Chapter-7Tourism is More Sinned Against than Sinning

ContextThe purpose of this Research Probe is to address a simpleor, on reflection, perhaps simplistic question. As theeditor of this journal originally asked when invitingcontributions and rejoinders, is tourism a ‘sinner’ or isit unjustly ‘sinned against’? In other words, since thelate nineteenth century, modern tourism has attractedcriticism in one form or another, initially in the form ofsocial comment, subsequently in both academic andjournalistic circles. Indeed, significant attention hasbeen paid by tourism scholars and others to the negativeconsequences of tourism (and, of course, means ofmitigating such consequences), to the extent that it mightbe assumed that tourism inevitably ‘sins’ against theplaces and peoples where it occurs. So, the question isposed – it is appropriate to view tourism as such, as theharbinger of social, cultural and environmental problems,or is this unjust criticism? That is, is tourism ‘sinnedagainst’ by those who focus, on occasion in apocalypticterms, on the problems that are to a lesser or greaterextent the inevitable outcome of the development oftourism, and is it timely to rebalance the debate, toconsider whether an assessment of tourism deserves a moresupportive or positive foundation?Given the complexity of tourism, the enormously variableforms it takes and contexts within which it occurs and, ofcourse, the multiplicity of perspectives from which it canbe considered, there are no simple answers or ways ofanswering the question. Thus, the lead piece ispurposefully written to stimulate debate, to bedeliberately provocative. And as the three rejoinders byNoel Scott, Jim Macbeth and Peter Smith demonstrate, it isa question that is worth pursuing.

In Defence of TourismRICHARD SHARPLEY

Some twelve years ago, I presented a paper entitled ‘In defence of masstourism’ at the Tourism 2000: Time for Celebration? conference (Sharpley 2000). Heldto mark the new millennium, that conference was an opportune moment tochallenge an argument that had become pervasive during the 1990s, namely, thatmass tourism was ‘bad’ and, conversely, alternative forms of tourism were‘good’. More specifically, the paper sought to redress the balance between, onthe one hand, an increasingly negative perspective on traditional mass formsof tourism development – epitomized perhaps by Auliana Poon’s (1993: 3) claimthat ‘the tourism industry is in crisis... a crisis of mass tourism; for it ismass tourism that has brought social, cultural, economic and environmentalhavoc in its wake’ – and, on the other hand, the growing emphasis onalternative, allegedly sustainable forms of tourism. Whilst accepting thatalternative tourism could indeed reduce the negative impacts and enhance thebenefits of tourism, albeit on a local, small scale, it sets out to argue thatnot only did it represent, as Brian Wheeller (1991) suggested in an earlycritique of sustainable tourism, a micro solution to a macro problem, but alsothat, 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 andenvironmental benefits to destination regions, as well as benefits to tourismgenerating regions and, of course, to tourists themselves.

Given that, in 2000, support for the concept of alternative / sustainabletourism was perhaps at its height, the criticism that the paper attracted wasunsurprising. Since then, however, the mass/bad-alternative/good argument hasbecome less pervasive; the World Tourism Organization, for example, now statesthat ‘Sustainable tourism development guidelines and management practices areapplicable to all forms of tourism in all types of destinations, including

mass tourism and the various niche tourism segments’ (UNWTO 2012). At the sametime, as the difficulties in transforming the concept of sustainable tourismdevelopment from rhetoric to reality have become increasingly recognized,attention is shifting towards the relationship of tourism with more tangibledevelopmental challenges, such as poverty reduction and climate change.Nevertheless, as international tourism reaches a significant milestone in itshistory, 2012 being the year that the one billion international arrivalsfigure was surpassed (a cause for either celebration or consternation,depending on one’s perspective), it would seem appropriate to revisit thisissue. More specifically, and as the editor of this journal suggested wheninviting this essay, tourism has not only in certain quarters long beenvilified for its impacts on environments, societies and cultures; it has alsolong been the scapegoat for many other allegedly negative trends andtransformations, from cultural homogenization to exacerbating the consequencesof natural disasters. For example, the 2004 tsunami had devastating impacts ontourism destinations around the Indian Ocean, yet one report suggested that,in some instances, that devastation was enhanced by the nature of tourismdevelopment itself (Miles 2005).

Of course, it would be naive, foolish or both to attempt to argue that thedevelopment of tourism – and, indeed, the behaviour of tourists – has not hadnegative consequences. The concerns of early commentators, such as Mishan(1969), Young (1973) or Turner and Ash (1975), though tinged with traditionalelitist criticism of mass tourism, were undoubtedly justified, whilst Wall andMathieson’s (2006) updated version of their classic work provides a rigorousanalysis of tourism’s impacts. At the same time, the often hidden problemsassociated with tourism, from the poor conditions of construction workers inDubai to the environmental costs of ‘ecotourism’ in Costa Rica, have beensubject to convincing journalistic scrutiny (Hickman 2007). The point is,however, that in contrast to this sustained criticism of tourism, more limitedattention has been paid to its benefits, not only economic but also social andenvironmental. In other words, although the potentially positive outcomes oftourism are well known, there has long been a tendency in both academic andjournalistic circles to engage in what might be referred to euphemistically as‘tourism bashing’, to give prominence to tourism as a destructive rather thanconstructive force. Consequently, the positive aspects of tourism have, to agreat extent, been played down or lost sight of.

The purpose of this short essay, therefore, is to redress the balance, topropose that tourism, if appropriately planned and managed, is fundamentally agood thing. In so doing, it adopts something of a devil’s advocate approach,attempting to stimulate debate rather than to be conclusive, asking questionsrather than answering them. And the first such question is, why is it thattourism attracts such a degree of criticism, both in its own right andrelative to other economic sectors which arguably have far greater social andenvironmental impacts? And why is it singled out as the cause or catalyst ofimplicitly unwelcome transformations in societies and cultures, when otherfactors may be of equal if not greater influence?

Answers to these questions are undoubtedly elusive, although it is perhapsthe very nature of tourism, not as an economic sector but as a socialphenomenon, that lies behind the criticism it attracts. That is, althoughtourism is of undoubted economic significance and frequently (but erroneously)described as the world’s largest ‘industry’, the billions of dollars generatedannually by tourists’ spending on goods and services that collectivelycomprise the tourist experience might be widely considered (again, perhapserroneously) as discretionary expenditure on a frivolous, unnecessaryactivity. In other words, although leisure tourism has, over the last halfcentury or so, evolved into an accepted and, indeed, expected form ofconsumption – or has recently been argued, a habit / addiction (Henning 2012)– it remains, in a sense, a luxury. That is, people do not necessarily need toconsume tourism but do so in ever increasing numbers, typically in pursuit ofrelaxation, pleasure and happiness motivated by a need for escape or ‘ego-enhancement’. Consequently, tourism may not be considered a ‘serious’industry; nothing is produced as such, whilst resources are exploited to meetthe leisure needs of what is still, in global terms, a privileged minority.Thus, tourism may immediately be more susceptible to criticism than other morenecessary or ‘serious’ industries or activities, even though the latter may bemore 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 environmentaland social consequences than tourism. As an obvious example, the negativeimpacts of the automotive industry or, more precisely, ever-increasing carownership, have long been recognized, from its contribution to greenhousegases / global warming, the depletion of non-renewable resources and both thesocial and economic costs of death and serious injury (globally, over 1.2million deaths are directly related to road transport) to its indirectenvironmental and social costs (Alvord 2000). At the same time, otherseemingly ‘harmless’ industries may incur significant costs. Some argue, forexample, that the global livestock industry is, in terms of greenhouse gasemissions, land usage and deforestation, the world’s most environmentallydestructive activity. However, not only is the livestock sector fundamental tothe global agricultural economy, but also the consumption of meat isundoubtedly seen by many as a basic need. Equally, the freedom and mobilityafforded by the motor car, to say nothing of its semiotic status as an objectof consumption (and, of course, its role in facilitating much tourism-relatedtravel!), as well as the economic significance of the automotive andassociated industries, is such that the production and use of the car is afundamental need (and right?) in contemporary society.

