[:de]Bereits im Jahr 2002 rief die UNO das internationale Jahr des Ökotourismus aus und erntete damit massive Kritik. 2017 ist nun zum „International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development“ erkoren worden. Der nachhaltige Tourismus soll helfen, die globalen Nachhaltigkeitsziele der Agenda 2030 zu erreichen. Die wichtigste Frage bei diesem Vorhaben lautet wohl: Sind die Konzepte Tourismus und Nachhaltigkeit überhaupt vereinbar?

Jack Metzger: Kongoreise, November 1957 (Com_L06-0267-0019-0001)

Unscharfe Begriffe

Die Begriffe im Themenfeld Tourismus sind unscharf. Nachhaltiger Tourismus ist laut Wikipedia der Nachfolgebegriff für den seit Beginn der 1980er Jahre verwendeten Begriffs des “sanften Tourismus”. Dieser verstand sich als Gegenmodell zum Massentourismus und propagierte ein umwelt- und sozialverträgliches Reiseverhalten. Eine noch ausgeprägtere Form des nachhaltigen Tourismus ist der seit den 1960er Jahren in den USA entstandene Begriff des Ökotourismus. Er wird definiert als “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people” (Fletcher, S.8). Auch sanfter- oder Ökotourismus hat jedoch bei hohen Touristenzahlen negative Auswirkungen. Oftmals werden in abgelegenen Gebieten ausgedehnte Erschliessungen und Infrastrukturen angelegt, was neben Schäden in der Natur zu Belastungen für die indigene Bevölkerung und damit zu kulturellen Problemen führt:

It is precisely these more remote and pristine areas which ecotourists seek, that are extremely fragile and sensitive to human impact, however lightly they thread, and most vulnerable to cultural disruption and environmental degradation. Ecotourism’s impacts will be exacerbated by growing tourist flows encouraged by the tour companies’ marketing activities and the insatiable demand of increasingly large numbers of tourists for getting off the beaten track. Getting «off the beaten track» often means that the track soon becomes a road, even a highway, thus disturbing and even destroying the very few undisturbed areas of the world. Through exploitation, dislocation and desecration, ecotourism is arguably the prime force today threatening indigenous homelands and cultures (Liu, S. 471).

Die Perspektive der Gastbevölkerung

Wenn Zenhua Liu hier die ansässige Bevölkerung in den Blick nimmt, lässt sich ein direkter Zusammenhang zwischen den tiefgreifenden Problemen der betroffenen Menschen und den heutigen Migrationsbewegungen erkennen. Es stellt sich die Frage, aus welcher Perspektive die Debatte um die Entwicklung des nachhaltigen Tourismus überhaupt geführt wird. Der Diskurs vollzieht sich mehrheitlich einseitig aus der Perspektive der westlichen kapitalistischen Akteure. So gesehen ist Tourismus, unter welcher Bezeichnung er auch immer propagiert und gefördert wird, eine Spielart von Kolonialismus. Sehr viel wünschenswerter als ein erneuter Anlauf zur Förderung von Tourismus gleich welcher Ausprägung, wäre somit eine vertiefte kritische Auseinandersetzung mit den Beziehungen zwischen Tourismus, Kolonialismus, Neokolonialismus und Migration. Diese Arbeit ist, wie Eric G.E. Zuelow bemerkt, erst noch zu leisten:

It is somewhat surprising, that, despite separate and growing literatures on tourism and empire, historians have yet to systematically explore connections between the two (S. 95).

Die Verflechtungen, die Zuelow anspricht, sind sehr deutlich sichtbar in Jack Metzgers Fotografie aus dem Kongo von 1957. Das Bild hat auch nach sechzig Jahren eine starke Wirkung, denn an der Art und Weise, wie wir reisen und  die lokale Bevölkerung wahrnehmen, dürfte sich bis heute kaum etwas geändert haben.

Literatur

Fletcher, Robert: Romancing the wild: cultural dimensions of ecotourism, London: Duke UP, 2014.

Liu, Zhenhua: “Sustainable tourism development: a critique” in: Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 11, No. 6, 2003, S. 459-475.

Zuelow, Eric G.E.: A History of Modern Tourism, London: Macmillan, 2016.

 [:en]As early as 2002 the United Nations proclaimed the International Year of Ecotourism and was then heavily criticized for it. The year 2017 has now been proclaimed as “International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development”. The hope of the international year is to achieve the global sustainability objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The most important question concerning this proposition is probably: Are the concepts of tourism and sustainability compatible at all?

Jack Metzger: Journey to the Congo, November 1957 (Com_L06-0267-0019-0001)

Fuzzy Definitions

The definitions in the thematic field of tourism are blurred. According to Wikipedia sustainable tourism replaced the term “gentle tourism”, which had been used from the beginning of the 1980s. Gentle tourism was defined as opposing model to mass tourism and was advocating for an eco-friendly and socially acceptable travel behavior. An even more pronounced variation of sustainable tourism can be found in the term ecotourism, which evolved in the US since the 1960s. It is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people” (Fletcher, S.8). However, if tourists arrive in great numbers, both gentle tourism and ecotourism have negative impacts. It often happens that expansive developments and infrastructures are built. The results are damaged nature and strains for the indigenous population entailing cultural problems:

It is precisely these more remote and pristine areas which ecotourists seek, that are extremely fragile and sensitive to human impact, however lightly they thread, and most vulnerable to cultural disruption and environmental degradation. Ecotourism’s impacts will be exacerbated by growing tourist flows encouraged by the tour companies’ marketing activities and the insatiable demand of increasingly large numbers of tourists for getting off the beaten track. Getting «off the beaten track» often means that the track soon becomes a road, even a highway, thus disturbing and even destroying the very few undisturbed areas of the world. Through exploitation, dislocation and desecration, ecotourism is arguably the prime force today threatening indigenous homelands and cultures (Liu, p. 471).”

 

The perspective of the local population

If, like Zhenhua Liu, we focus on the local population, it is becoming obvious that there is a direct connection between the profound problems of the affected people and the present migration movements. The question arises, from which perspective the debate about the development of sustainable tourism is carried out in the first place. For the most part the discourse is being led single-sidedly by western capitalist stakeholders. In this sense tourism – whatever label is used to propagate and encourage it – is nothing else than a variety of colonialism. Rather than to initiate a renewed effort to foster tourism, in whichever form, it would be highly desirable to launch a thorough and critical debate about the connections between tourism, colonialism, neocolonialism and migration. As Eric G.E. Zuelow states, this work is still to be done:

It is somewhat surprising, that, despite separate and growing literatures on tourism and empire, historians have yet to systematically explore connections between the two (p. 95).

The entanglements that Zuelow is addressing are clearly apparent in Jack Metzger’s photograph from the Congo from 1957. Even after 60 years the image has a powerful presence, for it seems that little has changed in the ways we travel and in the manner we perceive the local population.

 

Sources:

Fletcher, Robert: Romancing the wild: cultural dimensions of ecotourism, London: Duke UP, 2014.

Liu, Zhenhua: “Sustainable tourism development: a critique” in: Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Vol. 11, No. 6, 2003, S. 459-475.

Zuelow, Eric G.E.: A History of Modern Tourism, London: Macmillan, 2016.

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