (2004). Academic publishing as ‘creative’ industry, and recent discourse of ‘creative economies’: Some critical reflections. Area 36(4): 423–434. Gössling, S., Scott, D. and Hall, C.M. (2013). Challenges of tourism in a low-carbon economy. WIRES Climate Change 4(6): 525–538. Hall, C.M. (2004). Reflexivity and tourism research: Situating myself and/with others. In J. Phillimore and L. Goodson (eds) Qualitative Research in Tourism: Ontologies, Epistemologies and Methodologies (pp. 137–155). London: Routledge. Hall, C.M. (2005a). Systems of surveillance and control: Commentary on ‘An analysis of institutional contributors to three major academic tourism journals: 1992– 2001’. Tourism Management 26(5): 653–656.

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Hall, C.M. (2005b). Time, space, tourism and social physics. Tourism Recreation Research 30(1): 93–98. Hall, C.M. (2007a). Tourism and regional competitiveness. In J. Tribe and D. Airey (eds) Advances in Tourism Research, Tourism Research, New Directions, Challenges and Applications (pp. 217–230). Oxford: Elsevier. Hall, C.M. (2007b). Scaling ecotourism: The role of scale in understanding the impacts of ecotourism. In J. Higham (ed.) Critical Issues in Ecotourism (pp. 243– 255). Oxford: Elsevier. Hall, C.M. (2008). Of time and space and other things: Laws of tourism and the geographies of contemporary mobilities. In P. Burns and M. Novelli (eds) Tourism and Mobilities (pp. 15–32). Wallingford: CABI. Hall, C.M. (2010a). The life and opinions of C. Michael Hall, gent: A shandy or full beer? Volume the first. In S. Smith (ed.) The Discovery of Tourism (pp. 51–68). Bingley: Emerald Publishing Group. Hall, C.M. (2010b). Academic capitalism, academic responsibility and tourism academics: Or, the silence of the lambs? Tourism Recreation Research 35(3): 298–301. Hall, C.M. (2010c). Equal access for all? Regulative mechanisms, inequality and tourism mobility. In S. Cole and N. Morgan (eds) Tourism and Inequality: Problems and Prospects (pp. 34–48). Wallingford: CABI. Hall, C.M. (ed.) (2011a). Fieldwork in Tourism. Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C.M. (2011b). Yes, Virginia, there is a tourism class. Why class still matters in tourism analysis. In J. Mosedale (ed.) Political Economy and Tourism: A Critical Perspective (pp. 111–125). Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C.M. (2011c). Researching the political in tourism: Where knowledge meets power. In C.M. Hall (ed.) Fieldwork in Tourism: Methods, Issues and Reflections (pp. 39–54). Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C.M. (2011d). Fieldwork in tourism/touring fields: Where does tourism end and fieldwork begin? In C.M. Hall (ed.) Fieldwork in Tourism: Methods, Issues and Reflections (pp. 7–18). Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C.M. (2013a). Through a glass darkly: The future of tourism is personal. In J. Leigh, C. Webster and S. Ivanov (eds) Future Tourism: Political, Social and Economic Challenges (pp. 103–120). Abingdon: Routledge Hall, C.M. (2013b). Framing tourism geography: Notes from the underground. Annals of Tourism Research 43: 601–623. Hall, C.M. (2013c). Framing behavioural approaches to understanding and governing sustainable tourism consumption: Beyond neoliberalism, ‘nudging’ and ‘green growth’? Journal of Sustainable Tourism 21(7): 1091–1109. Hall, C.M. (2014a). Economic greenwash: On the absurdity of tourism and green growth. In V. Reddy and K. Wilkes (eds) Tourism in the Green Economy (pp. 339–358). London: Earthscan. Hall, C.M. (2014b). Tourism planning and human security: knowledge and intervention construction and trust in ‘solving’ environmental change. In R. Nunkoo and S. Smith (eds) Trust in Tourism Development and Planning (pp. 86–110). Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C.M. (2014c). A review of “Competitiveness and tourism”. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 22(5): 842–846. Hall, C.M. (2014d). Tourism and Social Marketing. Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C.M. and Lew, A. (2009). Understanding and Managing Tourism Impacts: An Integrated Approach. London: Routledge. Hall, C.M., Hultman, J. and Gössling, S. (2011). Tourism mobility, locality and sustainable rural development. In D. McLeod, and S. Gillespie (eds) Sustainable

