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Report 5 of 5:
Pasqua's
Paradise - UK
Introduction
Tourism is the world’s largest industry, affecting the lives of millions of people. While it can bring benefits, these are seldom spread evenly. People in many tourist destinations are now counting the cost of development that has failed to put their interests and rights on a par with their visitors. Livelihoods are being lost, religions and cultural traditions debased and environments degraded.
About Tourism Concern
Tourism Concern is a UK based charity working for constructive responses to these problems. It looks at the way tourism affects the people and environments in tourism destination areas. Tourism Concern raises awareness of tourism's impact with the general public, with government decision-makers and within the tourist industry itself - and it provides a unique information base for campaigners and students of tourism.
Tourism Concern is a membership network set up in 1989 to bring together people concerned about tourism’s impact on communities and the environment, both in the UK and worldwide. Tourism Concern is a unique source of information on tourism’s impacts. Tourism Concern influences and informs government, industry and education. It is an independent voice for justice and sustainability in tourism.
Tourism Concern campaigns for a tourist industry that is:
JUST - yielding benefits that are fairly distributed.
PARTICIPATORY - involving local people in its development and management.
SUSTAINABLE - putting long-term environmental and social benefits before short-term gain.
What is community tourism?
Tourism that benefits local people
Community tourism (sometimes called community-based tourism) is a form of tourism which aims to include and benefit local communities, particularly indigenous peoples and villagers in the rural South (i.e. "developing world"). For instance, villagers might host tourists in their village, managing the scheme communally and sharing the profits. There are many types of community tourism project, including some in which the "community" works with a commercial tour operator, but all community tourism projects should give local people a fair share of the benefits/profits and a say in deciding how incoming tourism is managed.
Tourism that benefits tourists
These tours open up a world of adventure and opportunity. Visit the Amazon, trek through the Andes or the Sinai, experience the magic of the central Australian desert... Good community-based tours take you beyond mainstream tourism. You will meet people from different countries and learn far more about them and their culture than on conventional tours. You will feel better knowing that your visit is genuinely helping your hosts.
Community tourism should...
- Be run with the involvement and consent of local communities. (Local people should participate in planning and managing the tour.)
- Give a fair share of profits back to the local community. (Ideally this will include community projects (health, schools, etc).)
- Involve communities rather than individuals. (Working with individuals can disrupt social structures.)
- Be environmentally sustainable. (Local people must be involved if conservation projects are to succeed.)
- Respect traditional culture and social structures.
- Have mechanisms to help communities cope with the impact of western tourists.
- Keep groups small to minimise cultural / environmental impact.
- Brief tourists before the trip on appropriate behaviour.
- Not make local people perform inappropriate ceremonies, etc.
- Leave communities alone if they don't want tourism. (People should have the right to say 'no' to tourism.)
For further information, please contact:
ITDG would like to acknowledge Tourism Concern for providing the original material on this information sheet.
This document is an output from a project funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for the benefit of developing countries. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the DFID.
Further reading available from ITDG Development Bookshop
John Lea
Tourism and Development in the Third World
What is the truth behind the paradise beaches in travel brochures? What can a developing country do when one exotic holiday seems much like another, when political instability or environmental disaster can deter tourists for years, when the tourism industry slips into foreign control?
Tourism and Development in the Third World assesses the diverse social, economic, and environmental factors that impact on the Third World. Illustrating the analysis with cases which range across tourism in game parks, sex tours and the after-effects of political turmoil, the book explores ways of managing tourism as a resource and evaluates its long-term contribution towards national development.
£8.99 Routledge PB 1988 ISBN 0415006716
Mark Mann for Tourism Concern
The Community Tourism Guide: Exciting holidays for responsible travellers
The Community Tourism Guide will lead you to a new type of holiday. Tribal people and rural villagers in Africa, Asia, Australia, North and South America and the Pacific islands are setting up their own tours: tours from which they, and not the international hotel chains, derive some income. For the traveller, they offer uniquely exciting opportunities, far from the usual tourist ghettos. And they are based on fair trade, benefiting local communities and giving them hope of a better future. Written by Mark Mann for Tourism Concern, Europe’s leading ethical tourism organisation, the Guide brings together the pick of these holidays for the first time. It describes hundreds of different holidays in many of the most beautiful places around the world, with full contact details and a range of further useful information. Chosen by Tourism Concern, and not available through conventional travel agents, they promise uniquely rewarding experiences to the adventurous and those concerned about the impacts of their visit.
£9.99 Earthscan PB 2000 ISBN 1853836818
Lesley France (Ed)
The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Tourism
Tourism is now one of the world’s largest industries and the concept of sustainable tourism has recently emerged in response to a range of concerns about the considerable environmental impacts of tourist development. Until now, work on establishing criteria and guidelines for responsible tourism has been scattered. For the first time, The Earthscan Reader brings together a selection of seminal pieces discussing sustainable tourism and the best practice implications for the full range of tourist activity and a variety of destinations. It provides an indispensable handbook for all those studying tourism or involved in trying to ensure that tourism is genuinely beneficial and sustainable.
£16.95 Earthscan PB 1997 ISBN 1853834084
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