Tourism in the Developing World - Beneficial or Exploitative?

I totally agree with the author, that tourism is beneficial to a poor country. People who are complaining that tourism in a poor third world country like Rwanda are exploiting the poor people should explain: WHAT IS NOT EXPLOITING.



If you try to mine or harvest the natural resources like ore, crops or timber, you will be generally accused to exploit the country. When you are setting up an industry or factories, people will complain about exploited workers and the poor labor conditions (not to mention the permanent suspicion of child labor in third world countries). This means, from OUR point of view the worker is generally exploited, but from his point of view, he is simply earning the money he needs to feed his family, pay for schools and health care, and I am pretty sure he is happy for every cent he can get.



It was especially exemplary to me in this article, how they want to deal with the charity behavior of tourists in Africa. One side, the villagers learn, that they are responsible for their own life, and that the only solid way to get money and food is to earn it and not to beg for it. On the other hand, the western tourists learn that the villagers are proud human beings and not animals in a zoo.



I politely invite everybody to discuss this topic on my blog



http://sebahatschmidblog.blogspot.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost