The Relevance to
Environment Philosophy and Ethics to the Reformulation of
Tourism Activities in
the 20th and 21st Centuries
António dos Santos Queirós
Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa
adsqueiros@gmail.com
1. Methodological direction:
the change of tourism paradigm, on the light of environmental philosophy
This is an essay to promote scientific literacy, which seeks to build a language of universal communication, but aims raising the knowledge of its critical reader to the level of the discoveries of applied research, sharing the first certainties and persistent doubts of the author. But whenever this proves crucial, and because we are far from having an academic consensus about the concepts elaborated for tourism, the author advances his own conceptualization enunciating the philosopheme that frame it. Can the reader less patient, dispense the philosophical discourse and move on to specific themes of tourism. But we do not advise you to do it definitively, because there is the key to understanding the dominant worldviews and critical views of tourism phenomenology.
The economy of tourism and the constitution and reproduction of the capital of tourist, presents some singularities that must be to investigate. It is no longer just a question of applying the methods of economic science to the economy of tourism, but a new way to researching and conceptualizing how tourist goods are produced and reproducing the tourist capital, how it is the formation of its value, price, and competition, what the nature and economic essence of tourism activity is, while questioning the traditional concepts of the service sector or “tourism industry”. But above all, a new focus of the theories about tourism in the face of different scientific fields and their traditional definitions that was challenged by the technical-scientific revolution, from the paradigms (Kuhn,1962) of relativity, indetermination, chaos, but also of inter and multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary, in the context of the emergence of environmental philosophy and ethics. The concept of environment adopted, meaning a new perspective of the conexion between nature and culture, reintegrating human being into nature but without any privilege of dominion or providential destiny. (Author 1, 2020, 20-47)
2. The origin and international relevance of the United Nations Conferences on the Environment for the reformulation of tourism activities in the 20th and 21st centuries
Modern society has recognized the importance and magnificent usefulness of the new Philosophy of Nature and the Environmental Philosophy and its practical ethics, with the holding of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972. Only in 2002 and at the Johannesburg conference, tourism was object of an autonomous recommendation. It was its resolutions and their guiding principles, that finally achieved the domain of tourism. But in fact, we must ask why it took 27 years before the first Global Code of Ethics for Tourism was approved by the thirteenth WTO General Assembly (1999), followed by the World Ecotourism Summit, held in Quebec city between 19 and 22 May 2002, that proclaims the Quebec Declaration on Ecotourism. From the first UN Conference held in Stockholm emerges the principles of the “common home” and “... man has two homelands, his own and the planet Earth”, the principle of planetary community and solidarity, founders of a new international (ethical) order and the principle of defense of planetary life and its biodiversity. These principles establish a first demarcation with the cultural and political vision of ethnocentrism. The critique of ethnocentrism proclaims: “Ethnocentrism is an emotionally conditioned approach that considers and judges other societies by their own culture´s criteria. It is easy to see that this attitude leads to the contempt and hate of all ways of life that are different from that of the observer (Dias, 1961, 219).” Critique of ethnocentrism leads not only to respect all national cultures, and all forms of cultural expression, erudite or popular, but also rejects any notion of superiority of a social model, race, or ethnicity. In this sense extends the concept of cultural tourism products beyond those of the great museums, masterpieces, and classical heritage.
