International tourism has a very promising future”, “In 2018 tourism has beaten records”, “Tourism has grown more than the average of the world economy”...To a citizen who has become accustomed to taking a plane not once a year, but two or three times a year, these messages arrive without interruption, also disseminated by the World Tourism Organization itself. Everything is going well in the field of leisure travel, unless we are a little concerned about the impact it may have on climate change; but billions of journeys have begun to talk about sustainable travel, ethical tourism and stories to alleviate the burden of awareness generated by the ecological footprint.

A much more critical assessment has been made in the ambitious study La domination touristique (The dominant tourism). Under the coordination of Bernard Duterme, economists, sociologists anthropologists and tourism experts from all over the world, including those from the Poor South, have completed the general mapping of this massive phenomenon, the result of which can be summarized in: “What looks like a panacea fundamentally increases inequality.”

The beginning of tourism corresponds to the socialdemocracy of the twentieth century, based on the achievements of the workers’ struggles, the paid holiday period, economic growth, the improvement of life, leisure time, consumerism and the society of the show. Also the development of technologies, the acceleration of communications and the reduction of distances between locations. Liberalisation of air traffic and economic relations would soon come. And social tourism created to facilitate the leisure and empowerment of working people, often driven by trade unions and worker associations, would become massive and low cost, a solid business activity, with strong competition and very aggressive.

Other trips, visits or leisure tours have been differentiated and have focused on international tourism in the study La domination touristique. Of course, not all tourists do tourism in the same way, but Dutern sees everyone involved in the same scheme: “It responds to the massification of tourists by stratifying the ways of travel: who is supposed to be a good tourist wants to escape the evil in one way or another (‘they behave like a flock’, ‘those who are putting the mud in the sun’…). The rich loves escapades and tranquillity; the desires for wealth, the crowds and the usual holidays. It attaches importance to social, landscape or linguistic riches; this is to fun, topics and advantages.” That is, we all use the same phenomenon that tourism is, highlighting with our behaviors the characteristics of the social class itself.

Everyone wants to be receptors to tourism, town, region or nation, as an economic activity productiva.Pero, how to show the face in this competitive market, how to be more attractive? The standard meter is set in the Economic Forum of Davos: The Competitiveness Index for Travel and Tourism (Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index), the recommendations of which are followed by most of the authorities on the planet, i.e. that each site has at its disposal air transport, tourism infrastructures, international access facilities, the level of information and technological communications, security and health services, price competitiveness, enterprises and labour... “In short, the tourism market also encourages rebates in social, tax and environmental standards in all countries.”

Asymmetric Traffic Limits

Is it suitable for tourism everywhere in the world? Yes and no. Yes, because every corner of the planet wants to participate in this economic activity that, as everyone says, is the bargain. And no, because not all places have the same capacity of attraction in terms of the landscape, heritage or social riches that tourism seeks with eagerness. For example, the tourist destinations in Guatemala are outside the catalogues that attract remote travellers, the regions where the indigenous population does not wear traditional and spectacular costumes.

“Tourism – writes Sylvie Brunel, a geographer and economist – creates a false authenticity. The ordinary foreigner prefers the idealized image of the indigenous, the authenticity represented, which is the result of the process of constructing the image of the distant in his imagination - the simplified, crushed and folklorized image of the indigenous that he will find in the place - and otherwise he does not pay attention to it.”

But in addition, the environmental balance of the flood of tourists is very bad. If everything that industry wants were democratized, the Earth would far outweigh the ability to withstand the planet.

Firstly, because more and more shipments are made by plane. Although not mentioned in climate greenwashing operations, one tenth or more of CO2 emissions are aircraft. But tourism also leaves a very important mark on many other aspects: there is a great waste of water (golf courses in dry areas, artificial snow per canyon...), artificialization of the soil of the fields and fields that agriculture needs, destruction of natural spaces, deterioration of the shores of the sea, ingestionable waste mountains...

And all to satisfy the leisure of less than 500 million people a year. In other words, so that one in fifteen mundane can see the other fourteen closely. Because the opposite will not happen. A European who earns quite well can stand in Chad or in Nigeria, but a poor citizen here ...

“The flows of tourism – says Duterm- faithfully reflect the organization of the world and its differences: at the borders are crossed the permitted and prohibited migrations, with the doors open for some, wire reaching for others. As if the driving force behind the universal declaration of human rights were really La Fontaine's story: ‘Depending on whether you’re powerful or miserable, customs will either make you citizens of the world or condemn you to live in detention at home.’

Duterme is asked if the new travel styles solve something: ecotourism, solidarity tourism, alternative, responsible, etc. “There can be no sustainable tourism if the consequences of liberalization, deregulation, the sale of places and ways of life, the folklorization of the local population, the theft of spaces and fundamental resources for citizenship are not put into question.”