Of course, the debates surrounding these issues are highly complex andvalue-laden, demanding analysis well beyond the scope of this essay. However,whilst recognizing the dangers of over-simplification, the point is that theproducts of the automotive, livestock and other environmentally damagingindustries 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 resourcesand, hence, more susceptible to criticism. Moreover, for this reason tourismmay also be seen as an ‘easy target’ on which to pin the blame for social andenvironmental transformations and challenges more generally, from globalwarming (the inexorable growth in tourism-related air travel) to socio-cultural homogenization, enhanced nationalism and even, perhaps, xenophobia.

Although research has revealed specific and, some might argue, numerousinstances of implicitly undesirable change brought about by tourism (a paradoxbeing that much of this research and criticism is western-centric, emanatingfrom countries that have driven the growth of international tourism over thelast half century), there is in fact limited evidence of tourism’scontribution to global transformations. Indeed, in all likelihood it istechnological innovation and advance, specifically in communication andtransport, which has been the principal catalyst of such transformations, oneof which has, of course, been the remarkable and continuing growth in tourism.Furthermore, it could be argued that tourism has been a positive force. Forexample, are not some of the most culturally diverse and tolerant nationsthose which have a long history of international travel? Has not tourismenhanced knowledge and acceptance of, and interest in, different societies andcultural practices, from music or cuisine to religion? And is it not tourismmore generally that has provided the foundation for the socio-economicdevelopment of numerous nations and sub-national regions around the world?

This latter point will be returned to shortly but, first, it is worthaddressing briefly the notion that tourism or, at least, leisure tourism, isan unnecessary, frivolous form of consumption, a notion which, as suggestedabove, may explain the readiness of many to criticize it. Tourism is notfrivolous consumption. Once referred to by the late Jost Krippendorf (1986) asa ‘social victory’, not only has the opportunity to participate in tourism(both domestic and international) become increasingly widespread, but evergrowing numbers of people continue to take advantage of that opportunity. Andas a recent survey suggests, they do so in fact out of necessity (DailyTelegraph 2013). That is, tourism has become an essential element ofcontemporary consumption practices, implicitly meeting a need or fulfilling aspecific function within modern social existence. However, although on the onehand attention has long been paid to what that need / function may be (touristmotivation) and the innumerable ways in which people respond to that need, orhow they participate in tourism, on the other hand our understanding of theintrinsic benefits of that participation is perhaps more limited (see Pearceet al. 2011). Nevertheless, there can be little doubt that, for many, tourismis ‘serious’ leisure (Stebbins 2007), an activity that is as significant andessential as many others in contemporary society. Consequently, the degree ofcriticism 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’ ordevelopment? As already noted, few would dispute the potential contribution oftourism in terms of generating income, foreign exchange and government

revenues, in providing employment opportunities and, in principle, stimulatingwider economic growth and activity. Indeed, as any basic tourism text booksuggests, tourism is fundamentally a business, an economic sector that ispromoted and developed for its potential contribution to economic growth, ifnot development more generally. Moreover, tourism’s role as a vehicle ofdevelopment is almost ubiquitous.

Yet these potential benefits of tourism frequently appear to be onlygrudgingly accepted. In other words, not only is reference frequently made tothe ‘tourism development dilemma’ (Telfer and Sharpley 2008), or the need tobalance the positive outcomes of tourism development with its implicitlyinevitable negative consequences. There is also a tendency (for the reasonsproposed above) to focus on or highlight those negative consequences, to viewtourism as a ‘last resort’ or necessary evil and as the direct and indirectcause of undesirable environmental and social change rather than, as thisessay set out to suggest, a positive, constructive force or, essentially, a‘good thing’.

In this context, two points demand emphasis. Firstly, tourism, whether asa social or economic activity, is not intrinsically ‘bad’; it is not, as itwas once described, ‘a spectre... haunting our planet... [that]... can ruinlandscapes, destroy communities, pollute air and water, trivialize cultures,bring about uniformity...’ (Croall 1995: 1). Rather, it is as good or bad asthe policies, plans and governance (or policy makers, planners andgovernments) that guide its development. Although there is undoubtedly somecurrency to the argument that, as a diverse, fragmented and multi-sectoralindustry comprising large numbers of primarily small-scale private sectorenterprises, tourism is difficult if not impossible to control, there arenevertheless numerous examples of negative impacts of tourism that can bedirectly attributed to poor planning or, as if often the case, the failure toimplement policy. During the 1990s, for instance, Cyprus enjoyed rapid growthin its tourism sector yet the failure of the authorities to control thedevelopment of accommodation facilities in line with policy resulted in anover-supply of hotels, with inevitable consequences on the environment and,perhaps more significantly, on the profitability of the sector, creating asituation 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 – or to putit more succinctly, to intervene in the market forces that dictate the natureand scale of tourism development – may also enhance the negative consequencesof tourism. Although governments (national or local) are in the position toimpose laws and regulations that may directly or indirectly influence thetourism sector, from minimum wages requirements or licensing hours to buildingand land use planning, they often fail to do so, whether through politicaldogma, a lack of political will or, more simply, to maximize the short-termeconomic benefits of tourism. Putting it another way, tourism (as an economicsector) is essentially a manifestation of capitalistic endeavour; tourismbusinesses of any kind seek to exploit resources to maximize returns or

profit. Thus, if left unregulated, tourism will like any other sectorcollectively tend towards excess, with inevitable environmental and/ or socialconsequences.

Secondly, and to come to the principal point that this essay issuggesting, far from being a ‘necessary evil’ or intrinsically negativeinfluence, tourism may not only in fact represent a force for good. It shouldin particular be celebrated as such, as an opportunity to support theprotection and enhancement of the natural environment, as a means by whichsocieties can recover from other ‘evils’, such as war, political or economicturmoil or natural disasters, to gain value from otherwise unproductiveresources, and so on. That is, although it is as equally dangerous togeneralize about its ‘good side’ as about its negative consequences, there isno doubt that, if planned and managed appropriately, prominence should begiven to the fact that tourism may be harnessed for its social andenvironmental benefits. Indeed, at the time of writing this piece, the notedUK naturalist Sir David Attenborough was extolling in a newspaper article thecontribution of tourism to preserving the Galapagos Islands. Long subject toacademic scrutiny, the rapid development of tourism in the Galapagos hasattracted increasing criticism but, according to Attenborough (2013), ‘if itweren’t for the receipts from ecotourism, the islands would already be almostdevoid of wildlife’. Moreover, he suggests that the public must continue tovisit 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 and Ham 2008).

