paper 11: special interest tourism module 12: introductory
TRANSCRIPT
THE DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Principal Investigator Prof. S. P. Bansal,
Vice Chancellor, Indira Gandhi University, Rewari
Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Prashant K. Gautam,
Director, UIHTM, Panjab University, Chandigarh
Paper Coordinator Prof. Deepak Raj Gupta,
School of Hospitality & Tourism Management (SHTM), Jammu
University, J& K (INDIA)
Paper Co-Coordinator Dr. Amit Gangotia,
Central University of Jammu, J&K (INDIA)
Content Writer Dr. Amit Kumar Singh,
Assistant Professor, M.D.U, Rohtak Haryana
Content Reviewer Prof. Pariskhit Manhas,
Director, School of Hospitality & Tourism Management,
Jammu University, Jammu
Paper 11: Special Interest Tourism Module 12: Introductory Ideas of Slum Tourism
QUADRANT-I
1. Learning Objectives
After completing this module students will be able to:
i. Understand the definition, concept and historical evolution of slum tourism
ii. Know the various nomenclature of slum tourism prevailing in the world
iii. Understand the driving force behind promoting Slum Tourism in India
iv. Know the controversies in slum tourism
v. Analyze the real impact of slum tourism
ITEMS DESCRIPTION OF MODULE
Subject Name Tourism and Hospitality Management
Paper Name Introductory Ideas of Slum Tourism
Module Title Introduction to Slum Tourism
Module Id Module no-12
Pre- Requisites Basic knowledge about Slum Tourism
Objectives To study the definition, concept, historical evolution,
nomenclature, reasons, controversies and impact of slum
tourism
Keywords Motivation, Dharavi Slum Area, Entertainment, Poverty,
Entrepreneurship, employment opportunity, project, NGO,
Travel Company etc.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Learning Outcome
2. Introduction
3. Defining, Concept and Historical Evolution of Slum Tourism
4. Nomenclature of Slum Tourism Prevailing in the World
5. Motivation Behind Visiting Slum?
6. What Actually Happens on Slum Tours?
7. Controversies in Promoting Slum Tourism
8. What is the real impact?
9. Summary
1. Introduction: Tourism is the only industry which is full of mysterious services
and products. The important reason behind it is its customers who have diverse
motivation for tourism. If we consider the examples of some of the emerging
tourism products like dark tourism, ghost tourism, ghetto tourism, green tourism,
pink tourism, white tourism, blue tourism etc all these concepts are emerged out
of the needs of the travelers who are visiting a particular destination because of
their choice of the product. The concept “slum tourism” seems to be a new
phenomenon in the world of tourism history which has been derived from the
need of anthropologist segment. The concepts like museum, beach resort have
become obsolete and people are inclined towards some antithesis type of
destinations like slums. Off beaten tracks, no go zones, limited resources, narrow
passage, less amenities, a similar pattern of houses with least in-house facilities
etc have now become a bonafide centre of attraction for many tourists who are
fulfilling their choice of special interest tourism. Slum tourism is considered as a
laboratory where the relationships and interactions between the global North and
South appear as micro-sociological encounters framed by the apparent concern
over inequality (Steinbrink, 2012). Beyond questioning the ways in which
participants shape the encounters in slum tourism, structural implications and
conditions come to the fore. Thus spatial inequality influences opportunities and
hinders governance solutions to manage slum tourism operations (Koens and
Thomas, 2016). Evidence has been found for the use of slum tourism in urban
development (Frenzel, 2014; Steinbrink, 2014) and more widely in the
commoditization of global care and humanitarian regimes (Becklake, 2014; Holst,
2015). Research has also pointed to the ethical implications of anesthetizing
poverty in humanitarian aid performances and the troubles of on-the-ground
political engagement in a seemingly post-ideological era (Holst 2016).
