Tourism and inequality [recurso electrónico] problems and prospects

248 Pages·2010·2.992 MB·English

by  Ovid Technologies, Inc

Tourism and Inequality
Problems and Prospects
This book is dedicated to Shannay and Toby, in the hope that the inequalities in and
through tourism will be reduced by the time they come to book their fi rst holiday.
Tourism and Inequality
Problems and Prospects
Edited by
Stroma Cole
University of the West of England
and
Nigel Morgan
University of Wales Institute, Cardiff
CABI is a trading name of CAB International
CABI Head Offi ce CABI North American Offi ce
Nosworthy Way 875 Massachusetts Avenue
Wallingford 7th Floor
Oxfordshire, OX10 8DE Cambridge, MA 02139
UK USA
Tel: [phone] Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone] Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www.cabi.org
© CAB International 2010. All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronically,
mechanically, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the copyright owners.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library,
London, UK.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tourism and inequality : problems and prospects / edited by
Stroma Cole, Nigel Morgan.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84593-662-4 (hardback alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-84593-690-7 (pbk.: alk paper)
1. Tourism. 2. Tourism--Sociological aspects. I. Cole, Stroma, 1962-
II. Morgan, Nigel. III. Title.
G155.A1T58934862 2010
306.4’.819--dc22
2010019057
ISBN-13: 978 1 84593 662 4 (hardback)
ISBN-13: 978 1 84593 690 7 (paperback)
Commissioning editor: Sarah Hulbert
Production editor: Kate Hill
Typeset by Columns Design Ltd, Reading, UK.
Printed and bound in the UK by MPG Books Group.
Contents
Contributors vii
Foreword x
Acknowledgements xii
Acronyms xiii
Introduction: Tourism and Inequality xv
Stroma Cole and Nigel Morgan
Part I: Inequalities for Consumers
1 Tourism, Disability and Mobility 1
Jennie Small and Simon Darcy
2 Tourism and Visual Impairment 21
Victoria Richards, Nigel Morgan, Annette Pritchard and Diane Sedgley
3 Equal Access for All? Regulative Mechanisms, Inequality and Tourism Mobility 34
C. Michael Hall
Part II: Inequalities for Producers
4 Sex Tourism and Inequalities 49
Jacqueline Sánchez Taylor
5 Access and Marginalization in a Beach Enclave Resort 67
Sheena Carlisle
6 Fair Trade in Tourism – a Marketing Tool for Social Transformation? 85
Angela Kalisch
7 Tourism and Human Rights 107
Stroma Cole and Jenny Eriksson
v
vi Contents
Part III: Prospects for Reducing Inequalities
8 Social Tourism for Low-income Groups: Benefi ts in a UK and Irish Context 126
Lynn Minnaert, Jane Stacey, Bernadette Quinn and Kevin Griffi n
9 Tourism and Welfare: Ethics, Responsibility and Well-being 143
Derek Hall and Frances Brown
10 Pro-poor Tourism: Can Tourism Contribute to Poverty Reduction in Less
Economically Developed Countries? 164
Dorothea Meyer
11 Urban Beaches as Social Tourism Installations: Case Studies of Paris Plage
and Bristol Urban Beach 183
Tim Gale
12 Justifying Tourism: Justice through Tourism 194
Freya Higgins-Desbiolles
Conclusion: Tourism, Inequalities and Prospects 212
Nigel Morgan and Stroma Cole
Index 217
Contributors
Frances Brown is a freelance editor and author. She was editor of Tourism Management
from 1987 to 1996 and is on the editorial board of Tourism Recreation Research. She has
also lectured in the UK and abroad on publishing tourism research, and was guest editor
of a recent special issue on tourism of Third World Quarterly.
Dr Sheena Carlisle is Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management, and Programme Director for
Undergraduate Tourism at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. Her research
interests include: political economy of tourism in developing countries; fair trade and
pro-poor tourism; small and medium enterprise (SME) development and partnership
models in destination management.
Dr Stroma Cole is a senior lecturer in Tourism Geography at the University of the West of
England. With research interests in responsible tourism development in less developed
countries, the anthropology of tourism, and the link between tourism and human rights,
she is an activist researcher critiquing the consequences of tourism development. Stroma
is Chair of Tourism Concern: see http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk for further details.
