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Tourism Concern demands an end to ‘mega resorts’
Sunday, 09 Mar, 2009
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The building of tourism “mega-resorts” should be halted because they are destroying communities and are environmentally unsustainable.
The call came today from Tourism Concern which claims that a global trend in developing luxury, large-scale resorts is leading to widespread alienation and displacement of people.
Such resorts are also wreaking havoc with fragile ecosystems.
Poor communities in developing countries, which depend heavily upon their natural resources for their livelihoods, are the hardest hit, according to the campaigning organisation.
Huge tracts of public and privately owned land are being ‘grabbed’ and sold off to real estate developers by governments keen to expand tourism in pursuit of economic growth.
In reality, little of the profit from internationally managed resorts stays in the local economy, Tourism Concern believes.
The trickle down of tourism revenue to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods is minimal, particularly in the face of rising living costs associated with an influx of tourists and owners of expensive second homes, the group says.
Cheap migrant labour is often drafted in from abroad to work on the developments, while opportunities for employment in the exclusive five-star resorts are limited to the most menial, poorly paid roles.
Governments and developers regularly espouse ‘responsible tourism’ policies, covering issues such as sustainability, community participation and damage to the environment. However, all too often this amounts to little more than a marketing tool to win popular support and attract tourists, the organisation claims.
Director Patricia Barnett said: “The development of mega-resorts and all the social and environmental problems that go with them is an issue facing communities from Scotland to Bulgaria, from Spain to the Bahamas, India to Thailand.
“Tourism has to be developed in a more sustainable, transparent and democratic way.
“That means listening to the needs of local people and the environment, and demands an abandonment of the ‘economic growth at all costs’ attitude that is seeing communities dispossessed of their homes and their means of earning a living the world over.”
Tourism Concern highlighted new developments in the Bahamas and Grenada as damaging marine eco systems and marginalising local people.
“The needs and rights of local communities are being pitched directly against those of mega-resorts, with the resorts winning out almost every time,” said Barnett.
“Golf courses, landscaped gardens, swimming pools and showers all consume vast quantities of water, much more than the local communities, who often have to walk a considerable distance to fetch water that is barely drinkable.”
by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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