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Tourism Geographies: An
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Sustaining Tourism, SustainingCapitalism? The Tourism
Industry's Role in Global
Capitalist ExpansionRobert Fletcher
a
aDepartment of Environment, Peace, and Security,
Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica
Available online: 10 Aug 2011
To cite this article: Robert Fletcher (2011): Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism?
The Tourism Industry's Role in Global Capitalist Expansion, Tourism Geographies: An
International Journal of Tourism Space, Place and Environment, 13:3, 443-461
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Tourism Geographies
Vol. 13, No. 3, 443461, August 2011
Sustaining Tourism, SustainingCapitalism? The Tourism Industrys Rolein Global Capitalist Expansion
ROBERT FLETCHERDepartment of Environment, Peace, and Security, Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica
Abstract This article contends that international tourism may be one important means bywhich the capitalist world-economy seeks to sustain itself in the face of inherent contradic-tions that threaten its long-term survival. Marxist critics have long identified an inevitabletendency towards crises of overproduction (over-accumulation) within the capitalist system,provoked by what Marx termed the central contradiction between imperatives of productionand consumption. Subsequent analysts have highlighted a variety of so-called fixes by whichoverproduction crises can be forestalled through spatial and/or temporal displacement of ex-cess accumulated capital. Building upon this analysis, I outline a number of such fixes intrinsicto the development of the international tourism industry. In addition, I suggest that ecotourismdevelopment in particular provides additional fixes for capitalisms so-called second contra-
diction between the imperative of continual growth and finite natural resources. In sum, Ipropose that advocacy of global sustainable tourism by a transnational capitalist class mayplay an important role in sustaining capitalism as well.
Key Words: Capitalism, neo-liberalism, conservation, ecotourism, sustainability, Marxism
Introduction
Virtually every tourism study currently published begins by highlighting the indus-
trys spectacular growth over the past several decades. In this respect, tourism is
commonly pronounced the worlds largest industry, although some commentatorsdispute this (e.g. Wheeller 2004), and others question whether tourism constitutes a
unitary industry at all (see Higgins-Desbiolles 2006). Frequently cited United Nations
World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) statistics, which must of course be read with
caution (Mowforth & Munt 2003), claim growth between 1950 and 2008 from 25 to
922 million international tourism arrivals generating $US944 billion in receipts and
averaging 4 percent growth per year (UNWTO 2009a). Greenwood (1989: 171) goes
so far as to call tourism the largest scale movement of goods, services, and people
that humanity has perhaps ever seen.
Correspondence Address: Robert Fletcher, Department of Environment, Peace, and Security, PO Box 138-
6100, Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica. Fax: 506-2249-1929; Tel.: 506-2205-9090; Email: rfletcher@upeace.org
ISSN 1461-6688 Print/1470-1340 Online /11/03/0044319 C 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14616688.2011.570372
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444 R. Fletcher
This growth is particularly striking with respect to ecotourism in particular, broadly
defined as travel emphasizing an encounter with a natural (as opposed to built) en-
vironment and, more narrowly, in The International Ecotourism Societys (TIES)
well-known phrasing, as Responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the envi-ronment and improves the well-being of local people. As Martha Honey (2008: 6),
former Executive Director of TIES, observes, Ecotourism is often claimed to be the
most rapidly expanding sector of the tourism industry. Again, estimates differ by
definition and data source. By 1997, the UNWTO estimated that ecotourism, broadly
defined, now constituted at least 20 percent of the total international tourism market
and was growing 30 percent per year (UNWTO 1998). Recent estimates claim 157
to 236 million ecotourists worldwide each year, generating between $US30 billion
and $US1.2 trillion (West & Carrier 2004: 483).
In this article, I analyse tourisms dramatic growth over the past half-centuryas a function of capitalist expansion, whereby the world capitalist system seeks to
overcome inherent contradictions that may threaten its long-term survival through
various spatial, temporal and environmental fixes. I describe a number of such fixes
that tourism growth in general, and ecotourism in particular, may be seen to provide.
Based on this analysis, I suggest that tourisms remarkable success may be due in part
to its vital function in sustaining capitalism and, thus, that contemporary discussions
of sustainable tourism may belie an underlying concern for this former function as
well.
I begin by outlining conventional explanations for tourism growth from bothsupply- and demand-side perspectives. I then suggest that these various explana-
tions may be conceived more productively as interconnected elements of a single
capitalist process. I outline previous research describing tourism as a form of capital-
ism and highlight the surprising lack of attention within this literature to the role of
tourism in providing capitalist fixes, a phenomenon analysed elsewhere with respect
to other capitalist processes. I conclude by discussing how tourisms function in this
respect may be affected by the twin spectres of climate change and the economic
crisis we are currently facing.
