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  Can Tourism Really Help Poorer Countries?

Dr Christine PLUSS - Working Group on Tourism and Development Basel, Switzerland

 

Key Questions

 

1) Tourism as a means of fighting poverty :

Paradigm shift or old wine put into new bottles ?

The question of whether tourism can actually help poorer countries is not a new one; as an historian, I would like to dispel that idea from the outset.

It is reminiscent of the debates from the seventies when international tourism began its rapid upswing and noble global committees and national officials from the development collaboration effort hotly debated whether or not the promotion of tourism was a suitable means of developmental aid. What is new however is the urgency with which the very same question is still being asked today. For example, at the latest UN Conference on "Least Developed Countries" (LDC) last May 2001 in Brussels, where the LDCs were obliged to create a favourable climate for the promotion of tourism and at the same time, greater use of resources from developmental aid for tourism was promoted.

In fact, I also fail to see any paradigm shift in international economic and finance policies since significant resources, such as the multilateral subsidies, are already used to promote tourism. Thus the European Union has set up major development programs for tourism, running into millions of euros; the World Bank and its subsidiaries provide aid for tourism projects in around sixty countries worldwide.

A great many host countries across the globe have, for their part, gone to great lengths in recent years to create a favourable climate for tourism. In so-called developing countries, these endeavours are often overshadowed by the threat of significant indebtedness. Since the debt crisis in the early eighties, the promotion of tourism as an "export sector" and a "money spinner" has also therefore often formed a major component of the restructuring initiatives prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for poorer, highly indebted countries. Much more than the new tone at the last UN Conference on LCDs, this renown prominently held for many years as a "money spinner", together with the prospects for creating employment, has pinned the hopes of all poor countries and regions throughout the world on tourism in recent years.

The host countries, and in particular, many developing countries, have promoted tourism over the last few years by means of a whole range of initiatives. These also include significant deregulations and liberalisations in this already widely liberalised sector. Thus in 1994, at the end of the Uruguay round of the GATT, when services were first incorporated into the free trade agreements, the overwhelming majority of countries across the world introduced extensive new liberalisation requirements expressly in tourism or related sectors. And yet before the effects of all these liberalisations on the host countries - on their national economies, on the improvement of living conditions for the poorest, most disadvantaged population sectors within the target regions - are effectively evaluated, serious negotiations are being undertaken regarding the stripping away of other so-called trade barriers in tourism.

These targeted promotional initiatives have contributed at least as much as the growing demands of travel consumers to the fact that in recent years, tourism has developed into the most significant industry sector in the world which has also already seen significant growth in developing countries.

The idea that tourism ought to help poorer countries has therefore been applied worldwide for years. How successfully? - Opinions differ greatly on this, even among the NGO's incidentally, depending on who wishes to look at and point out what more closely and in which interest.

From the point of view of a NGO, which has analysed tourism from a developmental policy standpoint for almost 25 years now, and is supported in this by a broad network of people and local human rights groups and initiatives from the north and the south, we would like to summarise the questions posed at the outset and accompany further explanations with the following considerations:

• At what cost can tourism help poor countries ?
• Who benefits ?
• And who pays ?

2) Successes in the poorest countries of the world : under which conditions ?

The pushing forward of tourism at the third conference on LDCs of last May is based on preparations for the World Tourism Organisation (WTO-OMT) and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). A highly informative report with recommendations for a campaign program reveals that in 18 out of the 49 LDCs, tourism today ranks among the major "money spinners". In fact, the LDCs together only hold a market share of 0.8 percent in worldwide tourism but their revenue made from tourism has doubled in just six years to 2.2 billion US dollars. As a result of their successful development of tourism, Cape Verde, the Maldives, Samoa and Vanuatu have neared the threshold to overcome their LDC status. This is a record of success and nurtures the hopes pinned on tourism as a means of fighting poverty.

