 Social Tourism in Europe. Theory and Practice
Edited by Scott McCabe, Lynn Minnaert and Anya Diekmann
Channel View Publications, ISBN-13:978-1-84541-232-6, Bristol UK, 2012
This, rather concise yet very informative and inspiring - academically as well as ethically - book, is not only the first of its kind in the english language, but comes at the right time, as the dominant neoliberal paradigm is collapsing and the inadequacy and incompleteness of european frameworks has been revealed by and during the ongoing crisis.
Fourteen contributors, twelve of whom are academics and at least half have hands-on experience with developing social tourism policy and programs offer a multidisciplinary perspective, defining social tourism, the role of tourism in the emerging 'social economy', the effects of social policies on tourism and vice versa. The book successfully connects academic discussions with best practice case studies.
Eight academic chapters are intertwined with characteristic case studies profiling key international, local and sectoral social tourism organisations and which relate to the main theme of the preceding chapter. The case studies are a bit concise however some manage to discuss the problems and shortcomings of the featured social tourism organisations. Chapter 1 offers a good introduction and summary of the book, while chapter 2 provides definitions and the historical background and evolution to this day in various European countries. Chapter 3 analyses current european social tourism supply and demand and presents the major stakeholders. In Chapter 4, vocal critic of neoliberalism in tourism Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, argues that the concept and practice of social tourism can help reposition tourism as a social force which contributes to human welfare rather than to corporate profits. In Chapter 5, Giles Claire discusses the french model of social tourism in the context of the social economy. Chapter 6 analyses the link between physical mobility and social mobility and the consequences of both on social structures such as family and work. Chapter 7 deals with the former Eastern Block policies and links the development of social tourism to the political attitudes of various euopean governments towards welfare. Chapter 8 relates social class and family situations to tourism access the impact of tourism on family relationships, while Chapter 9 focuses on the policies, realities and experiences of tourism for people with disabilities. Authors Shaw and Agarwal rightly argue that disabled people should play an active role in the development and design of social tourism programmes and packages so that these become accessible and inclusive. In Chapter 10, Christian Baumgartner, head of the historic Vienna-based Naturefriends International, which started out as a 'socialist hiking organisation' in 1895 and was banned between 1933-1945, elucidates the linkages, commonalities and differences between social tourism and sustainable tourism in the context of his organisation. Baumgartner poses many difficult questions such as whether social segregation may be the unwanted result of social tourists filling the less popular accommodations and destinations in the low season. He rightly points out that social tourism, 'tourism for all', still has an obligation to somehow be ecologically sustainable. The final chapter offers another useful summary and suggestions for future research.
It is hard to pinpoint the historic origin of social tourism in Europe, as even the ancient Olympics and similar events had some social tourism elements along with political and religious motives. But the modern origin is certainly the troubled 1930s with the introduction of paid holidays for the working class in Western Europe as well as similar schemes in the Soviet Union. Currently, social tourism involves billions of euros and millions of european citizens, however it remains a largely neglected concept in tourism literature, especially in the English language, proof of the dominance the neoliberal and pro-corporate agenda in tourism academic research.
Leisure and holidays are basic human rights enshrined in article 24 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) which states 'everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay', while article 13(2) of the Declaration enshrines free mobility (and therefore also travel): "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own and to return to his country". The above have been reinforced by the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (1999) which recognises (Article 7) that tourism is a right, accessible to all. In addition, the lack of an ability to take a holiday once per year, has become embedded in social indicators of relative poverty.
Still, and although international tourism organisations waste no opportunity to remind us of the impressive global growth of tourism 'arrivals', the proportion among the population that does not travel has remained stable at around 40-45% for the past 60 years, even in Europe! Social tourism, as a 'tourism for all' concept, has not yet succeeded in changing this. Let us hope that this excellent book will contribute to this noble and just goal.
Last Updated (Thursday, 22 December 2011 11:37)
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 Too Many People? Population, Immigration and the Environmental Crisis
by Ian Angus & Simon Butler
Haymarket Books, Paperback, ISBN: 9781608461400, October 2011, Chicago IL
As the worlds population has reached 7 billion and overpopulation alarmists dominate mass media, this timely work methodically reviews and demolishes the pseudo-science of Populationism, in a readable yet informative and documented manner. 'Too Many People?" is co-authored by two leading lights of the global Green Left / Left-Green currents, Ian Angus, editor of the Climate and Capitalism online journal, based in Canada, and Simon Butler coeditor of Australia's Green Left Weekly. The book is published by Haymarket Books, the nonprofit, progressive book distributor and publisher, a project of the Centre for Economic Research and Social Change.
Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus' prophecies had become out of fashion during the past 200 years, however the rise of the conservationist movement and Paul and Anne Ehrlich's 'The Population Bomb' (1968) gradually changed this, with many people now thinking that population growth is the root of all evils. According to them, there must be an absolute level beyond which global population is unsustainable and we have already reached it. Among them, well-meaning conservationists, biocentrists, deep ecologists, but also nativists, racists, xenophobes and assorted misanthropists who call for even tighter immigration controls - as leading women's rights activist and author Betsy Hartmann, dubs it in the short but powerful foreword, "it's the greening of hate", or a 'distress' and 'antipathy towards 'people of the South' or 'aliens', as former Green Presidential Candidate, Joel Kovel notes in the second foreword.