Explaining Tourism Growth
Generally, three overlapping theories are offered to explain tourism growth, alter-
nately emphasizing demand- or supply-side dynamics. On the demand side, tourism
growth is commonly attributed to a desire on the part of an increasing number of
people in the post-World War II period for touristic experience, fuelled by a quest
either for authentic experience lacking in everyday life (MacCannell 1999), an in-
version of ones normal routine (Graburn 2004) or a chance to gaze upon exotic
sights (Urry 2001), among other explanations. In addition to these pull factors,
tourists are seen as pushed or facilitated as well by post-war changes in the natureof (post-)industrial labour. As Honey (2008: 10) describes, With paid vacation time,
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Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism? 445
shorter hours of work, less physically taxing jobs, and better education, vacationers
began to demand personal development as well as relaxation and entertainment. In
this analysis, the growth of ecotourism in particular is seen as part and parcel of the
development of so-called new or alternative tourism in the 1970s in an effort toescape the type of standardized packaged tours characteristic of conventional mass
tourism and experience destinations off the beaten path (Poon 1993; Mowforth &
Munt 2003).
This perspective is contested, however. Several critics contend that there is in fact
little evidence for the claim that there exists a particular type of ecotourist driving
the industrys growth through a demand for eco-friendly experiences. Rather, these
critics assert, consumers have simply responded to an increased supply of nature
tourism services what Sharpley (2006) calls a supply of nature developed by
operators in search of profit through developing a niche market neglected (or created)by mass tourism (Wheeller 1993; Sharpley 2006).
On the supply side, then, researchers suggest that tourism growth has been spurred
by several different factors. The first involves the desire of industry operators to
develop profitable enterprises. Fundamental in this respect was the development of
the commercial airline industry in the 1950s (Honey 2008). From this perspective,
as mentioned, ecotourism can be seen to be spurred by the desire to exploit a niche
market in response to saturation of the conventional mass tourism market by other
operators.
Alternatively, tourisms rise can be attributed to efforts on the part of internationaldevelopment planners to promote the industry as a strategy for economic growth,
particularly in less-developed nations that have not seen substantial benefits from
conventional development measures. Thus, Munt (1994: 49) describes tourism as a
last-ditch attempt to break from the confines of underdevelopment and get the IMF to
lay the golden egg of an upwardly-mobile GNP. Indeed, since the 1960s tourism has
been embraced as a development strategy by a great number of development planners,
including transnational institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank,
international aid agencies such as USAID, and national governments worldwide.
From this perspective, growth in ecotourism specifically can be understood as an
innovation of tourism development strategy in the face of problems associated with
mass tourism development. By 1979, recognition of mass tourisms negative social
and environmental impacts prompted the World Bank to suspend loans for tourism
development, and the following year saw the Manila Declaration of World Tourisms
pronouncement that mass tourism does more harm than good to people and societies
of the Third World (quoted in Honey 2008: 1011). In the mid-1980s, however,
ecotourism in particular was newly promoted as an alternative form of development
that might evade these problems, a conviction reinforced by the crystallization of
the international sustainable development agenda following the 1987 Bruntland Re-
port and 1992 Rio Summit. This shift was further strengthened by the embrace ofecotourism during the same period by international conservation non-governmental
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446 R. Fletcher
organizations (NGOs), such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Conservation In-
ternational (CI), as a strategy for integrated conservation and development (West
2006).
Of course, these different explanations for tourisms growth are not mutuallyexclusive and are often viewed as acting in concert. In this combined narrative,
then, the dramatic post-war growth of tourism is attributed to the development of
a symbiotic feedback loop among three relatively independent groups of actors:
alienated tourists seeking extraordinary experiences; industry operators endeavouring
to provide these experiences in order to glean a profit; and development/conservation
organizations seeking to harness the exchange between these two groups in order to
promote their own goals.
In what follows, I seek to challenge this narrative to a degree by suggesting
that rather than viewing these different groups of actors as relatively independent, ifintimately intertwined, we can better understand tourisms rapid rise by framing these
groups as even more closely conjoined as components of a single process by means
of which the capitalist world-system harnesses the tourism industry in order to fuel its
expansion and attempt to resolve internal contradictions. In short, I suggest, tourism
development may constitute one of the significant dynamics by means of which
capitalism sustains itself in the present era. Adopting this perspective, I believe,
provides for a deeper understanding of the dynamics and causes of tourisms growth
than previous analyses have offered.
While tourism has been described as a form of capitalism for some time now (see,for example, Britton 1982; 1991), its analysis in this respect remains underdeveloped,
as several recent reviews have pointed out (Bianchi 2009; Gibson 2009). As Bianchi
(2009: 487, emphasis in original) describes, the preoccupation with the discursive,
symbolic and cultural realms of tourism has for the most part been undertaken
at the expense of any sustained analysis of the structures and relations of power
associated with globalization and neo-liberal capitalism. By the same token, while
the various means by which capitalism is able to forestall an inherent tendency
towards crippling crisis have been documented at length (e.g. Harvey 1989; 2006),
the role of tourism in this process has never been systematically elaborated. In the
discussion to follow, therefore, I synthesize and build upon previous analyses of the
relationship between tourism and capitalism in order to develop a comprehensive
framework for understanding tourism growth as an element of capitalist expansion.
This analysis builds upon recent work describing the confluence between capitalism
and natural resource conservation as well (e.g. Sullivan 2006; Brockington et al.
2008; Castree 2008; Brockington & Duffy 2010).