The philosophical and ethical principle of critique of ethnocentrism applies directly to the contents of the World Code of Tourism Ethics, namely the “Article 1 Tourism’s contribution to mutual understanding and respect between peoples and societies” and “Article 2 Tourism as a vehicle for individual and collective fulfilment, and “Article 4. Tourism, a user of the cultural heritage of mankind and contributor to its enhancement”. The Code stresses: “Tourism activity should be planned in such a way as to allow traditional cultural products, crafts, and folklore to survive and flourish, rather than causing them to degenerate and become standardized”. (Article 4.4) And also that tourism should promote “The understanding and promotion of the ethical values common to humanity, with an attitude of tolerance and respect for the diversity of religious, philosophical and moral beliefs, are both the foundation and the consequence of responsible tourism; stakeholders in tourism development and tourists themselves should observe the social and cultural traditions and practices of all peoples, including those of minorities and indigenous peoples and to recognize their worth.” (Article 1.1)
The critique of anthropocentrism: expanding the concepts of community and person
The philosophical critique of anthropocentrism calls into question the moral and religious vision it grants to man, the creature chosen by God to preside over divine creation, the right to the domain of nature, without any limit or restriction and claims the primacy of economic growth over sustainable development. The principles of the Stockholm Conference, which emanate from the critique of anthropocentrism, are directly enshrined in the norms of the World Code of Tourism Ethics of “Article 3 Tourism, a factor of sustainable development”, “Article 4 “ Tourism, a user of the cultural heritage of mankind and contributor to its enhancement” and “Article 5 Tourism, a beneficial activity for host countries and communities.” The Code prescribes an integrated policy for the conservation of nature and cultural heritage and prescribes even that this conservation policy must prevails over the negative environmental impacts of tourism activity: “ ... the stakeholders in tourism development, and especially professionals, should agree to the imposition of limitations or constraints on their activities when these are exercised in particularly sensitive areas: desert, polar or high mountain regions, coastal areas, tropical forests or wetlands, propitious to the creation of nature reserves or protected areas.” (Article 3.4). In the line with the critique of anthropocentrism.
At this intermediate point of the essay, there seems to be a perfect convergence between the Stockholm Conference and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, in a context in which two different paradigms emerge in the tourism market: ecotourism and the hedonistic vision inspired by philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, who identifies the profile of contemporary tourists with the search for pleasure and individual freedom (Bentham, 1791). But in the meantime, a new ethical perspective has emerged, having as one of the fundamental reference the reflection on Earth Ethics from Aldo Leopold: “All ethics are based on a premise: that the individual is a member of an interdependent community ... The land ethics simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, water, plants, and animals, or collectively, the land (Leopold, 1947, 239 ).”
And the risk of potential conflict between Environmental Philosophy and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism would be enlarged with the emergence of a new ethical current: Animal Ethics! Which poses the problem of animals being treated as subjects of law and moral, enlarging the concept of person to some species of sensitive animals. Australian Peter Singer and American Ton Regan emphasize animals feelings and rights, given the brutality of modern production processes: genetic cloning, cages, feedstuffs based on ground meat from dead animals and saturated hormones, systematic violation of natural rhythms and animal life needs - and all of this to obtain a bigger profit margin. In name of the principle of equality, the two authors refused the concept of the superiority of the human species that is compared to racism, censoring the human being for not recognize the capacity of feeling and suffering of animals, the so-called sentient beings. In their work, they claim that animals are subjects of interest in not suffering and as Regan adds, are subjects of law, they life experience has an intrinsic value. Its main propose is the expansion of the concept of person: “I propose the use of ‘person’, to be rational and self-conscious, to incorporate the elements of the popular sense of human being that are not covered by member of species Homo Sapiens. (Singer, 1980, 98-99).
In a point, why the Code is not enlightened by the environmental philosophical view and its ethics? The perspective of Environmental Ethics is systemic, man is no longer at the center of his concept of Value, as absolute and discretionary master of Nature. From the perspective of environmental ethics, every human activity, including tourism activities, must be subordinated to respect and conservation by the “biotic and abiotic community”, enlarged by to the Earth Ethics and Animal Ethics values, in the philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic sense. Moreover, the relevance of the principles set out by the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, its relations with the rising of the critique of environmental philosophy against anthropocentrism and ethnocentrism remain bad unknown, vague, and generic and, the least, their principles are recommendations, not imperative and mandatory for the stakeholders! And same academic authors, in defense of they call tourism economy, argued directly “against tourism ethics”. (Butcher, 2009, 244-260).