Not all, but a great many of the LDCs with a record of success in tourism are small, remote island states with limited populations which have scarcely diversified development opportunities. All the better when it works out with tourism! For example, for the Maldives, which I know very well first hand. In the early eighties, I worked there for over two years as a tour guide and carried out field research at the same time for my dissertation. The Maldives are blessed with unique natural beauty - anyone who has ever snorkelled or dived there can only confirm this. They have - like other island nations - a very limited population figure. In addition, the Maldives are traditionally governed by a very small elite who have however often received excellent overseas education. Anyone who has ever actually worked in tourism on the Maldives knows how hard negotiations about prices, bed allocation and privileges are. These are both socio-economical and socio-cultural and demographic and ecological prerequisites which had to be reinforced in the preparation report for the LDC Conference and which will need to be brought to the fore, as they form an extremely important "start up capital". What chance do countries with no such "start up capital" have in tourism ? They would in effect need to be recommended other, further initiatives to enable them to be successful in tourism. There is not mention of this however in the proposed program of action.

Even all the local trump cards played to the contrary by government officials on the Maldives can not prevent the fact that its unique coral island realm is threatened by local environmental damage caused by tourism and, above all, by global warming, and has already been affected thereby. On the other hand, the president of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, has been one of the first warning voices since the mid-eighties to raise the awareness of the general public to the imminent danger posed by the greenhouse effect to low-lying islands. If remote islands develop tourism further as the only prospect, as advised by the LDC success record, they would be digging their own graves: because the tourists would all arrive by plane but air traffic is today recognised as the number one climate killer among the various modes of transport and contributes significantly to global warming. Here again, the program of action in tourism for the LDC Conference as the basis for decision-makers in politics and economy shows alarmingly little evidence of coherence. In fact, the preparation report mentions global warming with its consequences for low-lying islands as it quite rightly goes into a whole range of weaknesses and dangers of the development of tourism for poorer countries informatively and in great detail : crisis dependency, monetary outflow, market position in international competition, ability of small, local suppliers to survive and many

others such as environmental impacts and ecological destruction caused by tourism. As is often the case with such international processes however, these considerations are not met with sufficient response in the final recommendations to the protagonists in question.

The all too exclusive view of associated economic data occasionally encourages outrageous statements: Thus Burma - or Myanmar, as the leading generals have renamed the country - is praised for its "performance" in tourism. Throughout the country, tens of thousands of people were obligated to compulsory labour for the construction of the tourist infrastructures; countless more were forcibly relocated in order to make room for new tourist facilities and shopping areas or commercial districts. These human rights violations occurred to an extent never before witnessed in connection with tourism. And they are frequently verified, among others even by the studies on forced labour by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which, last year, took the most severe measures in its history against the Burmese military junta. The long-standing military dictatorship bled the country completely dry, the situation of people in Burma today is catastrophic and extremely alarming. There can be no talk here of fighting poverty with tourism. Rather it seems cynical to highlight Burma for its "tourism performance" and at the same time to talk about ethics in tourism.

3) Changing horizons :

From the poorest countries to countries with the most widespread human poverty Imagine what recommendations the third LDC Conference would have come to had it based its findings on the following representation, created on behalf of the British development collaboration (IIED-International Institute for Environment and Development, ODI-Overseas Development Institute) :

(Table Deloitte&Touche, 1999)

Today, an estimated 1.3 billion people worldwide are living in extreme poverty, in other words on less than 1 US Dollar a day. 80 percent of them live in just 13 countries (India, China, Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nepal, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Brazil, Peru, the Philippines and Mexico).

10 of these countries have a significant tourism sector (over 2% of the GDP or 5% of exports), which has seen considerable growth over recent years. Here the popular tourism promotion recipe has clearly not contributed to the fight against poverty.

4) The gulf between rich and poor is growing worldwide - despite economic growth and increased tourism

Tourism today is not only the main branch of industry and employer in the world; thanks to its recent outstanding rates of growth, it is also considered to be the driving force behind development and one of the pacemakers for globalisation. We can therefore no longer continue to ask as though tourism were a new prospect. And if we are talking about poverty here, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that since 1980, in spite of economic growth on a global scale, 60 countries worldwide have become increasingly poorer. I would like to illustrate this using a somewhat simplified but neat view of the current poverty situation - the poverty of people throughout the world which we as an NGO have in our field of vision :

I am not asking you if you would like to live in this village. In fact, you do live in this village and you travel around in this village. Since September 11 just gone, it has become drastically clear to all of us how explosive the global social injustice actually is. Will the shock lead to a new, more open climate of worldwide collaboration with increased solidarity, through which the fight against poverty and the implementation of sustainable development is at last taken seriously ?

