COMMERCIAL TOURISM: An Agenda for Theological Curriculum Developmen

COMMERCIAL TOURISM:

An Agenda for Theological Curriculum Development

Dr. Wati Longchar,

Director SCEPTRE, Kolkata, India

Tourism Industry – An Ethico-Theological Issue

Group picture of paricipants

Tourism industry is spiraling and has gained a greater vogue with all its zeal and valor.  It is estimated that more than five million tourists, excluding domestic tourists, arrive in India alone, annually. Alongside oil, arms, pharmaceuticals and auto-industry, it is one of the largest industries in the world, and it is growing rapidly in a massive scale. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) projects 1.5 billion arrivals of tourists by 2020.  A rough estimate puts 1,005 tourist arrivals in 2010. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) share is 5.89 trillion which is higher than GDP of the most rich countries. Excluding unaccounted laborers, tourism absorbs about 300 million people. To intensify tourism industry Governments have relaxed tax on air fuel and the budget airlines are growing. With the introduction of cheap flights, tourism industry will continue to grow all over the world.

The policy makers see tourism development as solution to poverty alleviation. The income generated from tourism is perceived as a panacea for the problems of the poor countries. This perception is based on an assumed understanding that the profits from tourism industry will trickle down and benefit the poor communities.[1] Under the slogans, “Incredible India”, “Look East” “God’s own Country”, “Bali of South Asia” (Sri Lanka, etc), tourism industry has intensified, promising peace and prosperity.  It is applauded as “motor for development.”[2] Many people are fooled to believe that it is an engine of investment, employment, growth, and national development and considered as one of the best industries for the third world countries to earn foreign currencies in terms of Dollar and Euro. As a result of this myth, the economic and business planners are diverting the resources to expand airports, local transportation facilities and other infra-structures at the expense of the poor. Tourism! at whose cost?  This myth should  be challenged.

Tourism is a human’s self seeking satisfaction or pleasure driven enterprise by objectifying others as commodity or means of one’s satisfaction.[3]  Study shows that majority of the tourists are military personals and industrial workers. A research conducted on Israeli tourist behavior and patterns in Goa has revealed that the Government of Israel provides travel package incentive to all the soldiers after the completion of compulsory military service as incentive. The intention is to release stress and appease the soldiers after stressful work and training.[4]  Similarly, industrial workers are given travel package bonus by the companies to release their accumulated feelings of oppression in alienating and health hazard working conditions. Tour packages are consciously organized by the ruling and owning class to avoid unrest, protest and rebellion. Tourists who travel under these circumstances arrive at the destinations merely for enjoyment, relaxation and pleasure. They objectify everything as commodity for enjoyment and pleasure.  Consequently, women are reduced to flesh market, nature is reduced to mere scenic object, beaches are reduced to mere sun-bath, culture is reduced to performance, etc. Commercial tourism being driven by profit, pleasure and enjoyments puts immense pressure on environment, women, children and indigenous people. Exploitation is rampant and beyond measurable.  Among the many dimensions of modern mass tourism, the Shillong Declaration identified the following disadvantage of mass tourism: 

l  The diversion of essential people’s resources such as land, water, electricity and other infrastructure to entertain tourists and support hotels, resorts, golf courses, amusement parks and so on;

l  The social costs through the abuse of women and children, and their trafficking;

l  The costs entailed in the commercialization, commodification, and denigration of indigenous and local culture, and the resultant threat to cultural identity;

l  The loss of revenue to host countries and communities as a result of the financial advantages gained by foreign and domestic business interests through tax concessions and holidays, subsidized land and other costs, import advantages, reduced wages and working conditions;

l  The social and economic impact of displacement of people and communities caused by tourism development;

l  Ecological imbalance and loss incurred in developing countries in the course of sustaining inappropriate tourism enterprises;

l  The climate change implications through air travel;

l  The cost to host communities through health hazards, arising from tourist activity involving HIV and AIDS, drugs and narcotics, among others;

l  The human rights violations that occur in the name of tourism.[5]

The sanctity of worship places, sacred groves and shrines are violated, and sacred music and dances turned into cabaret performances for enjoyment. The development of ecotourism is causing wide scale eviction of indigenous people from their ancestral lands[6] leading to breakdown of traditional values and environmental degradation. The continuity of indigenous people’s spirituality, cultural and traditional ways of life is at risk. In summary, commercial tourism’s sole objectives are mere profit, pleasure and enjoyment. It does not respect life, culture and environment. It denies right to live in dignity especially to the poor and marginalized people, and sees environment merely from utilitarian perspective denying the integrity and its wholeness. It breeds injustice and thus contradicts the testimonies of the Bible. It is thus an ethical, theological and missiological concern. The churches and theological institutions ought to be agents of change, influencing society to meaningfully address the negative impacts on human community and environment.  Therefore, to challenge and critique the present paradigm of tourism and search for an alternative tourism becomes a theological and ethical imperative.