Adopted in 1999 by the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization, its acknowledgement by the United Nations two years later expressly encouraged UNWTO to promote the effective follow-up of its provisions. Although not legally binding, the Code features a voluntary implementation by the stakeholders, through the role of the World Committee on Tourism Ethics (WCTE), founded in 2003. In 2011, UNWTO formulated a Private Sector Commitment to the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, for the signature of private enterprises worldwide. They further undertake to report on their implementation of the Code’s principles in their corporate governance to the World Committee on Tourism Ethics. The UNWTO Convention on Tourism Ethics, was the first convention of the Organization, approved by A/RES/722(XXIII) during the 23rd General Assembly which took place in San Petersburg, Russian Federation in September 2019. The Global Code of Ethics for Tourism was converted into an international convention to reinforce its effectiveness. All Member States of the UNWTO and of the United Nations are called to ratify the Convention, committing themselves to formulating policies consistent with the Ethical Principles in Tourism spelled out in the Convention. Once again, no mechanism is created to control the application of the Code. However, consulting the site of UNWTO, concerning France signatories of Private Sector Commitment to the Global Code of Ethics, for Tourism, we find only two entities, Club Méditerranée and L’Union Nationale des Associations de Tourisme et de plein air (UNAT). Another is suspended. For the signatories are required to report on the implementation of the Code’s principles in their corporate governance at least once every two years. Consulting the list of Spanish signatories, found 22 entities and 4 suspend. USA, only American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) and PJR International Travel Group. UK, Family Holiday Association and Reed Exhibitions. Germany, 12 entities and 5 suspended. China, 14 entities and 5 suspended. Italy, only Federazione Italiana di Turismo Sociale (FITUS). And looking at the same site, to Implementation Reports on the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, we find…zero! Indonesia became the first country to sign the UNWTO Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics, on October 2, 2020. On 26 June 2021, Seychelles National Assembly officially review the document, for future ratification and…not anything about. The tourism ethics really don´t matter to the tourism policies of the states and private stakeholders, around the world.
3. Ethics and Tourism. The philosophical perspective
Assuming that the reader of the themes on tourism is not familiar with environmental thinking and the reflection of Environmental Philosophy, it is important to point out this analysis with some reference notes and a brief overview of the new worldview of the relations between Culture and Natura, to which this essay dedicate the next sections. The authors involved in research on Ethics and Tourism propose three paradigms with relevance for that area: “... the Aristotelian paradigm of virtue ethics, eudaimonia; the Kantian paradigm of the categorical imperative respect for the person and the paradigm of the utilitarian ethics considering the greatest good” (Jamal and Menzel, 2011, 0). But the scientific and ethical perspective of all those paradigms, remains exclusively humanist.
On The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age (1984), the author, a German jew emigrated to Canada and the US, in face of the tremendous influence of modern technique over nature, formulates a new categorical imperative for the action of man, beyond the Kantian maxim of conformation of individual acts with the principle of a universal law and draws a new ethical framework, which results from the need to configure human conduct within the limits that safeguard the continuity of life and its diversity. “Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life” (Jonas, 1979, 11). According to this ethical principle we are on the edge of humanism, but we have not yet crossed the frontier of anthropocentrism. In this context, what is the best environmentally and ethically correct way to implement the principles of the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism (Article 10º)?
The debate around ecotourism was a good starting point for reflection around the relationship between tourism and new ethics, but it also runs the risk of becoming reductive. It needs to be developed within the framework of the Philosophy of Nature and Environmental Philosophy, and its Ethics. Returning to the capital questions that Espinosa’s work posed in the advent of our modernity, how to think of the rational explanation of the existence of man and the universe, how to adapt philosophical thought to the reason of to be of all beings and how to transform the spiritual life into full understanding and serene enjoyment of life towards its limit? The Philosophy of Nature and then the Philosophy of the Environment allowed the building of a new ontology criticizing anthropocentrism, a new epistemology, founded on the critique of ethnocentrism and a new ethical theory, with a universal value and practical morals applicable to all social domains. As in Espinosa’s philosophy and then in environmental philosophers, the fundamental impulse for reflection of environmental philosophy was the ethical issue and the moral problems. The effort to distinguish the concepts of ethics and morals, normative ethics (what should I do) from the philosophical or meta-ethics concept (what is the nature of the good), may not be simple. If normative ethics is what the common of people means by “ethics” and meta-ethics may be what common sense designates by morality... this is the case in the anthropocentric view of these problems. And the truth is that in the last century moral reflection has been oriented to a new center, the environment.
Environmental ethics have evolved into two main branches: Biocentrism, a universal theory about the intrinsic moral value of all beings, which therefore requires our respect. And Ecocentrism, an ethics of the biotic community: “How nature can be a community of which we are members, and within which it is possible for us to conduct well ourselves.“ (Leopold, 1947, 238) But also the deep ecology and other variants. Environment ethics, based on both principles of the critique of anthropocentrism and the critique of ethnocentrism, seeks to give a universal response to the fundamental problems of our era: the environmental, social, economic, and political crisis, the threat posed by nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction...and contribute to reshaping human activities in all areas; this was the case of Bioethics, in the field of health and, environmental tourism, with the integration of cultural tourism, tourism of nature and tourism in rural space, surpassing the model of sand and sun; and, on the domain’s political, philosophy and political economy, with the utopia of Eco civilization, a new stage of human civilization.