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Tourism in Rural Europe: Approaches to Development (pp. 28–42). Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, C.M., Amelung, B., Cohen, S., Eijgelaar, E., Gössling, S., Higham, J., Leemans, R., Peeters, P., Ram, Y. and Scott, D. (2015). On climate change skepticism and denial in tourism. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 23(1): 4–25. Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell. Healey, P. (1997). Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. London: Macmillan. Hemming, M. (2014). The Big Weekend Palma de Mallorca. The Sunday Times Travel 9 London: News Corporation. Hoogendoorn, G. and Visser, G. (2012). Stumbling over researcher positionality and political-temporal contingency in South African second-home tourism research. Critical Arts 26(3): 254–271. Leiper, N. (1998). Personal communication, CAUTHE meeting, Gold Coast. Markusen, A. (1999). Fuzzy concepts, scanty evidence, policy distance: The case for rigour and policy relevance in critical regional studies. Regional Studies 33(9): 869–884. Massey, D. (1999). Negotiating disciplinary boundaries. Current Sociology 47(4): 5–12. Matheison, A. and Wall, G. (1982). Tourism: Economic, Physical and Social Impacts. London: Longman. McKercher, R. (2009). Research conservatism is responsible for myths in tourism research. Tourism Recreation Research 34(3): 324–326. Rhoades, G. and Slaughter, S. (1997). Academic capitalism, managed professionals, and supply-side higher education. Social Text 51: 9–38. Rose, G. (1997). Situated knowledges: Positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography 21: 305–320. Sandbrook, C. and Adams, W.M. (2012). Accessing the impenetrable: The nature and distribution of tourism benefits at a Ugandan National Park. Society & Natural Resources 25(9): 915–932. Sidaway, J. (2000). Recontextualizing positionality: Geographical research and academic fields of power. Antipode 32: 260–270. Slaughter, S. and Leslie, L. (1997). Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policies and the Entrepreneurial University. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S. and Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic Capitalism and the New Economy: Markets, State and Higher Education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Turner , L. and Ash, J (1975). The Golden Hordes: International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery. London: Constable. UNWTO (2014). World Tourism Barometer. Online at: http://mkt.unwto.org/en/ barometer. Accessed 10 March 2014. Wall, G. (1981). The environmental impacts of recreation. In Proceedings Canadian Congress on Leisure Research. Toronto: Canadian Association for Leisure Studies. Ward, G.W. and Jones, M. (1999). Researching local elites: Reflexivity, ‘situatedness’ and political-temporal contingency. Geoforum 30(4): 301–312. Wohlmuther, C. and Winterstein, W. (2013). International Handbook on Tourism and Peace. Klagenfurt: Drava.

Further Reading Hsu, C.H.C. and Gartner, W.C. (2012). The Routledge Handbook of Tourism Research. Abington: Routledge.