Tourism and Development

Tourism cannot be studied in isolation. Tourism as a new-liberal economic project, touches all realms of human life and mother earth. It violates human rights and brings destruction to God’s creation. It is affront to God’s purpose of life. Since the present model of tourism development is imposed on the people, it will undermine the traditional and natural system which will further widen the gap between the rich and poor. We need to uncover the interconnected problems associated with the development of tourism on various dimensions such as culture, community, politics, economic, bio-diversity, gender issues, and challenge how this unjust development further intensifies marginalization of vulnerable and less privilege communities and exploitation of earth’s resources.  We may cite three examples:

1. Tourism and Climate justice – Commercial tourism and climate justice is interconnected. A study on the effect of tsunami in December 2004 in Asia has revealed that the devastation of tsunami became more serious due to destruction of mangrove and other littoral forests, sand dunes, coastal wetlands and reef system. Had these natural protections still been in place it is likely that the damage would have been greatly reduced.[7]  The natural protective environment systems are removed through construction of hotels, resorts, golf courses, or to provide access to beaches, sea view or mountain view for the sake of pleasure seeking tourists. In addition, the pleasure seeking activities take away the livelihood of earth-centered or ocean-centered communities by forcing them off their traditional lands and ocean resources. The scarcity of water for agriculture and drinking water are all related to tourism.

Moreover, tourism contributes substantially to global warming. It is estimated that 4-7% of the global carbon emissions are through aviation industry. It says that “tourism related air and sea travel has been a source of pollution. An ocean-going ship can generate emission of more than 12,000 cars.”[8] Though the carbon emission of the North are far higher per person than from the global south[9], the poor people, especially indigenous communities, are blamed for global warming citing age-old ‘slash and burnt’ (or Jhum) cultivation, population and poverty. This is a serious deception. Rather, we have to recognize that climate change is connected with the destructive one-sided developmental activities of the rich countries that promote consumerist life-style and culture. Study has proved that there is no large scale environment effect by  ‘burn and slash’ (or Jhum) cultivation. Tourism is a land-hungry business.[10] Resort, hotel, golf courses, wild life sanctuary and other infrastructures require large area of prime land. Without deceiving and misleading the land owners, the land cannot be taken from them. Even tsunami devastation in 2004 was taken as an advantage to grab the land. Some governments have used the cover of ‘safety’ to force indigenous people to more to ‘safer’ places and the vacated places are sold for tourism development.[11] Similarly, under the cover of the ‘climate justice’, ‘poverty alleviation’, and ‘earning more foreign currencies’,  indigenous communities are today denied of their traditional self-reliant economic activities in many countries without alternative source of income. The debate on climate justice, therefore, will be incomplete without incorporating tourism issue.

2. Tourism and Indigenous People:  Tourism and survival crisis of Indigenous people and other marginal communities are interconnected.  To promote ecotourism and to manipulate indigenous people’s culture, land, mountain, ocean and their resources, majority of the Asian countries had refused to sign and implement the International Labour Law (ILL) and the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (July 2006). It is a deliberate act to promote ecotourism. Signing the ILL agreement on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights requires governments to formulate policies that respect, promote and protect indigenous peoples’ land, mountain, river, ocean, culture, language, sacred places, traditional knowledge, education and so on. Without the permission and consent of the indigenous people (as per the ILL provision), the policy makers cannot exploit and commercialize their heritage and land resources. Some Asian governments did sign the ILL declaration, but do not implement it fully. Refusal to sign the ILL document has given them free hand to convert indigenous lands into national parks, resorts, and golf courses. The trees can be mercilessly cut down without the consent of the indigenous people to support commercial woodcarving activities to cater foreign and domestic tourist’s demands which again lead to drying up of water and other life sustaining sources. Many indigenous communities are at verge of extinction as they can be evicted any time for the sake of national development and progress.

