Destination Unknown

Tourism: the good, the bad and the ugly. As one of the biggest industries in the world, tourism contributed ten percent of the world's GDP before the pandemic brought it to an historic standstill. Hailed as a smokeless industry, it was seen as a tool for development by serving as an income and job creator. The industry was expanding in oftentimes uncontrolled forms, reaching over one billion international travelers before the virus halted all travel. This edited volume highlights the issues the industry faces, including impacts on the environment, culture, and residents. As the industry rebounds post-pandemic, this book gives space to imagine a more equitable and ethical industry.

Bringing together expert authors from around the world, contributions highlight possible ways the industry can be developed more beneficially for people and planet. From nature-based tourism in Africa which protects natural resources by involving local communities and offering cultural interpretation; to vernacular design of tourism buildings and ecolodges that honors and celebrates the local; to considering ways in which cruise ship tourism can offer meaningful encounters instead of contributing to overtourism; to taking a hard look at volunteer tourism and the ways in which it inadvertently prioritizes profit and traveler needs over the needs of local communities, and how it can be developed more ethically; to examining tourism as a tool to increase interculturalism and intercultural understanding; and to the sensitive issue of ethnic tourism to discover one's roots and identify and aid in community development. This book celebrates the ways in which tourism brings us together and can add to our personal and planetary well-being by consciously choosing the ways we travel and how we develop travel opportunities.