BOOK REVIEW: Final Call - In Search of the True Cost of Our Holidays
Are travelers destroying cultures, economies and the planet? Are they making the world a better place? Frank Bures chats with Leo Hickman, author of The Final Call, about the ethics and consequences of world travel.
http://www.worldhum.com/home/item/leo_hickman_the_true_cost_of_travel_20070711/
Hickman has also written A Good Life: the guide to ethical living and A Life Stripped Bare: my year trying to live ethically and he reports for The Guardian (UK). He did his research in 2006-2007 and since then the effects of climate change and development for tourism has worsened. His clarion call - that we must question the popular industry claim that tourism is clean - is compelling and well documented. Behind the sunny facade of infinity pools, smiling locals, sightseeing tours, and exotic cuisine, he finds an often devastating phenomenon that's spreading unchecked throughout the globe. His investigative travelogue includes Dubai, cruise ships, alpine glaciers, coastal resorts in Thailand, golfing in Spain, diving on coral reefs, and sex tourism in Asia. In the process he inaugurates the terms "egotourism" for ecotourism and "greenwash" for the travel industry's whitewashing its projects and products as environmentally friendly. His lists of source articles comprise essential tools for further reading.
Available from Transworld Publishers, http://www.booksattransworld.co.uk. For debates and updates about the future of tourism, check his site http://www.leohickman.co.uk