Politically conscious Americans have an ambivalent relationship to tourism. On the one hand, many of us love to travel to foreign countries — if we can afford it. We deplore the fear of strangers that keeps some Americans at home. On the other hand, many of us seek out places that have been unspoiled — unspoiled by tourists, that is — and complain about the effects of tourism on the places we visit, as well as on our own communities.
Elizabeth Becker, a former economics correspondent for The New York Times, has one clear message: The tourism industry is important, whether for good or for bad, and people need to start paying attention to it. She points out that there’s been an explosion in travel and tourism over the past 40 years — the number of foreign trips in the world has quadrupled; there were a billion such trips in 2012. At least 10 percent of jobs worldwide are associated with the tourist industry.
Becker is by no means opposed to tourism. However, the way it’s structured will determine whether it has negative or positive effects on the places tourists go. She holds up France as a positive example since France has been particularly mindful in producing a “good” tourist experience that is about French culture and has resisted dissolving that culture into the global melting pot of cheap souvenirs and unvarying package tours.
Similarly, Costa Rica has made a point of keeping local control of its tourism industry, with the result that the country’s natural beauty and wildlife areas have been preserved and enhanced rather than degraded by the tourists they attract.
Becker’s negative examples include the cruise ship industry, which sells an experience of heavy consumption rather than of travel: Cruise passengers generally see very little of the countries they visit and are enticed into spending much more than the price of their tickets.
Workers’ wages are usually kept extremely low; most cruise workers’ incomes come from tips. Similarly, the country of Dubai provides a kind of tourism oriented almost entirely to consumption — not only of goods, but water and energy — with very little cultural experience to it.
Most of the money from tourism in Cambodia goes either to feed local corruption or to multinationals, while World Heritage sites like Angkor Watt are degraded by surrounding development and unsupervised visitors.
Venice, which now has more tourists on an average day than residents, is becoming unaffordable for Venetians.
Becker clearly believes that “good” tourism is what we traditionally think of as “travel” — going places to meet people and see how they live, rather than going somewhere simply to spend money. However, Becker also emphasizes the money a country can make from tourism. She believes that tourism can be an economic engine for a locality and that, if done mindfully, can help to foster a consciousness of local identity rather than creating a kind of fake culture that’s geared to tourists.
Her examples of good tourism, though, tend to sound costly: trips that I would consider more or less unaffordable for run-of-the-mill travelers. Furthermore, although she deplores tourist developments that displace the poor in urban neighborhoods or companies that don’t provide decent wages and working conditions, she doesn’t talk much about how tourism can be designed to help rather than hurt the poor.
In a short phone conversation, Elizabeth Becker answered a few questions to expand on some of these issues.
Mike Wold: There’s often a tension between the poor and homeless in a locality and the tourist industry. Even granting that tourism brings more money into a locality, what can be done to benefit the poor as well as the middle class and wealthy?
Elizabeth Becker: You (have to) look at tourism from a citizen’s point of view, not just a consumer’s point of view. Most people, when they read my book, say, “How can I be a better tourist when I travel?” The first way to do that is to be a better citizen in your own community. How do you want tourism to help your community? A lot of people who do no volunteer work in their own community will go overseas and volunteer. They spend a lot of money to send their kids overseas to be a volunteer, but they don’t volunteer in their own neighborhood.
So, look at tourism and travel as a citizen. I had breakfast with the World Affairs Council the other day: lovely people. One woman asked how we can get more support behind our tourism industry, and my suggestion was, broaden the scope. Invite community members to be part of your board. Invite arts people. Invite the environmental community. The people who advocate for the homeless and the poor should be part of it as well. Tourism can benefit whoever the locality wants to benefit. You can figure out what in your locality benefits the poor. Maybe the poor can be bus drivers or guides.
M.W.: Your book is pretty negative about cruise ships. The Port of Seattle has worked hard to get cruise ships to dock here. Do you think the impacts are worth the benefits?
E.B.: You have to be very careful, but Seattle has a strong environmental movement that is monitoring cruise pollution, so I think this is one of the cities where they’re trying very hard to watch it. Cruising has become an industrialized tourism sector, (but there are) cruise lines that are still small and still pay good wages and follow environmental rules. Like Linblad. I think they’re registered here (in Seattle). That’s the kind of tourism that you want.
M.W.: You’ve lived in Seattle. What kind of tourism would respect Seattle’s history and culture?
E.B.: Well, Seattle has that Scandinavian kind of personality. It’s a very friendly place. People come to Seattle and don’t even think about leaving the city. They get on the ferries — the best ferry system in the country. And you can walk and bike. It has culture, it has nature and it also has consumer opportunities. You can spend a lot of money if you want to.
One thing you could add to Seattle would be more in-depth, walking guide trips. (In the book) I mentioned Context Travel (Context Travel offers walking tours in a number of world cities, including some in the U.S. for about $20 to $30 per person per hour). They hire locals, often with degrees in history. If you get a good, educated, local guide, it changes your visit to a city.
M.W.: I really appreciated your focus on responsible tourism — but a lot of your examples were things that many people would consider out of their price range. What kinds of responsible tourism could be developed for lower middle-class and working-class people?
E.B.: The backpack world is alive and well. There are great hostel systems; there are countries where they make sure they have enough hotel spaces for the lower-middle classes as well as for the upper classes.
Europe is one place where, even if it looks expensive, you can travel very well for less money. My children grew up going to Europe, from hostel to hostel, and there’s all kinds of alternatives for Eurail passes and that sort of thing.
The more local you are, the better. I always use local transportation. In a lot of the United States we don’t have very good local transportation. You go overseas and you find out how good it is. Buses are one of the best ways to see a country. But I must caution: If you don’t speak the language, and you’re going local, you have to be careful that you don’t do something stupid and get in trouble. Go local, but use your brains. And really try to learn a language.
If you could travel with a local, that’s one of the things I recommend. If you could find someone you know there, either through work, through friends, through family, so that you have a built-in guide you could trust.
M.W.: You mentioned Costa Rica and France as areas that have been really mindful about their tourist development. Are there any other countries that you feel that way about?
E.B.: Germany has been head-and-shoulders on this. A lot of the Nordic countries are amazing. Japan is amazing. Parts of Canada — I won’t say all of Canada, but parts of Canada. I hear Chile’s very good.
M.W.: You talk about how big the tourism industry is, but does it really increase the general economy worldwide? Is the real effect just that people are spending their money in different places?
E.B.: People save their money to spend as travelers and tourists that they would not spend anywhere else. Would they be going to restaurants five days a week if they were home? Tourism very definitely changes the basic economy, and it changes the jobs.
Reprinted from Real Change News, Seattle, Wash.