Associate Professor Simon Darcy is Research Director in the School of Leisure, Sport and
Tourism at the University of Technology, Sydney. He teaches, researches and has
published in the areas of social participation patterns, public policy, environmental
planning and inclusive planning practices for marginalized groups. Since incurring a
spinal cord injury, Simon is a power wheelchair user and has been active in the advocacy
and research of issues facing people with disabilities.
Jenny Eriksson studied Human Rights at the Institution of Global Studies at Gothenburg
University, Sweden. In 2008 she undertook research for Tourism Concern’s report
‘Putting Tourism to Rights’ and in 2009 researched Swedish tour operators and corporate
responsibility and human rights for the Swedish network on fair travel ‘Schyst Resande’.
She is author of the site http://www.fairtourism.org, which discusses human rights
related issues in tourism.
Dr Tim Gale is a senior lecturer in Tourism Geography at the University of the West of
England, Bristol. His research interests include the decline and restructuring of cold-
water resorts, new forms of tourism production and consumption (e.g. cyber- and eco-
tourism; urban beaches), and environmental sustainability and tourism development.
Dr Kevin Griffi n is the Head of Tourism at the School of Hospitality Management and
Tourism in the Dublin Institute of Technology. Having studied teaching, tourism
organization and historic settlement, and having previously worked in a number of
vii
vviiiiii CCoonnttrriibbuuttoorrss
geography departments, he has a broad range of interests in the tourism, heritage and
sustainability areas. His interests in social tourism link with his research into sustainable
and religious tourism and are developed from his volunteer work in the provision of
holidays.
C. Michael Hall is Professor in the Department of Management at the University of
Canterbury, New Zealand; Docent in the Department of Geography, University of Oulu,
Finland; and visiting professor at the Linnaeus University School of Business and
Economics, Sweden.
Derek Hall was trained in geography and social anthropology, and he has a doctorate in
urban social and political geography. Together with Frances Brown he co-wrote Tourism
and Welfare: Ethics, Responsibility and Sustained Well-being, published by CAB
International in 2006.
Dr Freya Higgins-Desbiolles is a lecturer in tourism in the School of Management, University
of South Australia. She holds degrees in politics and international relations and has 10
years working experience in development and development education. Her research in
tourism has included a focus on the concerns of host communities, the impacts of
tourism, indigenous tourism and justice through tourism. She has recently worked with
indigenous Australian communities and Palestinians on projects fostering the use of
tourism for community benefi t.
Angela Kalisch is Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management at the University of
Gloucestershire. Between 1999 and 2002, she was organizing international research on
Fair Trade in Tourism and Corporate Social Responsibility at the UK-based Non-
Governmental Organization (NGO) Tourism Concern. She is currently updating this
work for her PhD.
Dr Dorothea Meyer is Senior Lecturer at Sheffi eld Hallam University, UK. Her research is
investigating how tourism can be used as a tool for poverty reduction. While her current
research is mainly focused on Africa, she also works in Europe, Asia and the Pacifi c.
Previously, Dorothea worked for the tourism team at Overseas Development Institute
(ODI).
Dr Lynn Minnaert is a research fellow and lecturer at the University of Westminster. Her
research focuses on social tourism in the UK and Europe, and on social sustainability in
the tourism and events industry.
Nigel Morgan is Professor of Tourism Studies at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff.
He writes on destination brands, tourism, social justice and citizenship, and hopeful
tourism scholarship. His next book will be the second edition of The Critical Turn in
Tourism Studies, edited with Irena Ateljevic and Annette Pritchard.
Polyp is an activist and full time cartoonist/illustrator/prop builder for a wide range of
campaign groups and NGOs. His work can be seen at http://www.polyp.org.uk. His
ambitious graphic novel, Speechless – World History Without Words, is published by
New Internationalist and Friends of the Earth International. See http://www.
speechlessthebook.org for further details.
Annette Pritchard is Professor of Critical Tourism Studies and Director of the Cardiff
School of Management’s Welsh Centre for Tourism Research at the University of Wales
Institute, Cardiff. She researches on tourism and gender, hopeful tourism scholarship,
and destination brands. She is an editorial board member of the Journal of Tourism and
Cultural Change, Tourism and Hospitality Research and the Annals of Tourism
Research.