Morality, still in our way of philosophizing, is always an expression and representation determined by the historical context and social domination, which gives it a sectarian character. We need a moral theory that can be universal, timeless (projected in the present and in the future) and capable of guiding individual conduct, science, and political ideologies, but that does not consider man as the final product of the evolution of Life. The biodiversity of Life, with Human Life, represents only the current summit of the complex evolution of the Cosmos, but we do not know whether our species, born on Earth, represents the final link of cosmological evolution. Therefore, the ethical imperative of preserving Life and not just man and preserving life before man, and the Earth, the cradle of cosmic life and for now the only cradle, must gain moral strength in human societies. Truly, man is simultaneously predator and creator of new biotopes and today is the most complex form of life; its extinction could block the expansion of diversity itself, and from that perspective, the humanism as a moral concept, returns to the center of environmental philosophical reflection and environmental ethics. To seek an answer to these questions, a new ethical perspective was born, a theory constructed with the principles (meta-ethics, which define the nature of the “good”) applied to all human activities’ practical ethics, which configure social morals and their deontology’s, including tourism activities.
4. The debate on ecotourism
In common sense, ecotourism concerns the conservation of natural areas and how to provide the well-being of local communities. But what is the definition of natural areas? The fundamental concepts of “culture”, “nature” and even “landscape”, are not neutral objects of scientific study. They are academic constructions that need to be understood in their emergence over different historical contexts and can have different meanings, even for academics and scientists.
Therefore, before entering the heart of the discussion, it would be appropriate to establish with rigor the concepts in presence, especially those that come from philosophy and began to be applied to the field of tourism. In the common language, as in tourism advertising and even in academic literature, the two concepts, nature and environment, are used as synonyms or equivalents. Applied to the tourism destination and landscape, especially to the landscape of rural regions, this is generally classified as “natural landscape”. Now, modern philosophy, in particular the Philosophy of Nature and the Environmental Philosophy, distinguishes the concept of nature from the concept of environment, (in a simplified way) defining environment as nature+culture and reintegrating man as an element of nature without any status of privilege or dominion. As a result, virtually all landscapes, even the most remote ones, are seen as humanized landscapes, cultural landscapes transformed by the migration of our species to all regions of the world.
A second very frequent confusion is the identification of the concepts of ethics and morals. Let’s see how academic literature on tourism defines ethics: “Ethics is about rules, standards and principles that dictate right, good, and authentic conduct among members of society and profession.” (Fennell & Malloy, 2007, 213). This is a definition that associates the concept of ethics with its field of moral action. For our part, we think it is necessary to separate the concept of ethics, situating it in the domain of principles, from the concept of morality, which is in the domain of norms. This does not mean that ethics, contemporary environmental ethics, cannot be transformed into practical ethics. On the contrary, the birth of Bioethics, about half a century ago, is the result of the application to life sciences of the principles of Environmental Ethics.
A third conceptual wrongness mixes the concept of ethics and deontology; it seems to be the definition quoted from Fennell & Malloy, applies better to the concept of deontology than to ethics, and deontology necessarily includes the scientific and technical foundations of tourist activity, conditioned by moral and legal criteria.
Departing from definition of ecotourism of the International Ecotourism Society’s: “ Ecotourism is responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people.” (TIES, 1990) And ecotourism is about uniting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. This means that those who implement and participate in ecotourism activities should follow the following ecotourism principles:
In the heat of controversy, some authors polemize against the ethics of tourism (Butcher,2009,244-260), emphasizing above all the contradictions between mass tourism and ecological tourism for small niches of customers, especially because they consider that ecotourism has a limited economic potential and does not correspond to the market demand. In parallel with the concept of ecotourism, the concept of just tourism was developed from the works of authors such as Hultsman’s (1995), in this case under a clear influence of one of the founding works of Ethic of the Earth, by Aldo Leopold, which was also the basis of the first theorizations of bioethics. In addition to overloading the critical evaluation and because it is another critical scope, we leave the interested reader the effort to compare the concept of ecotourism and just tourism.
