18 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 ISSN: 1837-5391; http://utsescholarship.lib.uts.edu.au/epress/journals/index.php/mcs CCS Journal is published under the auspices of UTSePress, Sydney, Australia Inclusion of the “Othered” in Tourism Stephen Wearing University of Technology, Sydney Simon Darcy University of Technology, Sydney Abstract This paper highlights that tourism, due to the fact it is a multi-faceted activity and by implication its management has similar multiple contexts, often leads to the exclusion of many who are part of that tourism context. One area that has been left on the fringes of tourism is how contemporary tourism management has “othered” those regarded as being removed from the neoliberal business foundation of tourism. One such group is the host communities in developing countries. The failure to involve and engage with host communities and develop collaboration in the process of planning and management for tourism is and has in the past been detrimental to the sustainability of tourism. In many cases, host communities have been ignored by the industry, with few or no mechanisms or processes put in place to enable them to participate in the management of tourism. This paper presents an overview of how this engagement of host communities can expand the market for tourism and lead to more satisfying visitor experiences, enhance the sustainability of these experiences and, thus, be considered good management practice within the industry. The paper examines how to engage in these practices and create processes that are both enabling for communities and incorporate research techniques that move beyond the very limited monocultural attempts undertaken by the majority of tourism enterprises today. In widening the involvement of the host community, we turn to mechanisms for engagement to provide a platform to demonstrate how this can be done to provide better management practice. In doing so, we extend the scope of engagement to involve those previously considered to be outside of mainstream tourism enterprises, and present an argument that, if sustainability is to move beyond economic and environmental Western constructs to embrace social sustainability, changing global values require tourism management to adopt more inclusive ways of practice and management principles. Setting a context for Involvement: the “Other” Over the last two decades, as the costs and time required for global travel have decreased dramatically, tourism has been liberated from its former spatial constraints, allowing it to increasingly be a global phenomenon (Harvey 2000). With this has come a need to better understand the terms of engagement between those involved in the exchanges in these spaces to ensure that we understand the more complex arrangements and to ensure benefits from tourism are directed toward all stakeholders. As more and more communities worldwide are trying to connect to global tourism developments, we as researchers identify a need to explore, beyond the earlier ideas of people like Valene Smith in 1977 (Smith 1989), the relationship between “host” and “guests”. Whereas in earlier days attention was focused Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 19 primarily on host–guest interactions, this binary classification is gradually transforming as a result of insistence on a tripartite system; tourists, locals and brokers (Cheong & Millar 2000; Wearing & MacDonald 2002). Milne and Ateljevic (2001, p. 374) argued that “community- based” approaches are central to many tourism-development plans around the world, and there is a growing realisation that localised cooperation, trust and networking are essential ingredients in providing the right mix for successful tourism-development outcomes. These ideas sit within the framework of inclusiveness; whereas historically these communities in developing countries have been treated as “other” within tourism-planning frameworks, they are now seen as an essential part of this development process. Our view positions the “otherness” of hosts as inferior to the tourist’s original culture, which is usually patriarchal, white and infused with Western knowledge. The tourist destination then becomes a place for the voyeuristic gaze of the tourist, reducing, at best, the destination culture to an inferiorised exoticism (Wearing & Wearing 1996; Wearing & Wearing 2001; Wearing & Wearing 1999). This paper relies on the theoretical ideas located between tourism, communities and power within the neo-colonialist frameworks presented by a minority of authors writing on this relationship (Hollinshead 1999a, 1999b, 2000; Wearing & Wearing 1999). Operations of power between the culture of the tourist and that of the host enable hegemonic constructions of the host’s culture. The paper discusses the interactive space created by the various stakeholders in the tourism-management process, which is a continuous process where different social practices and values meet and new meanings are created (Wearing & MacDonald 2002). This is achieved through the examination of practices that are more inclusive of ‘other’ stakeholders within this context. This paper suggests that the destination environment can be thought of as tourist places or social spaces for individual experiences. These experiences are largely related to leisure activities, which, amongst other things, are formed via leisure expectations, guest–host relationships and interactions with community members. In this model of cultural construction, the host’s difference in culture is perceived as inferior and serves to reinforce the dominant Western values. In a transactional sense, this reinforces the logic of capital accumulation of Western economies (Brennan 2004). In an emotional sense, it reinforces the narcissistic hedonism of sun, sand and sex, where at best tourists of the developed world indulge in the