Tourism, Development and International Studies - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 411

China represents a new key market that states are strongly competing with
each other to attract.
Liberalism
Liberalism also has a long tradition, with many variants; idealism can be
considered an extreme version of liberalism. The main themes in liberalism
are that human beings are perfectible, that democracy is necessary for per-
fectibility to develop, and that ideas and the belief in progress are important
(Baylis et al. , 2011). Liberalists reject the view that war is a natural condition
of world politics and that the state is the main actor on the world's political
stage. The state is not a united actor but a set of bureaucracies with differing
interests and, therefore, there is no national interest as this only reflects the
view of whatever domestic decision-making organisation is able to dominate.
Multinational corporations and transnational stakeholders are considered to
be the central actors in issue areas of world politics (Baylis et al. , 2011).
Liberalists focus attention and policy on poverty, education, human
rights and economic development related to the welfare of people as opposed
to the state (Mansbach & Rafferty, 2008). They stress cooperation between
states over military action and believe world politics emerges not from a bal-
ance of power but rather from the interactions of government arrangements
representing laws, agreed norms, international regimes and institutional
rules (Baylis et al. , 2011). Snyder (2004) suggests that liberals see trade and
finance forging ties between nations as democratic norms spread. Mansbach
& Rafferty (2008) note the different schools of thought within liberalism.
Non-interventionist liberals hold that history will bring improvements in
society without help from external actors, while interventionist liberals see
it as a duty to intervene overseas in order to bring freedom, democracy and
other liberal values to others. Neoliberalism holds that international organ-
isations are critical for improving the prospects of order and peace.
Liberalism can be examined from a variety of perspectives in tourism. The
importance of international organisations is highlighted in liberalism and in
tourism there are several organisations, including the UN World Tourism
Organisation, the World Travel and Tourism Council, the Tourism Committee
for the OECD, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation - Tourism Working
Group, to name a few. A central element of liberalism is trade and finance
between nations and tourism thrives in a free market economy (see Chapter 2)
with multinational corporations free to operate across borders. One of the
possible global threats in Figure 14.1 is systematic financial failure, and under-
standing liberal policies on trade may provide additional insight into the
recent global economic crisis and how tourism has responded to it. In tourism,
there is an increasing focus on poverty reduction and human rights linked to
pro-poor tourism and volunteer tourism, which has links to the liberal ideas
of welfare of the individual, poverty and human rights. Tourism Concern,