The case of the Galapagos Islands is but one example in a unique contextof the positive contribution that tourism can make. There are also innumerableother well-known examples where tourism has acted as a catalyst for economicand social development in general – regions such as the Mediterranean, theCaribbean and the South Pacific are all fundamentally dependent on tourism fortheir economic and social development. None of these regions, of course, havebeen immune from sometimes significant negative impacts of tourism development– for some, the Spanish ‘costas’ epitomize the downside of mass tourismdevelopments – yet, on balance, tourism should be seen as a positiveinfluence. To return to the example of Cyprus, despite the acknowledgedproblems currently facing the sector, it was tourism that provided the basisfor the revitalization of the Greek Cypriot economy following the division ofthe island in 1974; it was also tourism that transformed Cyprus into the thirdwealthiest Mediterranean country. Similarly, some peripheral regions withincountries owe their socio-economic development to tourism. For instance, theEnglish Lake District, designated as a national park in the 1950s, has notonly been attracting tourists for almost two centuries since being revered bythe ‘Romantics’ in the early 1800s. The area’s environment, economy andsociety have also long been inextricably linked with tourism and it is tourismthat has underpinned the development and maintenance of its unique landscapeand culture.

More specifically, tourism frequently provides the foundation forrebuilding or regenerating destinations that have suffered problems ordisasters of one form or another. A number of countries, for example, have(re)turned to tourism to revitalize their economy and society followingperiods of war, civil strife or political turmoil, such as Cambodia, Sri Lankaand Northern Ireland. Perhaps most notably, following the cessation ofhostilities in 1995, Croatia has emerged as a successful and prosperousnation, rebuilding its economy and infrastructure on tourism. The countrycurrently attracts around 11 million arrivals annually, with tourism directlyand indirectly accounting for almost 30 per cent of employment and 25 per centof GDP. In Myanmar too, as the transformation towards democracy gainsmomentum, tourism will not only provide an added stimulus to economic growth –tour operators are currently reporting high growth in demand for holidays tothat country – but will also contribute to the reintegration of Myanmar intothe global community. Similarly, numerous examples could undoubtedly beprovided of how tourism has underpinned the rebuilding of destinations orcountries affected by natural disasters, health scares, terrorism or economicdecline – it is highly likely, for instance, that Greece’s economic futurewill be based upon the revitalization of its tourism sector, once conditionsallow.

Of course, the potential role of tourism in stimulating development andregeneration is well known. To reiterate, however, the point is that this roledeserves more immediate recognition and acceptance, that tourism isfundamentally a ‘good thing’, albeit with manageable impacts, a positivechoice to be celebrated rather than the only viable option to be treated withsuspicion. At the same time, the contribution of tourism to internationalunderstanding and relations in general, and awareness of developmentalchallenges faced by many societies around the world in particular, alsodemands greater recognition. Certainly, volunteer or philanthropic tourism isan emerging phenomenon, yet how many individuals or communities, specificallyin developing countries, have received immediate donations from tourists orbecome beneficiaries of charitable projects established by tourists followingtheir visits? It is not uncommon to find small projects supporting children,schools or community projects that owe their existence to tourism, yet noresearch 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 negativeimpacts. What this essay is proposing, however, is that a transformationshould occur in the way tourism is perceived, that it should be seen as apositive force with potential impacts that can be managed, rather than as apotential good but with inevitable impacts. And perhaps the best way toconclude is with a brief example of such positive tourism.In 1973, Kilimanjaro, at 5895m is not only the highest peak in Africa butalso highest mountain in the world that can be ascended without specialistskills and equipment, was established as a national park. Public access waspermitted from 1977 and, currently, approximately 35,000 tourists climb the

mountain each year, with increasing numbers doing so to raise funds forcharities in their own countries. Inevitably, such large numbers of visitorspotentially impact on the environment of the park but, as a result ofeffective management of the Kilimanjaro experience, not only is theenvironment maintained and protected but also significant economic benefitsaccrue to local people. Specifically, all tourists must climb the mountain aspart of an organized tour, with a guide, cook and porters, followingdesignated trails and, in the case of the main tourist route, overnighting inspecially constructed huts. Each visitor pays a daily park fee of US $70 plusUS $60 per night for the use of designated huts. Much of this income goestowards the upkeep of the park although around US $1 million a year supportslocal community projects. In addition, the park authorities regulate minimumdaily rates of pay for guides, cooks and porters (US $20, US $15 and US $10per day respectively), whilst much of the food consumed by tourists (theclimb usually takes a minimum of five days / four nights) is locally sourced.Kilimajaro tourism provides employment for an estimated 400 guides, 500 cooksand 10,000 porters, research in 2006, when their wages were half currentrates, found that guides, with additional tips, earned an average of US $1830a year, with cooks and porters earning US $842 and US $771 respectively, allwell in excess of the then average annual income of $300 (Mitchell et al.2009). The same research suggested that almost 30% of what tourists paydirectly benefits the poor, whilst they also contribute to the upkeep of theKilmanjaro environment. Thus, Kilimanjaro tourism represents a ‘win-win’ – aunique tourism experience that brings social, economic and environmentalbenefits, to say nothing of the funds raised for charities by groups climbingthe mountain. How can this not be a ‘good thing’?

Original Sin: A Lack of (Tourism) KnowledgeNOEL SCOTT

This paper responds to the probe, ‘In defence of tourism,’ by Richard Sharpleyin this issue of Tourism Recreation Research. The essence of Sharpley’sargument is his proposition that ‘tourism, if appropriately planned and managed, isfundamentally a good thing’. This naïve and unworldly statement makes two flawedrhetorical claims: firstly that tourism (whatever that is) can befundamentally good given certain conditions, and secondly 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 hisarticle and must intend merely to stimulate debate, the importance of thisissue demands a clear and logical response which I have provided below,structured in terms of these two claims. The first claim; that tourism isfundamentally good, is an example of Platonic essentialism (Ross 1976) andshould be rejected as should any such claim that complex human objects have anessence that we can all identify and agree on. To illustrate some of theproblems of this claim, the three major types of tourism benefits thatSharpley identifies are examined in detail and rejected.

In view of the rejection of the first claim, Sharpley’s argument isreduced to the lesser claim that tourism can provide better benefits oroutcomes if appropriately managed. This is trivially true and circular in itslogic: presumably Sharpley would consider appropriately managed assemantically equivalent to providing better outcomes. Given this, what isimportant is to establish what better management of tourism entails and howthis may be achieved. Sharpley acknowledges this point when he writes: ‘if leftunregulated, tourism will like any other sector collectively tend towards excess’. The later sectionof 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 willlead to more benefits for the traveller and the host society, and on thispoint, Sharpley and I would appear to agree.