5. A strange economy
Form and essence of the tourist resource. Added value, creation of the tourism merchandises (product). Reproduction of the capital of tourism
What constitutes a tourism resource is the humanized cultural landscape, urban and rural. Reading and interpretation of the cultural landscape is the basis for the creation of the tourist product and its first metamorphosis of value.
It’s the ecology of the landscape (material heritage) and its metaphysics (immaterial heritage), which constitute the essence of tourism resource, but only when their interpretation and reading gives it a new increase in cultural and economic values.The capital of tourism is not only constituted with real estate investment and tourism equipment (fixed capital), and variable capital (staff and specialized workers, planning, management, and marketing), but increasingly with the addition of intellectual, scientific, cultural investment in the creation of tourism products, as are today those of cultural tourism and tourism of nature ( ecotourism).
Competition market or cooperative market?
These new tourism products are goods, like common merchandises. They contain added value of exchange comparable to ordinary goods But in competition, their behavior is peculiar. That is the key question, which must be highlighted. Each new tourist gained for the taste for a particular product of cultural tourism or tourism of nature, will tend to search for and consume all related products, what means, visit all other museums, monuments, natural parks, cultural landscape, etc. This competition, by differentiation, generates complementarity and networks of cooperation, rather than exclusion of the competitor.
In this light too, the sense of competitiveness is gaining its own meaning here and the economic development of new forms of tourism creates a unique and unifying dynamic that determines the evolution of other economic areas upstream and downstream, such as the need to promote an economy of conservation of nature and cultural heritage, and, in parallel, the promotion of sustainable agriculture and the reform of civil construction in favor of architectural rehabilitation or the dissemination of cybernetic info-technologies and culture.
The paradox of the new economy of tourism. Externalities. A silent revolution in the hospitality-heritage relationship:
The new function a = f(h)
For many years’ hotels was the most of tourism attraction. What was changed since then? Taken variable a as the variable of the accommodation (also representing the other Chains of Values) and h the variable which represents the heritage (cultural heritage and natural heritage). In the past h=f (a). The mathematic law is based on the correlation between a and h, univocal correspondence in the direction a → h. We say that the variable h was a function of the variable a and we write symbolically h = f (a), which mean that a is the independent variable and h the dependent variable.
In our time, what result from the appearing of a new middle class educated, from the emancipation working women, a new young generation increasingly cultivated and the anticipation of active retire in growing segments of the middle class, is a change of taste and motivation in tourism travel, resulting in a functional inversion between the two variables. Now a=f (h).Tourism travel is attracted by the existence of cultural heritage and natural heritage in the tourism destination. To choose a hotel came in second palace. Traveling to usufruct cultural heritage and natural heritage makes all the Chains of Value in production of plus value. The externalities of economy of heritage are present in the seven Chains of Value of tourism economy: hotels, restaurants, shops and merchandising, transport, agencies, animation. In the field of mathematics, rigorously, each value of h co responds one value of a; but, in the tourism market, the same monument, site or landscape is accessible from the existence of several hotels, relatively close.
