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WOMEN
AND TOURISM (Prof: Nina Rao, for the Workshop on Women and Tourism
organised by Institute of Management in Government, Thiruvananthapuram
held from 21-23 July 1997 at Kochi)
The Government
of Kerala has taken a policy decision to develop tourism. The tourism
programme has grown very rapidly, as the figures for tourist arrivals
in the state indicate. The growth has covered both inbound and outbound
international tourism as well as the arrival of domestic tourists to Kerala.
The Department of Tourism at the State level has also taken up Central
Government projects and following from the National Action Plan, Kerala
was the first state to identify a special tourism area, Bekal, to be developed
with foreign investment into a big mass tourism project, to help India
achieve its 5 million arrivals and access higher returns in foreign exchange.
None of these developments have involved discussion and debate at the
state or local level. These have been administrative decisions, and when
the secretary, tourism was questioned on the undemocratic manner in which
tourism decisions were taken, he saw the issue of tourism as beyond the
comprehension of local people. On the other hand, foreign experts were
invited to suggest how and what kind of tourism should be developed in
Kerala, which had had very little exposure since the Kovalam Beach Resort
never realised the potential of international arrivals, being overshadowed
by Goa.
Today, the tourism policy of the government visualises many new products
and new players in the sphere of tourism. These include new beach resorts,
hill and wildlife as the basis for adventure tourism, special tourism
areas for intensive development, backwater cruising and festivals that
package the culture and craft of Kerala for the benefit of the tourist.
Every district now has a privately sponsored tourism festival, which often
contravenes the Coastal Zone Regulation as it promotes tourism awareness.
The second aspect of the tourism policy is the dependence on the private
sector to develop the infrastructure and the superstructure for tourism
and its related activity. Today, the Kerala Government, Tatas and the
Casino Group are the major players in tourism development and they have
an understanding of tourism that does not look beyond the commercial aspect
of tourism development. There is also the desire to invite foreign investment
for large-scale development to increase the number of arrivals from abroad
to enhance foreign exchange earnings.
 An
intervention-in policy making by office bearers of local self government
bodies who can function in the interest of local people is essential.
This can be effective only when they have an enlightened awareness on
the developmental options that the government offers to the people of
the state. When EQUATIONS began to acquaint itself with the Bekal development
plan, it was surprising for us to learn that not a single panchayat opposed
tourism development because the thrust of the government's propaganda
was that tourism generated income and employment. Several studies relating
to tourism development in Kerala indicate that the socio-cultural impacts
of tourism have been very negative, particularly, relating to the issue
of drugs and prostitution. Tourism projects have also displaced local
people and affected their traditional occupations. The environmental impacts
of tourism have also been negative particularly in the coastal zone and
in the hills. Tourism needs regulation rather than promotion. Not only
regulation, but the issue of tourism needs to be debated so that there
are people-centered objectives rather than growth-centered objectives.
Unless the people of Kerala arrive at some consensus on the kind of tourism
they want to develop to achieve economic objectives, the control of outsiders,
multinationals, international agencies and the monopoly houses in India
will not end.
One area that needs to be focussed on is the issue of gender and tourism.
Women panchayat members, being leaders of their communities, have the
added task of familiarising themselves with the gender issues that emerge
in the developmental debate, since most planners are male and most models
are male dominated.
India is a gendered society, which means that human relations in economic,
social and cultural life, as well as in the political framework are determined
and rnediated by gendered perceptions. To clarify further, gender does
not mean only the difference between men and women biologically but on
their human relations being based on the status of women in society and
therefore the perceptions of their social role and function. Tourism and
the industry that supports it, as well as the administration that encourages
its development, growth and expansion, is an interpersonal activity which
is influenced by and in turn influences local and global gender perceptions.
There is a list of global perceptions that have been researched, to develop
a gender framework, for analysing developmental activity particularly
tourism.
1. Tourism as a part of modern consumerism: Consumerism embodies
social practices as well as signifies social change. As leisure time and
wealth increase, tourism consumption also increases. As expansion reaches
the remotest corners of the world, the marketing and consumption models
between guests and hosts have indicated several possibilities for gender
analysis. Power, control and equality in tourism are articulated through
race, class and gender in the practice of tourism. Men and women through
interconnected economic, political, cultural, social and environmental
dimension., are involved in different ways in the construction and consumption
of tourism. It is the recognition of these differing realities that shape
tourism marketing, tourist motivation, and resident action. This process
may be called the creation of stereotypes. For example, in all Asian societies
where traditional society is intersecting with global economic systems,
we have seen that the major public role of women in the tourism industry
is in sex tourism. The faster the process of liberalisation and globalisation,
the greater the spread of sex tourism.
2. Tourism as an aid to development: Women activists have always
seen the statistical approach to tourism as apolitical. If tourism is
seen as an activity that depends on leisure time and disposable income,
then the enabling conditions are hierarchical and influenced by class
and global economic strengths. In tourism advertising women are seen as
passive, available and dependent. Women are thus sexual and exotic markers
in the tourism brochure. Destinations reinforce this stereotype not only
of the resident community as a whole (poor and ready to serve) but also
of the women as inferior or as objects of gratification or as playthings.