I do not wish to overstate my case, however. My aim is to ascertain, for heuristic
purposes, precisely how far analysis in the terms suggested here can be pushed before
it becomes untenable. Neither do I intend to present capitalism as a homogenous entity
with autonomous will and initiative. A variety of commentators, however, contend thatthe development of the capitalist world-system at present is directed by a relatively
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Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism? 447
coherent transnational capitalist class with a common interest in perpetuating the
system from which they benefit by promoting global economic growth based on a
cultural-ideology of consumerism (Brockington et al. 2008: 5; see also Korten
2001; Sklair 2001). This transnational capitalist class, I will show, largely directsthe global tourism industry as well. Thus, it is possible to analyse tourism growth
from the perspective of capitalism without necessarily attributing false agency to the
system itself.
Tourism and Capitalism
Brockington and colleagues (2008) observe that the rise of global conservation in
general is often described as a process by which conservation interests initially
opposed to capitalist development gradually adapted to the reality of a capitalist-dominated world by learning to accommodate and access the resources of large
commercial interests in order to further their conservation ends, resulting in an
increasing convergence between conservation and capitalism over time Rejecting
this explanation, the authors contend that in reality capitalism and conservation
or at least what they call the mainstream conservation practised by the largest
environmental NGOs (e.g. CI, The Nature Conservancy, WWF) have been conjoined
from the conception, writing, The problem with this argument . . . is that it assumes
a separation that does not really exist (Brockington et al. 2008: 198). Rather, they
suggest, mainstream conservation should be understood, in substantial part, as onemeans by which capitalism expands through creating economic value in natural
resources left in situ rather than extracted and processed, and commodifying, in the
process, spaces and things that had not previously been valued in monetary terms.
The authors identify the promotion of ecotourism, which like conservation in
general is commonly described as an oppositional force to conventional capitalist
resource exploitation via mass tourism (see Honey 2008), as one important aspect of
this process. While of course not all ecotourism is aimed at facilitating biodiversity
conservation, the activitys dramatic surge in popularity in recent decades is closely
tied to its ostensive function in this regard (West & Carrier 2004). Yet Brockington and
colleagues analysis of the specific means by which ecotourism exemplifies capitalism
is little developed. In what follows, I build on their insights and others to construct
a comprehensive picture of tourisms function as a component of capitalist growth.
This is certainly not to suggest that all (eco)tourism is necessarily the handmaiden of
capitalist expansion, merely that the industry as a whole plays an instrumental role
in this respect.
The study of tourism as a form of capitalism can be seen to have begun with
Britton, who proclaimed the industry a product of metropolitan capitalist enter-
prise (1982: 331) and a major internationalized component of Western capitalist
economies (1991: 451). In subsequent years, other researchers have built uponBrittons analyses to describe how the tourism industry has evolved in concert with
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448 R. Fletcher
global capitalism (e.g. Lash & Urry 1987; Urry 2001). In its origins as a small-scale,
elite enterprise, tourism of the Grand Tour variety reflected early liberal capitalisms
nascent entrepreneurial structure. The rise of mass tourism centred on collective
prepackaged holidays in the post-war era, by contrast, coincided with the consoli-dation of an organized, Fordist regime of accumulation emphasizing increasingly
larger vertically-integrated firms. Finally, the 1970s saw the rise of new/alternative
tourism offering a variety of flexible, individually-tailored trips concurrent with cap-
italisms shift towards a novel disorganized, post-Fordist form centred on flexible
accumulation (Harvey 1989) through diverse structures. This has led to the develop-
ment of a myriad niche or boutique markets designed to offer an outlet for every
tourists particular taste, including such diverse (and disturbing) products as war, sex
and slum tourism (Munt 1994; Gibson 2009).
Similarly, a number of researchers note that in its approach to development andconservation, ecotourism often encompasses elements of neo-liberal capitalism (cf.
Harvey 2005). In particular, ecotourism is seen to embody such characteristic neo-
liberal mechanisms as privatization, marketization, commodification and deregulation
in its emphasis on employing nature-based sightseeing as a force for locally-directed
economic development based on individual entrepreneurship through affixing mon-
etary value to in situ natural resources and thus creating both a market and incentive
for their sustainable management (see, for example, Vivanco 2001; 2006; Duffy,
2002; 2008; Mowforth & Munt 2003; West & Carrier 2004; Bianchi 2005; Carrier &
Macleod 2005; Author 2009; Duffy & Moore 2010; Neves 2010). West and Carrier(2004: 484), therefore, describe ecotourism as the institutional expression of partic-
ular sets of late capitalist values in a particular political-economic climate.
Recognition of these dynamics helps set the stage for a systematic analysis of
the relationship between tourism and capitalism. One must go further, however, to
examine the ways in which tourism, in its co-evolution with capitalism, may fulfil
functions vital to the latter.
The Fix is In
Marx, in the Grundrisse (1973), identified as capitalisms central contradiction the
tension between capitalists desire to extract profit from the system and the necessity
for sufficient capital to be transferred to the workforce so that production could
be consumed (see also Harvey 1989). Capitalism profits by appropriating labours
surplus value, of course, necessitating that workers be paid less than the full sale
value of their product. If workers are paid less than this full value, however, then,
on aggregate, they will be unable to purchase what they have produced, leading to
overproduction, over-accumulation and economic stagnation.