Putting aside the idea that tourism is fundamentally good, Sharpley alsojustifies tourism in terms of its benefits. He discusses a number of benefitsfor tourism, partly to avoid the criticism of tourism as a frivolous andaddictive 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 ofequal if not greater influence?If we accept these arguments then we must consider that smoking of

tobacco, another frivolous and addictive consumption activity, is alsobeneficial. We may make an argument that smoking is a significant contributorto the development of a society. Many governments receive significant amountsin tax receipts from the sale of tobacco, and may argue that this tax revenuewill benefit the residents of the country through new roads or hospitals.Further, tobacco can be argued to have some partial positive effects on healthin reduction of stress (although on balance it has overwhelmingly negativeeffects) and on feeling comfortable. Tobacco advocates would argue, likeProfessor Sharpley, that it is the individual’s management of their use oftobacco which is problematic. Further we might argue that smoking is only onefactor that contributes to poor health and therefore we should address theseother factors. In fact, if your purpose is to benefit from better health thenyou should strive to eliminate all health risks rather than accepting some andrejecting others. Using this analogy with smoking, we may see better the flawsin the argument overall. The idea that we should accept negatives from tourismdevelopment because it also has positive benefits negates the argument thattourism is fundamentally good. Indeed any complex human activity has positiveand negative aspects that must be evaluated together.

Let us now look more closely at the benefits of tourism that Sharpleyidentifies. His discussion is set within a worldview of ‘development’, a termredolent with utopian dreams and promising (perhaps) ‘flying atomic powered

cars’, a holiday for every person and lions lying down with lambs. The worldthat I perceive is slightly less idealistic. It is a world where the notionsof development have been through several iterations. Hawkins and Mann (2007)have provided an interesting and relevant discussion of the World Bank’s rolein tourism development. This highlights the different ideologies have beeninfluential in determining how tourism should be funded in developingcountries. For example, between 1969 and 1979 the purpose of tourismdevelopment was macro development - to stimulate economic growth and generateforeign exchange and employment. Between 2000 and 2006 the focus was on microdevelopment and ‘issues never really thought relevant in the context ofstabilizing macro-economies’ (Hawkins and Mann 2007: 358). The reason forsignificant changes in the focus of the World Bank in stimulating tourismdevelopment appears to be through learning from its mistakes. Perhaps this isthe only possible means to manage tourism but it does bring into questionwhether tourism can be appropriately planned and managed.

A second problem with the benefits discussed by Sharpley is that theyappear to be set within a particularly Western view of tourism. Outcomes thatone person considers a benefit, another may consider a curse; the Westernperspective on individual freedom and rights to self-expression are notuniversal. Western cultures may seek hedonistic relaxation in a manner suitedto their own attitudes and beliefs but this may clash with the cultural andattitudes of local people. While we may be able to manage such conflict wecannot manage the purpose and benefits that other cultures ascribe to travel.In contrast to the prevailing tourism norms, Din (1989) considers from anIslamic perspective that travel serves the ‘ultimate purpose, of making individuals awareof their rights and responsibilities to God and to other individuals’. Given such a difference inthe purpose of travel, we may consider that the outcome of managementprocesses will be determined by power and transformation rather thanmanagement and planning.

A third point that Sharpley raises in discussing the benefits of tourismis the economic, social and environmental benefits received, an argument thatis vague about how benefits should be measured. Surely benefits should bemeasured in two ways. Firstly, they should be balanced against costs andsecondly they should be measured against what was intended. There has beenlittle research on the overall costs and benefits of tourism: this is aquestion that taxes our abilities both conceptually, methodologically andpractically. Certainly the economic benefits of tourism have been found insome situations to be more complex and less that those suggested by boosters oftourism, 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 andbenefits of tourism is being constructed through initiatives such asdevelopment of Tourism Satellite Accounts and beginning to lead to betterpolicy development. However how to balance social and environmental againsteconomic costs and benefits is fraught. Sharpley’s argument requires ourplanners and managers to undertake this measurement after a project has been

completed. These managers are not omnipotent gods; instead they are humansmaking evaluations in a very less than perfect world.

A related fundamental flaw in Sharpley’s argument and one that is a ‘blindspot’ in most academic papers is his attribution of any benefit from tourismas intentional. His argument is based on the notion that if there is a benefitthen it must have been intended and is therefore evidence that tourism isbeing managed. Here we have a problem of causality: did the actions ofmanagers and planners involved in tourism development and marketing actuallylead to the net benefits identified. This is an issue faced by many tourismdestination promotion organizations currently. These organizations undertakeonly part of the overall marketing and promotion activity for a destinationand yet will often measure their performance in terms of overall visitorarrivals, nights, or expenditure! Thus some of these managers take credit forfavourable changes in exchange rates, economic growth in new markets such asChina, and the effect of global news stories. There is little measurementagainst promotional objectives (usually stated as targets) and even lessmeasurement of performance against development objectives by the people whoSharpley wants to manage tourism to ensure that it remains fundamentally agood thing.

We should remember that managers of tourism enterprises are rewarded formaking a profit and therefore it is in their own interests to ensure that thatprofit 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 anykind seek to exploit resources to maximise returns or profit. Thus, if left unregulated, tourism will like any othersector collectively tend towards excess, with inevitable environmental and / or social consequences.

According to Sharpley, the responsibility for planning and management toensure that tourism is fundamentally a good thing is down to governmentregulation. An alternative interpretation is that despite the efforts ofgovernment tourism managers, there is some net benefit to the local community.Using the examples from Sharpley’s paper:

Cyprus enjoyed rapid growth in its tourism sector yet the failure of the authorities to control the development ofaccommodation facilities in line with policy resulted in an over-supply of hotels, with inevitable consequences on theenvironment and, perhaps more significantly, on the profitability of the sector, creating a situation from which theisland has arguably been unable to recover.

I therefore argue that to ensure that tourism is a ‘good thing’, we mustfirstly identify the purpose of tourism. As mentioned above this may beassumed 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 questionthis assumption and plan and manage for a different purpose. Secondly, I arguethat even if we know this purpose, we do not benefit to the extent that isexpected or at least we do not know how much we benefit and who or what isresponsible for the outcome we experience.

But perhaps we can do better. I have already alluded to one of the mainreasons why we are unable to plan and manage tourism: a lack of knowledge andexperience. Tourism, and especially mass tourism, is a relatively new activityand unprecedented in its scale and scope. Essentially it involves people

travelling away from, and living outside their normal environment. This bringsinto focus a number of problems: firstly, when people leave their normalenvironment they may feel they are able to behave differently; secondly, thepeople they meet are different and therefore a cause of potential conflict;and thirdly, there is a need to create new living spaces and services over andabove those they already live-in, in the origin, and which are exotic orattractive enough to justify the expense of travel. Each of these necessitiesoften creates difficult (wicked) problems that need to be managed. Thusfundamentally tourism is difficult to plan for and to manage.

In addition, tourism is also a partially industrialized industry (Leiperet al. 2011) consisting of a package of services not all be owned by the samemanager, and where there are a variety of government jurisdictions involved inpolicy development, planning, promotion and marketing and so on. Thus theplanning and management of a tourism destination requires collaborationbetween tourism operators and businesses that also compete with each other ina process known as coopetition, as well as between industry and government asvarious levels. OECD (2012) has made recommendations as to possible solutionsfor some of these issues.