Tourism requires peace and social security, this has also been drastically highlighted by the events of recent weeks. Tourism policies and the tourism industry are now called upon to make their contribution which reflects their leading position and role in the global economy. It is in their own best interests to speak out against the social inequality on a global and local level, just as - as recognised for some time now - it is in their interests to use natural resources sparingly and to maintain an environment worth living in as the basis of existence - even for its own future.

What is needed for this has almost all in fact already been said somewhere or other. Thus, the World Bank has at last confirmed, using empirical data from other sectors, what data regarding the impressive growth of tourism has also shown us : economic growth is in fact necessary in order to fight poverty but economic growth alone is not sufficient. Supporting measures aimed at eliminating the social inequality are also required. As a result of this finding, the World Bank has derived the "Pro Poor Sustainable Growth" strategies. That said, not a trace of this is yet to be found in the recommendations for tourism from the latest LDC Conference, where the emphasis was placed predominantly and with all resources, on the further growth of tourism.

As a result of the events of September 11, tourism today finds itself in a crisis which is already virtually historical. Thus, an opportunity for change would be given to actively assume responsibility for more social fairness in tourism on a global and local level. In reality however, businesses in the extensive private sector are being further boosted with massive new funding, not least from taxes. In order to return as quickly as possible to the old rates of growth, tourism destinations across the globe are already offering new price reductions, just as they in turn demand them from the major tour operators in renegotiations. This means that global competition is further intensified. The host countries, which have similar hotels, beaches and attractions to offer worldwide, clearly do not have the whip hand in these negotiations and are played off against one another by the tourism groups operating transnationally with regard to the cheapest offer.

David Diaz Benavides of UNCTAD highlighted, in his report for the OECD Seminar last March in Berlin, a whole series of such instances of unfair competition by the major tourism groups and concluded from this that in certain cases the poorer host countries are subsidising rich tourists. This disguised subsidisation by the host countries includes all measures to increase the attractiveness of a destination which are continually taken as part of the intensified competition. Thus, for instance, the investment incentives for foreign investors along with the entire range of tax exemptions and free return transfer of profits etc., which, at the final count, make a significant difference as massive losses for the host countries. There is scope here for a new, fairer organisation of relations in tourism in favour of the poor, and the concrete elimination of these "suicidal" promotions and disguised subsidisations belong in the recommendations for the program of action on tourism in the LCDs - something which has hitherto been

neglected.

5) Positive signs: How can tourism help people suffering from poverty ?

No - I am now no longer going to take the conventional NGO role and imagine the worst, tourism as the root of all evil. You can read about that today in enough documents which by no means originate solely from NGO circles. Rather, I would like to point out some examples of where tourism has in effect benefited wide sectors of the population, which prerequisites are required and which limitations tourism faces as a tool for fighting poverty.

For years now we have been following the fishing village of Prainha do Canto Verde in north east - the poorhouse - Brazil which has been awarded the TO-DO! prize by the German Study Group on Tourism and Development for its outstanding tourism project. In view of sinking profits from the fishing industry caused by industrial overfishing, the 150 families in the village were forced to seek alternative sources of income. Tourism was one option, all the more so considering the village had to defend itself against real estate speculators who wanted to implement a mass tourism project.

This provided the impetus for a new community development with the establishment of co-operatives for fishing, crafts, tourism etc. - and for education. The initial investment consisted in fact of reorganising teaching materials for the school and establishing literacy programs for adults. In the new school premises, regional or even national and international seminars on the problems of fishing were held which laid the foundations for the tourism. Today around 500 foreign visitors come to the village each year, some 50 of those from overseas; they stay in guest houses or guest rooms in the homes of residents and are catered for interestingly by the inhabitants of the village. For the time being, no more guests are wanted.

The inhabitants have also already helped quite a lot of youths with education and training in the town. We have just received the alarming announcement that the project is once again under threat because the local area is still being demanded by private companies for a tourism project.