Cultural landscape: Ecology and Metaphysics of the Landscape. Route and Circuit. Concepts
This new vision of the landscape, multi and interdisciplinary, which is at the same time an instrument operating its hermeneutics and a category in the field of Environmental Philosophy, is entitled Landscape Ecology (natural landscape humanized by the man’s work). In our definition it represents a structural and systemic view that encompasses the large natural landscape, characterized, and differentiated not only by the various fields of science (environmental sciences and other sciences), but also because it was created by of Man’s labor in his daily effort as a farmer, a shepherd, and a landscape architect. However, the knowledge of the landscape humanization, from the perspective of the philosophy of nature and the environmental philosophy, would be incomplete without the use of another category, which we define as Metaphysics of Landscape. It represents the domain of the “spirituality”, “soul” of things, the categories of aesthetic emotions and feelings, “beauty” and “beautiful”, the “sublime”, “wonderful” and “mysterious”, “monumental”, “epic” and “tragic.” Not only in a visual sense but using all the five sense. These categories can be linked with wilderness but also with the human labor in the land, including the negative categories of human connection between man and nature: the disgusting, the ugly, the repulsive, the abhorrent...(Queirós, 2020, 30-31)
The concept of great Route, structured with Circuits of Tourism, is the best to serves the planning, rational management of tourism resources and, especially, the efficiency in tourism promotion, overcoming the seasonality, allowing to increase the index of permanence, hotel’s occupation and hospitality, catering, animation, the sale of other products/merchandising, rentals and other forms of negotiation and mediation. (Queirós, 2020, 30-33)
This essay defines tourism Route as “An organized set of Circuits to discover and enjoy all heritages, with a specific identity, based on ecology of landscape metaphysic of landscape, accessible to all audiences but with different products according to their segments, organized to serve the development of tourism activity and its Chains of Value.” (Queirós,2020,39-40) And define Circuit of tourism as a road integrating all heritage products, short-lived (should not exceed one day/night), accessible to all audiences but segmented in an autonomous and distinctive identity, organized in the context of discovery and enjoyment of the landscape ecology (in the sense of interdisciplinary contribution to read landscape) and the metaphysics of landscape (immaterial heritage, imaginary erudite and popular), and using the communication/emotional principle of “editing attractions”, created to sustain and develop Chains of Value of tourism activity. (Queirós,2013, 49-50 and 31-48)
Regarding the thinking of Francisco Caldeira Cabral about the humanized landscape, in the context of the definition of the objective and mission of landscape architecture:”... its own object is the humanized landscape, that is, that which man has modeled to meet his primary needs. What means that those (of landscape architecture) finality it is the material and spiritual complexity of man´s necessities, for which he seeks to find the satisfaction of material needs, but without ever forgetting the aspects of order, beauty, and balance. It seeks to realize a synthesis of human aspirations in this world, and so it is classified as an art, one of the fine arts.” (Cabral ,1956,47). Later, Caldeira Cabral continues: “In the countries of old Europe there is nothing left of nature intact... Here the intervention of the landscape architect, who defending nature defending human beings, is not only necessary but imperative.” (Cabral,1956,47) After which develops its methodologies of cooperation and work, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary, associating art, science and technique, workers and farmers, ecology and biology with the physical-mathematical sciences, history, and aesthetics, finally, quoting Saint Thomas, “one art that cooperates with nature”.
The increase in value of the built heritage, both in a cultural and economic way, demands of us the ability to guarantee its preservation throughout time while respecting its authenticity and integrity. Quoting Vasco Costa, this entails:
A systematic effort of documental research;
To the Greek philosopher Aristoteles, only on the city-state human beings attains the supreme virtue, the wisdom. Mencius connected moral progress with a better knowledge of nature. And Lao Zi claims for the respect of the intrinsic laws of nature and things, in a peaceful world. “When the Tao is absent from the Universe, war horses are created at the door of cities”. (Queirós,2021) Those principles will be reintegrated in the modern environmental philosophy. The critique of anthropocentrism, and the critique of ethnocentrism, re-thinking the concept of a sustainable city on a sustainable world. First UN environmental conference, held in Stockholm in 1972, create new ethical imperatives: all the Earth is a “common house” “… man have two homelands, his own and Earth”; enlarging the concept of community, biotic and abiotic, reintegrating the human being into nature, without no privileges, that is the critique of anthropocentrism. The critique of ethnocentrism not only justifies the respect for all national cultures and all forms of classical and popular cultural expression, but also rejects any notion of superiority from a certain model of society, race, or ethnicity. In this sense, it expands the concept of products of cultural goods far beyond the great museums, master oeuvres, classic heritage…including cultural landscape, rural and urban landscape. On the light of environmental philosophy, we could consider two dilemmatic scenarios to the modern city:
That dilemma corresponds to the historical evolution of liberal democracies and the first experiences of socialism, with the historical turn up to the ecological socialism and the project of ecocivilization.