Marx saw this tension as an inevitable feature of capitalism that would eventuallycontribute to the systems self-destruction. Subsequent researchers, however, have
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Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism? 449
identified a number of mechanisms by which capitalism is able to alleviate overpro-
duction crises through economic growth. Thus, they contend that capitalism requires
continual expansion in order to survive what Sandler (1994) calls the GOD (grow
or die) principle. Harvey (1989), for instance, observes that excess capital may bereabsorbed into the system by means of a variety of different spatial and/or temporal
displacements or fixes, thereby (temporarily) forestalling an overproduction crisis.
Tourism can be seen to provide a number of such fixes.
Harveys spatial fix entails exporting excess capital to a new geographical location
where it can be reinvested in novel development. International tourism development
can be viewed as an ideal means by which this is accomplished, and ecotourism in
particular, in its quest specifically for relatively undeveloped areas, can be viewed as
the epitome of this strategy. Thus, Costa Rica, for instance, has become an important
site for the displacement of foreign tourism capital seeking new outlets, particularlysince the 1980s, increasingly attracting both lone entrepreneurs in search of isolated
natural retreats and such powerful global players as Barcelo, Marriot and Four Seasons
(Honey 2008). The capacity of ecotourism specifically to provide a spatial fix is
identified by Robbins and Fraser (2003) in their study of forestry policy in Scotland.
A temporal fix, by contrast, involves displacing excess capital into future return,
either by investing in ventures that will realize profit down the road or by reducing
turnover time, that is, the speed with which money outlays return profit to the in-
vestor, such that speed-up this year absorbs excess capacity from last year (Harvey
1989: 182). One means that Harvey identifies by which the latter is accomplished isthe selling of not a durable product but rather a transient event that is instantaneously
consumed, thus reducing turnover time to a minimum. As an activity predicated on
the sale of transient events, tourism may be seen to provide a temporal fix as well.
A whitewater rafting excursion, for instance, is entirely consumed by the end of the
trip (although it may be extended to a degree through further merchandizing of pho-
tographs and other paraphernalia) and must be purchased anew to be re-experienced
(Fletcher 2009).
Combining the forms of displacement identified above into a composite
timespace fix, according to Harvey, is accomplished principally through the pro-
vision of loans, which simultaneously displace capital into new spaces and into the
future as well, to be recovered upon repayment. Lending for tourism development,
therefore, of the type widely provided by the World Bank and United Nations Devel-
opment Program, among many other organizations (Honey 2008), accomplishes this
timespace fix as well. After suspending its tourism loans in the 1980s, for instance,
the World Bank began lending anew in the 1990s and, by 2009, was providing more
than $US550 million annually (Hayakawa & Rivero 2009).
In a number of ways, then, we can view tourism development as providing a
means for capitalism to find outlets for excess capital that might otherwise provoke
an overproduction crisis, and thus assisting the system to sustain itself over time.In addition to providing an outlet for capital from other sectors, tourism expansion
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450 R. Fletcher
may help to overcome over-accumulation within the tourism industry itself as well
through facilitating the displacement of capital from locations that have become
overdeveloped to those newly on the rise, as Butlers (1980) classic tourism area life
cycle demonstrates.In addition to providing temporal and/or spatial fixes, there are several other ways
that tourism might contribute to capitalisms self-maintenance as well. One of these
concerns tourisms status as a service economy. As noted above, an overproduction
crisis is provoked by a dearth of capacity for consumption on the part of manufacturing
labourers due to capitalists desire to extract maximum profit from the system. This
problem can be resolved in part, however, by redistributing capital to another category
of labourers, for instance service workers, who are thereby enabled to consume the
production that industrial workers cannot. By paying workers to perform a service
such as tourism, therefore, capitalists receive a twofold benefit. First, some workersare provided with the funds necessary to purchase the commodities that others have
produced, thereby ensuring the continuation of the system without the need to reduce
profit extracted from production. In so doing, secondly, capitalists simultaneously
receive a valued service as well. This is certainly not to deny that of course much
work created by travel is poorly paid, deskilled and insecure if not dangerous
(Gibson 2009: 530), and may thus be merely another means of extracting surplus
value from workers labour. Yet a proportion of tourism workers are in fact quite well
paid for instance, waitstaff in high-end hotels and restaurants, or the collection of
itinerant international adventure tour guides I have previously studied (Author 2009).In the USA, for instance, entire resort towns (e.g. Aspen, Colorado) survive largely
due to this mutualism between wealthy visitors and local service providers (Coleman
2004). Neither does this dynamic imply overt collaboration between capitalists and
governments nor even conscious intention on the part of capitalists themselves.
Rather, individual capitalists simple desire to spend excess accumulated wealth on
the purchase of luxury services, coupled with collective mobilization on the part of
diverse actors and firms to provide such services, is sufficient to stimulate substantial
growth in this regard. Given the relatively low wages earned by most tourism workers
this dynamic may be of minor significance to the overall capitalist expansion process,
however.