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Lew, A.A., Hall, C.M. and Williams, A.M. (2004). A Companion to Tourism. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pearce, D.G. and Butler, R.W. (2010). Tourism Research A 20-20 Vision. Woodeaton: Goodfellow Publishers. Singh, T.V. (2012). Critical Debates in Tourism. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Wall, G. and Matheison, A. (2006). Tourism: Change, Impacts, and Opportunities. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Index

absolute limit, 275 academic knowledge production, 352 academic obstinacy, 135, 155 adaptive management, 297 addictive consumption activity, 202 addo tertium, 83, 84 adventure traveller, 326 air travel, 88 airline industry, 244 airline partnerships, 243 alcohol, 51 alcoholic beverage, 53 alienation of modern life, 60 alternative approaches, 284 alternative tourism, 100, 194, 215 altruism, 7 altruism–egoism continuum, 108 altruistic motivation, 105 altruistic paradigm, 108 altruistic pleasure, 7, 107, 108 altruistic pursuit, 101, 105 altruistic tourist, 121 altruistic value, 122 ambassadorship, 180 amenity landscapes, 165 American mythology, 177 American tourists, 23 animal’s pulse, 272 anomie, 207 antipodeans, 175 anti-tourism, 4 anti-tourist sentiments, 21 anti-tourist, 23 apocalyptic terms, 193 apocryphal tourist, 21, 22 après la plage, 47 après-ski, 47 Arab spring, 149, 260 Armageddon, 174

armed conflict, 231 aspirational regulation, 360 austerity, 25 authentic cultural interest, 58 authenticity, 4, 23, 25, 51, 59, 60, 73, 86, 108, 258 autonomous, 78 back region, 114 backpacker, 98, 326 backpacker ghettos, 90 backpacking tourism, 100 barbarian, 4, 26, 33 binary dualism, 26 booking systems, 327 boomer, 282 borderlands, 183 bottom-up approach, 7 Bricolage, 30 BRICS nations, 247 business elites, 311 business travellers, 151 business trip, 35, 151 butterfly effect, 10, 230 Camino network, 56 capacity management, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 282, 301 capacity measurement, 267, 268, 271 capital-intensive economy, 163 carbon offsets, 237, 244 carrying capacity, 11, 267, 288, 289 cash cows, 359 catholic pilgrimage, 56 Celtic fringe, 177 central network positions, 316 charity challenge, 123, 124 Christian pilgrimage, 65 cities of culture, 342

367

368

Challenges in Tour ism Research

city of memory, 33 city periphery, 163 civic service, 119 climate change, 230, 253, 319 clothing, 288 clubbing culture, 50 codifiable knowledge, 314 collage of images, 6 collective wisdom, 1 communities of practice, 311, 317 community events, 122 community participation’, 216 community resilience, 246 community self-help, 111 community-oriented tourism, 215 commuter/suburban zones, 163 complex phenomenon, 1, 356 concept-metaphors, 58 conservation-based enterprises, 170 consumer attitude, 121 consumerism, 5 consuming places, 164 contact hypothesis, 36 contemporary, 107 contemporary social relations, 26 contemporary society, 197 cookery, 32, 50 core tourism knowledge, 318 core–periphery, 8, 162, 164, 179 corporate social responsibility, 208, 243, 360 counter-culture, 100 creative tourism, 51 critical thinking, 241 criticism of tourism, 202 critique, 2, 21, 34, 71, 73, 74, 82, 86, 150, 208, 211, 212, 213, 214, 349 crowding, 269 cruise tourism, 355 cultural background, 105 cultural dissonance, 143 cultural education, 119 cultural exchanges, 156 cultural existence, 99 cultural homogenization, 195 cultural tourism, 63 culturelessness, 207 customer databases, 327 cyber-pilgrim, 5 dark tourism, 36 dead resort, 280