Prudent structuring and the careful distribution of the proceeds from tourism will not be sufficient for success unless the disputes over the land are resolved - and worldwide, this is one of the most fundamental and significant problems facing the development of socially just tourism today.

The example makes it clear that sustainable approaches in tourism in no way require such enormous resources as are currently being called for by the highest authorities in connection with the UN year of ecotourism pronounced for next year. It is also incomprehensible, which is why those in charge of policies and economy have called for a special UNO year for the unclear concept of "ecotourism" - a concept which is furthermore loaded with glaring mistakes such as the forcible expulsion of countless indigenous people from their ancestral land in order to make room for nature parks with "ecotourism" components. It would be far more far-sighted and forward-looking to devote the year 2002 - ten years after the Rio earth summit - comprehensively to the formulation of an environmentally just development of tourism that is fair to the people involved.

International reports increasingly stress the opportunities that tourism holds for women. As part of our studies of women in tourism, we have been able to encounter a whole range of interesting personalities who have successfully achieved a main or secondary income in tourism - with bed & breakfast, rooms on farms, marketing rural products or handicrafts or the sale of refreshments etc. As is so often the case in tourism, at the same time, a whole range of family members and other village residents also benefit from such businesses. The prerequisite for the success of these entrepreneurs was without exception however that they already had a "start up capital", whether this be in the form of a house, a farm, land or special skills, knowledge or languages. And this is increasingly the case for women from the current middle class.

On the contrary, the situation of women employed in tourism who, according to estimates by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) make up, on average, up to 70 percent of the workforce in global tourism. They earn on average 20 to 30 percent less than their male colleagues in similar positions and in these reports, personal services are often at the mercy of abuse and sexual exploitation.

In this context, I can not go further into the precarious employment conditions in tourism as a whole nor talk about the 13 to 19 million children and youngsters, at least, who are employed in tourism and are subjected not only to economic exploitation but also often, as is well known, to sexual exploitation (see ILO sources and child labour in tourism). It is the very least that all persons responsible for tourism today commit themselves at the core conventions and industry specific conventions of the ILO. In view of the fact that women and children worldwide are affected to a great extent by poverty, it is furthermore urgently necessary that persons responsible for tourism in politics and economy take special measures to protect and strengthen the position of women and children in tourism.

A multi-faceted insight into the targeted fight against poverty through tourism is currently provided by the carefully researched case samples from all continents and tourism combinations of the British development service, the "UK Department for International Development" (DFID), which, as part of the "Pro-Poor Tourism" (PPT) program attempts to draw the attentions of the World Bank to the sector. From the extensive insights, I can only give brief details of some results here :

• In tourism, creating employment and alternative sources of income is not sufficient to ensure that the poorest populations sectors benefit therefrom. This requires basic education and specific knowledge (languages, skills etc.) and specifically, the respect and reinforcement of initiatives, even in the informal sector, in order to be able to keep up in tourism.
• In remote regions, tourism can in fact create new sources of income but the consequences of tourism there are particularly far-reaching.

Thus, targeted strategies for fighting poverty in tourism are used to advantage in regions in which tourism is already developing.

• It requires measures to be taken in both the industrial and political sectors, such as regulations regarding access to land and water etc., icences and investments, access to favourable loans for local suppliers, training and regional planning but, above all, it also requires the co-operation and participation of all those involved in decision making and the proceeds of tourism.

All this requires new forms of collaboration between all participants. We are still acting in niches however and successes remain extremely limited both geographically and in terms of time. Thus, in the Tourism & Development team, together with Tourism Concern in the UK and many other NGO's from around the globe, we are pursuing the concept of "fair trade" in tourism which is aimed at a targeted strengthening of disadvantaged.population groups in and through tourism with measures which must take place at all relevant points in the entire tourism supply chain, in particular for us in Switzerland, also in the consumer sector.

The work of the NGO's is clearly crucial and in many places is also increasingly influential, especially when it comes to the local organisation of tourism. The demands of the NGO's for tourism however nevertheless often remain in all senses powerless when it comes to the general international conditions of tourism and the final decisions are made as to what can be done locally in general. Increased use of those responsible in politics and economy at all levels, but particularly with regard to the finance and trade policy conditions, is therefore urgently required so that tourism today can help to reduce poverty.

