TY - JOUR
T1 - Fair vs. fake touristic degrowth
AU - Blanco-Romero, Asunción
AU - Blázquez-Salom, Macià
AU - Fletcher, Robert
N1 - Funding:
Fundings his work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación [grant number PID2020-114186RB-C21]; by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and ‘FEDER Una manera de hacer Europa’ [grant number RTI2018-094844-B-C31].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023/8/29
Y1 - 2023/8/29
N2 - This contribution aims to advance consideration of the potential and pitfalls entailed in discussions of degrowth within tourism development. Many mass tourist destinations suffer from saturation impacting local working conditions, access to housing and the collective enjoyment of public goods, among the many common drawbacks of so-called ‘overtourism’. Yet proposals to address the negative impacts of mass tourism can become contradictory or even counterproductive. In one manifestation of this dynamic, prominent industry actors increasingly claim to have embraced the agenda of touristic degrowth by focusing on what is euphemistically termed ‘quality tourism’ (fewer tourists who spend more money), which in reality designates elite travel by the most powerful and wealthy social classes. But just as recession is not degrowth, neither can such elitization be considered genuine touristic degrowth, because it does not address the industry’s general eco-social overreach via measures to promote social and environmental justice as degrowth advocates. It could thus instead be labelled ‘fake’ degrowth. By contrast, fair degrowth is defined by a decrease in the flow of energy and materials per capita, in a planned and democratic way, to contribute to equitable redistribution of resource use and access.
AB - This contribution aims to advance consideration of the potential and pitfalls entailed in discussions of degrowth within tourism development. Many mass tourist destinations suffer from saturation impacting local working conditions, access to housing and the collective enjoyment of public goods, among the many common drawbacks of so-called ‘overtourism’. Yet proposals to address the negative impacts of mass tourism can become contradictory or even counterproductive. In one manifestation of this dynamic, prominent industry actors increasingly claim to have embraced the agenda of touristic degrowth by focusing on what is euphemistically termed ‘quality tourism’ (fewer tourists who spend more money), which in reality designates elite travel by the most powerful and wealthy social classes. But just as recession is not degrowth, neither can such elitization be considered genuine touristic degrowth, because it does not address the industry’s general eco-social overreach via measures to promote social and environmental justice as degrowth advocates. It could thus instead be labelled ‘fake’ degrowth. By contrast, fair degrowth is defined by a decrease in the flow of energy and materials per capita, in a planned and democratic way, to contribute to equitable redistribution of resource use and access.
KW - Growth
KW - degrowth
KW - luxury tourism
KW - overtourism
KW - quality tourism
UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85169165927&origin=inward
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85169165927&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/41c85296-3382-38de-913a-ce9833a58fb2/
U2 - 10.1080/02508281.2023.2248578
DO - 10.1080/02508281.2023.2248578
M3 - Article
SN - 0250-8281
JO - Tourism Recreation Research
JF - Tourism Recreation Research
ER -