Poverty Tours!!!

Aristartle · Mar 13, 2008

So what do you guys think of this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/travel/09heads.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

MICHAEL CRONIN’s job as a college admissions officer took him to India two or three times a year, so he had already seen the usual sites — temples, monuments, markets — when one day he happened across a flier advertising “slum tours.”

if (acm.rc) acm.rc.write(); “It just resonated with me immediately,” said Mr. Cronin, who was staying at a posh Taj Hotel in Mumbai where, he noted, a bottle of Champagne cost the equivalent of two years’ salary for many Indians. “But I didn’t know what to expect.”

Soon, Mr. Cronin, 41, found himself skirting open sewers and ducking to avoid exposed electrical wires as he toured the sprawling Dharavi slum, home to more than a million. He joined a cricket game and saw the small-scale industry, from embroidery to tannery, that quietly thrives in the slum. “Nothing is considered garbage there,” he said. “Everything is used again.”

Mr. Cronin was briefly shaken when a man, “obviously drunk,” rifled through his pockets, but the two-and-a-half-hour tour changed his image of India. “Everybody in the slum wants to work, and everybody wants to make themselves better,” he said.

Slum tourism, or “poorism,” as some call it, is catching on. From the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the townships of Johannesburg to the garbage dumps of Mexico, tourists are forsaking, at least for a while, beaches and museums for crowded, dirty — and in many ways surprising — slums. When a British man named Chris Way founded Reality Tours and Travel in Mumbai two years ago, he could barely muster enough customers for one tour a day. Now, he’s running two or three a day and recently expanded to rural areas.

Slum tourism isn’t for everyone. Critics charge that ogling the poorest of the poor isn’t tourism at all. It’s voyeurism. The tours are exploitative, these critics say, and have no place on an ethical traveler’s itinerary.

“Would you want people stopping outside of your front door every day, or maybe twice a day, snapping a few pictures of you and making some observations about your lifestyle?” asked David Fennell, a professor of tourism and environment at Brock University in Ontario. Slum tourism, he says, is just another example of tourism’s finding a new niche to exploit. The real purpose, he believes, is to make Westerners feel better about their station in life. “It affirms in my mind how lucky I am — or how unlucky they are,” he said.

Not so fast, proponents of slum tourism say. Ignoring poverty won’t make it go away. “Tourism is one of the few ways that you or I are ever going to understand what poverty means,” said Harold Goodwin, director of the International Center for Responsible Tourism in Leeds, England. “To just kind of turn a blind eye and pretend the poverty doesn’t exist seems to me a very denial of our humanity.”

The crucial question, Mr. Goodwin and other experts say, is not whether slum tours should exist but how they are conducted. Do they limit the excursions to small groups, interacting respectfully with residents? Or do they travel in buses, snapping photos from the windows as if on safari?

Many tour organizers are sensitive to charges of exploitation. Some encourage — and in at least one case require — participants to play an active role in helping residents. A church group in Mazatlán, Mexico, runs tours of the local garbage dump, where scavengers earn a living picking through trash, some of it from nearby luxury resorts. The group doesn’t charge anything but asks participants to help make sandwiches and fill bottles with filtered water. The tours have proven so popular that during high season the church group has to turn people away. “We see ourselves as a bridge to connect the tourists to the real world,” said Fred Collom, the minister who runs the tours.

By most accounts, slum tourism began in Brazil 16 years ago, when a young man named Marcelo Armstrong took a few tourists into Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro’s largest favela, or shantytown. His company, Favela Tour, grew and spawned half a dozen imitators. Today, on any given day in Rio, dozens of tourists hop in minivans, then motorcycles and venture into places even Brazil’s police dare not tread. Organizers insist the tours are safe, though they routinely check security conditions. Luiz Fantozzi, founder of the Rio-based Be a Local Tours, says that about once a year he cancels a tour for security reasons.

The tours may be safe, but they can be tense. Rajika Bhasin, a lawyer from New York, recalls how, at one point during a favela tour, the guide told everyone to stop taking pictures. A young man approached the group, smiling and holding a cocked gun. Ms. Bhasin said she didn’t exactly feel threatened, “just very aware of my surroundings, and aware of the fact that I was on this guy’s turf.”

Still, she said, the experience, which included visiting galleries featuring the work of local artists, was positive. “Honestly, I would say it was a life-changing experience,” Ms. Bhasin said. Saying she understood the objections, she parried, “It has everything to do with who you are and why you’re going.”

