I already insisted many times in this point: when one proceeds as an analyst, one can never assume the point of view of the interviewed person. That they assume the world in a determined way and explain it a certain form is the start point of an analysis, not the whole work. As Bruno Latour puts it, as researchers we must never describe the tribe in the tribe’s language. Or as Bourdieu says: to recover the common senses of the agents is the first step, a necessary one, of any research, but in the second stage one should take distance frome these speeches, make them objective.

What’s the point with all of this? Let’s take an example: tourists, particularly travellers and backpackers, affirm they travel to see other people, other cultures. But as Natalia Delfino and German Pikas analyze in their about-to-be-delivered thesis, when interviewing tourists in a hotel in Buenos Aires, most of the travellers admitted they had barely spoken to any native people, except those who worked in the hotel or other services. In a way, the traveller affirmed he traveled to see other people, which whom they finally didn’t interact. This doesn’t mean they’re lying; representations about our practices, and our practices themselves, are not always easy to agree. Think here about what you’ve done the first time you visited a city. Except when you have a friend who lives there, usually the people we met are our hotel’s roomates. This changes, of course, in those cities we visit over and over, or the ones we stay at for work reasons.

But in Natalia and German’s work there is an “other”: the other tourists. In the middle of these unknown cities, travellers establish new relations, but usually with those who share their conditions. That is, since they’re moving around the city, trying to get to know it, they get used to fighting the difficulties of moving around unkown territories. Instead of the native, Natalia and German hypothetize, the other is, precisely, another tourist.

What’s exposed here is rather a series of hypothesis that work fine in the case of Natalia and German’s thesis, based on a field work and interviews in a Buenos Aires hotel. It’s interesting to see how much distance there is between what we think we’re doing -in this case, meeting new people- and the practice itself -that is, not meeting natives, but other tourists instead. It would be interesting to think how does this relate in such a complex field as tourism and how this kind of hypothesis can allow us to think about the structures of a field such as travel, which is always moving but also quite still at the same time.

How does the growing arrival of tourists affect a rather small community? There are many ways. We can let travel agencies, who quickly try to take over the growth in visits to certain destinations, monopolize the field and impose their conditions. Or we can try to manage this growth in tourism from the community itself, through its usual government mechanisms.

The case of Taquile island in Puno, Peru, is an interesting one. Since mid 70s, the number of visitors are increasingly rising, up to 50 thousands per year; barely 13% of them are peruvian. Obviously, such market has attracted many interests. The island’s community has tried to manage the subject. For instance, they’ve built their own ships and host tourists in their homes. But travel agencies try to get their share, and have negotiated with some island’s natives some agreements that benefit only a few, allowing to distribute among less. Even so, the inhabitants of Taquile insist on managing tourism, as you can read at this work made by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (on PDF format, spanish).

The case can be opposed to a close one: the Uros island. There, travel agencies have imposed their power a lot more effectively, and visits to each island are not defined by tourists themselves. It depends on the arrangements between tourism operators and natives. Since the islands are a lot closer to Puno and, hence, more visited, it has propelled a huge growth in the supply of handcrafts, which support most of the artificial island’s inhabitants living.

Anyways, and despite the fact that Taquiles island community itself has tried to manage tourism, certain inhabitants have received more than others, specially those whose homes are better located o have boats. However, the result is better than if agencies managed the whole market.

One thing, the UNDP paper has some argueable affirmations about the posibility of the increase in tourism making the inhabitants of the islands “lose their culture”, as if this one was independent of social and economic processes.

Along these 20 months of writing a blog dedicated to travel and tourism, I’ve gotten used to regularly reading a series of sites and blogs dedicated to this topic, where it’s always possible to find interesting material. While some of them have already appeared on this blog, I thought it would be fair to reunite them in a list to make it more accesible to reach this information. Of course, if you wan to suggest other blogs or relevant sites that I might have ommited (or simply, don’t know of) you can leave a comment here.

I hope the list is useful to know a little more about this market and how it’s covered in the Internet.