In addition to helping to resolve the central capitalist contradiction, ostensibly
sustainable forms of tourism such as ecotourism in particular may help to resolve
what James OConnor (e.g. 1988; 1994) calls capitalisms second contradiction
as well. In OConnors analysis, efforts to resolve the overproduction crisis through
growth tend to provoke a second crisis, what Marx (1973) called a metabolic rift
(see Foster 2000), due to the fact that capitalisms need to continually expand in order
to survive is ultimately predicated on the extraction of finite natural resources. As
increased production increasingly taxes limited resources, rents for such resources
rise, thus augmenting production costs, decreasing demand and eventually provokingeconomic stagnation once more.
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Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism? 451
According to Martin OConnor (1994), adaptation to the reality of this second
contradiction has provoked a wholesale shift in the nature of capitalism, exemplified
by the newfound global concern for sustainable development that crystallized in
the late 1980s. In the previous regime, with certain exceptions of course (Robbins &Fraser 2003), natural resources were viewed predominantly as inexhaustible, to be
exploited when needed but otherwise considered external to production. In the new
regime, which this latter OConnor calls capitalisms ecological phase, by contrast,
natural resources have been internalized as integral conditions of production to be
managed in the interest of ensuring their sustainable exploitation into the future
and thus forestalling the ecological crisis that the former OConnor foretells. Boyd
and colleagues (2001), drawing on Marxs (1967) distinction between the formal
and real subsumption of labour, identify a similar shift in contemporary capitalism
from formal to real subsumption ofnature (see also Smith 2007), and Garland (2008)elaborates upon this dynamic in her recent analysis of the rise of a conservationist
mode of production.
Escobar (1995) observes that, in addition to sustainable harvesting, another means
by which ecological capitalism may approach natural resources is by promoting their
consumption in situ. Building upon this observation, Robbins and Fraser (2003)
identify ecotourism as exemplifying this ecological capitalism. Unlike Escobar, how-
ever, who saw both sustainable management for extraction and in situ use as forms of
ecological capitalism, Robbins and Fraser identify the ecological phase exclusively
with the latter, characterizing sustainable timber management as representative of theprevious regime.
By generating capital based on in situ consumption of natural resources, in the
form for instance of visits to protected areas, ecotourism may thus be viewed as
an exemplary means by which capitalism seeks to resolve OConnors second con-
tradiction and provide for ecologically sustainable economic growth. In this, sense,
then, sustainable tourism may be seen as providing an environmental fix (Castree
2008) similar to the various spatialtemporal fixes that it, as a component of tourism
in general, provides capitalism as well.
Yet this is still not the entire story, for in addition to helping to forestall an ecological
crisis, ecotourism may capitalize upon this very same crisis as well (Igoe et al. 2010;
Neves 2010). Klein (2007) contends that neo-liberal capitalism in general displays
the remarkable ability to turn crises to which it has contributed into opportunities for
economic growth, and Brockington and colleagues (2008) build upon this analysis to
suggest that international conservation in general may actually gain value from the
disappearance of the biodiversity it seeks to preserve, as that which remains grows
increasingly desirable. Neves (2010) identifies this dynamic in cetourism (whale
watching), whereby the activitys value has increased in concert with its objects
depletion. Munt (1994) notes that, through new tourism activities such as ecotourism,
capitalism is able to transform crises to which it has contributed into marketablecommodities, selling poverty and class struggle, for instance, as touristic experience.
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452 R. Fletcher
In addition, ecotourism may be seen to capitalize on the loss of undeveloped areas
due to the expansion of extractive capitalist production, in the same manner as
conservation generally. Many ecotourism sites, in fact, explicitly market themselves
as desirable destinations based on the probability that they will cease to exist down theroad (Mowforth & Munt 2003). In this respect, ecotourism may function as a form of
what Buscher (2010) calls derivative nature, in that resources are valued not in and
of themselves but rather in terms of their projected worth relative to a hypothetical
future scenario of degradation and loss. Of course, the extent to which this process
results in a net gain for capitalism as a whole is debatable; it is, however, a means
of generating at least some value from a situation that would otherwise constitute a
wholesale failure.
Tourism and the Absorptive Class
Returning to the triad of actors centrally involved in ecotourism described at the
outset, the role of industry operators in promoting the interests of capitalism through
tourism is obvious. International development planners particularly transnational
institutions such as the World Bank and IMF have long been critiqued as in-
struments for the propagation of global capitalism as well (Escobar 1995; Korten
2001). Brockington and co-authors (2008), with others (e.g. MacDonald 2008), level
a similar critique at many international environmental NGOs.
The role of tourists themselves in this process is less obvious but still apparent.In this respect, it is significant that the origin of mass tourism is identified with
the middle class (MacCannell 1999) and that, with the subsequent embrace of such
tourism by other class groups, the current growth of new tourism in particular remains
strongly associated with the middle class as well (Mowforth & Munt 2003; Fletcher
2009). As Mills (1956) observes, a new or professional (Ehrenreich 1989) middle
class arose with the consolidation of Fordist capitalism after World War II in order to
manage both the increasingly larger and multinational firms dominating production
under this regime and the rapidly growing economy as a whole. This new middle
class, of course, became the consumers of the expanding tourism industry, facilitated
by the general economic growth which saw median family income in the USA double
between 1945 and 1973 (Savran 1998: 46) a three-way symbiosis.
