Читать книгу International Volunteer Tourism - Stephen Wearing - Страница 19

Tourist development has not progressed without controversy. Disillusionment with ‘mass’ tourism (Mowforth & Munt, 1998; Sofield, 2003; Brammer et al., 2004; Holden, 2008) and the numerous problems it has engendered has led many observers and researchers to criticize the past methods and directions of tourism development and to offer instead the hope of ‘alternative tourism’. Pearce (1990) notes the term ‘alternative tourism’ has been adopted to denote options or strategies considered preferable to mass tourism. As R.W. Butler (1990: 40) states: ‘Alternative to what? Obviously not to other forms of tourism, but rather, an alternative to the least desired or most undesired type of tourism, or essentially what is known as mass tourism, such as the “golden hordes” of Turner and Ashe (1975), or the “mass institutionalized tourist” of Cohen (1972)’.

However, the term ‘alternative tourism’ is interpreted by various authors in widely differing and sometimes openly contradictory ways. R.W. Butler (1990), for example, places alternative tourism as up-market package tours of rich people to exotic destinations, mostly wilderness areas, whereas others define it as rucksack wandering by young people with limited financial means (e.g. Cohen, 1972), or anti-tourists seeking to avoid highly commodified mass tourist spaces (Welk, 2004).

The term ‘alternative’ logically implies an antithesis. It arises as the contrary to that which is seen as negative or detrimental about conventional tourism. In the domain of logic, an alternative is based on a dialectical paradigm that offers only two possibilities: a conclusion that is either one or the other. Therefore, the terminology of alternative and mass tourism are mutually interdependent, each relying on a series of value-laden judgements that themselves structure the definitional content of the terms.

Thus, the common feature of ‘alternative tourism’ is the suggestion of an attitude diametrically opposed to what is characteristically viewed as the ‘hard’ and therefore, ‘undesirable’ dominant forms of tourism. Like ‘alternative tourism’ this form itself has been designated by varying terms including conventional mass tourism (CMT; Mieczkowski, 1995) and mass tourism (MT; R.W. Butler, 1990), of which alternative tourism exists in fundamental opposition by attempting to minimize the perceived negative environmental and socio-cultural impacts. Various other descriptions can be found in the literature to allude to environmentally compatible tourism. Examples include green tourism (Song, 2012), nature-based tourism (Newsome et al., 2002), soft tourism (Mader, 1988; Mose, 1993), community-based tourism (Dernoi, 1988; Wearing & Chatterton, 2007), PPT (Ashley et al., 2000; Roe & Urquhart, 2001) and defensive/justice tourism (Krippendorf, 1982, 1987; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2008). In this way, the concept of alternative tourism can itself be as broad and vague as its diametrical opposite. Many divergent leisure types can be classified as alternative tourism, including adventure holidays, hiking holidays or the solitary journeys undertaken by globe trotters.

The term itself encompasses a wide range of connotations: tourists characterized by particular motivations; touristic practices; a touristic product; levels of technology; solutions to planning; local, regional, national and international politics; and as a strategy for development. In the last case, alternative tourism is the application to tourism of sustainable development practices in regions where tourism has been chosen as a factor in economic development.

Dernoi (1988: 253) initially defined alternative tourism by accommodation type: ‘In alternative tourism the “client” receives accommodation directly in, or at the home of, the host with, eventually, other services and facilities offered there’. However, he then went on to list a number of other features by which alternative tourism might be distinguished from ‘mass tourism’: ‘Simply stated, alternative tourism and community based tourism (CBT) are privately offered set of hospitality services (and features), extended to visitors, by individuals, families, or a local community. A prime aim of alternative tourism/CBT is to establish direct personal/cultural intercommunication and understanding between host and guest’ (Dernoi, 1988: 89; Priporas & Kamenidou, 2003).

Moving on from a supply-side focus and acknowledging the inextricable role of participants, the ECTWT (Ecumenical Coalition of Third World Tourism) states that: ‘alternative tourism is a process which promotes a just form of travel between members of different communities. It seeks to achieve mutual understanding, solidarity and equality amongst participants’ (Holden, 1984: 15). The stress here is on the facilitation and improvement of contacts between hosts and guests, especially through the organization of well-prepared special interest tours, rather than on actual development of facilities. As noted, however, such definitions are elaborated on by way of a systematic contrasting of the features of alternative tourism with those of what is perceived to be the dominant or mainstream variety. The distinction is usually between polar oppo-sites, and there is scarcely any recognition of variations in the mainstream, nor any evidence of the existence of intermediate cases. Another body of literature dealing with tourism typology gives greater attention to these variations with classifications between three or more categories that are not uncommon. Moreover, ‘alternative tourism’ as variously defined above, rarely occurs specifically as one of the classes in the typology literature.

Thus it would appear from the literature that all forms of tourism exist side-by-side, each playing an important role in the tourist spectrum.³ Both mass tourism and alternative tourism can be viewed at corresponding extremes of such a spectra and, as Mieczkowski (1995: 463) states, they should remain there. The relational elements of ecotourism, volunteerism and serious leisure, as definitional components of a specific alternative tourism experience, exist as modalities of tourism experience along many divergent and convergent points of this spectrum. By elaborating upon each of these elements as specific components of the volunteer tourism experience in the context of alternative tourism, and thus, explore the impact upon individual subjective experience, it is envisaged that the analysis of tourism experiences can achieve a clarity of focus through the recognition of the particular elements that contribute to the specific market segments of tourism.

