That done, on to beliefs

As the man said "You don't like my principles, don't worry, I've got plenty more!"

Me, I don't go big on principles, but I do have a few beliefs about the tourism business:

1. Over the last 50 years, tour operators have shafted the resorts until their eyes watered. After the Western resorts got wise to this fact and started biting back, the tour operators moved their custom a bit. Ever wondered why Turkey got its massive tourism growth? Ever wondered why Thailand and the Dominican Republic and a host of other exotic destinations hit the travel headlines? THEY ARE CHEAP, plus of course, they're beautiful, but beautiful resorts are all over - cheap is what gets tour operators' tourists.

2. Most less developed and developing resorts are angry too. That's because they're being shafted and they can't do anything about it. If they want tourism as an economic growth stimulator they have to join in the tourism plan and work for pennies because the tour operators say so and they have the relationship with the clientele.

None of this is a good idea. You don't want holidays where your hosts hate you and only want you for the (very little) money they get to look after you. Plus your holiday is building a world of environmental, cultural and economic unsustainability.

3. The answer is Fair Trade Tourism, marketing, ownership, the web, and the donors. It works like this:

Fair Trade Tourism will soon come. For a few extra pounds the operators will get a flash to flash about - just like the supermarkets with fair trade coffee and tea. They'll make a bit more profit (you didn't think they were doing it for Love, did you?) and fulfil another market requirement. The resorts will make more too. Tourism will all become more sustainable. The organisation behind this change - http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk have been promoting this idea assidously for the last 15 years - they will make it happen!

There is a possibility now that the resorts could market themselves directly to the worldwide public. That's real fair trade. To do this they'd need to know as much about marketing as those who started the tourism boom in the 1960's. Not a difficult task from a western-educated person's perspective. But a high wall to climb if you live in rural Uganda. My answer - exchanges, like school exchanges to learn a language, but marketing exchanges to learn a subject by doing it in a western company.

As you can see from my profile, I live in Bath. Bath has been doing tourism since 3k bc (the druids, then the Romans then the Georgians, now the world) so we know a bit about it . Stepping aside into the road for foreign school groups is just one hurdle our elderly have to negotiate daily. Luckily tourism brings money and a bit of prosperity so we put up with it, in a way, we're proud of our tourism. However, if we weren't getting benefits and were being treated as slaves (well, we were when the Romans were here) we wouldn't like it - we wouldn't have ownership of the process. I know a bit about ownership in third world countries (sorry) tourism I'm just writing an article today for http://www.planeta.com

The web makes it all possible, of course. Now we can practise PULL rather than PUSH marketing. Geographically that means that resorts get the people and the money, directly. Maybe.

Andd, finally, the donors (who?). Now you may not believe it but it was the multilateral Development Agencies - the donors in the form of the World bank and others who financed tourism growth through soft loans in the 60's and 70's. Tunisia? WB, Morocco (WB), Bali WB, Dominican Republic WB and loads more. Even Spain was financed with interest-free loans provided by the Spanish government. Now, of course, the donors have a major task - the Millenium Development Goals - and tourism will not be left out in the development cocktail.

That's my answer, those are my beliefs, What are the obstacles, I wonder?