Blogs in english

Buenos Aires, city of faded elegance: specifically dedicated to Buenos Aires, quite useful to recommend to travellers that can only read english.
El Sur: about travel in Latin America.
South America Travel: travel stories around Latin America.
The Cynical Traveller
The fully air-conditioned sound of speed: about travel writing.
Written Road Blog: another excellent blog about travel writing.
Travel Writers
Online Travel Review: about the travel business.
Rolling Grains: an excellent blog about inclusive tourism.
Where are we?: travel stories.

Blogs in spanish

Con la mochila al hombro: travel stories.
Artículos de Viaje: travel stories.
Consumer.es: news about the travel market and business.
De Gira: travel stories, specially focused on the asian southeast.
Mochileros.org Blog: travel diaries, specially focused on Latin America.
Jujuy.com: dedicated to the argentinean province of Jujuy, which borders Bolivia.
Namasté: one of the first travel blogs, currently outdated.
Ollavape: dedicated to tourism in Spain.
Sector Turismo: about relevant issues for professionals of the touristic sector.
Sin Equipaje: travel stories.

Sites in english

ABC News Travel
About Business Travel
Travel Photography Forum.

Probably those who don’t live in Argentina or Uruguay don’t know much about this story, so I will give some details. The most famous tango singer of the history is Carlos Gardel, currently going for his 70 years death anniversary. The traditional story says that Gardel was born in Toulouse and that came to Argentina at a really young age. But there’s another version saying that he was actually born at Tacuarembo, an uruguayan city.

One could ask, from common sense, is it really that important to determined where was Gardel born? didn’t he make his whole career in Argentina? didn’t he sing about Buenos Aires? But it’s not so simple: to determine where was Gardel’s place of origin would allow to legitimitize, for example, a series of touristic businesses related to it. For instance, the official website of Montevideo (Uruguay’s capital city) tourism office; Montevideo Invita, speaks about the “universal uruguayan singer Carlos Gardel”. And in 2004 I read on the newspaper El Pais a note that asked to declare as “enemy of the uruguayan nation” an argentinean judge that resolved to recognize Gardel as french (if anyone has the URL address of this note, I would appreciate to share it with me, since I haven’t found it at El Pais site). While we could say that here are also taking part old issues such as nationalism, I’m afraid the commercial issue has much more to do with it. For example, in the place where he would have been born in Tacuarembo, there’s a museum and guided visits are being made.

To be honest, I find this matter of polemic around Carlos Gardel rather amusing. Frankly, I couldn’t care less about where was he born. I remark this because when I search through some websites about this topic, I find quite passionate positions on this issue. More likely, what I’m trying to show is how a historical battle is also a struggle for a specific symbolic capital, that works quite efficiently inside the touristic field: to determine where was Gardel born would allow to legitimize a series of important touristic events in that place. I will now cite what the montevidean newspaper, El Pais, published: “Turned into a touristic industry, the intendency of Tacuarembo has implemented a “gardelian tour” to let the visitor know the different places related to the life of the author of El dia que me quieras. The tour includes key locations in Gardel’s history such as the city’s cathedral, the police station, the cemetery, the Escayola theater and the hause where the singer was born, now turned into a museum. All these places are pieces of the complex, fascinating and long silented puzzle that reveals the vital itinerary of the Zorzal Ciollo”.

Now, when will I be getting a coffee mug with the legend “Tacuarembo, the birth place of Carlos Gardel” on it?

Spanish Version Here

Some months ago I went to Cuzco and wrote a couple entries about it (which can be reached here and here). Now, Agustin, who has a blog dedicated to South America, is there. Guess what he complains about? The obvious: high prices.

To make things worse, now the Cerrojo Backpacker train, the cheapest one to get to Machu Picchu, has gone up from 24 to 40 dollars. Apparently, the regular Backpacker train ticket still costs 66 dollars. You can read Agustin’s complaints about PeruRail at this link, and about prices in Aguas Calientes at this entry.

By the way, I just found, through Del.Icio.Us, an interesting resource with maps of Cuzco and its surroundings. You can check it out at this link.