debaucheries, 58 de-differentiation, 19, 23, 27, 28, 31, 35 deficiency needs, 76 definitional deficiency, 10, 13 destination management organizations, 152 destination people, 357 destination’s stakeholders, 330 developed industrial centres, 171 dichotomy, 5, 55, 65, 83 diffusionist, 171 digital nomad, 100 direct exchange, 110 disambiguation, 135, 155 disciplinary gatekeepers, 348 disposable income, 137 diversity of destinations, 226 doctrine, 46 domain of tourism, 38 domestic tourism, 144, 151 drifter, 99, 112 drifter-tourist establishment, 114 driving force indicators, 286 dropout, 99 dropping down, 100 dynamics of social control, 88 dysfunctional bricolage, 58 early backpackers, 112 Earth summit, 227 Earth’s limits, 282 easy target, 196 ecological carrying capacity, 272 ecological factors, 281 ecological fragility, 148 ecological integrity, 10 ecological sensitivity, 224 economic development, 88 economic feasibility, 224 economic output, 286 economic periphery, 9 economic restructuring, 163 ecosystem, 315 ecosystem-based services, 231 ecotourism, 10, 195, 198, 227, 355 ecotourists, 276 egoistic pleasure, 108 Egyptian hosts, 36 elenctic approach, 2 empirical, 14, 20, 23, 27, 34, 35, 37, 39, 54, 214, 254, 351, 360 endogenous, 2

Inde x

energy production, 169 enlightening travel, 217 environmental bubble, 173 environmental damage, 273 environmental havoc, 217 environmental impacts, 243 epistemological discussion, 34 equity and social justice, 350 era of scarcity, 30 erudite, 2, 257 eschews binaries, 27 ethics, 89, 209, 210, 323 Euclidean coordinates, 184 eurocentric, 52, 64 European Union, 138 event space, 20 evidence-based measurement, 287 exogenous, 2, 152, 230, 233 exotic other, 75 experiences in tourism, 37 experiential consumption, 176 experiential travel, 112 external social sanctions, 88 fair trade, 238 faith, 46 false altruism, 89 fellow traveller, 113 fine-dining restaurant, 270 first colonial capital, 172 flamingos, 276 flashpacker, 100 food consumption, 51 foreign exchange earnings, 147 foreigner-free world, 174 framing devices, 59 fundamentally destructive, 171 fund-raising, 124 future generations, 10, 13, 227, 236, 242 gambling, 52, 179 general sense of well-being, 74 global capital expansion, 170 global citizenship, 7, 97, 103, 106, 109, 124 global community, 119 global tourism market, 138 global tourism system, 138, 140, 141 global tourist system, 142 globalization, 6,9, 30, 137, 140, 145, 151, 160, 163, 180, 208, 233, 246, 350, 357 Golden hordes, 212, 345

369

golf, 50, 183, 276 Good Samaritanism, 108 grand tour, 4, 98, 99, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 112, 113, 114, 115 grand tourist, 197, 109 Greek Cypriot economy, 199 green bashing, 10 green washers, 360 greenhouse gas emissions, 239, 244, 256 greenwash, 245 growth impulse, 8 growth needs, 76, 77, 78 guiding fiction, 224, 236, 240 happy-go-lucky, 175 hedonic tourist, 5 hedonism, 5, 45, 47, 50, 51, 58, 63, 89, 107 hedonistic pilgrimages, 50 hedonistic reputation, 50 hedonistic tourism, 47 hegemonizing mission, 29 heritage sites, 47, 183, 272 heritage tourism, 36, 48, 355 hero’s journey, 108 holiday destinations, 344 holiday maker, 26, 212 holiday-worlds, 29 homelands, 178 hordes, 4, 29, 33, 47, 49, 58, 164, 212 host communities, 7, 107, 110, 112, 116, 117, 119, 211, 212, 214, 215, 216, 217, 301 host society, 9, 202 hotel management, 328 human behaviour, 54, 80, 87, 108, 174, 247, 255, 283 human condition, 108 human development, 75 human mobilities, 351 human mobility, 161 human potential, 174 human resource, 183, 277, 311 human societies, 241 hydro-electricity, 166 imagined community, 105 immersion, 7, 88, 10, 104, 105, 114, 252 independence, 29, 99, 104, 179 independent travellers, 47, 61 indirect exchanges, 109 industrial core, 8