The diagrammatic representation in Fig. 2.1 — adapted from Mieczkowski (1995: 460) — is designed to provide a framework in which to locate the volunteer tourism experience. Mieczkowski (1995) initially divides tourism into two broad categories. The first is CMT, which has prevailed on the market for some time. The second broad category is that of alternative tourism, a flexible generic category that contains a multiplicity of various forms that have one feature in common — they are alternatives to CMT. That is, they are not associated with mass large-scale tourism but are essentially small scale, low-density, dispersed in non-urban areas, and they cater to special interest groups of people with mainly above average education and with good incomes. This category also includes the ‘explorers’ and ‘drifters’ identified by Cohen (1987).

Figure 2.1 demonstrates the general relational aspects of the different forms of tourism identified in the literature and how serious leisure and volun-teerism lie in relation to these forms of tourism. This conceptual model identifies and includes the elements of serious leisure and volunteerism. These elements are fundamental to the construction of volunteer tourism experiences and allow for, as this diagram shows, the elaboration of the overlaps and divergences of tourism forms or markets through viewing the specific elements that comprise them, and their relation to the experiential reality of those participating.

Fig. 2.1. A conceptual schema of alternative tourism. (Adapted from Mieczkowski, 1995: 459.)

As to the specific forms of alternative tourism, Mieczkowski (1995) distinguishes such forms as cultural, educational, scientific, adventure and agritour-ism with rural, ranch and farm subsets. Significantly, there is some overlap with CMT (e.g. cultural tourism in Smith & Eadington, 1992) but the main criterion of distinction is the scale and character of the impacts. Another overlap occurs between the various types of alternative tourism themselves. Cultural tourism, for example, is largely educational. Ecotourism, also called nature or green tourism, is nature oriented and nature based but is not always necessarily practised in wilderness settings. Mieczkowski (1995) finds it difficult to place eco-tourism in the context of alternative tourism because, while not coinciding directly with cultural tourism, it overlaps with the educational, scientific, adventure, pro-poor and agritourism forms.

The distinct characteristics of ‘alternative tourism’ are schematically outlined in Box 2.1, and, although not considered exhaustive, are included here to provide the underpinning of the conceptual framework that underlies the basis of the movement towards elaborating the specificity of a particular touristic experience.

Box 2.1. Features of alternative tourism.

• The attempted preservation, protection and enhancement of the quality of the resource base, which is fundamental to tourism itself (Wearing, 2004).

• The fostering and active promotion of development in ways that complement local attributes in relation to additional visitor attractions and infrastructure, and with roots in the specific locale (Wearing, 2004).

• The endorsement of infrastructure, hence economic growth, when and where it improves local conditions and not where it is destructive or exceeds the carrying capacity of the natural environment or the limits of the social environment whereby the quality of community life is adversely affected (Cox, 1985: 6–7).

• Tourism that attempts to minimize its impact upon the environment, is ecologically sound and avoids the negative impacts of many large-scale tourism developments undertaken in areas that have not previously been developed (Saglio, 1979; Travis, 1982; Kozlowski, 1985; Bilsen, 1987; Gonsalves, 1984; Holden, 2008).

• Tourism that does not exploit local populations and where the benefits flow to local residents (Yum, 1984; Ashley et al., 2000; Schilcher, 2007).

• An emphasis on, not only ecological sustainability, but also cultural sustainability. That is, tourism that does not damage the culture of the host community, encouraging a respect for the cultural realities experienced by the tourists through education and organized ‘encounters’ (e.g. Holden, 1984).

Alternative tourism then, generally, is a modality of tourism that pays special attention to environmental and social carrying capacity.⁴ Krippendorf (1987: 37) notes that the guiding principle of alternative tourists is to put as much distance between themselves and mass tourism in trying to establish more contact with the local population, without a reliance on tourist infrastructure, in utilizing the same accommodation and transport facilities as the local population.

This is directly related to sustainability — and sustainable development by implication — which is, despite its ambiguity, fundamental to the positioning of any touristic experience as alternative. Sustainability requires the establishment of baseline data from which change and rates of change can be measured (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987; Eber, 1992). The polemic Bruntland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) brought the concept of sustainable development into the international arena, somewhat contentiously defining it as: ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Mieczkowski, 1995: 457). In the present context, environmentally sustainable tourism has come to be fundamentally identified with alternative tourism (Chapter 1). Similarly, Butler (1991) defines it as: a ‘form of tourism that supports the ecological balance’ …, suggesting ‘a working definition of sustainable development in the context of tourism as: tourism which is developed and maintained in an area (community, environment) in such a manner and at such a scale that it remains viable over an indefinite period and does not degrade or alter the environment’.

Thus, in its most general sense, and for conceptual clarity in what follows, alternative tourism can be broadly defined as forms of tourism that set out to be consistent with natural, social and community values and which allow both hosts and guests to enjoy positive and worthwhile interaction and shared experiences.