Peace
through tourism
By now we've all heard of eco-tourism,
adventure tourism and scholastic tourism, but who
ever heard of peace-through-tourism? We have and
we're not the only ones. Little
by little, tourists
are beginning to see travel as
a means to understand
and respect other cultures, in turn giving locals
the opportunity to appreciate those with different
understandings and beliefs. After all, there is no
better way to bridge the gap between societies, than
to experience them.
Our Executive Editor, Denise Hummel, shares the impact of her experience
in Thailand as a guest speaker at the Peace Through Tourism Global
Summit, where she discussed with experts her thoughts on how to
help destinations, that have been impacted by terrorism or natural
disaster, recover their image in the heart and mind of the traveler.
Text & Photography Denise Hummel
It is staggering to think that elephants sought
higher ground immediately before the Tsunami hit Asian shores
on December 26th the year before last, while no advanced
technology existed in the form of an early warning detection
system that could prevent the loss of human life … or
so said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Tourism of
Sri Lanka. I can’t say for sure. I wasn’t
there. I was safe and dry in my apartment in Varese,
Italy, at the time.
I was recently honored to be one of the many panelists
at the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism
Global Summit in Pattaya, Thailand, an organizational
conference dedicated to exploring the ways in which tourism
can and does promote peace. I was one
of the only westerners
there and was surrounded
by Ministers, Members of Parliament
and others dedicated to the concept of sustainable tourism
and peaceful tourism.
While I had been speaking about the strategies that
western tourism enterprise has utilized to confront terrorism
and natural disaster in the U.S. and Europe over the
past few years, my fellow panelists from Sri Lanka, Uganda,
Cambodia and South Africa, to name a few, have been discussing
the ways in which terrorism, internal armed-conflict,
war and poverty have affected their lives and those of
their families and countrymen. Among a group of co-panelists
at breakfast one morning, I was the only person to not
have held the status of refugee at some point in my life.
To the extent I have changed houses or homeland, it has
been entirely through choice and a quest for new experience
and I know nothing of fleeing for my life or the lives
of my children. My colleagues from across the sea,
in
contrast, have been counting the years, and in
some instances,
the months, days, hours and minutes
of peace.
It is amazing to me that the more I am exposed to through
travel and interaction with peoples of other countries,
the more ignorant I feel. I have always known, through
basic channels of international media, that people living
in other parts of the world do not share the same standard
of living that I do, but I did not know that the single
greatest killer of children world-wide is unclean water.
I did not know that my colleagues in Jordan get water
once a week, but that
my female Jordanian colleagues
have virtually no
'
glass ceiling' that prevents
them from advancing professionally. I didn’t know
that there are still cold-storage containers on the shores
of the Andaman coast in Thailand that contain the bodies
of unidentified loved ones after the wave hit and I didn’t
know that police boats and huge fishing trawlers still
lie kilometers from the sea where they lie against buildings,
but otherwise upright, as if they are simply dry-docked
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
What is sustainable tourism and how can we in
the western world assist our brothers and sisters in
less developed
areas to tackle problems that affect fragile economies
so dependent upon tourism? And how can we, as tourists,
promote peace when we travel? So many of us, as individuals
as well as public and private enterprise, donate money.
Is that the way to assure that families and businesses
post traumatic natural or terrorism-related episode continue
to survive?
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It appears, based on what I have seen and
heard here, that despite our display of compassion, exemplified
by our overwhelming generosity, that this may not be
the answer. Houses built with Tsunami donations, for
example, but which failed to consult the cultural, physical
and spiritual needs of the people, lay vacant. Boats
built with Tsunami donations lay idle on the shores awaiting
bureaucratic clearance before they can be used by Thai
fisherman. Tsunami money to Sri Lanka remains unutilized
because the Sri Lankan administrative offices charged
with administering the money, are located in an area
of the country which is governed by a para-military entity
not recognized by the U.S. or the United Kingdom.
The best answer seems to be embodied in the requests
I heard time and again from His Excellency Akel Biltaji,
Special Advisor to His Majesty King Abdullah II of the
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon, His Excellency. Eng. Ziad
Al-Bandak, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Palestine
National Authority, Ibrahim Yusuf, Ambassador of the
Republic of Indonesia, and James Lu, President of the
International Hotel and Restaurant Association, to name
a few. The way to be a part of sustainable tourism in
each of these countries, they said, is for the average tourist to
'come back'. This means to go back to Bali as soon
as possible after the recent bombings, to frequent the
hotels that were rebuilt after the Tsunami, but that
are not yet at full occupancy, to eat the fish caught
by local fisherman served in local restaurants and to
buy the handicrafts of the indigenous peoples. The way
to be part of the movement of 'peace through tourism'
is to be an ambassador of acceptance, traveling with an
open heart and open mind, and demonstrating respect in
our words, behavior, and interaction with peoples of
all cultures. 'Travel is fatal to prejudice,
bigotry and narrow-mindedness,' said Mark Twain.
In this era of terrorism, a reality that Mr. Twain probably
never
contemplated, truer words were never spoken. As a general
rule, we do not hate people we understand, and we have
no reason to destroy what we do not hate.
As I walked around Khao Lak in Thailand, an area that
was almost completely washed off the map by a wall of
water, I was reminded of the words of Francis Ford Coppola,
'Time is the lens through which dreams are captured.' As
my lens captured the images of hotels, local businesses
and homes in ruins, I feel that it is simultaneously
capturing the ghosts of the people who walked in and
out over these thresholds. But, it was also capturing
the dreams of the Thai people to rebuild their land.
It captured
the dreams of lasting peace of the Sri Lankan people
whose internal armed-conflict temporarily screamed to
a halt because they lost almost all their weapons and
ammunition in the wave. And it captured my dream
for all of us in the Western world to revisit this world
of smiles, elephants, pristine shores, Buddhist temples,
limestone caves, blue skies and peaceful waters.
The
last International Institute for Peace through Tourism
conference was held earlier this year in Kampala,
Uganda.
Conference theme: Building strategic
alliances
towards sustainable tourism development,
peace
and reconciliation of the African continent.
For more details, visit http://www.iipt.org
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