One will notice that deliberate attempts are being adopted by the policy makers to make the indigenous people remain illiterate that they depend completely on the sale of their labour power. Upholding the deceptive policies, the governments in turn promote tourism development advocating that it will alleviate poverty, generate employment and income. Generate employment for whom and what kind of employment? Local people are employed mostly as manual labour jobs like watchman, waiter, cleaner in hotels and massage parlors! Generate income for whom? Income goes mostly for hotels and tour agencies. On the other hand, in the process of tourism development, indigenous people are forcefully evicted from their ancestral places without adequate compensation. Along with denial of fishing, hunting and cultivation rights, their cultural assets are also increasingly marketed as tourism products by privatizing their land and natural resources. In the process of being re-packaged for visitor’s consumption, indigenous people’s historical and religious sites, rituals, festivals, arts and crafts are often unrecognized, distorted and commercialized. This creates poverty, indecent living style, identity and spiritual crises.

3. Tourism and Poverty – A profit driven industry cannot alleviate poverty.  Maximization of profit is possible only when labour power is commoditized and exploited, and land and ocean resources are privatized and exploited. Study on the policy of tourism, especially ecotourism, has uncovered that tourism will alleviate poverty of the indigenous people is proved to be faulty. This false promise has created more misery and unemployment to many people. Being poor, illiterate, and denied of their life sustaining resources, it has further aggravated poverty. Many people receive just seasonal and meager wages. Local communities are not given only manual job, but their services do not give regularization.[12] Most of them are seasonal contract workers. Descent jobs are deliberately denied, promotion curtailed or jobs are not regularized to keep the local communities remain illiterate and economically dependent and poor. It paves the way for manipulation and exploitation. To earn their living, women and children can be sold to commercial sex work.  Men can be indulged in drug and other illegal business. All these indecent life contribute to disease like HIV, TB, and so on. Tourism has also not given indigenous people education or any other skills to live a decent life. It makes people dependent, lazy and unproductive. People just sit and wait for the tourist to arrive to generate meager income for their living.

There is no balance share in the global tourism between the rich and poor countries. The rich countries in Europe and Canada, USA, Australia, Japan and Korea account nearly 80 per cent of world tourism leaving a vast majority of the world’s population being abused and exploited. Since the whole industries are monopolized and controlled by the companies in the wealthy countries, the profit goes back to the rich nations.  The host countries receive just a meager benefit out of the tourism industries.

With capacity to earn billions of dollars, tourism is being promoted by the IMF-WB as a means for Third World countries to repay their debts. But in contrary, it rather increases debts burden as the profit goes back to the rich countries. Most of the star hotels, resorts, golf courses and aviation industries are owned by the rich people in the rich countries.

These are just a few examples. The issue has to be located within the larger structural injustice. Injustice and destruction perpetuated to nature and people are massive. The church cannot remain a silent spectator. All these challenges demand urgent theological response and intervention because most of the affected people are indigenous people, women and children.  God’s creation is also groaning due to over exploitation.  We are called to listen to their cries.

In spite of its negative effects, we also need to recognize its immense potentiality to create global community for peace and justice. It is an important modern activity that can promote interaction among religions, cultures and civilizations, and serve as a catalyst for numerous projects and programs for human development. It can create and promote new social movement, if the present paradigm is directed to just-tourism. 

Therefore, theological education will not be complete without addressing this issue. Tourism has to be critiqued from the vantage points of the subsistence communities, and students have to be provided methodological tools to deconstruct the myth of capitalist’s interest using hermeneutical key of the lived experiences of the dalits, tribals, adivasis, women and other marginalized communities. Through a careful structured curriculum, we need to help students to analyze different types of tourism such “justice tourism,” ‘eco-tourism,’ ‘mass tourism,’ `cultural tourism,’ ‘sustainable tourism,’ etc. and identify their implications on indigenous people, their culture, women, children and environment.

Tourism and Theological Education

There are two major ecumenical networks, namely (a) The Senate of Serampore College (University) with 52 affiliated colleges with over 6000 students and about 1000 faculty members operate in South Asia. (b) The ATESEA has a membership of 105 schools in 16 countries, with approximately 20,000 students and more than 3,100 faculty members. Besides, there are number of schools under the Asian Theological Association (ATA) and other evangelical theological networks. The department of Christianity or Theology under the university structure is also making great impact in the life of the church and society. This explains the strength of the theological community and they can become a potential force in transforming tourism.

