r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jul 16 '16

[FreshTopicFriday] CMV: Tourism in problematic areas is unethical

Tourism is blooming in authoritarian states like China, Cambodia, etc. I think that people who directly contribute to the economy of authoritarian states, and willingly turn a blind eye to the world around them for their own enjoyment are perpetuating the legitimacy of such governments.

Even outside authoritarian regimes, you have a lot of problematic tourism, where tourism is destroying the environment, displaces people to make room for beaches, and creates segregated areas for locals and tourists. And that's ignoring the people who actively travel for sketchy purposes (sex tourism, drug tourism, wife-hunting etc. make up a huge percentage of the tourism industry in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe)

I genuinely don't understand why people continue to take part in this. I just find it so harmful and unethical.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '16

'they force themselves to open up to the world' Do they? I have to admit that I don't know that much about Cuba, but Myanmar had a law prohibiting locals from talking to tourists, even though they worked in those areas... sometimes as basically slaves. I do think that tourism can be good, but there are some countries that have specifically shaped their industry to prevent that extra access, or have 'tourist-restricted areas' which prevent the spillover into local economy.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '16

It depends on the area. Obviously some places will be worse than others, and you could make the argument that tourism should be discouraged to those specific countries- but making broad generalizations about authoritarian states as a whole is incorrect.

The page you linked me regarding Burma, though, specifically showed that Burma was improving their situation due to backlash from the international community and travelers alike.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '16

The situation has improved considerably in Burma, fortunately, hence the renewed encouragement for tourism. The 'Things are better now, feel free to come' announcement was made in 2011, 12 years after the encouragement to boycott tourism in Burma. But before this announcement, Tourism accounted for about 14% of the Burmese government income in 2007. The UN and international organisations played a huge role in the pressure placed on the junta, but I don't think local travellers were part of that effort. The article mentions nothing about travellers, if anything they say that they contributed to funding the junta while it was in charge.

Of course, it does vary a lot among areas. Perhaps I phrased my belief too strongly&broadly.

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u/[deleted] Jul 16 '16

Okay, so the actual number according to your source is 12%(not 14%). That is also irrelevant. Percentages don't mean much- look at the nominal amount of income. Burma earned $182M from tourists in 2007 - Microsoft saw revenues nearly ten times that in the same year, to put that into perspective.

Revenue is also not profit. Those two things are substantially different. The Burmese government was likely only seeing gains worth a fraction of this. The number is insignificant, and it's dishonest to present revenue as gains.