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The Debate on Tourism between Seekers and Receivers

On Tourists and Tourism

Text Jeffrey Swartz Art critic

Photo: Enrique Marco

Despite its importance, the tourist sector hasn't yet seen the theoretical and analytical reflection it deserves. We need to ask why it is that the countries that take in most tourists don't always generate the most incisive discourse on tourism in all its aspects.

Without actually considering a radical change in the country's tourist policies or a transformation in the economy making it possible to do away with tourism as a major source of income, the discussion that has arisen in recent years is more critical of the ways and the consequences of a sector that has played a leading role in Spain's contemporary identity. The exhibition Tour-isms at the Fundació Tàpies in 2004, and the special editions given over to the subject by other forums for thought (the magazine Transversal, 2007, Lleida, or the publication Nexus, 2005-2006, by the Fundació Caixa de Catalunya, wanted to look in depth at the significance of tourism for the country's economic, social, cultural and environmental life. This dossier joins the debate with a wish to face the challenge and, at a more advanced phase of intellectual exchange on the subject, to gather a few opinions and lines of thought on tourism today both in Spain and in the rest of the world.

            Spain is the world's number two country in terms of numbers of foreign visitors for purposes of tourism, with its tourist sector mainly in the hands of national capital. This combination of mass tourism and direct impact (that is to say, the income from tourism stays in Spain) has since the sixties been one of the chief reasons for the country's economic growth. We need only remember how the effects of Spain's chronic trade deficit have time and again been offset by foreign, and now European, currency left by visitors. Nevertheless, tourism has had an important influence on other sectors of the economy like agriculture, which traditionally has not depended on foreign markets so much because production is taken up inside the country. More recently and more visibly, it has made itself felt in the construction sector. Acknowledging that the tourist industry has made itself felt in agriculture and construction therefore means acknowledging the considerable impact it has had on the appearance of Spain's landscape today, in the country and in towns and cities.

            It seems contradictory that the importance of this sector, something all citizens are aware of, hasn't yet seen the theoretical and analytical reflection it deserves. There are a number of reasons for this historical shortcoming and in recent years study and debate on this subject have intensified, not so much because of changes in the situation as because the existing situation has become more obvious and more marked. But first of all we need to ask why it is that the countries that take in most tourists don't always generate the most incisive discourse on tourism in all its aspects.

            One reason is the very nature of travel writing, which always centres on the traveller rather than on the subject at the receiving end. The text arises from the search, and not from the passive act of belonging to the experience being sought. Remember that the words "tourist" and "tourism" entered the languages of Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century as a result of the popularisation of the upper classes' "Grand Tour", the customary journey of discovery that took people from northern Europe to the countries of the south. The account of the "tourist" journey, like the earlier writings of pilgrims and adventurers, have rarely taken any interest in how the local perceives the foreign body of the traveller, in the same way as anthropologists have been reluctant to put in writing the eminently anthropological event of being present in the other's midst. It was only with post-colonialism and the theorisation of "difference" that this began to change.

            Tourist destinations are always revalued according to the view of the tourist, who can even debilitate the receiving country's ability to analyse the effects and meanings of tourism. During the initiation phase (in the case of Spain we're talking about the sixties and seventies), the community receiving the tourists tends to be surprised at what attracts them, the places and details the tourists notice, the way they spend their money. Tourists enjoy things the locals have often scorned, so that a gap between values appears here that isn't easy to close. What's more, if the visitor is one from an economic power with a solvent and acknowledged culture, his view has an added value and his presence gives value to the destination, be it architectural heritage, the countryside or good beaches for bathing, which are still today the most anodyne places in all tourist destinations.

            Of course, this operation by which the tourist orients the scale of values of the local population can only be understood in terms of inequality, whether it's real (in the case of the visitor's higher purchasing capacity) or merely perceived (since all cultures are anthropologically equal). It's more feasible to confine oneself to the opinions and values of the visitor if the city or community in question has a certain inferiority complex to start with, based especially on economic differences or cultural imagery. Tourist strategies already reflected the complexity of this relationship between tourists and the host country in the Franco era. For one thing, local values were sacrificed, from discretion in the way people dressed and behaved to the typical layout of a coastal town; and for another, the presence of tourists was used as a propaganda weapon, with the argument that tourism represented the visitors' tacit vote in favour of the country's policies and politics. Only in this way could tourists be treated with deference at the same time as their presence was interpreted as a sign of excellence: "We must give them what they want, but if they come it's because we're doing things right".

            In the hands of the tourist industry and government institutions, this formula has remained more or less intact until today, with the important difference that people now are increasingly beginning to question the policies and practices which according to some give priority to tourist interests over and above the concerns of the local population and regional environmental sustainability.

            The shift in discourse and attempts in the sector to protect clients from any sort of reaction that might even seem hostile are what mark the state of the question today. The industry and its supporting institutions, who deal with the marketing for an increasingly complex product, and the professionalisation of the service are now facing misgivings that are increasingly organised and have the support of part of public opinion, even if only a minority. But what we don't know is why we've reached this point at this particular moment, as many of the harmful side-effects being denounced (property speculation, environmental abuse, the distorted cultural image, trivialisation of the product on offer for the sake of low-cost tourism) certainly aren't new. This growing awareness coincides with a moment in time when Spaniards have become enthusiastic travellers for purposes of tourism. Could it be that this recently formed ability to compare, the experience as travellers searching and not as the usual recipient, is what has honed the perception that things in Spain could have been and can be done differently?



Summer (June – September 2008)