2. Definition, concept, historical evolution and current scenario of slum
tourism: Slum tourism or ghetto tourism is a special interest tourism that involves
visiting impecunious areas. This is also described as niche tourism fulfilling the
need of some special segment of tourists. Earlier this concept was focused on the
slums of London and Manhattan till 19th century, but the concept slum tourism is
now increasingly prominent in many places, including South
Africa, India, Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia, Detroit, and others. The nomenclature of
slum tourism is very vast. It has been denoted as a township, ghetto, a slum, a
shantytown, a barrio, a favela and typical improvised place for visitors. The
concept of establishing slums records back to 19th century when the middle and
upper class of people heading to the East End of London which was infested with
poor class of people and latter they were introduced as slums. This particular term
called “slumming” was edited in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884. In
London people used to visit slum areas such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch to
observe the quality of life which the inhabitants were enjoying. By the era of
1880, it became a fashion among wealthier people in New York City to visit the
areas of Bowery and the five points which were the prominent places for poor
immigrants just to see how they live. In South Africa in the year 1980, organized
tours were conducted by the black residents to the township of white people to
educate them in terms of local government. Such tours got popularized and
attracted international tourists who wanted to learn more about apartheid. By the
end of the decade 1990, the organized tours were started for the most
disadvantaged area of the developing and developed countries and later they were
called as slums. Renowned travel companies came forward to promote slum
tourism and as an estimate in Cape Town an approx of more than 3 lacs tourist
visit every year to view the slums. In India added advantage of slum tourism came
in the year 2008 when movie called Slum Dog Millionaire released and Mumbai
(Dharavi) became the hub of slum tourism. Mean while some more adventurous
travelers attracted towards new destinations like lower east of Manhattan and
place of anti-apartheid movement of South Africa. Now these places have been
developed into formalized commercial offering as “Slum Tourism”. In modern
times the concept of slum tourism has been turned into a legitimate part of travel
industry attracting millions of tourist per year. Tour operators are attracted
towards its huge potentiality which it encompasses and as a result special
destinations have been identified and marketed by the tour operators. The major
attractions included into the category of slum tourism is the township of Cape
Town and Johannesburg, the favela of Rio, the slums of Mumbai, Kolkata,
Chennai and Delhi, skid rows of Los Angeles, Detroit, Copenhagen and Berlin.
3. Nomenclature of Slum Tourism prevailing in the world: The distinguished
feature of slum tourism is that it is mainly performed in the urban areas of
developing and developed countries which different names. Some of the common
names similar to slum tourism prevailing in the world is discussed below:
1. Township Tourism: This type of tourism was prevailed in South Africa and
Namibia. As we know township tourism came into existence because of apartheid
and racial segregation. South African settlements are divided into many forms like
wealthy, white suburbs and poor, historically black townships and are centre of
attractions for many tourists.
2. Favela Tourism: Meaning of favela is a shanty town in or near a city. The concept
Favela Tourism is available in Brazil. This is also a motive for travellers.
3. Slum Tourism: This concept is attached with India and the famous place is
Dharavi in Mumbai. The concept get popularized in the year 2008, when a movie
called “Slumdog Millionaire” was released.
4. Hidden Tours: This type of tourism is availed in Jakarta, Indonesia by the name
Batavia Jakarta Tour. This tourism is volunteer in nature because the travel
companies involved in promoting hidden tours in Jakarta claim that 50% share
goes to the locals in making them educated, empowering and bringing out them
from emergency situations. They also urge that those who want to donate
generously they can bring pencil boxes, books, soaps, second hand clothes, toys
etc. for the kids of the village.
5. Social and religious divisions: A combination of political, religious and social
differences plus the threat of inter communal tensions and violence has led to
widespread self-segregation of the two communities. Catholics and Protestants
lead largely separate lives in a situation that some have dubbed self-imposed
apartheid. Examples are New York City and Belfast, Northern Ireland in which
travellers are visiting the area because of remembering the incidents of the past
happenings.
6. Ghetto Tourism: The concept of Ghetto as a tourism product was conceived in the
year 2005 by Michael Stephens. The Oxford dictionary defines ghettos as a
section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited
predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result
of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships. Ghetto is also
represented with urban tourism and stresses movement to certain destinations
made famous by popular artists. Ghetto tourism inculcates all forms of
entertainment like music, rap, video games, movies, television and other gadgets
that allow travellers to be there in the inner city without leaving home. It gives
opportunity to travellers to cross the boundaries based on caste, creed, race and
colour and enjoys the life style of others.
4. Motive behind visiting slum area: So far as perspectives of visitors are
concerned, there is not any specific reason to visit slums. There are few tourists
who are interested in understanding the living pattern of slum residents,
anthropologists see them as a homeless people and whether they face any
discrimination from the local government and those with the permanent housing
while the researchers come with the motivation to study the social welfare
policies run by the government and are being implemented. However, through
various motivations it has been described in the following manners:
1. Homeless People: A slum as a resident is chosen by the persons who are unable to
afford a house on rent. The slum as a option is fit for persons who are less
educated looking for a job of less salary package, working in the factories for
whole day and in the end of the day needs a place to sleep. A house in slum area
is nothing but a compact cell with minimum facilities.
