Travelling to poor countries
This summer one
of my friends, who is one year older than me, went on a holiday to India. I’ve
always wanted to visit India, one of the most deeply spiritual countries in our
planet, the cradle of fascinating Asian culture, the largest democracy in the
world and one of the last big remnants of tradition. Actually, in my opinion, dying
without visiting India would be a defeat for any travel enthusiast. But then I
though with my mum’s wise words “visiting another country is a developed
world’s privilege and I personally don’t think that I would be happy enjoying
visiting the same country where thousands of kids die daily”. India is also
famous in the West for being a developing country with many economic problems,
extremely low wages, a high income disparity, a dramatic incidence in child
labour and so on. So then I asked to myself: is it ethical to travel to poor
countries?
On one hand,
it’s true that when we travel to another country, whether it’s rich or poor,
it’s not supposed to be bad for the citizens of that country. Actually
international tourism brings money from other countries’ citizens to the
visited country ones. And yes, it’s also true that, especially in poor
countries, the money we spend goes to big hotel companies, high-income
minority’s restaurants, exclusively urban businesses or to corrupt state
railways but most economists confess that it also generates job among a weak
middle-class with a very high risk of falling on to poverty, it brings money to
state funds that will help to invest in vital infrastructures or in better quality
housing. So, tourism is good for the economy of these poor countries and it
should help them to introduce themselves in a global world where everywhere
people meet other people.
On the other
hand, some people think that this kind of tourism is like a reformed expression
of neo-colonialism and that it’s a new way to show the world western
supremacism. For these people, it’s unethical to visit countries, enjoying a
land which is often a hell for its own inhabitants. Cultural tourism is, in my
opinion, the best way of visiting a country but it becomes unethical when it
implies considering humans’ life or human activity in those underdeveloped
countries like a tourist attraction. It’s a way of showing your cosmopolitan
integrity against the traditional way of life of these people. People, wherever
they live, are not like animals in the zoo or, at least, they shouldn’t be
treated like that.
Finally, I
would like to do a last appreciation that implies our city’s tourist situation.
Obviously, Barcelona is a developed world city and even a global alpha level
city but it also suffers from the worldwide problem of international tourism.
Mass tourism in our city is a problem as it’s acknowledged for many of its
citizens in the last city’s official survey. The problem with mass tourism is
not just that Barcelona’s people are losing their city or the bad behaviour of
some of that tourists but that this concentration of tourism in our city’s
centre is making the rents surge and people are losing their houses, this is
what’s called “gentrification”. So, people of that Barcelona’s neighbourhoods
have many reasons to be angry and have the right to be attended for the
municipal government which made many promises of regulating mass tourism but
actually we’re making very little progress on the matter. Some people say that
tourism is good for the economy and it’s true but it’s also true that it
generally creates precarious and seasonal jobs, so it’s very important not to
make our economy depends on tourism. Gentrification is killing our city’s
spirit and we can’t let it happens.
To sum up, in
my opinion, there’s no problem to visit other countries, even if they’re poor,
because it’s always good to interchange experiences and to discover new
cultures but it’s also important to make a responsible visit of that country
respecting humans in those countries as you should respect any human in the
whole world. And if your travel includes a non-profit solidarity work (an
advice: if you travel to an underdeveloped country you should never give money
for your own to kids on the street, they’re being exploited by a mafia) which
it’s even better. Tourism is a good way to make us more integral persons but it
should be well organized by our political authorities to create a balanced and
sustainable tourism in this age of accelerated changes in a globalizing world.
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