The Hindu : Kerala News : Campaigning for fair trade in tourism

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 25, 2007
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Kerala

Campaigning for fair trade in tourism

Christine Pluss

From her home in Switzerland, Christine Pluss has been travelling far and wide. Her destinations are the most frequented tourist spots in the world. She started making these trips as a tourist guide. But her journeys in the past few decades have been as a campaigner for ‘fair trade in tourism.’

Ms. Christine was in Wayanad recently. She stayed with a farmer family for two days and was impressed by what she saw. But before she left Wayanad for Alappuzha to find out the impact of tourism on the houseboat business there, she had a word of caution for the local people. “Do not be blinded by the glamour of visiting tourists and the money they bring in.”

Ms. Christine advised those involved in the tourism industry in Wayanad about the importance of what she calls ‘fair trade on holiday,’ a concept she and her organisation Akte have been trying to promote and popularise across the globe for the past three decades.

“Setting up too many resorts to attract tourists could damage Wayanad,” she said.

“By fair trade on holiday, we mean tourism that will bring benefits to the local community and a tourism policy that will expect the visiting tourist to respect the local people. It also implies fair wages for all those involved in the tourist trade, down to the tourist guide,” Ms. Christine told The Hindu in Kozhikode.

Akte was founded in 1977 by Swiss development aid agencies, the Swiss Department for Development and Cooperation, and committed tourism operators. Akte’s activities include monitoring of current trends in international tourism; campaigning and awareness programmes on a wide range of issues related to globalisation, development and tourism; and carrying on a critical dialogue with the tourism industry on fair practices and corporate social responsibility. It publicises its activities through its web site www.akte.ch.

Ms. Christine’s views are based on her long experience as a tourist guide. Her Ph.D. thesis is on ‘Tourism in Maldives.’

She started campaigning for community-friendly tourism after she witnessed displacement of people in large numbers from beaches to make way for tourists and tourist facilities.

She was also disturbed by the ruthless action taken by some governments to drive people away from forests, nature parks and other places where they were earning their livelihood on the pretext of ‘generating income for local people through tourism.’

“Tourism brings money, all right. But the critical question we must ask is: for whom? If it is not for the local community but only for corporate giants, it cannot be called ‘fair trade on holiday,’” Ms. Christine said.

Akte’s campaigns had shown results, she said, citing the case of hotels in Gambia giving space to women to put up fruit stalls. The women till then were forced to chase tourists on beaches to sell fruits. They were also subjected to exploitation.

Low wages and long working hours for employees were problems that any government interested in promoting quality tourism should solve. As it is the government that promotes tourists, it is also the responsibility of the government to protect the local community and its resources from adverse effects of tourism, Ms. Christine said.

She expressed hope that the Kerala government would carefully monitor the grading system that had been introduced for home stay facilities so that the time spent by tourists here would give them a feel of the State’s culture and the local community would not be exploited in any way.

It was also the responsibility of the tourism industry and the tour operators to educate tourists on the need to make their holiday benefit the local population, pay fair prices and respect the landscape as the place where their hosts lived and earned their livelihood, Ms. Christine said.

R. MADHAVAN NAIR

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