One of the oldest polemics in social sciences is the one that hypothesizes on the capacity of autonomy by individuals. To put it simply, there have always been two extreme postures and a vast variety of in-between positions. In one side, we have those who believe society has such solid structures that it restrains any autonomy of the subject, who ends up doing what “society” wants him to -this is usually referred to as “macrosociology”. On the other side, there are those who theorise on the ability of individuals to creat social reality in a contingent way -”microsociology”.

Some reader asked me about the possibility of independent professionals in the tourism field, and if there was nothing left to do but to get tied to the mummyfied tours. As I stated in a previous entry (spanish only), in fact there are possibilities to make some innovations. But, as with any change, you start from zero. The tourism field has a huge solid structure, where tourists and operators share a determined vision of the world. Thus, “touristified locations” are almost obvious: deep down, everyone knows what to visit. But this doesn’t mean that everyone ends up going to the same places. For example, those who developed tours to football games in Buenos Aires (I talked about it a few days ago, spanish only too) combined in a very insteresting way the visits to Caminito -one of the most touristic sites of the city- with the offering of assisting to one of the games in the Boca stadium, only a few steps away. And those who sell tours through tango salons, innovate in locations and the type of dance to be shown -the so called “tango salon” and the touristified “tango fantasia”, full of movements and unnecessary figures- but not so much in the product. Tango, as a touristic merchandise, is installed long ago, and it provides a good base to innovate upon.

To change things on any market, as Bourdieu puts it, first one has to know the rules of the market and to possess certaing symbolic and material capital to legitimate our position in it. To innovate is not starting from zero; usually, it’s more a proposal of change that, to be known as such, must start by certain shared perceptions of the world, that can be recognized by actors in that field.

Touristification arrives to any type of relevant object in the economy, and this is being seen in the market of wine, also. In the last two years, more initiatives linked to winery tourism have increasingly begun to appear not only in the United States but also in south american countries where wine is produced, such as Argentina and Chile. A good example of this is the blog VinoTourism, focused mainly in news about Argentina, and written in english. There, I found very interesting notes published on the Mendoza newspaper Los Andes, and the spanish site Terra. The initiative is interesting, but it should complement with further analysis other media’s news, to get more value. Anyways, it’s clearly focused on the international market, which is interesting in an Argentina that’s increasingly more interested in exports.

And since we’re talking about wines, I dare to make some interesting recommendations about argentinean wines of good quality and quite moderate prices. First, the excellent Quara Tannat, a wine from Cafayate, Salta. At least in Argentina, you can get it for 10 pesos, a little over US$ 3. And the second is Atilio Avena Cabernet Sauvignon, preferably from 2002, which is under US$ 3 at the local market. If anyone wants to recommend a particular wine, these kind of advices are always welcome.

When you travel by places like Peru or Bolivia, it’s quite usual to run into protests and manifestations, that in many cases include road blockings that last for days. Inevitably, when explaining this, many natives and tourists resort to genes evaluation, represented by the figure of the “stubborn indian” or “obstinated kolla”. Facing the protests of a marginated part of the society, the first thing said, to take into acount the extension of the protests, is that this is about “people who don’t understand reasons” or that “demand something, and won’t leave until they get it”. The idea , of course, is that the representation of the “obstinated kolla” is essentialistic: for some “genetic” or “cultural” reason , the entire group lacks -according to these explanations- negotiation abilities.

But the essentialistic explanation is, of course, a form to give genes a historic responsibility. If governing elites in Bolivia and Peru have to face now a closed opposition in some areas of their country -in a way, this is more grave in Bolivia- it’s because they have built a similar enemy. For decades, dominant classes in these countries have sat protesting people down to negotiate to finally give them nothing. At the end, these “stubborn kollas / indian” have learned that they can’t trust their governors; that they take advantage of these negotiation process to dilate everything; to put tangle them in legal issues that only lawyers understand; to give them nothing, in last instance. The “obstination” of bolivian popular classes, for example, is not the product of a genetic or cultural particular configuration; it’s the result of long years of betrayals of a governing elite that concentrates economic power but at the same time remains a minority.