Bernadette Quinn is a human geographer. She lectures in the School of Hospitality
Management and Tourism, Dublin Institute of Technology. Her research interests include
tourism and cultural change, festivals and events, and tourism and social justice. Her
work has been published in a number of journals including Social and Cultural
Geography, Urban Studies and Annals of Tourism Research.
Contributors ix
Victoria Richards is a qualifi ed rehabilitation offi cer and has worked with and for people
with visual impairment in public sector and charity organizations. She is pursuing a
University of Wales Institute, Cardiff-funded doctoral study of the tourism experiences
of people with visual impairment at the Welsh Centre for Tourism Research in the Cardiff
School of Management.
Jacqueline Sánchez Taylor is a lecturer at the University of Leicester. She has undertaken
extensive ethnographic research on sex tourism with a particular focus on female sex
tourism. Her research and publications have focused on theoretical questions about the
intersections of race, gender, sexuality, age and economic inequalities in the global sex
trade.
Dr Diane Sedgley is Senior Lecturer in Tourism at the University of Wales Institute,
Cardiff. Her research interests focus on under-empowered and discriminated against
groups in society, and she has published on the tourism and leisure activities of older
people, people with disabilities and gay and lesbian consumers.
Jennie Small is a senior lecturer in the School of Leisure, Sport and Tourism at the
University of Technology, Sydney. Her specifi c research interest is tourist behaviour
from a critical tourism approach, focusing on equity and social justice issues in tourism.
Her research publications relate to embodiment, gender, disability, obesity, age and the
life course.
Jane Stacey is a researcher and lecturer in the School of Hospitality Management and
Tourism, Dublin Institute of Technology. Her research interests include social justice
and equality issues in tourism, sustainability, education and cultural tourism. She also
conducts applied research projects on behalf of public sector agencies, industry
associations and private commercial organizations.
Foreword
As someone who has spent their entire working life fi ghting for equal rights for all people
and working to develop stronger communities, I was struck by the evidence and arguments
in this edited volume by Stroma Cole and Nigel Morgan about the prevalence of inequality
and discrimination in the tourism industry. Fortunately, this book also points to tourism’s
potential to act as a powerful force for reducing inequality and positive community
development through social inclusion initiatives that incorporate poverty alleviation and
fair trade and ethical practices that support human rights.
As the editors point out in their introduction, analysis of the causes of inequality in
tourism is not new. The seasonal and low-skilled labour markets in tourism lead to
temporary employment at non-liveable wages without the usual health and other employee
benefi ts. Often black and ethnic minority workers confront barriers when entering
management or other higher-paying jobs. The room cleaning, garden tending, kitchen
worker and waitress jobs are fi lled disproportionately by low-skilled female employees.
Women are also exploited in sex tourism, with pervasive issues of abuse and human rights.
These inequalities can create dual economies in local communities, one for wealthier
tourists and the other for impoverished local workers. In addition, tourism destinations
and accommodations are rarely easily accessible for people with physical disabilities.
Tourism can also create local jobs in communities devastated by mining or manufacturing
closures and in low-income countries seeking to build businesses and jobs on natural
beauty and historical heritage. Tourists not only stay in hotels, they also use the transportation
system, frequent cafes and restaurants and go shopping. Tourism can attract foreign
investment and real estate development.
The editors and authors of this volume seek solutions to reconcile these economic
benefi ts of tourism with reducing inequality and injustice. The contributions are
representative of wider tourism studies that challenge us to think about the critical
importance of equality and social justice in economic development. The authors argue for
social tourism for low-income groups, the role of welfare in tourism, and changes in the fair
trade and ethical practices of the tourism industry. Human rights, fairness and equity are
too important for any industry to exempt itself from these universal values.
Two of the book’s main audiences are tourism students and educators – the fi rst are the
future tourism professionals, practitioners and policy makers, and the second are those
most responsible for embedding ethics, values and stewardship in teaching and learning
practice. I am acutely aware of the importance of education and attitudinal change in
x