2. How do they live and what are their life stories? Every house in a slum area has
an untold story to share. The basic motive of a traveller is to know their standard
of life and what made the people to reside in a slum area. The curiosity of
watching something new has motivated travellers to visit slums.
3. Discrimination which they face from local government and those with permanent
housing: The establishment of slum area has been found to be on government
protected land. This land was about to be used in near future for government need.
The unauthorised people encroached the area and slowly and gradually it was
converted into a slum. Being unauthorised in nature, the government has no
initiative for their betterment i.e. no power connection, sewage treatment and
many more.
4. Social issues and concern for general human condition: In these slums the basic
need required for a human being is completely missing. The need of hygiene and
sanitation, drinking water facility, electricity is minimal requirement but in slums
all these are absent.
5. Inequality in development: The development procedure is always hindered as
these slums are considered to be unauthorised and always on the radar of
government. When the development parts comes, the government least focuses on
these slum areas. Reason being, the government does not find any source of
revenue from these areas and people are using resources which are illegal.
6. London coincided with the advent of a new technology called photography.
Seeing images of some of these areas provoke the desire in many outsiders to go
and see them for themselves. “Every mediated picture seems to create more desire
to actually see for yourself.”
7. Few tour operators are of this view that the film Slumdog Millionaire has a
massive impact on Mumbai tourism because more visitors started visiting Dharavi
which is world’s largest slum area Although the tours to Dharavi, was a common
activity but the film increased the popularity of the place and became a place of
reference for what people has witnessed.
8. Writers are adding extra taste to this new emerging form of tourism. They are
using media as a tool to propagate the attraction. They discuss, rate the place and
hence do electronic word of mouth publicity and sometimes recommending or
referring the destination on any travel portal is one of the best example of
showing the destination.
9. Push factors: The factors like social comparison, entertainment, education or self
actualization have a big role in motivating tourists to slum areas. There are few
tourists who often visit slums to put their life in perspective. It has also been
observed as perpetuated social motivation to do some good job for the society and
more over political demands for greater social justice.
10. Poor, dirty and dangerous: The main attraction of the slum tourism is its poor
inhabitants, dirty climate and dangerous in nature which in terms of tourism it is
some short of risk taking activity.
11. An attempt to attract visitors, investors, cultural producers, media and civil
society organizations: The slum tourism binds together various people who have a
common interest. These includes visitors, investors whose interest lies in
investment into slum areas, cultural producers work as entertainer, media people
propagate the destination through its magazine and travel writing and civil society
performs volunteer activity in uplifting slums in terms of education, hygiene and
sanitation, employment etc.
5. What does happen on slum tours? As the name suggest the image which comes
in front of us is an area full of dense populated, unplanned houses, narrow
passage, small room covered with tin shed, asbestos sheet, grass shed or concrete
shed, roof kissing each other home, unhealthy and unhygienic area with a lot of
overflowing water, houseflies, environment full of fowl smelling, litters are
found, the sun rays striving for to reach the ground and people residing in the
locality with least form of amenities. Obviously the only and only reason to visit
slums is the life style of its inhabitants. The difference between a normal human
colony and a slum lies in the fact that a government approved human colonies
survive with modern facilities of sewage, cleanliness, parking area, greenery,
people with civic sense, a designated area with a periphery or protected wall,
while in a slum all these are absent and the residents are left with their own way
to manage. Hence we can see a sheer evidence of negligence from the part of
government and NGO but above all it is lively and vibrant. The majority of the
tourists usually visit slums to get the information about various project sites which
are running for the sake of welfare of the community. The examples of such
projects are like schools running to educate the children residing in the area, other
educational centres for adults, projects like composts feces to produce gas for
cooking and projects caring for orphanages. The significance of these sites lies in
the facts that tourists choose to visit for getting the first hand information about
the ongoing projects for the betterment of the community and sometimes share
their suggestions as to how they can lend their support, if required in near future.
Another aspect of visiting slum area is its entrepreneurship. Here the visitors are
shown the place of business, how people work and how people perform small but
very successful business endeavors.
