Tourism and sustainability : development and new tourism in the Third World

353 Pages·2003·8.016 MB·xiii, 338 p. : ill\353

by  Martin Mowforth, Ian Munt

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31 Increasingly advocates of tourism argue that tourism growth offers a means for Third
4 World countries to escape the confines of ‘underdevelopment’ and that new forms of
5 tourism in particular allow this transition to be achieved sustainably and equitably.
6 Building upon this fundamental precept, this book explores and challenges the notions
7 of sustainability, globalisation and development and their relationship to contemporary
8 tourism in the Third World.
9 Adopting a broad geographical and conceptual perspective, the authors contend that
20 a clear understanding of the tourism process and its relationship to development can
1 only be achieved by an interdisciplinary approach touching on environmentalism, socio-
2 cultural studies, human geography, economics and development studies.
3 In the first part of the book the emergence of the concepts of sustainability, globali-
4111 sation and development and their application to contemporary tourism are critically
5 examined. Tracing the inception of sustainability within environmentalism, it is argued
6 that sustainability has emerged as a hegemonic discourse. The meaning of sustainability
7 is competed over by a variety of interests and the relationships between these interests
8 and the growth of new forms of tourism are discussed. It is argued that tourism can only
9 be fully assessed within a broader consideration of the structure and relationships of
30 power.
1 Developing this conceptual framework, the second part of the book explores a number
2 of critical themes. There are chapters on tourists, their relationship to new social move-
3 ments, tour operators, tourist destinations, the policies adopted by national governments
4 and on the impact of inte rnational and supranational agencies. The conclusion of the
5 book draws the various strands together and considers a number of alternative ways in
6 which the development of tourism in the Third World might progress.
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8 Martin Mowforth is a freelance researcher and Visiting Research Fellow in Human
9 Geography at the University of Plymouth. Ian Munt is a freelance human settlements
40 specialist and Associate Lecturer at the Open University.
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Tourism and
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4 Sustainability
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Development and new tourism
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in the Third World
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Second edition
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8 Martin Mowforth and Ian Munt
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For Feathers and ever present Herbie
and my beautiful Matty
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Second edition 2003
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.
© 1998, 2003 Martin Mowforth and Ian Munt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Mowforth, Martin.

Tourism and sustainability: development and new tourism in the
Third World/Martin Mowforth & Ian Munt. – 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
1. Tourism – Developing countries. 2. Sustainable development –
Developing countries. I. Title: Tourism and sustainability.
II. Munt, Ian. III. Title.
G155.D44 M69 2003
338.4′791′091734–dc21 2002013770
ISBN 0-203-42277-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-42456-5 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–27168–1 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–27169–X (pbk)
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3 Contents
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13111 Foreword to second edition vii
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5 Acknowledgements ix
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Abbreviations xi
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Chapter 1 Introduction 1
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Purpose and limits of the book 1
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Tourism as a multi-disciplinary subject 2
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Key themes and key words 3
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Tourism and geographical imagination 6
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Layout of the book 8
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Chapter 2 Globalisation, sustainability, development 10
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Tourism in a shrinking world 11
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Sustainability and global change 18
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Development and the Third World 30
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Conclusion 42
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Chapter 3 Power and tourism 44
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Power play 45
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The political economy of Third World tourism 49
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Tourism as domination 50
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Alternative critiques for alternative tourism? 57
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Conclusion 78
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8 Chapter 4 Tourism and sustainability 80
9 The growth in mass tourism 82
40 Resulting problems and the rise of new forms of tourism 90
1 Terminology 92
2 Defining the ‘new’ tourism 94
3 The principles of sustainability in tourism 97
4 The tools of sustainability in tourism 106
5 Whither sustainability in tourism? 113
