Katia Iankova

The role of self-gentrification in sustainable tourism: Indigenous entrepreneurship at Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage Site, China

ABSTRACT This article examines three forms of tourism gentrification within the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces UNESCO World Heritage Site in Yunnan, China. The Indigenous Hani and Yi communities who populate this remote mountainous area possess distinct cultural practices that have supported the rice terrace ecosystem for centuries. This article uses interviews and non-participant observation conducted with inhabitants and newcomers to analyse the gentrification within the site. We argue that Indigenous cultural practices, and consequently rice cultivation in the area, are threatened by gentrifier-led and state-led gentrification, combined with high levels of outward migration of Indigenous persons. This poses a significant threat to the sustainability of tourism there, to the survival of the traditions and culture of the Indigenous inhabitants and could compromise the sites World Heritage Status. Some Indigenous people are, however, improving their socio-economic standing – and becoming “middle-class” or “gentry” – particularly through adopting entrepreneurial strategies gleaned from their encounters with outside-gentrifiers and tourists. This article proposes the concept of “self-gentrification” as a way to describe individuals who seek to improve themselves and their own communities, while threatened by gentrification, and offers ways to promote that concept to help conserve both heritage landscapes and Indigenous ways of life.

Dark London: Dimensions and characteristics of dark tourism supply in the UK capital

Abstract This paper will investigate the characteristics of the supply of dark tourism in London, UK through an examination of the identified main dark sites in London, UK. Our methodology is based on web analysis of the presence of marketed and non-marketed dark tourist sites in London, their web visitation, the level of their commercialization and the characteristics which place them in the various scales as categorized in current literature. We identified that London offers a much more entertainment-focused tourism experience rather than accurate historical and authentic sites which utilized major aspects of dark tourism for purposes such as commemoration or remembrance. The authors found this surprising given London’s long and often dark history.

Insertion as an alternative to workfare: active labour-market schemes in the Parisian suburbs

Many governments have tightened the link between welfare and work by attaching conditionality to out-of-work benefits, extending these requirements to new client groups and imposing market competition and greater managerial control in service delivery – principles typically characterized as ‘workfare’. Based on field research in Seine-Saint-Denis, we examine French ‘insertion’ schemes aimed at disadvantaged but potentially job-ready clients, characterized by weak conditionality, low marketization, strong professional autonomy and local network control. We show that insertion systems have resisted policy attempts to expand workfare-derived principles, reflecting street-level actors’ belief in the key advantages of the former over the latter. In contrast with arguments stressing institutional and cultural stickiness, our explanation for this resistance thus highlights the decentralized network governance of front-line services and the limits to central government power.

Planning for tourism, leisure and sustainability: international case studies, by Anthony S. Travis

chapter – Lisa Ruhanen – accompanies Cooper’s ideas with numerous references to them with further enhancement of the discussion about necessary changes in teaching tourism. Chapters in the book are strongly interrelated. Reading opinions on the sustainability of mass tourism and constantly growing consumption in tourism in first two chapters, one discovers in the third that small-scale tourism is not a magical pill but only a partial solution of the problem. Reading further about pro-poor tourism (Chapter 5) it becomes obvious that the nice label does not reduce poverty but instead increases negative environmental impacts; this brings a reader back to the questions of consumption and sustainability, and environmental impact of tourism described in previous chapters. Mass tourism is discussed again but from the perspective of ethical responsibility of the companies and consumers in Chapter 7. The way climate change can affect tourism is explicitly discussed in the end of the book, in Chapter 13. As a result a reader gets the whole picture of interrelated processes in tourism and causality of problems through reading the book from the beginning until the very end. Furthermore, contemporary debates are linked to the problem of tourism education: how the new curriculum can meet the changes in tourism sector and environment? How to unify the educational standards in different parts of the world? Understanding a need for a change, authors face another problem: who should make a change? (see Ruhanen, p. 219 and Wheeller, p. 214). The book shows, as Jim Butcher noticed in his chapter: “there are no ‘win-win scenarios”’ (p. 187), no best solutions, right attitudes or ideal ways to travel. There are always two sides of a coin, and even a nice idea can be in fact as harmful as unthoughtful consumption (as demonstrated in Chapters 5 and 6 on volunteer and pro-poverty tourism). Critical Debates in Tourism is an excellent guide for those who are already engaged in or break the ground in tourism research, or simply travel. Researchers from other fields, such as social and natural sciences, will also find this book useful due to multidisciplinary approaches to the discussed subjects. The book reveals lots of facts on ongoing debates around various issues in tourism that are essential to learn or to catch up on. This book challenges readers to weigh up their opinions on issues raised in Critical Debates. It will not leave anyone still and keep a black and white picture towards processes related to tourism industry. Critical Debates in Tourism shows a variety of opinions and provides space for new debates to come. This review is an example of how one can get excited about this book.

A Review of ‘Safeguarding intangible cultural heritage’

Finally, the book provides a wide range of discussions around the concept of slow tourism, from which one could conclude that slow travel refers to all types of alternative tourism as opposed to mass tourism. As presented in the book, there are issues of inconsistencies, contradictions or paradoxes within the concept of slow travel. Many tourists participating in these forms of tourism reach their destinations by less sustainable transport modes such as planes and automobiles, and keep themselves connected to the world via hi-tech mobile phones or laptops. Is slow travel, therefore, just a new name given to the phenomena which have already existed for a long time? If so, why is a new name needed? As also questioned by Hall, and Marayama and Parker in their studies, the adoption of the term should not be used just as another label to revitalize tourism marketing. Otherwise, should the concept of slow tourism be more explicitly defined? Nevertheless, although there is still much to explore about this emerging concept, this book is a great contribution to the on-going discussion on slow travel. It is a must read for researchers in many social sciences especially those interested in the sustainable development of tourism.

Communism in plural: legacies for cities in the era of postmodernism

Cities, the great laboratories of civilisations at all times, have always provided the best conditions for advancements in human civilisation. They are at the same time reflecting all forms of societal variation – from economic foundations to political structures. As sensitive mirrors of human cultures, the human condition is weaved into the city’s physical and social tissue. Communism as the historical period was no exception in this regard. It imprinted traces on the city’s organisational structure, its pace of life on the mentality of its citizens and on their successes and struggles.