Even if you are an oil-monger, It is hard to dispute that the planet has its limits, climate change being a resounding proof. However, the key question, and the title of the first chapter, is "are people the problem?" or rather their lifestyle, and in particular the unsustainable lifestyle of the tiny minority, the 1%? Are the local, family planning decisions of the poor and the powerless the problem or the global decisions of the rich and powerful, or - as the book calls them - the 'military-corporate polluter complex"? Another question, is, will world population stabilize in this century after peaking at around 9 billion in 2050.
The authors tackle the above questions in a clear and methodic manner, providing ample information and leads to the reader who wants to research further. The book is divided into 5 sections: "Blaming People" discusses a key debate in the early years of the green movement, "Failures of Populationism" tackles key populationist assumptions, "Control and Coercion" scrutinises the abysmal human rights record of Cold War Era population control programs, including compulsory sterilisation, coerced abortions and even infanticide, but also more indirect forms of social engineering, "Greens vs Immigrants?" demolishes some pseudo-green arguments for reducing immigration and "Production, Consumption, Revolution' argues that populationism directly tries to hinder the attempt to replace the anti-ecological, capitalist system with something better. There are also 4 appendixes containing articles which elaborate on the above arguments. Appendix 1 points out that Malthus main goal was to argue that most people will always be poor due to naturally-occurring overpopulation, not to preach against the latter. Appendix 2 reveals the shortcomings of the populationists' cherished IPAT formula (Impact equals Population times Affluence times Technology). Appendix 3 is leading US Socialist Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926) defence of pro-immigrant policies, while Appendix 4 is a petition by the Climate Justice & Migration Working Group, stressing that Climate Change has already displaced up to 50 million people - environmental refugees/migrants.
The book contains an extensive, 19-page bibliography, a detailed index, and is highly readable.
The main strengths of the book lie in reinforcing humanist and internationalist arguments exposing the methods and politics and truist pseudo-statistics of populationist organisations, and the rich and right-wing financiers of populationists studies and policies. But also in stating the obvious facts, that the correlation between emissions growth and population growth in various countries is an illusion, when one checks the numbers, that per capita green house gas emissions are not related to population, or population density, but to the socioeconomic model and the polluting industries of a country, and that within each country the rich have fewer children but emit significantly more than the poor. And, most importantly, that if the Iraq war was ranked as a country in terms of annual greenhouse gas emissions, it would rank ahead of 139 countries!
Population growth is slowing down, inequality is growing within and between countries, however pro-establishment Populationists and anti-immigrant groups are intent on causing a distraction from both the social and institutional causes of the global economic crisis and the urgent economic and social changes needed NOW so as to drastically cut down emissions and avoid catastrophic climate change. If there is overpopulation, it is the overpopulation of billionaires: The top 147 in Forbes World's Richest People in 2002, had a total wealth equal to the total annual income of 3 billion people.
As leading ecologist and activist Barry Commoner once said, quoted in the book,
"pollution does not begin in the family bedroom but in the corporate boardoom" . He added that populationist solutions are "equivalent to attempting to save a leaking ship by lightening the load and forcing passengers overboard." Business-as-usual attitudes, of course, are equally wrong - the leaking ship needs fixing! A belief in the ability of humanity to do so, will determine both attitudes towards populationism in the future, and - more importantly - the actual fixing of the ship!
A must read which will become a classic.
Last Updated (Monday, 28 November 2011 14:18)
 Tourism and the Implications of Climate Change: Issues and Actions
Edited by Christian Schott, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Emerald Group, Hardback, 384 pp, 20 Dec 2010, ISBN 978-0-85724-619-6
The volume, third in the series 'Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice' aims to serve as a platform for ‘knowledge exchange’ for academics and practitioners dealing with climate change and a range of disciplines, including anthropology, climatology, psychology, transport studies and of course tourism & hospitality. Compiled by 30 authors (from 10 countries) who are tourism academics, industry people and consultants, and two of which are climate scientists. The latter provide a very useful summary of the work of the IPCC and also of UNWTO in relation to future scenarios of climate change impacts on tourism. Other chapters deal with technological innovation in transport, the reaction of hotel chains and of the cruise sector to climate change, and there are useful case studies from ‘the tourism-dependent island nation’ of New Zealand presenting mitigation initiatives in the hospitality sector, as well as public and private sector responses. On the quantitative side a chapter is dedicated to estimating the Australian tourism industry’s Green house gas (GHG) footprint, while on the qualitative, an innovative ‘cyber-ethnographical’ approach seeks to explore climate change concern in online communities. Chapter 13, written by ECOCLUB.com Members Dodds and Graci, presents a case study about their NGO, The Icarus Foundation and the lessons learned in relation to the constraints of climate change awareness-building. The last (fourth) section of the book takes a realistic-pessimistic attitude and focuses on possible adaptation strategies, how tourism services and products may survive or even benefit(!) from climate change. The penultimate chapter deals with GreenEarth.travel, a think tank dealing with the greening of tourism destinations.
