Tourism and Socio-cultural Development Issues - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 222

eccentricities is required in a close-contact situation, often on the host side.
Nevertheless, it is important for tourists to acknowledge that they are tem-
porary visitors who come to see a host community's culture, heritage and
natural attractions, and therefore they are the ones who must be more toler-
ant and accepting of different practices and values. It is also important for
host communities to try to remain in control of the guest-host relationship
though external forces may not always allow this to happen.
This kind of cultural exchange cannot, however, be achieved in a mass-
tourism setting where direct and high-density contact between hosts and
guests is minimal. It also may not work for hosts and guests who have
strongly fixed mindsets that will prevent them from understanding each
other. In this sense, the role of modern and young persons, who tend to have
a more open and inquisitive mindset about the outside world, cannot be
ignored. Young persons in host communities are drawn to tourists' cultures
and value systems. This does not always have to be a one-way exchange
from the tourists to the host youths. With more education for younger gen-
erations in host communities about their cultural values and traditions,
a positive demonstration of youth culture can be presented both in host
communities and in tourists' home countries.
With this hope of mutual understanding among members of younger
generations and between tourists and hosts, The 'Global Summit on Peace
through Tourism' was held in Jordan in November 2000. Some academics
claim that tourism is a peacetime movement (for example, Goeldner et al. ,
2000) while others take the stance that cultural contact during the process
of travelling can be a strong drive for world peace. In 1988, the Columbia
Charter, in Vancouver, Canada, was drawn from the First Global Conference:
Tourism - A Vital Force for Peace. International tourism can be used as a
powerful tool for world peace by using it to educate individual tourists to be
more responsible for their words and deeds while visiting destinations. This
is the basic philosophy of Morton-Mar's International Institute for Peace
through Tourism, which started in Montreal, Canada (www.iipt.org). It has
become an international organisation and is celebrating the 25th anniversary
of their first global conference throughout 2014.
Tourism Concern in the UK (www.tourismconcern.org.uk), in coopera-
tion with other grass-roots organisations, uses international tourism as a
force for change in terms of the violation of human rights in tourism. Current
campaigns include water equity, all-inclusive tourism (i.e. excluding local
people), ethical trekking and more (see www.tourismconcern.org.uk/
campaigns.html). Members of organisations like Tourism Concern believe
that international tourism can be a powerful tool in resolving political con-
flicts as well as in paving a path to world peace.
The presence of tourism can also be seen as a force for stability in a
society, which benefits local residents. With the highly volatile nature of
tourist behaviour, any signs of conflict in a destination can lead to mass