Something similar happens with another figure that usually appears in touristic descriptions: the laconism of the “inhabitants of the Puna or Altiplano (Highlands)”. There, another “natural” relation tends to be established: one that compares the silence of those vast areas with the few words its inhabitants say in our presence. We’d rather ask for other things. For example, how historically those who are represented as “whites” have brutally exploited the inhabitants of those zones of the world, from the spanish colonization until today. Why would they talk to us, who at the end, and to their eyes, belong more to the group that has exploited them than to presumed “friends”? That they don’t talk much has nothing to do with genetics; it’s a long historic process of speech repression.

The explanation by genes are always an easy card to use; in a very simple way, they pretend to explain everything. Of course, such ideologic operation tend to lose sight of history; that is, of how social and historic processes have become particular products, specific forms of domination, determined identities. We better not fall on such simplifications of reality: social issues are not usually anchored in the genes but rather in our explanations on reality.

I’m going to say something barely new for those who follow the tendencies of the touristic market: in the following years, the growth of the market share by China and the asian southeastern countries in the travels market will keep on growing strongly. This growth is not only taking place in the tourism field: in fact, the academic and theoric statements are getting stronger in sustaining that China will be the next world potency and that the days of the american hegemony are counted. I always mistrusted these types of visions; the decadence of the american empire has been announced once over and over and for now hasn’t become true. But we can’t either ignore that asian economies performance is highly superior than the rest of the world’s, which will have deep consequences in our future. Part of this discussion is found at the text published at Cultural Revolution and that takes the text that Giovanni Arrighi published at New Left Review, in the line of The New Imperialism, the book David Harvey -many times cited in this blog- published in october 2003 (and, to be honest, I haven’t read yet). Arrighi’s hypothesis: the invasion to Irak and the offensive attitude of the United States is a sample of the country’s crisis, that seeks at any cost to avoid losing power in the world scene in the hands of China. In a way, it’s about an eternally diferred confrontation, that would show the weight loss of the american hegemony, that needs more of the direct coertion to maintain itself. I have my doubts if this situation is really new; at least in Latin America, american government have a steady arm when promoting direct interventions through autoritarian governments. So the subject of coertion is not new -although it might be in other regions of the world.

At least for Harvey, the actual crisis of the “american imperialism” is also linked to the contradictory relations between state policy, based in physical space and the territorial logic of power accumulation, and the processes of economic accumulation of capitalism, that are unfolded in time and space increasingly less anchored in the territory.

Obviously, these speculations are based in concrete economic information. For example, China concentrates the third part of all imports made in the world, and even surpassing Japan in the matter of commercial trade with the United States. In the tourism market the role of China hasn’t had yet all the impact one could expect, but its presence will become more important. Not only as a destination, but also as the country that sends more travellers. Just think that if only 10% of China’s population went out of their country on vacations, we would have 120 millions of tourists, a very important increase if you take into consideration that the current number barely surpasses the 700 millions.

Could it be, then, that we can speak about a chinese century? Surely, it’s too soon to see how the role of China and the United States evolve. But at the same time, the role that politic liberties and human rights will play, something China doesn’t precisely stand out, is a matter of concern. Not that it abounds in places as Irak, either, of course.

I better just paste the paragraph, so that you won’t say I’m making this up:
“Soft Adventure is perhaps growins faster than any other high-end category and the most interesting new places are in Latin America and Bhutan. Peru was the first to expand, partly because of the Galapagos Islands and also because of the foresight of the Orient-Express Company in tarting up some interesting lodges�.

Obviously, the paragraph has a small problem: Galapagos Islands are in Equator, not in Peru. And the text is not taken from, let’s say, a third class website, but from a special section dedicated to travel -page 40, specifically- of Intelligent Life. New trends for smart living, a special edition of The Economist, one of the world’s most famous magazines.

It seems intellingence hasn’t reached that section yet…