Beyond Greening - Tourism Watch

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Beyond Greening: Reflections on Tourism in the Rio-Process | Positioningpaperinequalities in power and resources have created the market conditions necessary for the rapidproliferation of tourism and property developments in extensive areas worldwide. All themajor tourist development areas are located in states that have ratified the GATS, and thosestates which aspire to become promising new "destinations" are likewise rushing to ratify it.Moreover, as has been the case in Spain, the official loans for foreign aid and development arein fact used by the TNCs themselves to "open markets" in new tourist "destinations", with theenthusiastic collaboration of the supposedly "donor" states (Castellano, 2009). As a result,local economies are obliged to participate in downward competition in terms of taxation,social and labour rights and environmental protection in order to attract the attention ofTNCs. The first victims include small and medium local businesses, whose income statementsare immediately affected by their exclusion from the all inclusive business clusters gatheredaround the resorts and fuelled almost exclusively by imported materials and services. Thepoorer the country, the more drastic the dismantling of all planning regulations anddemocratic administration of the territory, economy and environment, and the more farreachingthe subsequent privatisation of common goods such as water or land.Beyond the reach of public controlThis ultra-liberal framework reaches fever pitch with the tourism TNC practice of routingfinances through tax havens. 42 There is no Spanish-owned transnational tourism corporationin existence that does not route a large part of its accounts through this staggeringlyunregulated network of black holes that conceal massive flows of capital beyond the reach ofinternational public control. Thus, with their impunity protected by the neoliberal order,TNCs manage to shield their true profit and income statements from the scrutiny of thecommunities where they operate as hotel and property businesses (Buades, 2006, p. 66-87).Failure to declare this money particularly affects countries in the South. According to Oxfam,global tax fraud by individuals who should pay taxes in the South amounts to 124 billiondollars a year. If the proportional part of the more than additional 200 billion that the TNCshide from the attention of the tax authorities in the South were to be added to this sum, poorcountries would have access to at least twice the money they receive in development aid (some103 billion dollars per year). 43With the eruption of the current global financial crisis, the need to eliminate or at least limitthe scope for action of these tax havens has become the official priority, from the G20 itself atthe summit in London to the President of the USA. 44 Obviously, achieving any real progresstowards the end or limitation of these offshore centres would entail significant changes in thebusiness model of TNCs. As with the rest of the economy, the weight of financial speculationmust be drastically reduced in favour of productive investments. Nevertheless, the truth is thatthree years after the fall of Lehman Brothers, this laudable and necessary goal remains merewishful thinking and has not yet produced any practical result.Blackmail to obtain advantageous conditionsLastly, it should be highlighted that to date, the relationship between TNCs and the countriesthat could host their projects has been based on blackmail. The large Spanish transnationals42See http://taxjustice.blogspot.com43See www.oxfam.org/es/pressroom/pressrelease/2009-03-13/control-paraisosfiscales-liberar-millones-dolares44See the statement of April 2, 2009, made by the OECD with the official list of tax havens to be eliminated or controlled through newtransparency mechanisms in: www.oecd.org64
Beyond Greening: Reflections on Tourism in the Rio-Process | Positioningpaperhave not wasted any time in establishing a lobby through the platform provided by Inverotel(the Spanish association of investors in the international hotel industry) in order to obtaineven more advantageous conditions for their increasingly larger-scale projects from thegovernments of countries such as Costa Rica, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. 45In Jamaica, for example, when faced with the first signs of public and governmental pressureto comply with the law, they opted to withdraw from new developments or put them on holdas a means of applying counter-pressure, rather than respecting the decisions made by theinstitutions of the republic. 46 The most serious aspect however, is the strategic direction takento accomplish the tourism TNC mission: their aim is to conduct business in safe places andthe best means to achieve this is to create opportunities for crises which can be exploited toforce the hand of the communities they wish to host their projects (Klein, 2007, p. 385-405).Viewed thus, "touristification" reveals itself as a radical mutation of the societies concerned,which enter into the logic of neo-liberalism, consumerism and "modernisation" withoutachieving any significant improvements in well-being or human development in the process(Cañada, 2009).Tourism's huge direct and indirect influence on the global economy, the expectations ofindefinite growth on an environmentally precarious planet, the hegemony of the TNCs andtheir synergy with a financial capitalism blinded by quick private profits, together with afailure to improve human development in the countries concerned, all contribute to makingthe mass tourism industry a serious obstacle in the task of creating an ecological world with afuture, where communities count and democracy is a daily reality.Joan Buades is a critical researcher in tourism, environment and globalisation and member of the ALBASUD research team. He also works with the Research Group on Sustainability and Territory (GIST) at theUniversity of the Balearic Islands (UIB) and with other social organisations.This article is an excerpt from "Turismo y bien común: De la Irresponsabilidad Corporativa a laResponsabilidad Comunitaria", by Joan Buades. Alba Sud, September 2010.English translation: Centro Superior de Idiomas de la Universidad de Alicante, S.A.U.45www.caribepreferente.com, 28/4/200846www.jamaica-gleaner.com, 14/5200865
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