6) Finally, an optimistic outlook :

The fight against poverty is fundable - already !

 

Sources :

Working Group on Tourism & Development, Basel, News in Brief (quarterly), www.akte.ch

Ashley, Caroline/ Roe, Dilys/ Goodwin, Harold : Pro-Poor Tourism Strategies : Making Tourism Work for The Poor, Pro-Poor Tourism Report N°1, April 2001, www.propoortourism.org.uk

Deloitte & Touche : Sustainable Tourism and Poverty Elimination : A Report for the Department of International Development, IIED and ODI, April 1999, www.propoortourism.org.uk

Diaz Benavides, David/ UNCTAD: The Sustainability of International Tourism in Developing Countries, Report presented at a Seminar on Tourism Policy and Economic Growth, OECD/OCDE, Berlin 6./7.3.2001

Clearinghouse for Reviewing Ecotourism, N°1-N°17, 2001, www.twnside.org.sg/title/iye.htm

Grütter, Karin/ Plüss, Christine : Herrliche Aussichten. Frauen im Tourismus, Rotpunktverlag 1996

Herz, Wilfried : Die Tourismus-Falle, in : Die Zeit, August 2001

Kalish, Angela: Tourism as Fair Trade. NGO Perspectives, Tourism Concern 2001, www.tourismconcern.org.uk

ILO : Human resources development, employment and globalization in the hotel, catering and tourism sector. Report for discussion at the Tripartite Meeting on Human Resources Development, Employment and Globalization in the Hotel, Catering and Tourism Sector, 2-6 April 2001, Note on the Proceedings, www.ilo.org

Plüss, Christine : Quick Money - Easy Money ? A Report on Child Labour in Tourism, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), 1999

Plüss, Christine : Ferienglück aus Kinderhänden. Kinderarbeit im Tourismus, Rotpunktverlag 1999

Suresh, K.T. : About the time we rethought Tourism in the GATS, EQUATIONS Bangalore 2001, www.equitabletourism.org

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC): The Challenge of Eliminating World Poverty, May 2000

Tourism Watch 6/2001, www.tourism-watch.org

UNDP : Human Development Report 1997, 1998, 1999, www.un.org/publications

UNICEF : The State of The World’s Children, 1997, 1998, 1999

UN-LDC III : Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries für the Decade 2001-2010, Brussels 20.5.2001, UN-LDC III: Outcome of the High-Level Meeting on Tourism and Development in the Least Developed Countries, Gran Canaria, Spain, 26-29 March 2001, www.un.org/events/ldc3/conference/index.html

WWF International : Preliminary Assessment of the Environmental & Social Effects of Liberalisation in Tourism Services, February 2001

World Tourism Organisation (WTO-OMT) : Press Release:Tourism Development Urgend for Poorest Nations, Brussels 17.5.2001, www.world-tourism.org

Ziegler, Jean : Schizophrénie des Nations Unies. Une lutte sans moyens contre la faim dans : Le Monde Diplomatique, novembre 2001

 

The author

Christine Plüss is an historian living in Basle. She completed her PhD studies in Paris in 1986 with a thesis on tourism in the Maldives. For many years, in addition to her studies and other responsibilities, she worked as a tour guide for Swiss tour operators. Since 1988, she has been a researcher and campaigner at the Arbeitskreis Tourismus & Entwicklung, advocating criticial examination of the many facets of international tourism in very different contexts, with the aim of working towards equitable relations in tourism. Recently she conducted a comprehensive research on child labour in tourism which was published in english by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (Quick Money – Easy Money ? 1999) and in german (Ferienglück aus Kinderhänden, 1999). This project was a continuation of her long involvement with and work on the sex trade in tourism, travelling and Aids, and women and children in the context of tourism. Among other initiatives, Christine Plüss was co-initiator and organiser of the Swiss Campaign Against Child Prostitution in 1991 ; in 1996 she co-edited a book on Women and Gender in Tourism (Herrliche Aussichten !)