Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel: The Paving of Paradise and What You Can Do to Stop It [Paperback]

Deborah McLaren (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565490657 | ISBN-13: 978-1565490659 | Publication Date: August 1997 | Edition: illustrated edition

Deborah McLaren presents a comprhensive overview of the history and global development of tourism, often considered the largest industry in the world today. No study of the globalization of the world's economy and industry can afford to ignore the impact that tourism is having in an ever shrinking world where wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands- and within this important book the impact of tourism is thoroughly explored.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Mclaren presents a comprehensive overview of the history and global development of tourism, often considered the largest instustry in the world, an industry that has promised great benefits to hosts and guests alike while on occasion causing damage to local host communities and the environment. -- Abstracts of Public Administration, Development and Environment 97/98

Sparked by the early experience of a tourist excursion to Jamaica gone awry, author Deborah McLaren's personal dedication to challenging the policies and practices of the international tourist industry has grown more radical and more impassioned...

The first two chapters provide an overview of tourism (especially as it affects countries in thr global South) and the "promises of tourism." The next two chapters lay out the adverse effects of tourism (on both "guests" and "hosts") in colorfoul detail. Chapter 5 makes a strong case for "rethinking" ecotravel (which, although different-and laudable- in intent, is equally damaging to the environment); chapter 6 broadens this argument, arguing that the entire industry needs to be rethought, from top to bottom. McLaren provides a wealth of resources for use by those who wish to join in the campaign to rethink tourism. -- WorldViews, October-December 1998

This publication covers the history and global development of the largest industry in the world that has promised great benefits to hosts and guests. Author Deborah McLaren argues that the industry can result in stark and painful consequences for local host communities and the environment. A bibliography, resource list and index are included. The author is the director of the Rethinking Tourism Project, a nonprofit educational alliance that supports indigenous self-development, and a columnist who writes about the environment and socially responsible tourism for Transitions Abroad. -- Monday Developments, July 6, 1998

Useful information about the global tourism industry and creative alternatives. Use some of the hundreds of resources listed in this book and you will never travel the same way again. -- Transitions Abroad, Nov-Dec 1999 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 194 pages
• Publisher: Kumarian Pr Inc; illustrated edition edition (August 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565490657
• ISBN-13: 978-1565490659
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,124,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A valuable tool for understanding the impact of tourism., February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel: The Paving of Paradise and What You Can Do to Stop It (Paperback)

The Resource Center of The Americas has recently published a curriculum on tourism in Mexico, using Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel as its major resource book. Tourism is one of the world's largest industries and Deborah McLaren has done indepth research into its impact on the host community and the environment. Her book helps readers/travelers to analyze the relationship between poverty, environmental exploitation and tourism. It is not all bad news, however. The book shows that there are ways to travel that are responsible. The excellent bibliography gives information on "rethinking tourism" organizations, tour operators and programs, including many web sites. The curriculum that the Resource Center of The Americas developed using Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel is titled Buen Viaje: Mutually Beneficial Tourism (ISBN 1-893440-00-1). It is for grades 8-12 through adult. It includes descriptions of four tourist sites in Mexico, with narrative accounts from Mexicans who live or work in those areas.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars LONG ON ACCUSATION, SHORT ON SOLUTIONS, November 29, 2001

By 

Ralph Erenzo (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel: The Paving of Paradise and What You Can Do to Stop It (Paperback)

McLaren paints a gloomy picture of the collective state of mind of the Tourist and the tourism industry. The sub-title of her book, "The Paving of Paradise and What You Can Do to Stop It" is misleading. The first 100 pages of this 132 page book contain a blanket condemnation of tourism, the tourist industry and the tourist as exploiters and dispoilers. McLaren spends little time looking at solutions to the myriad of international problems travel and tourism create, preferring instead to catalog their excesses. Like electricity and gasoline, tourism is not a fact of the world which can be "cured". It must be wisely developed and carefully managed in the context of local desires and the local economy. It is not enough to preserve the integrity of a local population of indiginous persons when they are staving and sick and watching the rest of the healthy prosperous world via television or speaking about it on their cell phones. RETHINKING TOURISM AND ECOTRAVEL offers little in the way of hope or solution. It is a value in that it presents a picture of an inadequate response to the abuses of the tourism industry and supporting governmental bodies, but it is useless as a guide to actually "rethinking" or restructuring the industry or the mindset of the traveler.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big hit - will engage, entertain and infuriate its readers., October 9, 1997

By 

Ron Mader "Planeta.com Founder" (Mexico) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel: The Paving of Paradise and What You Can Do to Stop It (Hardcover)

El Planeta Platica (http://www.planeta.com)

Deborah McLaren's Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel takes on the most pressing issue in the tourism industry today - how too often "ecotravel" destroys both natural resources and local cultures. But there are alternatives - if we care to pause and reflect - and that is what the author does in this book.

Rethinking Tourism could be a big hit in the airport bookstores and will open the eyes of many travelers. This book is written in a lively manner that will engage, entertain and infuriate its readers. McLaren contributes to our understanding of travel and its promise of improving the lives of local people and the environment.

Beginning with a personal journey to Jamaica, McLaren recounts her frustration seeking a meaningful encounter with Jamaican culture in Montego Bay. "I tried to meet some local people without being accosted by entrepreneurs," she writes. "But I was taken to other all-inclusive resorts around the island... I noticed the creation of a fantasy tourism culture that by no means represented the real culture of Jamaica."

The book will not please everyone - especially the desciples of tourism and public relations. McLaren points out that tourism is often in direct conflict and competion with local people and the development of areas anround wilderness areas threatens the wildlife. She lists "Examples of eco-oh-ohs" traces failures in Costa Rica, the Galapagos islands, Malaysia and the Himalayas.

Yet it would be hard to characterize this book as a negative critique. This is a positive account of how to restructure (or at least rethink) tourism so that it does in fact benefit local people and their environments.