The modern Social Taste, aesthetical and moral taste, of the middle class, by the influence of Environmental Philosophy and their Ethics, is now largely redirected to the products of cultural tourism and tourism of nature, includes a new global concept about cultural landscape, rural and urban. A constellation of museums and monuments, organize cultural tourism on the cities, and a large pattern of natural parks and reserves, organize the tourism of nature, as mass tourism; and generate the added value and capital gains, the externalities, that are appropriates by the Seven Chains of Tourism Industry, from hospitality to the touristic guide. The concept of urban landscape cannot be reduced to a visual direction and includes several dimensions, aesthetics, and ethics: the renaissance of the harmony with man and the cultural landscape, embraces the tactile appeal, feeling, the kinesthetic pleasure, the natural sings, and songs of nature… (Berleant,2020,1). What means that every city needs to preserve and enlarge, inside the urban territory, the biological chains, the green lungs_ woodland, wooded boundaries, hedges, thickets, wet, dry, or low-yield pastures, but also integrated watershed on a global planification, a characteristic of socialism but not of the liberal states. Because is not enough to create the conditions to a low carbon management, it is necessaire preserve the fresh water, the healthy food and clean air. Technological evolution of giant airplanes and navy cruces, bring to the city’s new sources of danger pollution, not well researched.
I remember Dean MacCannel, from Temple University: “ It is found that tourists try to enter back regions of the places they visit because these regions are associated with intimacy of relations and authenticity of experiences. It is also found that tourist settings are arranged to produce the impression that a back region has been entered even when this is not the case.” (MacCannel,1973,589)
I remember again Francisco Caldeira Cabral, when was international leader of landscape architect association: “Is time to say that if the city is essential to the organisation of society and the progress of mankind, if the industry has greatly contributed to make life easier and give you comfort, humanity’s survival depends the countryside Because, with the sea, is the only source of food and drinking water, and the last support to an autonomous and balanced biological activity, essential to the continuation of life on Earth. Therefore, the activity of Rural society is the only one that remains obligatory, all the others being optional, whether the urban-industrial society realizes it or not, accordingly”. But the essential condition is a peaceful world, a common future: because without peace, everything is lost, and first all, liberty will be lost.
6. Conclusions
The current definition of the concept of tourism cannot be reduced to the economy sector because the modern conceptual approach to the phenomenology of tourism includes its own economy, a historical-political perspective, a sociocultural dimension, and an anthropological dimension, which already conforms the final document of the Global Code of Ethics For Tourism .The matrix of the Tourism Satellite Account, created by OMT, based on a conceptual model of the economic services and products offered by the market and on what appears to be the motivation and purpose of the various tourism segments, does not allow, however, to separate products that are specifically of tourism from what are services provided to society in general, transport or cultural provision, as examples. But above all, it does not encompass all the new categories of products and activities that configure the supply and demand contemporaneous of the various Types of Tourism. As Cultural Tourism, Tourism of nature (ecotourism), Tourism in Rural Space… We propose this distinction and typological categorization based on two criteria: The different organic structures. The differentiation of your products.
At the conceptual level, the superficiality of surveys that use the concept of motivation is the result of its dissociation from another concept, which should be at the heart of empirical data collection and research, the concept of taste, which is originally from the fields of Aesthetics and Sociology. A profound revolution is probably underway in the motivations and taste of the middle class, on an international scale, generating vast changes in the tourism market, leading to the coexistence of various paradigms, with the clear rise of cultural tourism and tourism of nature and led to the birth of tourism ethics, an area that remains underdeveloped in the academic studies of tourism and its dissemination and application. The concept of ecotourism is born in this process of change and refers not only to a segment of tourism, tourism of nature, but constitutes an alternative proposal of a development model, based on the philosophy of nature and environment.
The lack of rigor and confusion in the use of concepts like nature and environment, such as ethics, morals, and deontology, but also the plural character of contemporary ethics, leads to the need to know and debate these matters in the field of tourism ethics. The paradigm shift and its aesthetic and ethical dimensions leads to the revaluation of the crucial importance of Cultural Landscapes, organized for tourism activities in Routes and Circuits, integrated them on tourism destinations. The products of cultural tourism, tourism of nature, tourism on rural areas, etc., generate the main added values of the contemporary economy of tourism, but are not the structures that organize these Routes and Circuits, museums, monuments, and parks, which collect the highest plus values of tourism economy; tourism income is collected externally in the seven Value Chains of tourism: Hotels. Restaurants, Shops and Merchandising, Agencies, Transports, Guides and Animation. The debate on the concept of cultural landscape leads to the need to problematize the “terroir” within the framework of a policy of planning and tourism management that has as reference the mosaic of national cultural landscapes, rich in new biotopes and enhancers of the new paradigm of tourism, environmental tourism.
