Exploring the Connection Between Peace and Tourism
7. Promote and preserve a culture of peace by involving local people in deci- sion-making process regarding development and tourism, assuring safe pas-
sage for all travellers across borders, boundaries and barriers, supporting businesses whose leaders engage in socially, economically, politically and environmentally responsible business practices, installing Peace Poles, and establishing Peace Parks and Peace Gardens as visual expressions of peace in the world.
Theweleit refers to engagement in such activities as ‘caring labor’, which, he suggests, ‘is a way of living, a way of thinking, [and] a way of producing’
(1993, p. 289). Throughout the world, people working in all elements of the tourism and hospitality industries are engaged in examining values, attitudes and beliefs, and participating in actions needed to create a culture of peace.
They seek to identify potential win–win solutions to critical social, economic, political and environmental problems in the world, and continue to meet with others to expand their thinking about peace as a vital dimension of the tourism industry. Such activities are only a few of the many currently engaged in by people who share a commitment to reduce the incidence of violence, terrorism and warfare, and who are now working at local, national, regional and international levels to promote a culture of peace for all peoples of the world.
References
Bjerstedt, A. (ed.) (1993) Peace Education: Global Perspectives. Almqvist and Wiksell International, Stockholm.
Boulding, E. (1988) Building a Global Civic Culture. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY.
Boulding, E. (ed.) (1992) New Agendas for Peace Research: Conflict and Security Reexamined. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO.
Brock-Utne, B. (1989) Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Peace Education. Pergamon Press, New York.
Cox, G. (1986) The Ways of Peace: A Philosophy of Peace as Action. Paulist Press, New York.
Declaration (1999) Hague Appeal for Peace Congress. The Hague, Netherlands.
Ferguson, J. (1978) War and Peace in the World’s Religions. Oxford University Press, New York.
Freire, P. (1973) Education for Critical Consciousness. Seabury Press, New York.
Galtung, J. (1988) The next twenty-five years of peace research. In: Wallensteen, P. (ed.) Peace Research: Achievements and Challenges of the Past Twenty-five Years: 1963–1988.
Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp. 242–263.
Haessly, J. (1980) Peacemaking: Family Activities for Justice and Peace. Paulist Press, Mahwah, NJ.
Haessly, J. (1993) Values for the global marketplace: a quest for quality with a difference. In Barrentine, P. (ed.) When the Canary Stops Singing: Women’s Perspectives for Transforming Business, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA, pp. 119–131.
Haessly, J. (1997) Imaging peace: a pedagogical challenge. Holistic Education Review 10, 16–25.
Haessly, J. (2002) Weaving a culture of peace. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, OH.
Harris, I. and Haessly, J. (1997) Violence and alternatives to violence: an educational perspective. Holistic Education Review 10, 51–57.
Kung, H. and Kuschel, K.J. (eds) (1993) A Global Ethic: The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. SCM Press, London.
Macquarrie, J. (1973) The Concept of Peace. Harper and Row. San Francisco, CA.
Mendlovitz, S. (ed.) (1975) On the Creation of a Just World Order. The Free Press, New York.
Mische, G. and Mische, P. (1977) Toward a Human World Order. Orbis Press, Maryknoll, NY.
Mische, P. (1992) Security through defending the environment: citizens say yes! In: Boulding, E. (ed.) New Agendas for Peace Research: Conflict and Security Reexamined. Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO, pp. 103–119.
Polak, F. (1961) The Image of the Future, trans. Boulding, E. Oceana Press, New York.
Reinharz, S. (1992) Feminist Methods in Social Research. Oxford University Press, New York.
Salomon, G. and Nevo, B. (eds) (2002) Peace Education: The Concept, Principles, and Practices Around the World. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ.
Sharp, G. (1973) The Politics of Non-violent Action. Peter Sargent Publishing Co, Boston, MA.
Theweleit, K. (1993) The bomb’s womb. In Cooke, M. and Woollacott, A. (eds) Gendering War Talk. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Thompson Klein, J. (1990) Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory and Practice. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, MI, USA.
Wallensteen, P. (ed.) (1988). Peace Research: Achievements and Challenges of the Past Twenty-five Years: 1963–1988. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Whalstrom, R. (1992) The challenge of peace education: replacing cultures of militarism. In Boulding, E. (ed.) New Agendas for Peace Research: Conflict and Security Reexamined.
Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, CO.
Wiberg, H. (1988) The peace research movement. In Wallensteen, P. (ed.) Peace Research:
Achievements and Challenges of the Past Twenty-five Years: 1963–1988. Westview Press, Boulder, CO, pp. 30–53.