3. Tourism and Division of Labour: Tourism, like other activities,
perpetuates the international and domestic division of labour. This means
that there are gendered employment activities (cooking, cleaning, serving,
handicraft etc.) as well as control of waged work. There is also no computation
of unpaid labour by women. The question that tourism raises is that women
do not have leisure from certain types of work, and this compulsory, unpaid
labour is extended to their working life as well as economic opportunity.
Tourism encourages classifications like women's work.
4. Tourism development and its influence on changing value systems:
Tourism is an essentially modern activity that promotes 'tradition' as
a unique and authentic product. In this process of commodification, not
only is it important to define the other, but to define the gendered other.
These changes are reflected in identification with tourist behaviour,
changes in family systems age and sex hierarchies in the struggle for
economic power as well as changes in the social and political status of
different sexes in different classes and different production systems.
5 . Tourism and environment: What is our relationship to the environment,
how do we use these resources, how can we regulate the consumption driven
nature of tourism and how can traditional practices be documented and
compared with the approach of providers of tourism services, is now being
looked at. For example, it is suggested that as agriculture becomes less
productive, tourism (rural, farm, beach or resort) ecomes a va ua e a
ternative ecause it a ows a combination of domestic responsibilities of
women (which are nurturing as well as reproductive), with tourism work,
which is seen as an income source that can support small scale farming
and thus conserve the countryside. Such an approach suggests that there
is a need to change (through an external intervention) women's relationship
with nature, the environment and their place in the ecological system.
Our perspective must include certain issues. For instance, the division
between one who enters the business and earns an income from it and one
who is displaced. The latter has to move away, adapt to a new location
and find new  survival
strategies on how to access new resources. For example, tobacco, coconut
harvesting, fish sorting and processing are women-dominated activities
in Bekal. Tourism is a loss of income for them and does not use their
traditional expertise. Neither does it provide them compensation or retraining
or reemployment.
Then there is the time element in tourism benefits trickling down. The
deterioration of traditional communities and their activities is faster
and the upward mobility slower. This is because tourism is established
for the high spenders and in the organised sector, rather than in the
informal sector. Similarly, in the handicrafts production industry, market
forces demand mechanisation, which results in the retrenchment of women
workers, who are then shifted to finishing, which is lower paid. Soon
this process is also mechanised and women have to look elsewhere for jobs.
At the social level, tourism has forced middle class families to send
their girls (aged 9-12 years) away from Kovalam, so that they are known
as the Kovalam girls whom no one wishes to marry since the reputation
of the beach resort for prostitution brings dishonour to the whole community.
Honour of the family and the community in gendered societies rests in
the chastity of the women of the household, the village or the township.
Domestic tourism is also predominantly single male tourism, which encourages
prostitution. Indian women are not encouraged to travel on their own.
Tourist behaviour is seen to be unsafe for women who are the repositories
of the family's honour and the tourism process may bring dishonour. This
need for safety and security is not met for women in Indian society although
it is seen as the duty of the men in the family. The changes that tourism
introduces benefit those sections that are a part of the new land use
pattern. This is generally the educated, urban middle class. Since the
middle class owns land, it recognises and promotes money as an indicator
of status, aspiration etc. However, the landless, the poor and the small
peasants are also looking for an opportunity, therefore they look at the
panchayat plan and the government policy for such openings. Rural women,
though educated do not find the time or the money to attend courses or
find employment in the travel trade. They have to await the establishment
of the services in the organised sector and then find employment at the
lowest level. The policy and the People's Plan look at basic needs like
roads, drinking water and have now included tourism, but there is no support
in the policy for the informal sector in tourism. Similarly, when a district,
like Wynad, is declared a tourism district by doing an audit of its resources
for tourism, does the developer and the planner focus on the needs of
the tribal, the migrant, the agriculturist, the plantation owner or the
women who need an income supplement? Or is the focus on the tourist and
the industry? What happens to the demands and needs of women and their
role in development?
It is upon these questions that we need to focus on, bring in support
for women's organisations and see that the tourism issue is put on their
agenda and that we adopt their understanding on women's issues in our
agenda. There is need, therefore, to build a data base and alliances with
different sections of the government, the industry and social activists
and concerned citizen groups to study the issue of tourism and debate
the model being implemented in Kerala. Information and awareness is not
only to be based on the motivations of the tourists and their need for
services and products. It is to be based on the needs of the people and
their perceptions of how tourism is to be developed and what benefits
are to be derived. We must also be made aware of the negative consequences
of tourism.
Finally, there is the issue of income generation as the only measure of
development. Income, particularly in the case of tourism, is not stable,
not under the control of the hosts, but manipulated by the trade. Secondly,
income alone need not indicate growth or mobility because income is only
one relation in the production-consumption process, and its impact on
interconnected social issues need not be productive or liberating. As
far as the issue of foreign exchange earnings is concerned, one must examine
how global economy and lifestyle affects the individual and the community.
In what way does it to bring women more power, influence and prosperity?
In what way does it bring freedom to them? Does income or foreign exchange
change the gendered perceptions of society to transform the social position
of women? Attempting to answer these questions and issues will be the
first step in the direction of empowering panchayat women as they plan
not only for today but also for the future because once the engines of
tourism have been set in motion, it will be difficult to stop them.
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