Opinion
Do some countries deserve our tourist dollars more than others?
Lee Tulloch
Travel columnistThe world is a particularly conflicted place right now. How do we stay on the right side of history when we decide where to travel?
That was the question posed at a recent webinar held by The Conscious Travel Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes positive-impact travel.
Travellers who have visited Iran rave about the hospitality of locals.Credit: iStock
I think about this a lot, in choosing where to travel and where to recommend to others. There’s so much volatility in the world and anyone who pays attention rightly worries we’re approaching a powder-keg moment.
How is that affecting everyone’s plans, if at all? Flying to Europe from Australia now, planes must avoid active war zones in Ukraine, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Cruise ships are rescheduling Red Sea and Suez Canal itineraries because of the risk of piracy.
The bubble we travel in can sometimes come up abruptly against the repercussions of war, in minor ways such as cancelled flights, but more seriously, finding ourselves in a place where our safety is compromised. We’re fortunate indeed that most often we only suffer inconvenience.
We can try to sensibly avoid places where we feel there’s a risk of violence (always check smartraveller.gov.au), but violence almost always comes out of the blue, where and when we least expect it. And it doesn’t have to be the usual suspects, as the tragic incident at Bondi Westfield has just shown us.
With so many “bad actors” in the world – this includes corrupt governments, war-mongering military complexes and individuals hellbent on pushing violent agendas – it’s probably best not to dwell on what might happen, or we’d probably go nowhere.
If you can go anywhere in the world, should you go anywhere in the world?
Are there countries more deserving of our tourist dollars than others? Are there some places that should be shunned, as a way of protesting their human rights or other abuses?
Gaurav Sinha is the chief executive of Insignia, a destination design company which works with places such as Saudi Arabia.
“Tell me which of these countries doesn’t have a human rights issue or challenge they don’t have to steer clear of to find change?” he asks, raising the issue of Australia’s treatment of Indigenous populations and its human rights record in detaining refugees. “At what point do you pivot?”
On the other hand, Juliet Kinsman, global sustainability editor for Conde Nast Traveller, does pivot. She weighs up the ethics and whether a destination is worth the carbon footprint to get there.
“I’m not in a hurry to get to Saudi,” she says. “Lots of people are lured there by the money and I feel there are other destinations more deserving.”
Hjortur Smarason, former chief executive of Visit Greenland, says: “You need to ask yourself, what are my values and what is the impact of what I am doing?” It’s beholden on travellers to do a little research before they go, he says.
He recalls being invited to Iran in 2020 during its conflict with US.
“I had a fantastic time. The most fantastic hospitality I’ve ever experienced. It’s a profound example of how we need to distinguish politics from people. There’s a lot of propaganda in Western media that every person inside a country that’s an ‘enemy’ must be an enemy themselves.” That’s far from true, he says.
Kate Bloomer is head of travel at social enterprise ISHKAR. “My experience is that places aren’t nearly as bad as they’re portrayed in the media. Journalists have a real tendency to make these places seem as hostile as possible and often that’s the only exposure we have to the place. We have little insight to the other side of the story, which is the side of people who have lived and breathed it.”
The only way to change that is by visiting, she says. “Often in places like Afghanistan, the DRC and Yemen, the people, just like us, have no exposure to the outside world. There are many preconceptions about the West, so I see this as a benefit to both sides.”
How do I stand on this? I’m careful but I don’t worry about shadows, what might or might not happen. But I do draw the line. Like Juliet Kinsman, if my values aren’t aligned, I don’t go there. This includes countries I’d truly love to visit. But if my presence will help the people of a country rather than its government, then that can tip the balance.
As Gaurav Sinha says, hospitality is the front line of cultural diplomacy.
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