BBC Learning English
Weekender
Ethical Travel
Yvonne: This weekend, thousands and thousands of people will travel to countries
across the world. And in Britain alone, about 60 million people take a
holiday abroad each year! But forget the tourists and the people in the travel
business for now because they’re happy. There are other people we need to
think about…
Trisha Barnett, Head of Tourism Concern
We’re not making the connections between their poverty and our luxury.
I’m Yvonne Archer and you’re listening to Weekender with
bbclearningenglish.com.
Most of us have probably heard of ‘package’ and ‘all inclusive’ holidays but
when I asked around Bush House, not many of us had heard of ‘ethical travel’.
Of course by now, we all know that long plane journeys cause serious damage
to our environment but with ‘ethical travel’, there are other things to think
about as well. Here’s another clue…
Trisha Barnett, Head of Tourism Concern
Somebody once told me how when a hotel was built in the area that he lived in in the Pacific,
it was as if a spaceship had arrived.
Yvonne: Trisha Barnett, head of Tourism Concern who’ve published “The Ethical
Travel Guide”. There, Trisha was talking about the effect that tourists can
have on the people who live in the countries they visit. In that case, the new
hotel was like a spaceship – something very alien had landed in the Pacific.
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As Trisha explains further, try to work out who wasn’t ‘consulted’ and what
she means by that…
Trisha Barnett, Head of Tourism Concern
Local people are really never consulted about what’s going on around them and that happens
equally here, you know, in Britain. You don’t have to be abroad. But generally, we’re
travelling further and further a field and the places that we tend to go to have very poor
infrastructures for local people.
Yvonne: The local people - the community living in the area where the hotel was built,
wasn’t ‘consulted’ before the work began. No-one met with them to get their
opinions on how the hotel would affect them - and the community certainly
wasn’t asked for any advice. We also heard how the local people usually
have very poor ’infrastructures’, for example, little access to transport,
electricity and even running water.
‘Ethical travel’ encourages tourists to be more aware of what’s happening in
the countries they plan to visit. Hopefully, that will lead to ‘sustainable
tourism’… we’ll be able to visit those countries in the future without causing
problems.
The governments of many developing countries encourage tourism as a
valuable form of income – an important way to make money. But as Trisha
explains, the money is often used to pay off the countries’ debts and increase
tourism rather than help local people like farmers.
Trisha Barnett, Head of Tourism Concern
The governments, encouraged by The World Bank and the IMF to pay back their debt, bring
tourists in as much as they possibly can and feed all their money into the tourism
infrastructure rather than say agriculture.
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Yvonne: Did you know that in 24 hours, the average tourist uses the same amount of
water that a local person might use in 100 days? Shocking, isn’t it? But
according to Trisha, knowing what’s going on could lead to tourists helping to
solve problems rather than adding to them. For example, do we know why
the woman she mentions is carrying a metal bucket - a ‘pail’ – that’s full of
water on her head? And why isn’t she walking on a proper road?
Trisha Barnett, Head of Tourism Concern
You’re really not aware that when you use your shower and you plunge into the pool that that
water might have been at the cost of local people and they don’t have running water at all.
And in fact, it’s quite picturesque to see a woman walking down a dusty road with a pail on
her head full of water. We’re not making the connections between their poverty and our
luxury and the luxury and that infrastructure is at their cost.
Yvonne: Is there anything that tourists could do to help in your own country? Do you
think that ‘tips’ - giving extra money to low-paid workers - keeps their wages
low? Would gifts of clothes, toiletries, pencils and paper for them and their
children be a good idea? And if tourists visited areas away from their hotels,
would that provide local people with work as guides and encourage
governments to provide better roads and transport?
‘Ethical Travel’ gives us lots to think and talk about. Why not visit us at
bbclearningenglish.com to pick up some of the language you’ll find useful to
do just that?
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