370

Challenges in Tour ism Research

industry stakeholders, 327 information technology, 355 innuendo, 142 intensive discussion, 2 intercultural understanding, 117 intergenerational equity, 224, 230 International tourism, 98, 136, 137, 138, 142, 150, 151, 153, 154, 170, 172, 194, 196, 236, 240, 349, 354 international visitors, 149, 154, 156 internet technology, 19, 22 intra-regional contacts, 143 Israeli tourists, 36 itinerant hippie, 113 Kilimanjaro, 200 knowledge based destination, 323 knowledge dissemination, 312 knowledge management needs, 329 knowledge management, 309 knowledge networks, 316 knowledge production, 2, 311, 352 knowledge transfer, 12, 312, 315 Kyoto protocol, 256 landing rights, 243 landscape photography, 50 language learning, 50 large entertainment events, 270 last chance tourism, 123 last resort, 11, 197, 302 law of tolerance, 275 League of Nations, 3 learning networks, 316 leisure practices, 20 less-than-perfect world, 203 Life of Brian, 340 lifestyle-related diseases, 123 limit of acceptable change (lac), 269, 272, 273, 275, 282, 291 limitation of limits, 275 local community, 10, 102, 123, 200, 204, 216, 233, 247, 292 local culture, 46, 171, 175 local environmental impacts, 245 local food, 175 local residents, 233 localization, 62, 151, 152, 350 logical integrity, 10 long-haul tourism, 88, 240 lottery-based booking system, 271 low-waste technologies, 244

manatees, 276 marginal minority, 174 marginality, 8, 162, 166, 167, 171, 178 marine tourism, 355 market approach, 324 marketplace, 29, 52 mass tourism, 4, 6, 7, 9, 21, 27, 29, 47, 49–51, 54, 56, 86, 99, 100–101, 120, 155, 164, 171, 194, 205, 206, 211, 212, 214–218, 237, 239, 251, 277, 342 mass tourist, 4, 24, 34, 45, 50, 58, 60, 90, 103, 114, 173, 212–215, 345 medical tourism, 35 Mediterranean mass-tourism destinations, 47 metropolitan areas, 163, 164 middle classes, 25, 29, 98, 212, 214 middle-class sightseers, 73 migration, 64, 168, 178, 212, 230, 350, 357 milestone, 253, 256 military sectors, 242 millstone, 253, 256 mineral extraction, 166 modernity, 19, 21, 60, 61, 160, 165, 169 modest beach-side village, 215 moments of relaxation, 35 money-spending tourists, 117 Morrison fan-tribe, 57 motivation to travel, 74 multi-actor system, 206 multi-disciplinarity, 83 multiple trips, 88 national tourism offices, 325 natural disasters, 148, 149, 195, 198, 199, 231, 251 natural language, 314 nature-based tourism, 168, 228, 276 necessary evil, 197, 198 neoliberal conservation strategies, 170 neoliberal society, 104, 113, 120 network structure, 316 new academics, 13 new knowledge,13, 14, 316, 326, 327, 329, 331, 361 new migrants, 172 new mobilities paradigm, 71, 74, 75, 78 new tourists, 101 new-agey, 56 NGO-funded projects, 216 non-renewable resources, 196, 282

Inde x

non-tourism student, 3 non-travellers, 79 OECD, 205, 312, 328, 330 on the road, 4, 99, 101 opaque, 4 optimism, 259 orgies of consumption, 51 original sin, 201 othering, 102, 110 otherness, 6 others-oriented, 89 Our Common Future, 10, 224, 239 outdoor leisure, 210 outreach research, 330 over-reductivism, 27 packaged-holiday programme, 4 palazzo, 32 part-market lifestyles, 169 passenger name records, 327 passing of tourism, 28 peace, 36, 180, 243, 255, 260, 344 peak oil, 123, 148, 240 pejorative, 142 people-watching, 48 peripheral places, 165, 169, 170, 185 peripherality, 8, 162, 163, 166, 168, 169, 171, 176–179, 182, 183 permanent populations, 172 personal adventure, 101 personal development, 97 personal epiphanies, 104 personal safety, 147 pessimism, 145 phenomenological approach, 5 phenomenology, 1, 36, 37, 82 physical visitor impact, 216 physical–biological environment, 291 pilgrimage, 5, 32, 36, 45–58, 60–66 Plaisir, 31 planetary disease, 235 platonic essentialism, 201 pleasure core, 8, 9, 176–180, 184 pleasure periphery, 142, 164, 176 Plimsoll line, 286, 287 political turmoil, 149 pollutant, 21 polluting air, 212 pollution, 243, 260, 286, 342 poor tourism, 209 poor-but-happy, 115

