Современные проблемы сервиса и туризма 2016_v.10_#3 | Page 93

Современные проблемы сервиса и туризма

anthropological institution, or as MacCannell
observed, a vehicle towards alienation?
With focus on cases geographically located
in Brazil, Ariza da Cruz explores the Marxist
studies to expand the current understanding
of inequality, adjoined to the role of tourism
as a producer of symbolic meaning. In this
respect, she exerts a radical criticism to the
current literature simply because it ignores the
negative effects of development and progress
as they are formulated by liberal economists.
To what extent, tourism may break the centreperiphery dependence is one of the exciting
themes of this preliminary chapter. Secondly,
we found a text authored by Jean Costa who
retains some concern on the modern geography
of capitalism. Not only tourism produces some
unexpected consequences on environment,
but also commoditizes peoples and cultures to
the extent to be gazed by «so-distant others».
In that way, the tourist space erects as an
encounter of dispossession and negotiation
processes between hosts and guests. While
tourism sell to the imaginary a lost paradise,
local workforce is precaritized to the extent
to be relegated to peripheral position in the
productive system. Third and Fourth chapters
are oriented to debate what de Soussa dubbed
as «the invention of tourism, which consists in
the introduction of the industry of leisure into
agrarian communities. Beyond the economic
profits and wealth produced by tourism, the
problem lies in the ways how this wealth is
distributed. Reinforcing previous extractive
institutions already-established in Brazil,
tourism is far from representing this vehicle
for development, policy makers and experts
preclude. This activity creates a great gravitation
in territory which leads to physical isolation for
locals. By means of different tactics, nationstate, instead of helping them, encourages
the logic of exclusion or exploitation. In the
rest of the book, the same argument remains.
While social imaginary adopts sustainability

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as a valid method to protect the interest of
hosts, investors and capital-owners devote
considerable resources to transform the
geography of community. In that way, new
circles and circuits of exchange are imposed
which causes a double-effect. On one hand,
it commoditizes the local landscape (by  use
of marketing and promotion) to consolidate a
growing industry that combines environmental
concerns with economic progress, but on the
other, it impedes local to access produced
wealth, as Marxist literature suggests.
To be honest, and this is my opinion,
the idealized image of lost-paradise as it was
formulated by West not only situates as an
idyllic utopia, but also serves to legitimate the
authority of status quo. Although this brilliant
book does not need further commentaries, two
important assumptions should be done. What
Costa and Sousa found as a perverse nature of
modern tourism in enhancing the inequalities
among classes, corresponds with what I have
called, «the logic of paradise», which brings the
discussion to the legacy of Joseph Campbell &
Bill Moyers (2011) who has discovered that the
word Paradise, came from Persian pairi+daeza.
While pairi denotes the idea of being outskirt,
daeza means «exclusion». As a sacred-place
the metaphor of paradise reminds not only
the original sin but also the needs of surviving.
From that moment on, humankind intended to
replicate paradise everywhere. Basically, the
allegory of paradise is enrooted in Westerners
in a manner that tourism industry emulates
(Korstanje and Busby 2010; Korstanje, 2014;
Cantallops & Cardona 2015). This myth is
certainly exploited by global capitalism to instill
a psychological need otherwise cannot be
rechanneled towards consumption. This is the
reason why, a book of this caliber as professors
de Sousa and Costa present, invites to much
fertile discussion on the nature of modern
tourism and its intersection with economy and
geography.

References:

1. Cantallops A.S., Cardona J.R. Holiday destinations: The myth of the lost paradise? Annals of Tourism
Research, 2015, No.55, pp. 171–173.
2. Campbell J., Moyers B. The power of myth. New York: Anchor Books, 2011.
3. Korstanje M., Busby G. Understanding the Bible as the roots of physical displacement: the origin of
tourism. E-Review of Tourism Research, 2010, No.8(3), pp. 95–111.
4. Korstanje M.E. Exegesis and myths as methodologies of research in tourism. Anatolia, 2014, No.25(2),
pp. 299–301.

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