The history of formal theological education in Asia is less than 200 years old, and yet there have been tremendous developments in many areas. It is encouraging to see that the two ecumenical theological networks try to meet the demands of modern ministries effectively by responding to contemporary socio-political challenges by evolving new patterns of theological education and research in Asia. By giving importance to contemporary life cutting-edge issues employing the hermeneutical principle gained from the commitment for the struggle of the marginalized people for justice, theological students are motivated to engage in transformative action. However, I am not aware of any college/seminary in Asia that offers a course on the issue of tourism. Tourism is an unexposed global economic activity with tangible impact on climate justice, anti-social activities, economic deprivation, cultural alienation and identity crisis. The issue has to be addressed as theological agenda.  It is crucial that tourism issue is located within the framework of theology and ethics, pastoral care, and as an important missiological concern. It is sad to note that without analyzing the negative impacts, many people seem to assume that  tourism is a positive economic activity - it creates employment, it will alleviate poverty through economic development, earn more foreign currencies (US Dollar and Euro),  promote cultural exchanges; and it is good for the poor communities, especially for indigenous communities. However, we need to know that believing in money as the indicator of prosperity is Prosperity Theology.[13]  It is equal to worship of mammon.

We should make an attempt to transform tourism to create new social consciousness for peace and justice. Theological institutions can challenge the negative trends through a designed course outline for the ministerial candidates. Upholding the integrity of God’s creation and value of life, the thrust of course should be to help the students to articulate the new forms of violence against indigenous people, women and children carried on by neo-liberal globalization and tourism industries, sensitize and equip church leaders with knowledge and skill of engaging with tourism, and evolve Christian response and action grounded on justice. Theological critique on the present paradigm of tourism should lead the students to articulate alternative tourism.

Issues

While designing the course, we need to critique the present paradigm of tourism from the vantage points of the subsistence communities.  Some of the areas that require theological critique are:

Theological and Ethical Concerns: What are the ethical and theological tools that challenge and transform main-steam tourism? What is ethical and theological framework to challenge the commercialization of people and God’s creation?  How does theology justify tourism? What is the Christian ethics of leisure, pleasure? How do we challenge various forms of prosperity theologies that promote tourism?  How do we evolve tourism link with Christian values? How do we promote inter-cultural communication and exchanges for justice and peace? How do we challenge people to take risk of stepping out of their comfort zones and expanding their circles of friends to include all people, all faiths, or ethnicities and all ideologies?  

Tourism and Development Concerns: What is tourism development? For whom? At whose cost? How do we unearth the unjust nexus between globalization, climate justice and struggle of marginalized communities? How do we develop an alternative tourism that helps economic development of the local community without destroying their land or ocean resources and culture? How do we develop a tourism that respect nature, minimize stress on the environment? How do we challenge tourism sector and governments to make tourism more sensitive to climate change? How do we generate employment for marginalized sectors without discrimination? How do we empower local communities to resist the commercial tourism such as golf course, amusement parts, franchise restaurants, resorts and wild life sanctuaries at the cost of people? How do we ensure active role and participation of the indigenous communities and women in development of transformative tourism? How do we challenge the media to be socially sensitive, especially on the negative impacts of mass tourism promoted by the governments and the market, whose sole objective is making profit?

Tourism and Marginalized Communities Concerns: How do tourism effect on the life of the marginal communities? How do we empower the marginalized sectors to assert their rights, culture, ocean and land in the course of tourism development? How do we educate tour guides and interpreters of the locals with training for understanding of local ethno-cultural history? How do we develop tourism programmes based on indigenous culture and local natural environment setting? More specifically, how do we incorporate history, art, folklore, music, dance and food to highlight and focus on the preservation of unique traditional elements? How do we resist sex tourism? How do we promote tourism that is fair, sustainable and community-based respecting human rights?

Tourism and the Role of the Church: Tourism is an integral part of education. It must bring transformation to both the visitor and host. Then, what is the role of the church? How do we conscientious our churches realize that critiquing and campaigning on issues like anti-people development and tourism as part of Christian duty, and mission and pastoral concerns? How do the churches develop networking with international organizations to promote just tourism? How do the church empower the host to shape and create collective articulated voices from faith-based perspectives/interfaith perspective be heard? How do we transform tourism as a tool for advocacy? or a tool for peace? How do the churches promote just tourism?

The course needs to be designed in such a way that students are stimulated to engage in transformative tourism to promote mutuality, solidarity, and the real discovery of human community.  To do so, the course must address unjust power relation between those who own the capital and those who are completely dependent on their labour power. In other words, the root causes of unjust structure must be located to know how this power imbalance functions and how it erects walls of division and inequality among the poor. Max Ediger points out that transformative tourism must be directed “to confront (the visitor with) injustice; the injustice of global economic structures that suck resources from poor countries into rich countries; the injustice of heavy labour that does not receive proper compensation; the injustice of occupation; destroyed homes, and lost futures; the injustice of vast military spending while children go without education, proper diets; health care and happy childhood; and the injustice of voices calling out for a systematic ear but remaining unheard and unheeded.”[14]  The traveler must be pushed to address the issue of power in a creative and just way. Moreover, just tourism should lead the traveler to seek forgiveness, find deeper meaning in life, and healing through repentance. Just tourism will lead to discovery of each other, understanding each other, and sharing each other what they can and what they have.  Sufficient space should be created in the course outline for the students to explore new ways promoting just tourism.

