Power and tourism

Throughout Chapter 2 the uneven and unequal nature of development was emphasised and it was argued that an effective analysis of tourism must acknowledge the importance of relationships of power. In this chapter we begin to consider the way in which power is reflected through tourism in more detail. We start with a consideration of concepts of power and how these can assist a critical comprehension of tourism development; ideology, discourse and hegemony will be discussed in turn. The chapter then reviews the most systematic attempt to explain the unequal nature of tourism development – the political economy of Third World tourism that seeks to emphasise the dominance and control of tourism from the First World. The discussion moves on to trace other ways in which power has been implicated in the analysis of Third World tourism, particularly through the use of imperialism and colonialism. It is argued that these relationships of dominance have also emerged in new forms of tourism with the citation of ‘neocolonialism’ and ‘ecocolonialism’. This chapter also provides a review of the importance of ‘authenticity’ to the study of tourism. It is argued that a consideration of authenticity is a further way in which relationships of power can be traced.