© CAB International 2010. Tourism, Progress and Peace 17 (eds O. Moufakkir and I. Kelly)
2 Tourism and Intercultural Understanding or Contact Hypothesis Revisited
R. T
omljenovic´
Institute for Tourism, Croatia
Introduction
The belief that travel facilitates understanding between people of different racial, cultural or national origin and promotes world-peace is widespread and time honoured, echoed in poems and proverbs and advocated by the political, civic and church leaders (Hunziker, in Krippendorf, 1987, p. 57; Holland, 1991; Knopf, 1991). The arguments of the tourism–world peace nexus rest on three basic assumptions: first, that tourism brings people in contact with each other, second that such contact is sufficient to bring about a greater understanding and mutual liking between the people and third, that this increased liking will lead to world peace. The bases of the first two assumptions lie in the contact theory of social psychology, which, in its fundamental form, simply states that contact between different ethnic groups will improve intercultural attitudes and reduce intergroup tension. Mounting empirical evidence suggests, however, that for such a desirable outcome the contact situation has to include certain augmenting factors – intimate and voluntary contact among participants of equal status, who share common goals within a supportive social atmosphere (Allport, 1954; Amir, 1969, 1976; Pettigrew, 1986). Where these factors are lacking, contact either fails to change attitudes or reinforces those initially held (Allport, 1954; Amir, 1969, 1976; Pettigrew, 1986).
The many critics of the tourism–world peace nexus have argued that these features of the contact situation are seldom present in tourism settings. They maintain that tourists have fewer and less intensive encounters with hosts than is often assumed. It is suggested that, rather than facilitating such encounters, the tourism industry erects barriers between tourists and hosts in order to maximize its profit (Cohen, 1972; de Kadt, 1979; Nettekoven, 1979; Bruner, 1991) and that promotional material and travel press predispose travellers to a narrow view of the host country (de Kadt, 1979). Furthermore, to develop an
appreciation of their hosts, tourists have to be motivated by a desire to learn about foreign people and places, a rare condition given that most modern-day tourists are driven primarily by a need to escape their daily environments (Graburn, 1978). Apart from the lack of contact opportunities and the motivational drive on the part of the tourists, there are many factors in the actual contact situation that undermine the potential for the development of greater mutual understanding. For instance, the short and transient nature of travel (Sutton, 1967), language barriers and cultural differences (Pool, 1965;
Taft, 1977; Hewstone and Brown, 1986) or the disparity in status between tourists and their hosts (Pool, 1965; Sutton, 1967) all intervene to limit meaningful contact. Limited contact opportunities and the superficial nature of the contact has resulted in critics suggesting that travel merely confirms travellers’ preconceptions and reinforces the attitudes initially held (Cohen, 1972; de Kadt, 1979; Nettekoven, 1979; Smith, 1989). Cohen (1972) went one step further by asserting that travel has the potential to perpetuate, rather than destroy, the misconceptions travellers have about foreign countries.
The third assumption in the tourism–world peace argument is that the increased mutual liking is of sufficient political relevance to bring world peace.
Critics have, again, debated this proposition by pointing out that it is possible to like but not respect certain national groups (Pool, 1965) and have questioned how likely it is that national pursuit for security and power, as well as ideological differences underlying most armed conflicts, will disappear if only people get to know and like each other (Kelman, 1962, 1965). Although it has been argued that tourism is a beneficiary of peace, rather than a catalyst for creating peace (Burkart, 1988; Litvin, 1998), it is difficult to deny the latter to the extent that tourism facilitates the creation of international social networks, strengthens the commitment to the internationalist ideology (Kelman, 1962, 1965) and helps people appraise information originating from other countries more rationally (Crawcour, 1977). Thus Kelman (1965) and Pool (1965) have argued that the question of the beneficial role of travel should go beyond increased mutual liking but instead the real question should be the extent to which travel reduces ethnocentrism and moves travellers towards the multicultural end of the spectrum to exhibit a willingness to understand foreign people on their own terms.
The empirical evidence is limited in scope and it has produced contradictory conclusions that support or refute either side of the debate. There has been a tendency to draw inferences about travel in general from a narrowly defined traveller population, such as mass organized tourists. To fill this gap, the aim of this chapter is to draw upon existing theory and empirical evidence in order to provide a framework for investigating the influence of travel on intercultural understanding, specifically investigating the nature and quality of contact in a range of tourism settings and the role of contact in the post-trip evaluation of the host country and its residents. In this chapter, background information that is necessary to put the research objectives into context is provided, followed by discussion of the main dimensions of tourist–host encounters in terms of the contact hypothesis and traveller’s individual characteristics that influence this process. A model for analysing the relationship between tourist characteristics,
tourist–host encounter situations and changes in international understanding is presented and tested. Finally, the implications of these results and some concluding comments on the tourism–world peace nexus is provided.