Toward a Model of Just Tourism: A Proposal

Oliver Mtapuri and Andrea Giampiccoli
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Oliver Mtapuri: School of Built Environment and Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa
Andrea Giampiccoli: Department of Hospitality and Tourism, Ritson Campus, Durban University of Technology, P.O. Box 1334, Durban 4000, South Africa

Social Sciences, 2020, vol. 9, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: Inequality is growing within and between countries. Tourism is a growing sector affecting lives, with a vibrancy of its own and malleable structures that can benefit a majority, if social justice and equality are the goals. Cooperatives are one of these structures, and have the potential to drive a development trajectory that delivers a just tourism. We define just tourism as a form of tourism that delivers the most benefits to its members—for themselves and by themselves—representing a form of accumulation from within. This article is based on secondary data and is a conceptual paper. It posits a coop hotel model, which harnesses the hope of spreading the cooperative model for its finer qualities of providing job security to workers, happiness, democratic participation, decision making functions, self-governance, empowerment, openness, retention of capital within the community, the pursuit of both economic social goals, resilience, and importantly, the emphasis on community contribution and matters of sustainability. Community-based tourism and cooperatives have interlocking values such as local control, local/self-management, and being steeped in the local context. The coop hotels model, which is the main contribution of this article, suggests the creation of mother hotel coops, with coop sisters and coop children in pursuit of social justice for a just tourism.

Keywords: tourism; cooperative; community-based tourism; equality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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