Stander (2009a; 2009b) contends that this group functions as an absorptive class
helping to alleviate capitalisms overproduction crises. It does so, first, by absorbing
through its consumption the bulk of industrial production so that capitalists can
realize profit. Ehrenreich (1989) notes that since the 1950s the new middle class
has indeed received tremendous pressure to consume increasing quantities of this
production. This observation resonates as well with Mills (1956) and Hochschilds
(1999) contention that much of the labour performed by this class involves personal
relations-orientated service work. As noted earlier, employing (well-paid) serviceworkers not only provides a needed function in its own right but also allows capital to
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Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism? 453
recirculate back into the economy to facilitate consumption of production that most
manufacturing labourers particularly in the post-Fordist area of offshore outsourcing
lack funds to purchase.
In addition, Stander asserts that the absorptive class alleviates overproductioncrises by seeing their investments devalued during the recession resulting from such
crises, thus reducing surplus capital and restoring conditions for economic recovery.
He writes that
the absorptive class has also to absorb the shock of re-current economic crises
in that they have to experience much of their personal surplus assets destroyed
and thus help the capitalist system to find a new equilibrium where it can launch
into a new phase of production during which capitalists can derive a high rateof profit (Stander 2009b).
Moreover, it is possible to discern in the new middle classs consumption of tourism
another means by which capitalism is able to exploit crises it has helped to create.
Copious research suggests that the type of labour performed by this class group
in the service of capital generates substantial discontent due to its alienating and
de-authenticating nature (Mills 1956; Ehrenreich 1989; Hochschild 1999). Members
of the new middle class are thus motivated to attempt to escape these conditions
through leisure activities in which qualities seen as lacking in everyday work life
can be pursued (Lyng 1990; MacCannell 1999; Fletcher 2008). This process can be
seen in this class groups embrace of new tourism activities such as ecotourism in
the 1970s in concert with the development of post-Fordism. Both Harvey (1989)
and Arrighi (1994) contend that post-Fordism arose in response to a world-systemic
accumulation crisis resulting in the global recession of 1973 as a spatial fix in search of
new markets to sustain previous levels of profits. Harvey, along with Friedman (1994),
suggests that this crisis provoked a profound cultural shift towards post-modernism
within advanced industrialized societies. This post-modern shift, in turn, motivated
the consumption of new forms of tourism (Mowforth & Munt 2003). Moreover,the alienation from non-human nature wrought by many (particularly the sedentary,
indoor, mind-based, new middle class) forms of capitalist labour an important aspect
of Marxs metabolic rift may be seen as one of the motives spurring ecotourism in
particular (Smith 2007; Fletcher 2009; Neves 2010).
In undertaking tourism in response to capitalist work conditions, the new middle
class consumes the services provided by the tourism industry, allowing owners to
realize profit, while in the process assisting simultaneously to further distribute to
other service workers the funds necessary to absorb still more production. Thus, we
can see that the new middle class forming the vanguard of tourism consumption mayserve, in variety of ways, the interests of global capitalist expansion.
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454 R. Fletcher
Tourism and the Transnational Capitalist Class
As noted in the introduction, various critics suggest that the world capitalist-economy
is managed in substantial part by a relatively coherent transnational capitalist class.The influence of this class can be seen in the history of tourism development, as pre-
viously outlined. According to Sklair (2001), one role of this transnational capitalist
class is to attempt to resolve the internal contradictions that would otherwise threaten
the system that sustains them. One of the means by which they do so, at present, may
entail promotion of the international tourism industry.
From its inception, post-war mass tourism was explicitly managed as an element
of capitalist expansion by a coalition of private and public interests. While the for-
mer core of the capitalist world-economy Western Europe and, particularly, Great
Britain was crippled by World War II, the USA emerged from the conflict with
its infrastructure largely intact and its economy revitalized by a dramatic increase in
wartime production. To sustain this economic productivity in the post-war period,
however, would require a dramatic global expansion. As US Undersecretary of State
Clayton pronounced in 1945, Weve got to export three times as much as we ex-
ported just before the war if we want to keep our industry running at somewhere near
capacity (quoted in Savran 1998:45). One important strategy among many in this
effort was the provision of international development aid, which was often contingent
upon the hire of US firms in funded projects (Escobar 1995; Korten 2001). And while
its role in this regard has never been emphasized, I would suggest that stimulation of
the tourism industry functioned significantly in this effort as well.Post-war mass tourism growth was underwritten by government support of US
corporations in the explicit interest of economic expansion. As Honey (2008:41)
describes,
After World War II, the U.S. government used its surplus of military aircraft
to subsidize the aerospace industry. It created financial institutions, such as
the ExportImport Bank of the United States, that gave low-interest loans to
corporations for purchase of U.S.-made aircraft and equipment. U.S. assistance
programs constructed and enlarged airports overseas, improved long-haul nav-igation, and financed development of long-range and wide-bodied aircraft.
Other nations were encouraged to establish their own national airlines as well, usually
requiring jet aircraft, navigation equipment, and services from the Boeing Company
and other U.S. corporations, the purchase of which were frequently financed by the
[U.S.] ExportImport Bank (Honey 2008: 41).
