Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Nonetheless, the social, cultural, economic, environmental and political
impact of modern-day tourism development has no boundaries.
Environmental pollution crosses political boundaries, and socio-cultural
influences on host communities cannot be controlled effectively if incoming
international tourists are not well-informed. In particular, the cooperation
and coordination between government agencies, quasi-government agencies,
NGOs and interest groups, as well as self-regulation and the cooperation of
MNEs will become more and more significant.
There is no certain substitute for capitalism after the domino-effect
collapse of socialist and communist blocs in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Nevertheless, the emergence of the global development paradigm (see
Chapter 2) with strong support for global cooperation suggests that concepts
of development in the future must be changed one way or another. Perhaps
tourism needs to be considered more within the concept of a gift economy
(e.g. potential for social enrichment) rather than solely as a market economy.
The UN has been advocating development as a universal human right since
the late 1980s. The world has been slowly catching up with this concept, and
development indices are measuring success by levels of well-being of indi-
viduals in various societies. The tourism industry cannot remain an industry
that pursues economic achievement at the cost of human rights. When the
human rights-based development approach is honoured, current negative
socio-cultural effects will be minimised and positive outcomes will be
optimised. Of course, there is a need for exogenous cooperation in order for
a new development paradigm to be successful. It is time to consider the
socio-cultural impact of tourism development as a fundamental human
rights issue in tourism.
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