The problem of lack of cohesion and fragmentation within the organizationof tourism has also been discussed through use of network analysis techniques(Scott et al. 2008). In such studies it was found that stakeholderfragmentation is reduced by centralized leadership that may be found in anindustrialized destination such as the Gold Coast, Australia (Cooper et al.2009). However, this centralization may be associated with an elite group ofpowerful stakeholders who effectively control the development and marketingdecisions. This emphasizes the need for good governance of these organizationsand effective collaboration with government and the wider industry. Such goodgovernance requires decisions made on the basis of sound knowledge,emphasizing the importance of knowledge management, an area where the tourismindustry is notably weak. In one recent study, Thomas (2012) found that‘business elites not only operate within communities of practice but also tendto learn within their own “meaning perspectives”’ (p. 553). Thus the knowledgeused by planners and managers to make their decisions is biased andincomplete.

However, Sharpley has some valid points: perhaps mass, all inclusive,tourism is easier to plan and manage; and additionally, it may be thatindustrialised tourism destinations catering to all inclusive tourism, wherethere is a commonly understood purpose – that of making money, it is easier toplan and manage. This may explain some of the rapid growth of places such asCosta del Sol. The downside to this argument is that it is precisely thesetypes of destinations that are criticized for being unsustainable and failingto plan for the future. Today we can see the failure of the planners andmanagers who have subscribed to the Sharpley thesis of mass tourism beingfundamentally good.

I do not wish to leave the discussion without providing some directionsthat 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 humannature. Here I would like to suggest that better governance and improvedmanagement of tourism destinations are possible. Developments in the macro-policy environment favour a more collaborative approach, encouraging policydevelopment by governments in conjunction with the tourism industry, as wellas emphasis on regional or local level decision-making. However, developing amulti-actor system that includes public–private partnerships and greaterhorizontal and vertical co-ordination of relevant government bodies requiresadoption of accepted elements of good governance – accountability,responsibility, efficiency and effectiveness, responsiveness, forward lookingvision, and the rule of law. In addition, active co-operation and co-ordination of activities requires recognition of the legitimacy oforganizations’ authority to govern and inclusiveness of stakeholders.

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 beendepicted by social scientists and some environmentalists?’ (creates xenophobia, anomie, culturelessness, interferewith social capital, defiles environment, erodes bio-diversity and that it is vulgar, so on so forth). (email, Friday, 11January 2013 5:22 PM)

If it is correct that social scientists tend to be more critical oftourism 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 maybe it is because there is something that needs this critical eye. Likewisewith environmentalists, as they are often called. Does it mean environmentalscientists? But, if environmentalists, then why not celebrate their tendencyto be advocates for environmentally responsible activities, something thatcan’t be taken for granted, that the for-profit sector often ignores. I shouldadd here that I have chosen to write this reply using primarily unrefereedsources from the social media site TRINET, and public discourse.

Taking this line of thinking a bit further, let me refer to a discussionon TRINET during early March 2013 (subject line: Taking responsibility for the visitoreconomy). The discussion followed the announcement of a conference that usesthe term ‘visitor economy’ instead of tourism and I was the second person toquery the discourse impacts of foregrounding ‘economy’, or economics, overother aspects of tourism impacts.

My first post on TRINET March 5, 2013

Language shapes many of our attitudes and it certainly shapes the ways in which policy makers and academicsapproach issues.  Thus, the word ‘economy’ shapes our discourse in a way that is counterproductive to sustainablecommunities, 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 thantourism.  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 oneisolated term.

On March 6, 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 oreconomics.  I think Jim and I agree the real issue is neoliberalism which has reified market economics as the arbiterfor all value.  I see economy from the old root word suggested as the management of the household, which I wouldtranslate to well-being and family thriving.  Economies are ultimately about exchange which makes humansflourish so the focus shouldn’t be economic growth for the sake of growth but actually ensuring we make the worlda better place.  Unfortunately our current economic paradigm does the opposite of this in ways that many wellrespected people have documented. I consider the term visitor economy a symptom of this problem and in attemptto use it in a context of talking about making industry, government and tourists more ‘responsible’ is just asideshow much like 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 oftourism as economic saviour.  Tourism that fits in with local communities rather than invades them is the wave ofthe 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 asvisitors and business. Yes, tourism is a sinner in this case.

I have quoted from the TRINET discussion to illustrate that judgingtourism as sinner or saint is a rather pointless enterprise, not only becauseto do so is to essentialize a very complex set of relationships but alsobecause the way in which we understand the impacts of tourism is also verycomplex. As Harold Goodwin (conference organizer) points out, their aim inholding the conference is to engage these very debates, to try and understandthe relationships involved.

Yes, tourism is this complex! It does all these things and many more thatcan be judged as negative. So, where does Richard Sharpley’s research probefit 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 whilebeing an economic force, an industrial development strategy, a developer’sdream, a nightmare for many residents and a social experience. Tourism is alsoa major force in globalization and in many cases represents various diasporaand their attempts to remain connected to their homeland, while others travelfor a multitude of reasons. I make this comment in order to emphasize thattourists seem to be missing from this discussion, gone missing in action, asit were.

To propose that some entity is a sinner, or a benefactor, demands thatthere be a standard by which to judge the sin. To have such a standard is apolitical, social and philosophical task of incredible magnitude. While theconcept of sustainable development tries to draw such an ethical/moral line inthe sand, the sand is shifting. Ironically, sand has been stolen from one

country to build tourism infrastructure in another. (example source accessedFebruary 20, 2013 http://grbusinessonline.com/wp/is-singapore-being-built-on-stolen-ground/). How’s that for ethical behaviour?

The essay is alarmingly ethically blind, providing us with no framework ofanalysis, no way to judge the ethical positions being taken. In my view, thisis a common problem in tourism (and other) research, especially in the contextof the market economy model. There are also signs in the essay of aspects ofJafari’s four platforms model. But, times change, new models are developed andour thinking and our actions do, although not always, become more thoughtfuland responsible. Sounds naive, doesn’t it?

Yes, it is naïve to ignore climate variability, the carbon ‘problem’, thepolitical economy of development, the power of multi-national corporations andthe increasingly development-at-any-cost philosophies of all governments,whether democratic, western or not. In Australia, miners and other developersdecry the hurdles posed by so-called ‘green tape’ because it holds up theirprofits.

I have previously argued that Jafari’s model no longer represents tourismresearch, development and policy as well as it did when first presented totourism academics. Yes, each of the four platforms is represented byresearchers, policy makers and business interests: advocacy; cautionary;adaptancy; and knowledge-based. I proposed, however, that for the 21st centurywe need to account for and use the concept of sustainable development (for allits faults) but that all of us, including policy-makers and operators, need tointerrogate and understand the implications of our own ethical beliefs,including those we are willing to interrogate (Macbeth 2005). I proposed twomore platforms (sustainability and ethics) to help us understand where sometourism scholarship has moved while also imploring researchers, operators anddevelopers to know their own ethical stance on issues relevant to tourism – atleast if we can articulate our moral positions it is possible to address theissue of this probe- is tourism sinning? (Macbeth 2005) I return to thequestion of sustainability later, mainly because tourism scholarship andpractice talks about sustainable tourism, not sustainability a la society andenvironment. Freya Higgins-Desbiolles’ last post to TRINET, quoted above,clearly addresses this issue.