Thus, the growing global tourism industry was dominated increasingly by a small
number of firms based in wealthy countries and supported by their home govern-
ments. This trend merely increased in the 1980s, as neo-liberalization championed
by the IMF and World Bank increasingly opened societies throughout the world tocompetition from foreign firms in search of new markets in which to invest excess
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Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism? 455
capital accumulated during the 1970s crisis (Arrighi 1994). As a result, nascent do-
mestic tourism industries worldwide were quickly controlled by foreign operators
(Mowforth & Munt 2003; Honey 2008).
Hence, as Truong (1990: 11011) observed some time ago:
The general trend in integration in international tourism is that firms from
industrialized countries tend to dominate the market . . . This entails a division
of labor according to which Third World countries, with few exceptions, merely
provide the social infrastructure and facilities with little or no control over the
process of production and distribution of the tourist-related services at an
international level.
Indeed, researchers note that as much as 90 percent of tourism revenues leaks outof poor host countries due to domination by foreign operators (Mowforth & Munt
2003: 175). This appears to have resulted, as quite a few commentators observe, in
increasing consolidation of the industry over time in the hands of a small number
of interconnected transnational players (e.g. Britton 1982; 1991; Duffy 2002; 2008;
Mowforth & Munt 2003; Honey 2008; Gibson 2009).
According to this analysis, then, a small number of increasingly interrelated
transnational tourism operators control much of the goods and services that tourists
consume globally. In this respect, tourism expansion can be viewed as an instance
of the accumulation through dispossession that Harvey (2005) finds characteristicof neo-liberal capitalism in general. These operators also control much of the adver-
tising by which tourists are enticed to consume the products offered. Transnational
tourism operators work hand-in-hand with other important tourism promoters, in-
cluding international development agencies and national governments, which are of
course dominated by members of the transnational capitalist class as well (Korten
2001). Chapin (2004) and MacDonald (2008), among others, contend that interna-
tional environmental NGOs promoting ecotourism development have become part
and parcel of this collaboration as well, increasingly relying on powerful transna-
tional corporations to provide funding for conservation initiatives. This reinforces
Sklairs (2001: 8) analysis that in the current era the transnational capitalist class has
supported the consolidation of a sustainable development historic bloc undergirding
the sustainability movement (see also Igoe et al. 2010). From this perspective, the
increasing promotion of so-called sustainable tourism around the world can be seen
as part and parcel of the transnational capitalist classs continued domination of the
global tourism industry.
This is certainly not to suggest that all tourism development is entirely dominated
by this transnational capitalist, or even that all such development necessarily suc-
cumbs to the logic of capital accumulation outlined above. Just as Gibson-Graham
(1996) asserts in general that descriptions of capitalism as a hegemonic system canobscure the numerous non-market interactions and mechanisms that exist within the
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456 R. Fletcher
interstices of the dominant order, tourism can at times be employed by local actors and
communities to facilitate small-scale, grassroots forms of alternative development at
odds with the industry consolidation pursued by the transnational class (Higgins-
Desbiolles 2006; Honey 2008). Yet it is clear that the post-war growth of the industryas a whole has been substantially directed by a small group of transnational players
and that its function in facilitating capitalist expansions is part and parcel of this
reality.
The Future of Tourism
One important question following from the preceding analysis concerns how the
function of tourism as an agent of capitalist expansion might change as a result of thecurrent global economic recession, which Stander (2009b), among others, describes
as a classic overproduction crisis. This crisis has precipitated an unprecedented slow-
down in a global tourism industry that had experienced nearly continuous, substantial
growth for the previous half-century. The latest UNWTO assessments available as of
this writing indicate that 2009 saw an unprecedented decline in the global tourism
industry of 4.3 percent (UNWTO 2010: 3). The last quarter of 2009 witnessed a slight
reversal in this trend, with international arrivals increasing 2 percent, and the first
two months of 2010 suggest a continuation of this trend, with an estimated 7 percent
growth worldwide (UNWTO 2010).Despite this recent resurgence, 2010 numbers remain below the industrys peak
2008 levels (UNWTO 2010), leading to speculation that tourisms nearly 60-year
expansion period may have reached an end. If this prediction is born out, will the
loss of tourism as an outlet for over-accumulation have repercussions throughout the
capitalist world-economy? Will the system, on the contrary, find new ways to exploit
tourism as a strategy to recover from this current crisis? For instance, while some
observers are suggesting that the current crisis represents the end of neo-liberalism
(Harvey 2009), a number of national governments are responding to this crisis by
attempting to revive their tourism industries through further reducing barriers to
foreign capital (UNWTO 2009b). Will this latest stage of post-Fordist capitalism,
on the other hand, give way to yet another stage, displaying a novel structure the
nature of which we cannot yet foresee? Or does this current recession finally signal
capitalisms exhaustion of its potential for crisis displacement and thus the imminent
demise that Marxists have long been predicting?
Such questions are compounded by the growing global focus on mitigating anthro-
pogenic climate change. One of the main critiques increasingly levelled at tourism of
late concerns its contribution to climate change via long-haul air transport, upon which
the industry fundamentally depends (Gossling & Peeters 2007). This constitutes a
particular problem for ecotourism, which as discussed above is commonly touted forits ostensive environmental benefits (West & Carrier 2004; Carrier & Macleod 2005).