While exploring just-tourism, the students should also be exposed to different models of alternative tourism advocated by ECOT, CCA, WCC, Equation, YMCA, etc. This exploration will enable them to reflect on the understanding and connection of pilgrimage, encounter, and transformation based on an understanding of the connectedness between the spiritual and political dimensions of life. 

Institutionalizing Tourism in Theological Education: Some Practical Suggestions

As mentioned above, tourism has emerged as one important modern economic activity touching all dimensions of life.  The issue has to be addressed within the framework of theology and ethics, pastoral care, and as missiological imperative. I suggest a few practical suggestions for institutionalization of the course:

(a) Develop a curriculum for ministerial candidates.  Colleges/seminaries could be encouraged to offer it as a credited course, or as an interdisciplinary course.  This should be done through accreditation or affiliation mechanism. 

(b) Integration of tourism issue in other disciplines. There is scope to integrate tourism issue in other disciplines such as Christian Ethics, Social Analysis, Women’s Studies, Tribal/Dalit theologies, Missiology and Christian ministry.  This will bring a perspectival change in theological orientation. However, there is a need to create space to review the existing theological curricula and suggest areas where integration of the issue could be done.

(c) Scholarship programme. Setting aside some scholarship provisions will encourage research scholars to take up the issue.

(d) Ministerial exposure under the supervision of alternative tourist operators. Seminaries/colleges need to explore student’s internship program or concurrent field work in tourists destination setting. This will provide opportunity to students to experience the actual life realities of people and the destruction on environment brought by tourism industry.

We should also note that developing a course alone is not sufficient and it will not bring much perspectival change in theological orientation, if the teachers are not trained on how to handle the course. Creating awareness is the first step for change. We need to accompany theological institutions by facilitating teacher’s institute on this issue. To stimulate and evoke students to engage in transformative action, teachers need not only orientation on how to handle the course, but also methodological tools for analyzing negative impacts of commercial tourism from theological perspective.

Finally, curriculum and teacher’s institute need to be accompanied by publication of theological resource books. Without adequate theological resource materials addressing and challenging tourism from the margin’s perspective, we will fail to achieve the goal. It is crucial that ecumenical networks like ECOT, CCA, WCC and YMCA, collaborate with churches and theological institutions in organizing more regional and sub-regional consultations, writer’s workshops on the subject with the purpose of producing theological resource materials.

  

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[1] The Shillong declaration issued by the participants of the joint consultation on “The North East India Churches’ response to development and tourism” organized by the Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism, (ECOT), National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), Presbyterian Church of India (PCI), and the Martin Lutheran Christian University (MLCU), on 29-31 March, 2011 at the PCI Center, Shillong, Meghalaya, India. p. 1. Hereafter `Shillong Declaration”.

[2] Caesar D’Mello, “Foreword” in Disaster Prevention in Tourism: Perspectives on Climate Justice – an Abridged Version, ed. by Philip Mathew and Jonathan KcKeown (Chiangmai: 2010), p. 6.

[3] `Travel’ for human needs and  ‘pilgrimage’ for spiritual renewal should not be confused with tourism which is connect with sole enjoyment and pleasure.

[4] For detail, refer to Claiming the Rights to Say NO, (Goa: CSJP & Equations, 2009).

[5] Shillong Declaration, p. 2.

[6] For the indigenous people, land is sacred and life. It is the land that holds family, clan, village and tribe as one community. The identity of the people is deeply rooted in the soil. It is the life sustaining power.

[7] Philip Mathew and Jonathan McKeown, op. cit., pp. 7-10.

[8] Ibid., p. 22.

[9] For example, the USA with only 4% of the world population emits 30% of all greenhouse gas emissions.

[10] Philip Mathew and Jonathan McKeown, op. cit., p. 11.

[11] Philip Mathew and Jonathan McKeown, op. cit., p. 13.

[12] It is the case in most of the Star Hotels and other sectors.

[13] Shillong Declaration, p. 2.

[14] Max Ediger, “Combating Dispossession”, in Combating Dispossession: Towards a Code of Ethics for Tourism in Palestine, ed. by Rajan Solomon (2008), pp. 50-60.