Sharpley argues convincingly that tourism is regularly and consistentlyblamed for a wide range of social, environmental, economic and culturalproblems. So what? So is every other industry, so is every other developmentstrategy. 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 wonderfultourism is as a development strategy.

Tourism is a ‘serious’ industry, notwithstanding Sharpley’s maskedacceptance that tourism and leisure are not serious, that they are onlypracticed by a minority (globally). Tourism does provide jobs, does get usedto enhance cultural understanding, does contribute to historical and culturalrenewal and does provide a ‘change’. It can also be seen as a ‘serious’

industry when we recognize, as Sharpley does, that tourism, especially leisuretourism, is imbued with inequality of access and impact, whether we considergender, nationality, income/class and so forth.

May be it is tourism scholars who should be judged on their views oftourism as sinner or sinned against and one way to quickly get a limited viewof this is to look at our conferences and the rhetoric embedded in theannouncements. To undertake this minor content analysis, I looked at all theconference announcements posted on TRINET in the first 3 weeks of February,2013. I’m less sanguine about tourism as sinned against when I see the topicsthat do not feature in the announcements: human rights, nature, family,freedom, sustainability, inequality, CSR, global warming and ethics. At thesame time, terms like climate change, politics, adventure and ecotourism get asingle mention, many from the same conference that included a long list.

Coming back to the opening quotation, tourism also does quite the oppositeto the Editor’s phrase. Sinner sometimes; saviour at other times, but neverclear-cut one. Which also serves to remind us that decisions about tourism andtourists are political and value based, they involve ethical choices.

So, in my view the real question(s) is how can tourism as an industry, asa social phenomenon, as a consumer product, contribute to sustainability. Yes,not just be sustainable tourism but rather contribute to the wider challengesaround making human society sustainable. Assuming this latter statement as anarticle of faith, the question is not about who is sinning but what we doabout it because in reality tourism and tourists contribute to the problems ofthe globe as much as any other consumer activity or industry. With all thescience 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 consumerproduct as dangerous as any of the other high profile consumptive activities –much of which comes from poor public policy (and enforcement) and what couldbe seen as unethical marketing that sells over-consumption and the ultimatethrow-away society.

Let me close with a quote from TRINET post (February 11, 2013) thatincluded a brochure for an adventure conference:

The ultimate aim is to determine ways in which educators, tour guides, businesses andparticipants can drive forward this impactful experiential recreation and tourismsector responsibly, so that the arenas in which it operates remain and are enhancedfor the generations of adventurers who will follow in our footsteps. We will alsoconsider the democratisation of outdoor leisure, and ways in which this ideal mightbe realised.

In Defence of Tourism: A ReassessmentPETER SMITH

Sharpley’s introductory essay is a welcome defence of tourism and a timelyreminder that in academic studies the vilification of mass tourism has beenthe normative discourse for some time. Such is the extent of (mass) ‘tourismbashing’ the view taken by key critics of mass tourism cited by Sharpley, suchas Poon (1993) and Croall (1995), will be familiar to tourism studentseverywhere. Tourism it seems is characterized as a sinner against hostcommunities, the environment and what economic benefits it brings are minimal,at best. In contrast in its various alternatives and ethical forms, tourism isfrequently seen by academics and observers as a means to solve many of thedeveloping world’s problems; not so much sinner as an answer to prayers. Thiscontribution is less a rejoinder to Sharpley’s defence of tourism, which thisauthor would endorse wholeheartedly, but more a call to be even bolder in ourdefence of tourism.

Sharpley usefully reminds us that for many in the West – and increasinglyin emerging economies – today tourism is seen as an essential part of everydayconsumption patterns; package holidays are common for families in Europe andthe US. Air travel and the growth in low cost airlines over the last 20 yearsmeans travelling to the world’s great cities and sights is no longerrestricted to the wealthy.

We may, as Sharpley suggests, be past the height of the mass/bad-alternative/good distinction yet certainly in academic studies, NGO advocacyand frequent broadsheet newspaper commentary, shrill criticism of mass tourismremains common. It has been suggested this negative assessment of mass tourismis now the normative approach in tourism studies (Sharpley 2002; Liu 2003;Butcher 2007). Alongside the common critique of mass tourism over the last twodecades academics have increasingly focused on developing the concept ofsustainable or ethical forms of tourism, in contrast to mainstream masstourism (Mowforth and Munt 2009). There has been a growing literature on‘ethical’ tourism that links the behaviour and purchasing habits of consumersto development outcomes in developing countries (see Patullo 1996; Scheyvens2002; Weaver 2008; Buckley 2009; Pattullo and Minelli 2009, Wearing and Neil2009, among others).

Perhaps it would be more accurate for this debate to consider mass tourismbeing the sinner, or, as this contribution will argue sinned against.

As every tourism undergraduate is taught, mass tourism is bad. Sharpleycites Croall’s (1995: 5) characterization of mass tourism that charges theactivity with, ‘…ruining landscapes, destroying communities, diverting scarceresources, polluting air and water, trivializing cultures, creating uniformityand generally contributing to the increased degradation of life on ourplanet’. It is worth repeating this quote here, as faced with these charges amore perfect candidate for a sinner would surely be difficult to find. Whilstthis characterization may seem a little exaggerated, throughout academicstudies pejorative descriptions abound: one text used heavily on undergraduatefirst year courses bluntly asserts that mass tourism developments, such as

those in popular Mediterranean resorts, are a ‘kind of obvious environmentalrape....’ (Cooper et al. 1993: 103). Similarly for a pioneer study thatestablished the concept of the ‘new’ tourist, mass tourists consume in a‘robot-like’ manner, lacking any consideration for the norms, culture andenvironment of the host community and country (Poon 1993: 4). Here critique ofthe cultural practice of tourism merges into a dehumanising characterizationof tourists.

The shrill tone of these critiques was set early by foundational textssuch as Turner and Ash’s (1975) The Golden Hordes and Krippendorf’s The HolidayMakers: The Impacts of Leisure and Travel (1987); both of which pioneered the morewidely developed critique of mass tourism that now adds up to a significantbody of work across a number of related disciplines. Sharpley asks why tourismis singled out for particular criticisms and not other industries or sectors -leaving this discussion to one side as it could be said other industries doface similar levels of criticism, for example the food industry (Ritzer 1996;Schlosser 2002) or supermarkets (Blythman 2007; Simms 2007) – for theseauthors, and much of the criticism since, mass tourism could be said to be theexemplar of mass society (Brooks 2000: 205–206; Butcher 2003: 23–24):consumption en masse. Krippendoff sees mass tourism as a, ‘restless activitythat has taken hold of the once sedentary human society’ and results in damageto host communities and the local environment as mass migration encounterssocial and environmental limits (1987: xiii). Whilst for Turner and Ash (1975)simply labelling tourists ‘hordes’ is sufficient to capture the negative viewof mass tourism and tourists.