371

poorly educated, 25 population, 243 population density, 142 population dynamics, 230 portals, 314, 315 post-enlightenment culture, 65 post-industrial society, 4 post-modern dream, 19 post-modernism, 27 post-modernity, 9, 18, 21, 28, 30, 61 post-tourism, 1, 4, 5, 23, 28, 31, 33 post-tourist, 4, 5, 6, 17, 18, 21–35, 38, 39, 83 potable water, 240 pottery, 50 prefabricated, 101 prehistoric, 82 pre-modern cultures, 60 primary industries, 311 primitive, 60, 82 private conservation reserves, 270 privately owned venues, 269 processing plants, 166 productive sectors, 156 professional development, 112 profit maximization, 253 profitable hotel, 329 profligate, 21 prosperity, 243 prostitution, 52 protection, 152, 198, 224, 225, 229, 236, 237, 243, 260, 292 pro-tourism, 275 psychological approaches, 72, 75, 76, 78, 80 psychological emancipation, 178 psychological multiplier effects, 178 psychological, 25, 71, 74, 75, 81, 85, 90, 92 public national parks, 270 publicly owned venues, 270 public–private partnerships, 206 quality research grants, 325 quest for the other, 83, 84 quest for the selfish, 87 racial minority, 177 recreational capacity, 269 recreational hobbies, 73 re-differentiation, 35 religious travel, 55

372

Challenges in Tour ism Research

research probe, 2, 54, 59, 64, 66, 72, 345, 347 research-averse, 309, 324 resilience, 224, 231 resilient communities, 233 resource manager, 1, 353 response indicators, 286 reverse logic, 258 risk-taking hedonism, 47 rite of passage, 46, 100 role of tourism, 36, 199, 231, 247 rural environment, 57 rural setting, 228, 313 rurality, 163 sacred cows, 359 sacred journey, 59, 62 safety valves, 179 saviour, 208, 215 sawmill waste, 245 scenario, 84, 153, 283, 284, 287, 288 search of self, 72 secular pilgrim, 1,5, 45, 47, 59 secular pilgrimage, 5, 48, 49, 50, 53, 65 selective package tourism, 100 self indulgence, 88 self-actualization, 86, 121 self-developers, 100 self-development, 93, 103, 106, 107, 115 self-identity, 75 selfish motives, 91 self-reflection, 115 self-reports, 75, 76 semantic borders, 4 semi core, 8, 177, 178, 180 semi-periphery, 177, 178, 180 Sequoia National Park, 275 serendipity, 4 short-term profits, 284 short-term visitation growth, 290 silk road, 183 small enterprises, 311 small is beautiful, 241 social actions, 18, 24, 26, 39 social antagonisms, 30 social class, 21, 63, 105, 174 social identity, 6, 39 social life, 19, 24, 174 social media, 207, 326, 331 social pressures, 76, 78, 92 social relationships, 75, 316 social trap, 224, 228

