Governance, governments and tourism

9 Governance, governments and tourism

1 See list of abbreviations. 2 Among other things, the WDM cites a 1997 speech made by the WTO/OMC’s Director of Trade in Services Division at a conference entitled Opening markets for banking worldwide: the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services. 3 Case study research covered South Africa, Nepal, Namibia, Uganda, Ecuador and St Lucia (Ashley et al., 2000; Ashley et al., 2001; Braman and Fundación Acción Amazonia, 2001; Cattarinich, 2001; DFID, 1999; Mahony and Van Zyl, 2001; Nicanor, 2001; Poultney and Spenceley, 2001; Renard, 2001; Saville, 2001; Williams et al., 2001). 4 In Chapter 3, we argued that tourism is distinct in that the tourist (consumer) comes into direct contact with the producers of services, and that the fetishism that characterises most products tends to melt into thin air when it comes to tourism. Such differences simply are not factored into an economic analysis of tourism. 5 See note 3. 6 The time of writing this review of the IYE coincides precisely with the occasion of the World Ecotourism Summit in Canada, and so it is not possible to report on the details of specific

Notes • 307 outcomes of the event. Instead, the reader is referred to the relevant websites given in the

Appendix for further consideration of the different perspectives on and interpretations of the IYE.

7 Most discussions of new forms of Third World tourism have focused on tourism away from cities, on the environmental, ecological and cultural attributes of the Third World. Similarly, recent attempts to use these forms of tourism as ‘developmental’ tools or activities have found favour in community-based rural tourism and pro-poor rural tourism initiatives (as discussed earlier in this chapter).

Given the increasing urbanisation of poverty (United Nations Centre for Human Settlements, 1996, 2001) and the inherent attractiveness of cities, there is little or no consid- eration of the scope, problems or opportunities of urban focused pro-poor tourism; Hutnyk’s (1996) ethnographic study of backpackers in Kolkata which traces the relationships between tourism and charitable voluntary work is a rare exception.

13111 Cities have, of course, played a historically significant role in the tourism process and the historical and cultural attractions of a wide range of Third World cities continues to be a big draw for new tourists, though as Landry (2000) notes, while tourism ‘feeds off culture’, most tourism ‘focuses on a narrow conception of culture – museums, galleries, theatre and shop- ping’ (2000: 9) rather than the rich cultural distinctiveness of individual cities. Additionally urban commentators increasingly point to the role of architectural conservation in supporting the tourism sector (and vice versa), and more broadly supporting the attainment of urban sustainability and economic growth, considered a prerequisite for pro-poor development. City centre conservation measures, however, can often result in gentrification (Rojas, 1999) and have a deleterious effect on poor segments of the population who are effectively expelled as land and property prices increase and who have their livelihood opportunities undercut by the expulsion of certain uses (such as street selling) from high profile city centres. Similarly the (re)development of Third World city centres has often aped First World models of regener- ation where the generation of economic activity (and tourism as part of this process) has been pursued.

‘Sensitising tours’ do already exist in some cities (even in First World cities such as Rotterdam where tours exist and are hosted by some of the city’s most socially marginalised communities). For example, tours of Soweto (RSA) or the barrios of Rio de Janeiro focus on the exposure of the other side of cities, or perhaps cash in on the notoriety of some city areas. Much like rural-based tourism, the fundamental questions remain about the access, ownership and control of resources and the degree of power vested in poorer communities.

8 In 1997 the Orwellian-sounding SLORC renamed itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC). 9 The SLORC renamed the country ‘Myanmar’ in 1989.