Tourism, Development and International Studies - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 414

exploitation whereby multinational tourism corporations take advantage of
developing destinations. Marxism can be utilised to examine cruise lines that
have been criticised for exploiting loopholes by employing people based on
nationality so that they can be paid lower wages (Todd, 2012). One can also
examine the political relationships between countries that have adopted a
communist or Marxist type of government, such as Cuba or Vietnam, and
other counties that have adopted a democratic and free market economy. Cuba
is one country that after the Revolution installed a communist state. The US
has had a 50-year embargo on the country which continues to impact on
American travel to Cuba. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba increas-
ingly turned to tourism as a source of income. However as Reid (2012) reports,
the country is slowly undergoing a transformation towards capitalism.
Social constructivism
Social constructivism emerged in the late 1980s. It argues that human
agency has a much greater potential role, as was evident in the fall of the
Berlin Wall, than is implied by realism and liberalism (Baylis et al. , 2011).
Although a more recent theory, its roots are traced back to social science and
philosophical works disputing that the social world is external to those that
live in it (Baylis et al. , 2011). Wendt (1999) suggests that constructivist think-
ing on international relations was accelerated after the end of the Cold War
as many in mainstream international relations were left with difficulty
explaining this event. Constructionists argue that we make and remake the
social world while other theories stress the regularities or certainties of politi-
cal life, they are thereby underestimating the possibilities for human progress
(Baylis et al. , 2011). Schwandt (2000, cited in Ayikoru, 2009) stated that
human beings do not find or discover knowledge so much as construct it. We
invent models and schemes to make sense of experiences which are continu-
ally modified. These constructs are in turn linked to historical and social
cultural influences occurring in a backdrop of shared understandings. The
analysis of social construction of international politics is the analysis of the
processes of interaction that 'produce and reproduce the social structures -
cooperative or conflictual - that shape actors' identities and interests and the
significance of their material contexts' (Wendt, 1995: 81). Constructionists
think that world politics are open to change as are the identities that other
theories have taken as given (Baylis et al. , 2011).
Tourism is a social activity in multicultural environments and social con-
structivism has the potential to lead to a greater understanding of tourism
(Paris, 2011). International travel is argued by some to create a better under-
standing between various peoples of the world. The International Institute
for Peace Through Tourism is a non-profit organisation that fosters initia-
tives that contribute to international understanding and suggests 'every trav-
eller is potentially an “Ambassador for Peace”' (IIPT, 2013). UNESCO (2013a)