Introduction
Tourism in a Divided World
SDG 16 is more than ever close to the vision of inclusive and universal tourism, a peaceful tourism that strives for justice. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) declared its motto ‘Tourism for All’ for World Tourism Day in 2016, placing emphasis on inclusiveness and equal rights of all people to enjoy the benefits that tourism can bring.
At the same time, the world is witnessing large numbers of refugees who risk their lives to cross borders and even end up shipwrecked on their way. People in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia have lost the foundation of their lives to war and violence. These refugees are not part of the ‘tourists’ who have the right kinds of passports, issued by rich countries, that allow their citizens to travel the world in planes and on cruises for leisure purposes.
Tourism and Terrorism
Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Berlin – this no longer reads like a wish list of places to visit. It is a list of popular urban tourist destinations attacked by terrorists in 2016. Carlos Vogeler, executive director at the UNWTO, remarked that terror attacks are occurring in places that were never expected; nowhere in the world feels safe anymore. The locations of the attacks were places such as airports, markets, capitals, and famous tourist sites, which may make any tourist think they might also be a victim. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) reported that people are choosing to travel to destinations based on perceptions of safety and that 20 percent of the tourists are changing their travel plans due to safety concerns (AP Korea, 2016).
Tourism and Safety
Most of the people who enjoy the privilege of travel used to perceive wars as something happening in somewhat distant places. However, terrorist attacks affect us in our daily domains and refugees have become our neighbours. We may change our travel plans to avoid danger, but we may find it difficult to avoid the anxiety in our daily lives. If ‘safety’ is not guaranteed for tourists who cross borders, tourism itself as an activity will be threatened to the core. Yet, is the ‘safety’ that we are so strongly wishing to protect only achiev- able through control and exclusion in the name of ‘security’?
The United States which has experienced terror attacks in the centre of New York City, has compulsively strengthened airport security. Countries such as Israel, Russia and Turkey strictly control the movement of peace activists and travellers. In recent years, we have realized that greater suspicion and strengthened security procedures are not the answer for reaching our desired ‘safe societies’. If we search for solutions to attain world peace that is currently threat- ened without acknowledging ‘peace for all, strongly based on justice and human rights’ and if we concentrate on a kind of security that only serves to protect certain individuals and groups, that will only result in greater violence, exclusion, discrimination, and repression.
Tourist Information Misused
Tourism is not a just personal activity, it is embedded in a political and social context. When tourists cross borders and meet people, they may become witnesses of hidden situations. Some governments want to control what tourists actually get to see and how they may perceive it. They try to control tourists’ pathways for political reasons.
In 2016, Israel has been criticized for deleting Palestinian key historic sites from the tourist map. It has instead created and distributed a biased tourist map marked with information on Israeli synagogues and settlements. This indicates Israel’s tenacious and systematic effort to omit Palestine from the realm of tourism. The numbers of tourists who set out to travel to the ‘Holy Land’ add up to 1.3 million per year. This is not only a major opportunity for Israel, but also for Palestine which is facing a 26 percent unemployment rate. In 2013 the number of tourists who visited Palestine was 600,000 (PBS, 2014), and among those people, 66 percent headed to the West Bank where the most visited city of Bethlehem is located. Most of these tourists visit Bethlehem by bus tours organised by Israeli travel agencies. They visit the site for only about two hours, briefly scanning a few major churches including the one where Jesus was born. The Israeli government allows Israeli tour buses to freely cross over to the West Bank, but on the contrary prohibits the entrance of Palestinian tour buses (Schlomka, n.d.), who wish to simply pick up tourists, for ‘security’ reasons.Before tourists are taken to Bethlehem, they are strictly educated on the dangers of Palestine and are prompted to end the tour quickly within two hours. After the short tour the bus returns to ‘safe’ Israel. Rami Kassis from the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) attests how this biased information is affecting Palestine’s tourism: “The revenue Palestinians get from tourism may be about three percent. The rest goes to Israeli coffers” (Tobassi in ATG, 2008).
Tourism as a Tool for Occupation
In occupied territories, tourism is easily used and misused by occupying nations as a tool in a structured system of occupation. Tibet, which has been occupied by China since 1950, started to be opened up to tourism in August, 2006, when the Qinghai–Tibet Railway was opened. The annual number of tourists which had been 1.2 million before reached over four million in 2007. The Chinese government made great efforts to accelerate the development of tourism in Tibet by constructing infrastructure, with the Chinese in a far more dominant position than the Tibetans. It also gave generous support related to housing and business for the Chinese who chose to migrate to Tibet.
Native Tibetans, who were originally nomads, were persuaded to give away their fields for hotels and lost their traditional markets and streets to shopping centres for the price of next to nothing. The Chinese government previously tried to oppress Tibet’s culture and religion, burning down thousands of Tibetan temples. Now it has begun its disneyfication of Tibet after realizing that Tibetan culture and religion have great potential as tourist products. The traditional Tibetan ‘sky burial’, once banned by the Chinese government, has been turned into a cheap five-dollar tourist attraction (Tibetan Guide, 2008).
The Jokhang temple, which is the final destination for prostrating Tibetan pilgrims, started to attract large crowds of tourists photographing the pilgrims. Tibetans are losing ground amid the disneyfication of Potala Palace, temples and most of all, the lives of Tibetans – driven by Chinese capital. Eventually Tibetans who could no longer tolerate to this severe suffering are burning themselves to death as a protest, as a cry of help to the world (Sydenstricker, 2008). The Chinese government even attempted to prevent travel- lers from sharing this cry of death with the world. Tourists may currently visit Tibet only in groups accompanied by tour guides.
Tourism and Justice in Conflict Situations
Tourism hardly ever plays a neutral role in conflict situations and might even fuel war and conflict, for example over resources, and social injustice. There is a need to find ways and means to make tourism a tool for peace, not for fuelling conflict. The Palestinian Alternative Travel Group (ATG) has been fighting for justice in tourism. They say: “What we want is not simply ‘economic contribution’ by tourists but social justice. Tourism is a precious opportunity for a region to obtain economic gains, but would money have any significance if there is no justice? When the money earned in tourism stays in the region, prevents polarization by taking care of people in need, and is used to support social justice, wouldn’t this be a true form of alternative tourism?” (Jamud, 2009).
Tourism in Post-Conflict Settings
In post-conflict settings, tourism often experiences a quick boom – after 26 years of conflict in Sri Lanka, for instance, and after the dictatorship in Myanmar. Rapid development, however, may fuel still latent conflicts. Governments may be tempted to promote tourism even before having initiated a process of reconciliation and recovery. Ecological and social standards may be ignored, and the rights of local people violated (Roundtable on Human Rights and Tourism, 2016).
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