Among the more memorable points and conclusions are that Climate Change has similarities with Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” theory, that technology cannot by itself solve the crisis, that there are both real and psychological barriers to adaptation and mitigation in both demand and supply sides, that complex interrelationships between climate change and tourism are little understood, that greenwashing is commonplace in the cruise sector and among eco labels in general.
The editor rightly recognizes that the contributions (and viewpoints) are all from ‘developed’ countries, so future volumes would need to take in ‘southern’ viewpoints, since it is the global south that will be bearing the brunt of climate change, on top of its current burdens. That said, this a valuable reference work (including 44 pages of references) with a lot of thinking and research behind it and many leads for the reader, who after reading this book, will probably deduce that in relation to climate change the world, and the tourism sector, is in a mode of ‘panic in slow motion’, many disconnected initiatives and talk but few results. Something is missing and this is perhaps the political will to tackle the climate crisis as an economic system crisis, and take real steps towards a new, green, direct democratic and socially just global economic system that may provide the solutions that productivist models, neoliberal dogma and the neo-colonial scramble for scarce industrial resources just cannot.
Last Updated (Friday, 13 May 2011 13:25)
 Green Traveler Study Report 2010-11 by Thomas Roth & Doug Gorney, CMI Green.
A detailed and useful survey of 951 respondents, chosen from a larger sample, from across the United States, who consider themselves 'extremely' or 'very' eco-conscious and who took at least one overnight vacation in the past year. The authors, Community Marketing, a leading LGBT marketing consultancy based in San Fransisco, deduce that "there is no green travel market" that it is "ultimately up to the consumer to decide what green travel is" and that green travelers "come in every shade". The survey took place in the summer of 2010, as a follow up to a 2009 study, and did not intend to reflect national census data or distribution but to shed light on the motives and practices of those who do describe themselves as green-travellers. Among the most interesting key findings are the following: there was a 7.5 increase in the number of those who researched and booked greener accommodations, compared to the previous annual survey and voluntourism in particular is rising. While Web 2.0 and social media are becoming more important sources of information. Price remains a central concern, and there is a low tolerance for green premiums. Over 40% of respondents looked for 3rd party certification to verify that a travel supplier is truly environmentally friendly, however 97% of respondents could not remember the name of any green travel certifications!
Peer review travel sites continued to be a dominant influence on travel decisions and social media was twice as important a source of information as advertising for eco-travellers while Internet search-based travel research dropped more than 25%, with social media gaining. An opportunity for green, specialist travel agents. About one in ten had used a "dedicated eco-tourism" website, and one in 6 had purchased carbon offsets. Significantly very few (around 1%) could name specific cruise lines, international hotel chains or car rental brands as environmentally friendly. We hope that future annual editions will put more emphasis and include more questions on grassroots green tourism and communities and fewer on the corporate chains who belatedly try to green (or greenwash) their offerings, and also include some tourism policy-related questions. That said this is clearly a valuable and down to earth contribution to the endless theoretical debate of what green travel is or should be all about, of use to academics and practitioners alike.
- For more details and to request a complimentary .pdf copy of the 150 page report email your request to report[at] CMIgreen.com, including your name, title and organization, or visit http://www.cmigreen.com
Last Updated (Wednesday, 11 May 2011 08:37)
 Statistics for the Terrified v6.01 (Software, Single-user edition)
2011, Concept Stew Ltd
Many university students and researchers have been terrified by statistics, but few will admit it. This well-documented, user-friendly, and -- indeed -- enjoyable statistics tutorial software should become a standard way to introduce the topic without tears (aka mathematics) at school, university and wherever else it is needed – and one would say statistics is badly needed in a world full of press releases, half-truths and true-sounding claims by politicians and corporations. Those who simply need to understand research findings will also greatly appreciate the software.
The language is plain, humorous ("a new drug which raises IQ called Mensarin") and sometimes comforting ("don't be disheartened, this is really confusing"!) for those who do not understand, but there is no discount on depth, considering this is a guide to basic and intermediate Statistics. The display is clear and the navigation intuitive. Calculations are mercifully broken down into animated steps, and concepts demonstrated through interactive games. There is even an audience giving answers and making realistic comments, based on the experience of the author, who has taught statistics at University level. Once you have completed a chapter or sub-chapter, a tick appears to remind you. This is great, as you do not have to go through all sub-chapters, and you can easily choose to repeat a sub-chapter.
Included on the top menu: a great glossary with alphabetical index, a handy "printscreen" menu option, a reference of 28 statistical formulas, and at the bottom menu an efficient search button and a history of recent pages button.
Suggestions for improvement: one should be able to go back just one step (e.g. one animation) using a back button. In the glossary, terms included in definitions could be hyperlinked so as to be able to move from a definition to another. As the author points out this is a tutorial, not a replacement tool for complex statistics research packages so one would hope that it can one day become a full-blown statistics package or that the author develops a separate, but equally user-friendly research package.
You may download a free evaluation copy directly from the authors website which also includes many other useful resources Last Updated (Wednesday, 19 January 2011 17:48)
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