The debate opposing mass tourism to cultural tourism and tourism of nature, no longer makes sense, taken the paradigm changes of the international tourism market. The democratization and socialization of education and culture and the evolution of the main markets of the world have solved the old opposition: Cultural Tourism has become mass tourism, like Tourism of Nature, in America as well as in Europe and Asia. At the root of this change, it is especially relevant the transformation of the “motivations” for the tourist trip and, first, the “taste” of the middle class, where the ethical and aesthetic values penetrated the consciousness of the middle class. The academic controversy in this area reaches the area of tourism from environmental policy of the United Nations conferences on the Environment (begun in 1972). The Global Code of Ethics for Tourism was adopted in 1999 by the General Assembly of the World Tourism Organization and supported by the United Nations two years later expressly encouraging UNWTO to promote the effective follow-up of its provisions. Because not been legally binding, the Code was led to a voluntary implementation by the stakeholders, through the role of the World Committee on Tourism Ethics (WCTE) and only a very small number of enterprise and countries subscribed the Private Sector Commitment to the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism and the UNWTO Convention on Tourism Ethics.
The risk of potential conflict between Environmental Philosophy and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism would be enlarged with the emergence of the new ethical currents, Earth Ethics and Animal Ethics! The perspective of Environmental Ethics is systemic, man is no longer at the center of his concept of value, as absolute and discretionary master of all nature. From the perspective of environmental ethics, every human activity, including tourism activities, must be subordinated to respect and conservation of the “biotic and abiotic community”, and its values, in the philosophical, ethical, and aesthetic sense. And the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism having a vague and generic character and not mandatory in its ethical standards, must be transformed on an imperative guide to the reform and sustainable development of all tourism activities, towards ecocivilization.
References
Books and Articles
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Berleant, A. (2004) The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Co-edited with Allen Carlson Peterborough, Ontario, Broadview
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Butcher, J. (2009), “Against Ethical Tourism”, in J. Tribe (ed.), Philosophical Issues in Tourism. Channel View Publications, Bristol, pp. 244-260
Cabral, F.C. (1993). Fundamentos da Arquitectura Paisagista. Lisboa, Instituto de Conservação da Natureza
Costa, V.M. (2020). “From an Inventory to a Heritage Information System”, in António dos Santos Queirós (edit.) Examining a New Paradigm of Heritage, with Philosophy, Economy, and Education. Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies Book Series, California State University-Dominguez Hills, publisher IGI Global, Hershey PA, USA, pp. 86-106
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Queirós, A. (2020). “How the New Paradigm of Environmental Philosophy and Heritage Create a Tourism Scientific Corpus”, in António dos Santos Queirós (edit.) Examining a New Paradigm of Heritage With Philosophy, Economy, and Education, Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies Book Series, California State University-Dominguez Hills, publisher IGI Global, Hershey PA, USA, pp. 20-47
Queirós, A. (2013) “Cultural agents of change and the sunset of environmental services”. And “Old farming mountain systems”. The economy and ecology of heathlands. Published by Alterra (Wageningen-UR (University and Research Centre). INBO (Belgium) KNNV Publishing. Nederland, pp 49-50 and pp. 31-48
Queirós, A. (2021). Understanding the Chinese Way to a New Era, Ecological Socialism and Ecocivilization. Universidad de Léon, Espana and Tianjin Normal University, China
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Websites
The International Ecotourism Society [TIES] (1990), Ecotourism. Principles of Ecotourism, http://www.ecotourism.org/what-is-ecotourism (accessed 18.12.2022)
Documents
United Nations (1972). Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment – Stockholm 5-16 June 1972
United Nations (2002), Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development. World Summit on Sustainable Development A/CONF.199/20 September 2002 Johannesburg, South Africa
Ward, Barbara, Dubos, René (1972). Report, Only One Earth: the care and maintenance of a small planet. Conference United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972
World Ecotourism Summit (2002), Québec Declaration on Ecotourism, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Tourism Organization, 19 and 22 May 2002.
World Tourism Organization, UNWTO (2020), Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics, Madrid, Spain
WTO, Global Code of Ethics For Tourism, For Responsible Tourism, adopted by resolution A/RES/406(XIII) at the thirteenth WTO General Assembly (Santiago, Chile, 27 September - 1 October 1999. Resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly 21 December 2001, A/RES/56/212 Global Code of Ethics for Tourism
UNWTO (2011), Private Sector Commitment to the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism