Culture and Religion
In Arthungal, 30 km north of Alappuzha in Kerala, South India, the Kerala Independent Fishermen's Federation has been one of the most active local groups in the fight against tourism's expansion. Recently, they fought to help people regain access to a local church, which had been cut off by a new...
The Atacora region in the North West of Benin is of great natural beauty and one of the country's main tourist attractions. As Eva Maria Helm reports, people mainly live on subsistence agriculture, which is affected by drought and soil erosion.
Many people are illiterate and suffer from poverty...
SKR in Cologne is the first German tour operator to offer a fair trade travel package to South Africa, and South Africa the first country with fair trade certified accommodation and other services. Compiling the package was a challenge, though, says Kim Geffen, who organised the tour for SKR....
Ella Mahlulo (40) is one out of many. She is one out of very many people in South Africawho have suffered in the past. But she is one out of not so many who have faith in the future and have taken the initiative to make a difference in their community. Together with Penny Mainwaring, Ella runs "...
Ella Mahlulo (40) ist eine von vielen. Sie ist eine von sehr vielen Frauen in Südafrika mit einer leidvollen Vergangenheit. Doch ist sie eine von denen, die auf die Zukunft vertrauen und die Initiative ergriffen haben, um in ihrer Gemeinschaft etwas zu verbessern. Zusammen mit Penny Mainwaring...
Tour Guides as Cultural Interpreters
While intercultural competence has become a key qualification in the "global village", it is not an integral part of tour guide training programmes. With "Intercultural Motivation Seminars for Tour Guides in Developing Countries", the Studienkreis für...
After five years of operation, Ecuador's controversial oil pipeline "Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados" (OCP) experienced its first oil spill. According to official sources, more than 14,000 barrel of crude oil polluted the Santa Rosa river, about 100 km east of the capital Quito. Other rivers further...
How to share their culture and at the same time preserve its authenticity is one of the challenges confronting indigenous people involved in tourism. At the "Indigenous Day" event at the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in March in Berlin, indigenous representatives from North America and...
Life has been difficult for the Palestinian population under Israeli occupation. The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) seeks to support local and international efforts to end the occupation. Götz Schindler, a German EAPPI volunteer, reports about his experiences...
"weltwärts", a programme funded through the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, is aimed at training young Germans in the field of development cooperation. More than 200 German NGOs send volunteers to work with their partner organisations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America....
By Anouk Reitz
Many local initiatives in Guatemala need volunteers. Without their help, they would not be able to keep up their work as they used to. However, as Anouk Reitz reports, successful cooperation depends on several factors, including good preparation and communication. Volunteering...
This year’s annual conference of the Association for Tourism and Leisure Education (ATLAS) focussed on the paradoxes in tourism, culture and heritage. At the conference "Selling or Telling" in Brighton in July, participants discussed the concept of heritage as compared to earlier paradigms such as...
In his article on the current situation in Bethlehem, Pastor Mitri Raheb describes the day-to-day reality of occupation. He points out that under these conditions, Mary and Joseph would not have been able to reach Bethlehem. They would have been stopped at the check point and denied access to the...
In his article "To Go or Not To Go", a contribution to the forthcoming ECOT publication "Transforming Tourism/Re-forming Tourism", the Buddhist monk Sukthawee Suwannachairop looks at tourism from an Engaged Buddhist's perspective. In TourismWatch, we have reprinted a shortened version of his...