Chuck Geyer, of Reston, Va., arrived for a tour in Mumbai armed with hand sanitizer and the expectation of human misery incarnate. He left with a changed mind. Instead of being solicited by beggars, Mr. Geyer found himself the recipient of gifts: fruit, and dye to smear on his hands and face, as people celebrated the Hindu festival of Holi. “I was shocked at how friendly and gracious these people were,” Mr. Geyer said.

Proponents of slum tourism say that’s the point: to change the reputation of the slums one tourist at a time. Tour organizers say they provide employment for local guides and a chance to sell souvenirs. Chris Way has vowed to put 80 percent of his profits back into the Dharavi slum.

The catch, though, is that Mr. Way’s company has yet to earn a profit on the tours, for which he charges 300 rupees (around $7.50). After receiving flak from the Indian press (“a fair criticism,” Mr. Way concedes), he used his own money to open a community center in the slum. It offers English classes, and Mr. Way himself mentors a chess club. Many of those running favela tours in Brazil also channel a portion of their profits into the slums. Luiz Fantozzi contributes to a school and day-care center.

But slum tourism isn’t just about charity, its proponents say; it also fosters an entrepreneurial spirit. “At first, the tourists were besieged by beggars, but not anymore,” said Kevin Outterson, a law professor from Boston who has taken several favela tours. Mr. Fantozzi has taught people, Mr. Outterson said, “that you’re not going to get anything from my people by begging, but if you make something, people are going to buy it.”

Even critics of slum tourism concede it allows a few dollars to trickle into the shantytowns, but say that’s no substitute for development programs.

Mr. Fennell, the professor of tourism in Ontario, wonders whether the relatively minuscule tourist revenue can make a difference. “If you’re so concerned about helping these people, then write a check,” he said.

ERIC WEINER is author of “The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World.”
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That's pretty fuckin' disgusting. I don't think people should make money for showing rich jerks what it's like to live in poverty. Anyone's gut reaction is the same?

It's an interesting counterpoint to the, stay at a resort, never see anything real of the country brand of tourism. But it does reek of exploitation. Their justifications reek of rationalization.

It's one thing to go backpacking, to actually live and surround yourself with the dirt and slums around you, but to do a tour and go home to your champagne... it's just sick.

And it's perpetuating the tourist industry. Everything else is oversaturated for tourists, so new niches are found and exploited??

Thoughts?

fitzy21 · Mar 13, 2008

i'm in hte middle of this. not really all that sickened by it, nor overly happy by it.

Waking Life · Mar 13, 2008

I don't see a difference between visiting a slum for a few hours and going back to your champagne and living in a slum for two years and going back to your champagne.

Ultimately it isn't my taste. There are nice things I want to see. But I'm not going to poo poo it.

I'minmyunderwear · Mar 13, 2008

first, i agree that you need to actually live it for at least a little while to truly understand it. but i don't necessarily have a problem with slum tourism as a concept, as long as it's done right. the idea of tour buses doesn't really sit right with me, but i would encourage people to occasionally visit poorer neighborhoods just to keep things in perspective and whatnot...

i don't like the idea of people being a tourist attraction unless they consent to it and are compensated, which it doesn't seem most of these are...

i do kind of like the one that doesn't charge but forces you to help... if they actually show respect to the people they are helping then that one could actually be good

ESRUOS ENO · Mar 13, 2008

In fact, the life of a private citizen would be preferable to that of a king at the expense of the ruin of so many human beings." Book I, Chapter XX

indian~summer · Mar 13, 2008

Chris Way has vowed to put 80 percent of his profits back into the Dharavi slum.
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that to me, sounds good
my gut reaction to this was, as long as they give some money back to the "slums"
i think it's a good idea to show the rich people what their wealth is earned on
there is such a divide of rich and poor, and it's honestly on of the main reasons why our earth is so fucked up
even in our own country, you don't need to travel to india to see it

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Poverty Tours!!!

Aristartle Snow Falling on Cedars Lifetime Supporter

fitzy21 Worst RT Mod EVAH!!!!

Waking Life Cool looking idiot

I'minmyunderwear Newbie

ESRUOS ENO Senior Member

indian~summer yo ho & a bottle of yum

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Poverty Tours!!!

Aristartle Snow Falling on Cedars Lifetime Supporter

fitzy21 Worst RT Mod EVAH!!!!

Waking Life Cool looking idiot

I'minmyunderwear Newbie

ESRUOS ENO Senior Member

indian~summer yo ho & a bottle of yum

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