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A different perspective on tourism?

By Arun Kundnani

20 January 2004, 3:00pm

Tourism Concern, an organisation that campaigns to reduce the social and environmental damage that is often done by tourism in poorer countries, has launched a survey of British Black and Minority Ethnic communities to gauge their experiences as tourists.

The Christopher Columbus: the first European to have a holiday in the Caribbean survey's aim is to begin a debate on tourism's impact among people whose ancestry is from many of the Third World holiday destinations that Britons now visit and to look at the impacts of tourism from a Black and Minority Ethnic perspective.

The topics which the survey hopes to examine are:

Black and Minority Ethnic holiday-makers' experiences of racism
What people think of tourism as a tool for overseas development
Racism as experienced by employees within the travel industry
Contested heritage - that is, how Black and Minority Ethnic history is (or is not) conveyed through tourist attractions and objects

Tourism Concern's outreach officer Michael Lomotey said: 'The questionnaire will help us understand how Black and Minority Ethnic Britons feel about tourism and racism as well as about tourism as a means of helping the countries of their ancestral origin.'

He added: 'A glance at the leading holiday brochures shows the majority of black faces are usually poor, smiling "natives" or waiters and brochures rarely show non-Whites as holiday-makers. We feel this survey is overdue as Black and Minority Ethnic communities in the UK have been marginalised in the British tourism industry and in the dialogue about Third World development for too long.'

The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

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