Towards a New Political Economy of Global Tourism Revisited - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 324

linear diffusion of the hegemonic power of any one particular nation-state,
notwithstanding the fact that global capitalism is still strongly associated
with the globalisation of US business culture (Arrighi, 1998), as indeed is the
'culture of international hospitality' (Baum, 1996: 207). Rather, as emphasised
by Hoogvelt (1997: 125), what has become evident is the intensification of a
'global market discipline' to which states, regions, companies and workers must
respond in order to remain competitive. Increased cross-border corporate
ownership and the globalisation of market discipline has serious implications
for countries seeking to define an independent path of national economic
development, outside the circuits of neoliberal market ideology, as well as the
survival of an independent, domestic-based entrepreneurial class, who Sklair
(1991: 120-121) argues, will increasingly become 'trapped in a spiral of declin-
ing markets, low technology and uncompetitiveness'.
Indeed, the neoliberal emphasis on open markets, private enterprise and
competitiveness does not discriminate between states, but, rather, permeates
numerous trade agreements, government policies and the workings of a range
of intergovernmental bodies (see Balanyá et al. , 2000), or a clear exposition of
the neoliberal ideological thrust which shapes and directs the activities of
both government and TTCs. One need look no further than the increas-
ingly intertwined discourses of the UNWTO, ostensibly an intergovernmen-
tal public body which represents the broad interests of the tourism industry
worldwide, and the WTTC, whose role it is to promote the interests of TTCs
through public opinion formation, lobbying and policy formulation (see
Ferguson, 2007). Deregulation and market liberalisation have increased the
capacity for TTCs to hide behind the façade of self-regulation whilst vigor-
ously promoting the growth of tourism at all costs. This stance is evidenced
both by the persistent lobbying of the WTTC (e.g. to reduce the overall tax
burden on tourism enterprises) as well as the UNWTO's forceful promotion
of the idea of 'tourism liberalization with a human face' as a means of brack-
eting its work to accelerate the liberalisation of tourism services worldwide in
cooperation with the World Trade Organisation in Geneva (Frangialli, 2003).
Nowhere is the de-territorialisation of transnational capital perhaps more
evident than in the context of the global cruise ship industry. Liberated from
territorial constraints as well as of state regulation and unionisation, these
'mobile chunks of capital', as Wood has referred to them, constitute 'destina-
tion resorts' in themselves ( Wood, 2000: 349). 16 However, not only are many
of the land-based disembarkation points controlled by large businesses linked
to the cruise companies themselves (Pattullo, 1996: 164-168), there is even a
growing tendency for cruise ships to dock at their own private 'themed'
islands (Wood, 2000: 361). Thus, rather than disperse capital and tourists
amongst different island destinations, cruise ships are able to deprive ports
of valuable revenue as well as enable tourists to indulge their fantasies of an
island paradise free from local inhabitants and the random and unpredictable
nature of public spaces of interaction. In this regard, economic globalisation