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7 Chapter 5 A new class of tourist: trendies on the trail 115
8 Class, capital and travel 116
9 A new class of tourist? 124
50 The scramble for Third World destinations 134
11111 Conclusion 139
vi • Contents
Chapter 6 Socio-environmental organisations: where shall we save next? 141
New socio-environmental movements 142
Environmentalism and new tourism 146
Environmentalism and power 160
Conclusion 164
Chapter 7 The industry: lies, damned lies and sustainability 165
Trade and tourism 165
Size and structure of the industry 171
Re-defining sustainability 179
New personnel and new features of the new tourism industry 200
Conclusion 209
Chapter 8 ‘Hosts’ and destinations: for what we are about to receive ... 211
Local participation in decision-making 212
Government control/community control 224
Displacement and resettlement 236
Visitor and host attitudes 243
Conclusion 250
Chapter 9 Governance, governments and tourism: selling the Third World 252
The politics of tourism 253
Assessing the politics of tourism 255
Tourism as politics 258
Globalisation and the politics of external influences 260
Sustainable tourism as political discourse 279
Conclusion 293
Chapter 10 Conclusion 294
Key themes and key words 294
New forms of Third World tourism 296
Globalisation, sustainability and development 298
Sustainability and power 299
New touri sms, new critiques 300
Whither new forms of tourism? 300
Notes 303
Appendix: Travel and tourism-related websites 308
References 310
Index 330
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13111 Much has changed since the first edition of Tourism and Sustainability. The speed of
4 change, the pace of globalisation and the increasing prominence of ‘development’ as a
5 global imperative have been at times breathtaking. The rise and maturity of the anti-
6 globalisation movement symbolised by the protests at the World Trade Organisation
7 talks in Seattle, the G8 Summit in Genoa, the unrest that has rumbled in numerous cities
8 (from Prague to Quito), terrorist attacks on the USA and a new round of ‘crusades
9 against evil’ are simply the most media-worthy events – the tips of an iceberg of broader
20 and more fundamental social and economic change. In particular, much of this activity
1 has centred on resolving the structurally unequal role of the ‘Third World’ within an
2 emerging ‘global order’. For us, it has been necessary to understand how these global
3 geopolitical factors and processes inform an analysis of Third World tourism.
4 Development, at its most basic, fashioned by the need to reduce levels of absolute
5 poverty in the Third World, has risen to greater prominence since the early 1990s. The
6 United Nations has set global development targets (the so-called millennium develop-
7 ment goals), a second round of the UN family of mega-conferences (including the World
8 Summit on Sustainable Development, better known as Rio + 10 in September 2002) has
9 taken place, and First World governments are looking to increase their resourcing of
30 development in exchange for economic restructuring in recipient states. In large part,
1 some critics would argue, this is a response to the need for First World security against
2 what are perceived as ‘rogue’ states, ‘rogue’ networks and ‘rogue’ migrants. The North
3 Atlantic axis (USA, UK and other European states), urging the adoption of a policy of
4 ‘liberal imperialism’ and vigorously promoting a neoliberal economic agenda through,
51 for example, negotiations for the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), is
6 growing and becoming more explicit in its exercise of power over the rest of the world.
7 While not at the heart of this movement for development, tourism has nevertheless
8 found prominence. The UN’s controversial International Year of Ecotourism has spot-
9 lighted the role of tourism, and the development potential of tourism has forced its way
40 on to the Rio + 10 Summit agenda. The emergence of so-called people-centred
1 approaches to development has also found resonance in pro-poor, community-centred,
2 tourism initiatives. As a counterbalance to the top down and trickle-down approaches
3 to tourism master planning in Third World destinations and the assumption that the
4 tourism industry was of sufficient size to provide for development by default, pro-poor
5 tourism is being promoted as a targeted development intervention.
6 We have responded to these changes since the first edition by building in more wide-
7 ranging discussions on development, a fundamental requisite for understanding and
8 assessing new forms of Third World tourism. This ranges from a presentation of devel-
9 opment theory, to a critical discussion of tourism’s fair trade and pro-poor development
50 potential. But the core of our argument remains unchanged in that development is an
11111 inherently unequal and uneven process, symbolised arguably by the diasporic and
viii • Foreword to second edition
increasingly thwarted movements of Third World migrants to the First World, starkly
contrasted to the accelerating movements of relatively wealthy western tourists to the
Third World and the ideology of freedom of movement that supports this.
Critics of the first edition drew attention to the pessimistic conclusions of the oppor-
tunities afforded by new forms of tourism. When we originally embarked on writing
Tourism and Sustainability, it was always our intention to assess the global context
within which new tourism exists rather than provide a case study guide to how it can
work for the good and how it might be achieved. The case study approach is a signifi-
cant line of inquiry and one that has been addressed by many authors and especially by
the emerging pro-poor tourism literature. We do not wish to detract from the very real
advances in tourism initiatives that have proactively addressed a development agenda
and whose benefits and gains undoubtedly make tangible differences to those involved.