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Sustaining Tourism, Sustaining Capitalism? 457
Currently, the tourism industry, like the airline industry as a whole, is thus desper-
ately striving to address this dilemma. It is doing so in a variety of ways, including
promoting increased efficiency in airline design and fuel consumption (Gossling &
Peeters 2007). Most prominent among these reactive strategies perhaps has been thepromotion of carbon credit purchasing to offset air travel emissions, yet this strategy
has been criticized widely as ineffective (see, for example, Bohm & Dabhi 2009).
Hence, at least one former offset proponent, an NGO promoting responsible travel,
recently reversed its longstanding endorsement of carbon offsets, asserting instead
that the only way to truly reduce tourisms climate implications is for people to
travel less (http://www.responsibletravel.com/Copy/Copy902116.htm). If such calls
are widely heeded, the retraction already suffered by the global tourism industry due
to economic recession may be exacerbated further. In this respect, then, tourism as a
capitalist industry might be approaching the ecological limits that James OConnorpredicted with no further environmental fixes available. This possibility demands
further investigation, building upon the growing body of work exploring the multi-
faceted relationship between tourism and climate change (e.g. Hamilton et al. 2005;
Gossling & Peeters 2007; Gossling et al. 2007).
Conclusion
For neo-Marxists, an important question concerns why capitalism has not yet suc-
cumbed to the internal contradictions identified by Marx and given way to the Endof History (Fletcher 2001). In an early response to this question, Lenin (1916) fa-
mously pronounced imperialism the highest stage of capitalism in its capacity to
provide new outlets for excess accumulation. The end of formal European colonial-
ism, however, has not witnessed capitalisms demise; thus, subsequent researchers
have continued in Lenins legacy to describe the various ways that capitalism succeeds
in (temporarily) forestalling its self-destruction.
While tourism development conforms to many of the mechanisms these researchers
have identified, its importance in facilitating capitalist expansion has been underem-
phasized to date. In the above, I have sought to highlight and systematize the myriad
ways in which tourism development provides spatial, temporal and environmental
fixes for capitalisms tendency towards overproduction and unsustainability. In sum,
I suggest that, as one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in the world, a
major component of globalization, tourism deemed a form of neo-colonialism by
many (Munt 1994; Mowforth & Munt 2003) might be viewed as one of the im-
portant means by which the capitalist world-economy has sought to sustain itself in
the post-war era. If, as Weaver and Lawton (1999) contend, sustainable tourism has
become the dominant paradigm within the global tourism industry as a whole, then
this may be due in part to the need to sustain capitalism as well.
Tourism is, indeed, one of the few novel capitalist industries to appear on the worldstage in the post-war period (along with petroleum production, tourisms closest
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458 R. Fletcher
competitor for the status of worlds largest industry). In the several prior centuries of
European colonization, capitalists had scoured the globe in search of any remotely
marketable product. Hence, the post-war push to create markets for new so-called
non-traditional commodities, such as non-timber forest products, as a means tostimulate development for impoverished peoples in less-developed societies has often
proved futile. As West (2006: 214) contends, If there were markets for these products,
wealthy and powerful people located at the core would certainly have already found
a way to get them out of the periphery. Tourism, however, has in fact emerged as
a powerful new product found in core and periphery alike (yet dominated, as with
most other industries, by actors in the core), transforming from the minor pursuit of
a handful of elites to become perhaps the worlds foremost growth industry over the
past half-century, one of the chief means by which capitalism has been able to expand
its commodification of natural resources on a global scale. At the same time, however,due to its relative novelty on the world stage, and notwithstanding the many pitfalls
enumerated above, tourism may also at times hold the potential to be harnessed as
an oppositional force by those (such as the rural poor in less-developed societies
inhabiting those places most sought by ecotourists) who have heretofore been largely
excluded from established commodity markets and conventional forms of economic
development based upon these (Higgins-Desbiolles 2006; 2008). This potential, as
Higgins-Desbiolles insists, calls for further conceptualization and investigation.
This analysis has been primarily theoretical, seeking to outline in macro-socio-
economic terms the logical structure according to which tourism development canbe seen to facilitate temporary resolution of contradictions inherent in the capitalist
world-economy. In addition to the future research directions outlined above, further
investigation is needed to test this model empirically by assessing whether it conforms
to the actual process of tourism development in particular contexts and historical
periods, in the manner pioneered by Robbins and Fraser (2003) and Neves (2010).
Future research might also further investigate, following Igoe and colleagues (2010),
the concrete relationships among various elements of the transnational capitalist class
involved in tourism development, as well as differences in this classs influence and
composition in diverse locations (Duffy & Moore 2010). Study of this sort would do
much to redress the current deficit in understanding the precise nature and extent of
tourisms role in historical processes of capitalist expansion and transformation.
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Notes on Contributor
Robert Fletcher is Assistant Professor of Natural Resources and Sustainable De-
velopment at the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Ciudad Colon,
Costa Rica. His research interests include development, ecotourism, globalization,
environmental governance, climate change, and resistance and social movements. He
has conducted field research concerning these various issues in Chile, Costa Rica and
the USA.
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