Mass tourism has, of course, long been criticized and carefreeholidaymakers openly despised for their leisure activities. In the nineteenthcentury, when Thomas Cook started taking groups of working-class people to theBritish seaside as part of the first organized package holidays, the well-offelites reacted with horror and disdain (Urry 2002; Bull et al. 2003: 22–24;Holden 2005: 28–38). The rise of seaside tourism in the United Kingdomprompted the clergyman-diarist, Francis Kilvert to write in the 1870s that,‘of all noxious animals, the most noxious is a tourist’ (Fussell 1982: 40).Similarly in the early part of the 1920s and 30s the middle classes werealarmed to see the lower middle-classes following them to their regularEuropean summer residencies; for the British poet Edith Sitwell, writing inthe 1930s, tourists were ‘the most awful people with legs like flies, who comein to lunch in bathing costumes – flies, centipedes’ (Fussell 1982: 41).

It would be too easy to dismiss such comments as outdated 19th Centurysnobbery and elitism unpalatable to meritocratic modern sensibilities yetcontemporary news reports from the UK demonstrate the degree to which suchscornful 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 inSpain’ (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 abusiveBritons wreak havoc in Spain as 2,000 are jailed.’ (Independent 2008). These2008 headlines followed the publication of the UK FCO’s (2008) British BehaviorAbroad: Annual Report. According to the report, 17 million British touristsvisited Spain between April 2006 and March 2007, a further 761,000 Britishpeople permanently resided there. France, the second most visited country byBritish tourists, received 14.8 million British visitors with 200,000 Britishpeople resident. A closer, and more sober, look at the FCO (2008) figuresconfirms that over the 12 months to March 2007, a mere 2,032 British peoplewere arrested in Spain out of a total of the 17 million visitors to thecountry. The equivalent figure for the previous year was 1,549 arrests, out of13.8 million visitors. While a 32 per cent year-on-year rise in arrests seemspretty dramatic, the actual increase of 483 arrests, which came alongside anadditional three million tourists, is barely worth commenting on; the figureof 2,000 arrests amongst 17 million British tourists in Spain is statisticallynegligible.

Similarly the figure of a 42 per cent rise in arrests in France actuallyaccounted for just 153 Britons out of a visiting population of 14.8 million.This was an increase from 108 arrests amongst 11 million visitors during theprevious year. Cyprus, where as a proportion British visitors were most likelyto be arrested in the 12 months to March 2007 recorded only 377 arrests out of1.5 million British tourists, which is at least consistent with the previousyear: 330 out of 1.4 million visitors.

So the holiday destination where British tourists were proportionally mostlikely to be arrested during the time of the study recorded 377 arrests out of1.5 million visitors - just one arrest for every 4,000 people who visited.There is also the fact that it is unclear from the FCO (2008) figures how manyof the recorded arrests ended in actual convictions. That didn’t seem tomatter for the headline-writers taking their cue from academic critiques: masstourists are guilty as charged.

With arrest numbers as insignificant as 2,000 out of 17 million, it isclear that there is something else behind the reporting and discussion ofthese figures. The handwringing news reports surely illustrate contemporarysnobbery towards mass holidaymakers is as alive today as it was in ThomasCook’s time.

It is striking, for example, that the figures for Spain – where there wasa 32 per cent rise in arrests – dominated the headlines, rather than thestatistically larger 42 per cent rise in France. This might be because afigure of 2,000 arrests is a more dramatic headline for a newspaper than afigure of 153; but it might also be because the car-driving families andgenteel middle classes holidaying in Aix-en Provence don’t quite fit thestereotypical picture of the mass holiday maker as easily as the peoplesunning 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 it is likely that academics in the field would pore over thefigures; deconstruct them in all their detail and offer trenchant critiques.Here, with mass tourists in the firing line, the news reports tended toconfirm pre-existing prejudices and were left completely uncontested.

It is of course the case anyone who has visited, worked or even carriedout academic research in a major holiday destination will confirm drunkenyoung tourists sometimes behave badly, even criminally and cause friction withhost communities, yet these incidents are normally worked out locally withlittle fuss or lasting consequences.

It goes without saying that tourist behaviour is only one small part of amuch wider academic critique of mainstream tourism; a critique that deals witha whole range of very serious social, cultural and environmental issues. Thatsaid, in terms of the question of mass tourism as sinner, the example isillustrative of its standing in much contemporary commentary and academicwriting.Tourism as Sinner

Sharpley cites the work of environmental journalist and ethical lifestylecolumnist Leo Hickman (2007). Hickman’s contribution is instructive as itcould be said to bridge the gap between academic and broadsheet newspapercolumnists. Hickman deals with the more serious problems tourism brings;travelling the world reporting on many of these blights, particularly indeveloping countries: water shortages, poor waste disposal, poor workingconditions, threats to natural parks and sex tourism are all he discussed intheir unsavoury detail. This echoes much of the academic critiques of masstourism familiar to readers of this journal (among others see, Patullo 1996;Scheyvens 2002; Weaver 2008; Buckley 2009; Wearing and Neil 2009; Pattullo andMinelli 2009). Yet like much of the academic research, Hickman’s (2007)account is one-eyed. The methodology – locate, research and report – thevictims of tourism seems designed to uncover what the author (or researcher)wants to discover: that tourism can be very bad. However, for every put-uponindividual or host community Hickman (2007) visits in his travels for ‘TheFinal Call’ – or indeed academic case studies research and report – an equallyreadable (or empirical) account could be given of those that have gainedthrough tourism. For example, returning to the mass tourism developments thatCooper et al. (1993: 103) state has destroyed areas of the Mediterranean, thesame points could have been levelled at Spain in the 1970s. Sharpley correctlystates that on balance mass tourism to the Spanish Costas should be seen as apositive influence. Tremlett (2007: 96–29) offers a very readable account ofthe development of tourism on the Spanish Costas; he cites the example ofBenidorm (being so iconic of mass tourism there is even a UK comedy programmetitled Benidorm following the antics of mass tourists and expatriate Britishpeople). Once a ‘modest beach-side village’ the city now boasts 38,000 hotelrooms with Paris and London being the only places in Europe with moreovernight accommodation. Benidorm could be said to have kick-started thegrowth of mass tourism to Spain in the late 1960s and 70s under the Francodictatorship. Today, 53 million foreign visitors a year holiday in Spain and

it is estimated that more than 11 per cent of the Spanish economy is generatedby tourism (Tremlett 2007: 106). Whilst Benidorm and surrounding area may notbe to everyone’s taste, the mass tourism boom benefitted Spain greatly and, inpart, was responsible for making the country the modern European state, it istoday. With unemployment in Spain currently at a post-democracy high of 27 percent (rising to 57 per cent among people under 26) like other SouthernEuropean countries with economies in the doldrums, such as Portugal andGreece, increasing numbers of mass tourists are more likely to be welcomed atthe moment than rejected due to the negative impacts (El Pais May 2013).

Developed tourism markets like Spain have their own set of issues and inthe literature most of the studies of tourism’s negative impacts tend torelate to studies drawn from the developing world. Here most of these negativeimpacts could be better understood as being a consequence of a lack ofeconomic development. There is no automatic reason why a hotel in Cancun orGoa should take water away from local people, any more than a hotel in Londonor New York takes resources away from residents in those cities. And perhapsit is not always necessarily a bad thing if governments in the global Southdecide that biodiversity should take second place to human-centred economicdevelopment that favours raising living standards, infrastructure developmentor urbanization.