But the question with which we embarked remains: can new forms of tourism become
a significant force in global development? In the context of increasing global inequality
and poverty, the overall size of the tourism industry (a point that tourism advocates
invoke to explain why it should be a major force for development) and the advances
made, our conclusions remain cautious. Indeed, as we write, the United Nations’ annual
survey confirms that progress on reducing global poverty has slowed depressingly to a
‘snail’s pace’. Without starting from an assessment of the structures and relationships
of power that influence the fate of tourism, it is, perhaps, a little too easy to be seduced
by the possibilities inferred from what remain relatively few examples of positive
change. To re-emphasise, however, this is not a manifesto for doing nothing. Far from
it, we hope. Rather, it is a realistic starting point for an assessment of the forces within
which we must work towards change.
Martin Mowforth and Ian Munt
August 2002
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13111 We should like to acknowledge the work of and extend our gratitude to all those already
4 acknowledged in the first edition of the book for allowing us to draw on their material.
5 For this second edition, we specifically acknowledge permission granted by the
6 following persons and organisations to use extracts from their work: Blackwell for
7 allowing us to adapt Gregory’s Table on Modernism and Fordism (1994) (Figure 2.3);
8 Sage Publications Ltd for Table 2.4; Survival International for material in Boxes 3.1,
9 6.1 and 8.12; J. & C. Voyageurs for the photograph in Box 3.5; Routledge for Table
20 4.1; Mick Kidd and Chris Garratt of Biff Products for Figures 4.1 and 9.5; The Guardian
1 for extracts of an article by Alex Hamilton (1995) (Box 8.9) and Pass Notes 223 (1993)
2 (Box 4.2); Tirso Maldonado and the Fundación Neotropica (San José, Costa Rica) for
3 extracts from their work on carrying capacity calculations (Box 4.7); Paul Fitzgerald
4 (Polyp) for Figure 5.2; The Open University for permission to adapt the Environmental
5 Continuum in Table 6.1; the IUCN for the Table of Protected Area Categories (Table
6 6.2); Greenpeace for the data used to create Figure 6.1; the World Conservation
7 Monitoring Centre for data on the global growth of protected areas (Figure 6.3); Dr
8 Jules Pretty for his typology of participation (Table 8.1); The Panos Institute for mate-
9 rial from their Media Briefing no. 14 (1995) and from their feature paper by Melinda
30 Ham (Box 8.11); the Overseas Development Institute for Tables 9.2 and 9.3; Hotel
1 Benchmark Team website for Figure 9.1; and Sue Curtin for access to transcripts of
2 interviews with environmental managers of numerous tour companies (1996).
3 We especially wish to thank Race and Class and Theory, Culture and Society for
4 allowing us to modify th eir respective articles ‘Ecotourism or ego-tourism?’ (Munt,
51 1994a) and ‘The Other postmodern tourism: travel, culture and the new middle class’
6 (Munt, 1994b), the latter being reproduced also by permission of Sage Publications
7 Ltd; we would also like to acknowledge the inspiration provided by the material repro-
8 duced from the Open University course (D215) ‘The Shape of the World’. Ian Munt
9 especially wishes to thank the Association of Black Planners, Glenn Grey (for bringing
40 the challenges and problems of Caribbean tourism to his attention in the late 1980s),
1 Eno Amoquaye (for his constant advocacy to see planning in a different light), and Erlet
2 Cater for both intellectual and practical support in thinking about tourism.
3 We owe much to the work of the following organisations which have produced reports
4 of special relevance and significance for this field of study: the Catholic Institute for
5 International Relations (CIIR), London; the International Institute for Environment and
6 Development (IIED), London, especially the work of Jules Pretty on local participation;
7 the Panos Institute, London; the Latin America Bureau (LAB), London; Survival
8 International, London, for their reports on tourism and tribal peoples; and of course to
9 Tourism Concern, London, without whose reports, assistance and advice our analysis
50 would be considerably weaker – in particular, we acknowledge their permission to repro-
11111 duce material for Box 8.6. Special mention should be made of the assistance given