6. Controversies in Slum Tourism: Any emerging form of tourism has always
attracted a criticism. Slum tourism is not an exception. This form of tourism has
seen criticism in both ways i.e. host and guest. There are a number of questions
which have emerged because of introduction of this unique tourism product. Does
this form of tourism have any scope? What made us to introduce it as a tourism
product? What will be the image of countries offering slum tourism? Who will be
the participants? What will be the offerings for tourists and so many. A group of
researcher is of this opinion is that a tourist who is coming for leisure and
pleasure motive, showing him/her slum tourism area may spoil his/her whole
enjoyment of the trip. The anthropologists are of view that slums should be
refraining from all touristic activities because this may lead towards a separate
ideology about India and the image which India has gained in the world in the
field of technology, education, rich heritage and culture, economy etc will be
gone in an instance and the negative image will be spread. Mumbai or Delhi is
known as metropolitan cities of India and are role model for other cities and no
doubt the package tours organized for slum tourism is a curse to Indian society.
Promoting slum tourism means turning scarcity and poverty into entertainment,
something that can be experienced for a short while and escaping from the place.
There are comments from the slums that when a photograph is clicked by the
tourist, the chance of exposure of hidden treasure that lies in slums goes high. The
term ghetto tourism is synonym to slum which denotes drugs, gangs, crime and
murder. Few travel companies started promoting get Ghetto experience which
was a highest form of insult to the communities where this tourism was promoted.
The end result cannot be concluded by highlighting the negative aspects of slum
tourism. However, another group of the intellectuals is of this faith that slum
tourism can be considered a case study for society development. The NGO’s can
contribute into so many aspects in the slum areas like education, entrepreneurship
development, community development, projects of hygiene and sanitation, biogas
project, orphanage programme, and many more. The slum community can be
benefitted with so many community development projects. The tour operators are
indulged into slum tourism business because of making money but they claim that
a small percentage of their profit is shared by the slum residents. Tour operators
often commit that the money earned by them will be spent in the ongoing projects
which are running purely for the sake of slum residents, they hire the local guides
to interpret the area or sell the indigenous souvenirs made by them. The slum
societies are suffering in ambivalence and inequality; it is the tourism which can
help slums for a better future.
7. What is the real impact? When we go through the impact of tourism on slum,
we get that in real terms it has much more to offer to the residents. The prime
impacts which have been realized by many anthropologists are connectivity. The
slums are supposed to be the least developed area of any country and are less
focused by the government in terms of amenities. Connectivity is the core area
which can be emphasized by the tourism. Tourist visiting urban areas are
considered as a no go zone because such places are suffering from deficiencies in
comparison to the rest of the cities and the significance of such places lies in
terms of its value, ethos and existence. The connectivity of two different cultures
in terms of economic growth and opportunity for setting up of new venture can be
analyzed as a positive impact. The case comes from Rio where tourist inflow was
welcommed for the betterment of the locals, facilitating cross class encounters to
a new extent. In first instance such areas need to be ignored because very often it
is informed to the visitors that there does not exist any such place, it is not a part
of the city, do not go there as place is not safe and rumors goes like this. It is the
tourism who can come forward to help in making connections. The brighter
aspect of promoting slum tourism is that these tours provide employment
opportunities and source of income for travel companies and tour guides, an
opportunity for craft makers to sell their artifacts, and thus retaining the profit and
reinvesting the money to be circulated in their own community and in the last well
to do tourist may motivate to donate generously for the upliftment of the residents
of slums.
8. Conclusion: Tourism industry encompasses all those which have ability to attract
tourists. In this connection a new and emerging form of tourism called slum
tourism came into existence. In India this is a new phenomenon but in other parts
of the world this concept was well prevailing by the name of township tourism,
favela tourism, hidden tours, ghetto tourism, shanty town tourism etc. The new
concept created a lot of controversies in promoting slum tourism in India. The
group of intellectual’s stands in favour of it while others stand completely rigid
against it. But it is the stakeholders who have to think of its pros and cons. There
are various reasons of promoting slum tourism in India out of which curiosity,
living pattern, volunteer, investment, entertainment, self actualization, education
are prominent. Slum tourism has many potential scopes for every one like
photographers, film makers, investors, NGO’s, entertainers, educationalist,
entrepreneurs, volunteers and others who want to be associated in any mode.