Beyond Greening - Tourism Watch

Beyond Greening: Reflections on Tourism in the Rio-Process | PositioningpaperBlack holes of the international economyBy participating in strategic alliances and employing all kinds of financial investment tactics,the less scrupulous hotel industry TNCs have acquired extraordinary investment liquiditywhich has helped to boost growth in the scale of their operations on a level that would havebeen unimaginable just a few years ago (Buades, 2006, p. 41-58). These mutual benefits, or"win-win strategies" in the neo-liberal jargon, have focused on routing much of the flow ofcapital and finance through a dense network of tax havens (from the City of London to theCayman Islands via the New York Stock Exchange) which function as a slush fund for theworld-domineering TNCs, over and above governments, laws and borders. In fact, there is nohotel industry TNC (or TNC in any other important economic sector) in existence that doesnot have multiple ghost societies domiciled in these black holes of the international economy,since they are beyond the reach of public control and transparency (Chavagneux & Palan,2007; Palan, Murphy & Chavagneux, 2010; www.lemonde.fr, July 9, 2008).A further characteristic of tourism TNCs is their indifference to the democratic or dictatorialnature of political regimes when deciding their locations. As an extraordinarily unregulatedindustry, it can indulge its preference for investing in states which do not prompt "regimeuncertainty", such as the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Indonesia and Morocco, rather thanin "classical" democratic systems. As was the case with the Balearic Islands and Spain, whichwere used as a testing ground from 1955 to the late 70s, the modus operandi is to manipulate apowerful network of local "friends" in order to ensure a safe scenario for investmentopportunities and the repatriation of profits abroad, a scenario which includes low wages inunskilled jobs and public sector support in order to obtain improved transport infrastructures(mainly airports, ports and motorways) and electricity, water and waste services. The goal is tocreate large-scale business clusters aimed at constant quantitative growth. Partnerships withlocal elites generate corruption and enable the wealth generated by tourism to be divertedabroad unhindered (Buades, 2009).Public money to benefit TNCsTNCs want the state to act as the facilitator of their projects, allocating the maximum possibleamount of public money to infrastructures in order to sustain constant expansion in terms ofaccommodation, and taking an active role in marketing their products through multi-millioninternational publicity campaigns. Naturally, the use of staggering sums of public money tofurther the interests of TNCs is detrimental to investment in human development in thesocieties which theoretically benefit. Wherever airports and motorways spring up, watertreatment plants and incinerators appear and fabulous sums are squandered on promotingholidays organised by private companies, investment in basic and university education, healthand social welfare usually decreases or simply disappears altogether, as is the case of socialhousing (Buades, 2006, p. 67-119).This lack of structural transparency is closely related to the acceptance of the so-calledneoliberal "Washington Consensus" and, above all, to the use of tax havens to facilitatefinancial machinations. In January 2000, the 140 member states of the World TradeOrganization produced the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This agreementcreated a new framework which supplants national economic, environmental or social lawsand regulations and is entirely favourable to TNC investments of any kind in any country. Themost striking aspect is that key concepts such as "environmental sustainability", "distributionof wealth", "fiscal transparency," "environmental conservation" or "participation of localcommunities" do not enter the agreement's lexicon at any point. The impact of the GATS onsuch an internationalised sector as tourism has been devastating, as it converts the TNCs intocompetitors with the same rights as any local company or initiative. Consequently, these63