social-ecological system, 231, 232, 233, 246 societal change, 82 sociological approaches, 73, 75 sociological theorizing, 19, 23 spiritual practices, 175 sporting venues, 47 stakeholder needs, 327 statistical vulnerability, 7, 138 staycation, 25, 88 stereotypical (mass) tourist, 34 succinct definition, 1 supply chian, 244, 245 surrogate, 30, 31, 32, 60 suspicious minds, 256 sustainability concept, 12, 282 sustainable tourism management, 277, 279, 294 sustainable tourism, 223, 224, 225, 228, 234, 235, 239, 251, 253, 273, 321, 360 symbolic boundaries, 174 symbolic landscapes, 173 system resilience, 232, 233 taxonomies, 20, 35, 59 temporary home, 357 terror attacks, 36 the population bomb, 282 The tourist gaze, 1, 22, 23, 27, 31 time-banking, 111 tolerant nations, 197 total knowledge base, 319 tourism and identity, 75 tourism and visitor management, 300 tourism bashing, 9, 195, 211 tourism capacity concepts, 268, 291 tourism commons, 281 tourism crisis management, 147, 152 tourism curricula, 322 tourism databases, 139 tourism decision-making, 230 tourism destination, 8, 11, 37, 148, 149, 171, 183, 205, 274, 287, 356 tourism development dilemma, 197 tourism development, 10, 126, 136, 140, 155, 156, 171, 178, 182, 197, 198, 203, 214, 229, 232, 233, 238, 279, 281, 282, 284, 285, 286, 287, 320 tourism distribution channel, 316 tourism environment, 275, 291 tourism factors, 281 tourism imaginaries, 64, 65

Inde x

373

tourism industry, 25, 37, 103, 155, 194, 205, 227, 286, 329, 351, 355, 358 tourism knowledge transfer, 320, 321 tourism knowledge, 12, 13, 310, 311, 312, 313, 318, 322, 324, 326, 328, 331, 348, 349 tourism management, 202, 273, 280, 288 tourism operators, 205, 269, 301 tourism optimization management model (TOMM), 11, 291, 294 tourism phenomena, 341, 357 tourism product, 12, 100, 140, 300, 311, 350, 361 tourism researchers, 310, 339 tourism scholarship, 34, 36, 37 tourism sector, 331 tourism studies, 27, 348 tourism system, 280 tourism-related travel, 196 tourist behaviour, 20, 27, 30, 50, 145 tourist consumers, 113, 124 tourist experience, 5, 17, 19, 20, 24, 27, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 195 tourist imaginaries, 5 tourist motivation, 25, 47, 66, 72–76, 78, 79, 85, 86, 92 tourist roles, 18, 23, 30, 173 tourist typologies, 18, 51, 73 tramping, 99 transfer of new knowledge, 310, 331 transformational learning, 109 transport infrastructure, 271 transport networks, 166 travel motives, 74 travelism, 97, 103, 119 trickle-down effect, 176 truism, 156 TV fodder, 39

video conferences, 250 virtual travel, 30, 31 visitor activity management programme (VAMP), 291, 292 visitor experience and resource protection model (VERP), 291, 292 visitor impact management model (VIMM), 291, 292 visitor management, 291 vocational reinforcers, 311 voluntary non-tourists, 92 volunteer experience, 105 volunteer labour, 118 volunteer lite, 123 volunteer tourism, 6, 48, 97, 98, 101, 112, 119 volunteer tourist, 6,7, 101–123 voyages of the future, 30 voyeur, 21 VT motive, 112, 115 VT participation, 113 vulnerable, 7, 135, 136 Vulnus, 136

unchurched, 56 urban fringe, 163

xenophobes, 115 xenophobia, 9, 196, 207

vanishing peripheries, 161, 170 VFR, 35

young backpackers, 36 youth tourism, 50, 65, 98, 99, 104

wanderers, 99, 112 water consumption, 244 wellness tourism, 78 western culture, 203, 204 western modernization, 117 wilderness safaris lodges, 245 Willing Workers on Organic Farms (WWOOFING), 111 work force, 1, 355 working classes, 25 world bank policies, 231 world systems theory, 171, 182 world tourism system, 140