Tourism as Saviour?Nor does it follow that various alternative tourism models provide a

better outcome for host communities. Indeed the impacts on local people areoften assumed rather than researched (ATLAS/ TRAM 2008: 39). Yet it might beworth interrogating the claims made for the alternatives put forward to masstourism. This literature on ethical tourism tends to focus on small-scale,community oriented tourism that explicitly aims to promote both conservationand community well-being goals (Butcher 2007; Mowforth and Munt 2009). Such anapproach almost always leaves the poor in the rural developing world to thevagaries of small-scale market-based solutions. Any traveller to a developingcountry will witness budding local entrepreneurs operating small-scalebusinesses along the lines of Rosa Vasquez’s ecotourism tours in Costa Rica,as reported by Hickman (2007: 263). We may wish them good luck, but the factremains that small businesses of this type, or NGO funded projects, bringminimal benefit to local communities and fail to transform the economies orinfrastructure of developing countries in any meaningful way. This istinkering at the margins, at best; better than nothing.

More common is the poor rural community reliant on NGO-funded tourismprojects. From the prolific case studies examined in tourism journals or NGOassessment reports, rarely is there an example of a project breaking free fromaid funding and becoming free-standing, operating under the control of thelocal community and generating sufficient independent income, along the linesthat any undergraduate student is taught is 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 inthe developing world in contrast to the commercial mass tourism operations,however, this arrangement frequently involves community cooperation based on apre-existing agenda rather than being premised on host communities’ right toshape and define development agendas (Diprose 2012: 190); perhaps no more orno less than under a mass tourism development. The possibility that indigenouspeople might not share the same concerns held by NGOs and advocates based inthe West is rarely considered in the literature. For example, Smith (1992:136) in a classic study of tourist development in the Philippine island ofBoracay is typical of the criticisms of tourism, concluding that tourism hascreated, ‘massive physical and social problems’ and that, ‘physical visitorimpact during the three years from the inception of record keeping to the timeof this field study had been essentially all negative’. Yet in the same studySmith notes that for local people, ‘the tourist presence was viewed inpositive terms’ (Smith 1992: 152). Furthermore, following extensive empiricalresearch in to the opinion of the local population, Smith (1992: 153)concludes, ‘overall, Boracayans like and want tourism for social as well aseconomic reasons’.

It is difficult to agree then that the various alternatives put forward tomass tourism are really any better; in fact they are frequently much worse indelivering real benefits to host populations. It is only by reducing the scopeof enquiry to the local, often through concepts such as ‘communityparticipation’ (Fennell 1999; Scheyvens 2002; Fennell and Weaver 2005; Jones2005), an extremely localized interpretation, that any benefits are judged.This localized focus rejects any wider consideration of communities linked atregional or national levels, thus assessments of any meaningful gains fromtourism, mass or otherwise, are at best limited.

ConclusionWhilst there are certainly many problems with the mass tourism model, it

remains the case that despite the numerous studies that report the negativeimpacts of mass tourism on host communities and the environment, it is not ‘aspectre haunting out planet that will destroy us (Croall 1995: 1) or the causeof ‘social, cultural, economic and environmental havoc’ (Poon 1993: 3).

Most, although not all, of the studies of the negative impacts both onhost communities and their immediate environment relate to examples in thedeveloping world. Unfashionable as it may be to argue, these problems tend tobe structural and social in origin rather than a consequence of tourism. Theseundoubted problems can normally be solved through transformative economicdevelopment rather than curbing tourism, which is for many communities a vitalsource of income.

As Sharpley reminds us, mass tourism frequently brings much needed incomeand jobs to destinations and it does foster social and cultural exchanges somegood, some bad. We should welcome this and should challenge the falsedistinction made in tourism academia between new or enlightening travel andsinning mass tourism.

Returning to the example of the growth of mass tourism in Spain in the 1970s,the sight of northern Europeans in bikinis on Spanish beaches sent shiversdown the spine of local reactionary clerics, moving one Father AparicioPellin to write in The Problems of Youth (1960), ‘Oh! If they erected a blackcross on the beach for every mortal sin committed there, the beach would havemore crosses than grains of sand’ (cited in Tremlett 2007: 105). Today thelanguage of sinning may have changed, couching criticisms of mass tourism incultural or environmental terms rather than an appeal to modesty or religion,but the sentiments remain much the same.

Concluding RemarksAs noted in the introductory paragraphs, the purpose of this Research

Probe is to address the question; is tourism unjustly criticized? Morespecifically, it sets out to challenge what appears to be a predominantlynegative perspective in the literature that unfairly represents the social andeconomic phenomenon that is contemporary tourism as a ‘sinner’. And notsurprisingly, perhaps, the responses to the deliberately provocative approachadopted in the lead piece collectively reveal that not only is there no simpleanswer to the question but also, as Jim Macbeth suggests, the question itselfis perhaps ‘a rather pointless exercise’, reducing as it does an assessment ofthe complexity of tourism and its consequences to either ‘good’ or ‘bad’.Indeed, he goes on to suggest that it is not tourism, but tourism academicswho are the sinners for failing to consider tourism from sustainability andethical platforms.

Certainly, the responses to this probe support the argument that it isover-simplistic to characterize tourism as ‘sinner’ or ‘sinned against ‘. Notonly is it a complex and infinitely variable phenomenon but, as Jim Macbethnotes, is of differing significance to various stakeholder groups – it is atthe same time a source of profit to businesses / developers, an experience fortourists and a challenge for environmentalists. Equally, Noel Scott correctlypoints out that questions need to be asked about the alleged benefits oftourism; that is, even if tourism in not an inevitable ‘sinner’, thecontribution it makes to development demands interrogation. That is, iftourism is inherently ‘good’, as suggested in the lead piece, questions shouldbe asked about good for whom against what benchmarks and so on. In otherwords, a critical perspective needs to be adopted towards the potentialbenefits 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 atthe destinational level, and are there intended outcomes that guide suchmanagement?

Conversely, if tourism is viewed fundamentally as an economic sectorincurring 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 thanthose other industries. In fact, Peter Smith provides powerful evidence thattourism or, rather, mass tourism is not a sinner (at least, no more so thanany other large-scale economic sector), but is sinned against. He goes on tosupport the argument that, whilst it may be unfashionable in academic circlesto praise mass tourism or, perhaps, more fashionable to criticize it as asinner, it may contribute more than alternative forms of tourism which, thoughmore environmentally and socially benign (or less sinful) often bring fewerbenefits.So what can be concluded from this research probe? Two themes in particularemerge. Firstly, all the contributors concur, to a lesser or greater extent,that tourism does not deserve to be considered a sinner, at least no morethan any other economic activity. Secondly 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). Thatis, tourism may not be a sinner, but the jury remains out on whether it issinned against.

Discussion Questions1. 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?

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.

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Further Readings

BRAMWELL, B. (Ed.) (2004). Coastal Mass Tourism: Diversification and Sustainable Development in Southern Europe. Clevedon. Channel View Publications.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 Harrison, D. (Ed) Tourism and the Less Developed World: Issues and Case Studies. Wallingford. CABI: 161-174.