Abstract
This chapter argues that tourism should be included as a social right because it synthesizes and represents the zeitgeist of contemporaneity. This idea is supported by three main arguments: (1) That there is a shift from a work-oriented society to a new consumption-oriented one, implying the revision of the meaning of current practices. (2) As a social force, tourism is a privileged category to represent, understand, and explain contemporary societies because it goes beyond the market and can heuristically express a complex and multifaceted human practice. (3) The references based on the previous societies' ideals, such as the right to work, must be revised and expanded to include tourism as a fundamental right, because (a) it can internationally represent a new kind of global citizenship, (b) basic material and economic human needs must be met for tourism to happen, and (c) it contributes to personal development, cultural exchange, and systemically update societies' development.
TopIntroduction: The Meaning Of Tourism In A Contemporary World
Tourism – at least as it is known currently – is a recent social practice and economic sector (industry). As a transversal and an interdisciplinary object, tourism history oscillates between a broader, more historical, social and no-economic orientated interpretation, and a narrow one, focused on the economic aspect of activity, its financial effects and its circumscription to the capitalist economic system as a commodity to be sold (exchanged) into the market (César, 2015; César Arnaiz & César, 2017). While the former view is a sort of continuing interpretation of the evolution of – a mix of – social practices through the human history since the old times (nevertheless, the common trace of its object [either leisure, hospitality, or displacement] has not necessarily the same); the former is a kind of conception emerged in the modern era, which is sustained by the embrace of the re-arrangement of the mode of production (from a feudal to a capitalist one) and the political power (from absolute monarchies to a national state).
In its current form, tourism is embedded in capitalist modern societies systems. Recently, it has become one of the most important industries in the world. In 2019, International tourism was the world's third largest export category, worth $1,742 billion. In first place was fuels with $2,310 billion, followed by chemicals with $2,194 billion (UNWTO, 2020). Moreover, in the same year, the tourism sector generated 333 million jobs worldwide (WTTC, 2022), i.e., 1 in 10 jobs belonged to this sector. In addition, it contributed 10.3% of global GDP (WTTC, 2022).
Figure 1. International tourist arrivals by region
Figure 2. GDP from tourism as a share of total GPD, 2020
Despite its growing, in terms of the volume of travels and moved (?), and the huge economic impact on the world economies, tourism is not yet a well distributed activity among the different societies in the world. It is not accessible to the biggest part of the populations in most of the countries, nor even internally at the same country.
Ouriques’ research (2012) reveals the inequalities in its distribution of wealth as it shows that higher income countries accounted for 72.44% of tourism revenues in 2009, while Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 6.05% in the same year, demonstrating the unequal participation of regions/countries in the distribution of global revenues. The data show the unequal distribution of tourism revenues worldwide and show that the central economies have the most developed tourism systems (sistur), capable of attracting and receiving thousands of tourists (tourist flow), that is, the most visited by tourists and where they spend the greatest amounts of money. So, ingeneral, there is a direct positive correlation between a country's level of development (HDI) and the level of development of its tourism system (Biagi, Ladu & Royuela, 2017; Croes, Ridderstaat & Shapoval, 2020), being especially valid for developed countries (Cárdenas-García, Sánchez-Rivero & Pulido-Fernández, 2015; Pulido-Fernández & Cárdenas-García, 2021)2, with the capacity to receive large tourist flows.
Europe represents almost 1 out of every 2 trips in the world, representing 48% of outbound tourism in the world (WTO, 2020). China is the country with the highest international tourism spending, followed by the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France (WTO, 2020). Evidencing that those who have access to tourism are also people from the central economic countries. In this way, tourism represents a certain level of development, both of the receiving communities by having a tourism system capable of receiving large tourist flows, and also of the tourists, those with the capacity/access to travel.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cyber Fordism: Cyber Fordism is a production model that preserves flexibility and the search for quality as well as cost reduction, like classic Fordism, but requires new interfaces between man and machine and between machines, marked by reduced human labor and increased automation (Paes-De-Paula, Paes, 2021).
Social Rights: Social rights are rights of citizens to receive services such as food, health care, housing, and social security (Landau, 2012, p. 190).
4.0 Industry: Industry 4.0 has emerged from the overlap between the financialization of the economy and an exacerbated neoliberalism, intensifying the use of digital technologies in production systems and the replacement of human labor (Antunes, 2019).
Global Citizenship: The term global citizenship denotes the commitment to avoid the increase of world poverty and the destruction of ancient cultures and the natural environment, and also the complexity of individual connections with international law and overlapping political institutions in a globalized world (Carter, 2001).
Conspicuous Consumption: Conspicuous consumption has typically analyzed how people spend money on products that signal status (Bellezza et al., 2017).