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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."
(Prologue)
The book will note 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. |
