Neo Liberal Globalization and Market
Oriented Commercial
Tourism:
A Theological Critique
PTCA
International Theological Symposium
Jointly by
NCCI, CJCU and SCEPTRE
Huang Po Ho,
Prof. and vice president of CJCU, Dean of PTCA
Dec. 6-9, 2012. Kolkata, India
Introduction
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| PTCA Consultation on Commercial Tourism |
Tourism has been defined differently among the concerned
scholars, no consensus being reached for its definition. However, the United Nations World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO) has its definition of the concept which is widely adopted,
that states: “Tourism comprises the activities of persons traveling to and
staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one
consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes.”[1] General speaking, tourism involves industries
of transportation, accommodation, eating and drinking, retail shops,
entertainment businesses and other hospitality services. There are attempts to distinguish tourism
from travel; however no significant distinctions are reached. Semantically
speaking, all tourists are travelers, but not all travelers are tourists. But
travelers are seldom able to be exempted from taking part of tourism; therefore
attempt to distinguish the two does not make much sense to the discourses.
It is nevertheless, following the neo-liberal market
economic development, tourist activities has been commercially organized to
become a collective business industry. This has launched strategic promotion to
encourage and gather great quantity of tourist groups, and to increase their frequencies of trips, and thus altered the nature of
tourism. This new trend of commercial
tourist industry affected by the market orientation has created different side
effects related to the exploitation of nature (creation) and distortion of
human relationship. It is this sort of commercial tourism industries that
invite our attention to reflect upon theologically and to call for repentance
and transformation.