pleasures of the flesh with each other (Bauer & 20 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 McKercher 2003), while at worst, it reinforces the shadow of sex tourism, where those from developed nations exploit the wealth divide, and create power relations of many dimensions within destination regions (Ryan & Hall 2001). The discourses of tourist management and marketing have in many ways implicitly adopted this top-down hegemonic view and need deconstruction and contestation from below, from the margins of the re-historicised other. This has also seen large segments of the potential market in the original culture ignored by tourism marketeers, such as those who are older, those of colour or those with disabilities. How can the involvement of the other help improve both the quality of the experiences and also the sustainability of the enterprise? “Other” in the Foucauldian sense refers to those who are excluded, oppressed or disadvantaged by a particular discourse (Foucault 1988). The Foucauldian conceptualisation of “other” has been used in poststructural cultural studies to analyse the cultural representation of a host–guest relationship. Critical Subaltern Studies relies on concepts of power from Foucault and difference and deconstruction from Derrida; in these alternate constructions, both Foucault’s and Derrida’s critiques of Western thought intersect with postcolonial criticism. The concept of “other”, which is also basic in postcolonial theory, was developed in this context by Bhabha (1983), who claims that colonial discourses propagated by the powerful coloniser produce stereotypes of the colonised as fixed, other to and inferior to the coloniser. (Bhabha 1983, p. 23). Poststructuralism provides a way of understanding that while economic organisation is central to exploitation and marginalisation, powerlessness has a cultural context that may vary from society to society (Thomson 1997). Oppression becomes a manifestation of the cumulative impact on an individual and group identity in all aspects of their lives. Young (1990) describes this impact as creating “other”; in a tourism sense, the recognition that the host is a group whose needs are only visible when tourism is able to construct a commercial exchange based on the tourist's desire for authenticity (MacCannell 1999). Similarly, in an analysis of postmodern feminist theories of “other”, Aitchison discusses power as central to the understanding of the construction of “other” as inferior. She calls for greater recognition of “other” to challenge hegemonic representations in leisure and tourism, and enhance the theoretical sophistication of the social-cultural context of leisure and tourism relations (Aitchison 1999). Similarly, poststructural tourism theory offers potential insights into those with disabilities. In particular, the discussions by Uriely (1997) of multiplicity of motivations and experiences and Urry (1990) appropriate “other” within the social relations and consumption of tourism. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 21 Nonetheless, we are careful to move beyond the essentialised views of culture and the reduction of cultural logic that can impose a crude cultural inferiorisation thesis, which attributes all relations of cultural definition and dominance to the hegemonic culture of capitalist markets. This is reductionist in making out the tourist as capitalist “us” and the host as oppressed “them”. In this paper we add a more complex layer of argument to the cultural logic and contradictions of tourist encounters with hosts and their communities. For, as the phrase cannibalistic tourism (MacCannell 1992, p. 66) is a mode of self-betrayal of Western patriarchal oppression, the phrase implies hegemonic constructions from below are as much about hosts self-identifying and manufacturing identities in the commodified and normalising tourist spaces. Host communities are in effect “eating themselves” with the cultural logic of profit and capital accumulation, and the cultural values of Western neo-colonialist discourses. Such discourses are inscribed by the intensification of capitalism under globalisation and cross-border interactions (Hoogvelt 1997). We suggest a postcolonial approach that is double-edged in challenging the logic of pure marketeering in tourism and creating a politics from the margins that resists the cultural spaces constructed on the terrain (representations) of these markets. As the logic of Bhabha (1994) suggests, both hosts and a wider range of tourists, amongst other social actors, can participate in reconstructing tourist spaces as Third Space. Third Space has provided a site of resistance for other groups (Gutierrez 1999; Khan 1998; Mesurier & Tandukar 2005; Simpson & Konrad 2005). We seek to achieve this through the examination of practices that are more inclusive of ‘other’ stakeholders within this context, which allows us to engage in a more in-depth discussion and widens the gambit of involvement of inclusive approaches. Following Bhabha's (1994) conceptualisation of imperialised cultural space, discursive and primordial struggles over and against hegemonic constructions are occurring within what we call the Third Space of tourist–host interactions and in tourist destinations. When the destination communities’ views are considered and given some credence, there are possibilities for alternate programmes of tourism and counter-discourse to hegemonic modes of interaction. These possibilities allow some re-presentation of “difference” and “otherness” into the performances of tourist experience, albeit an “impure” culture that is hybridised in a Third Space. Thus, we recognise Bhabha's important hermeneutic insight that there is no unity or fixity to host cultures and ‘even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistorised and read anew’ (Bhabha 1994, p. 37). Ways of developing spaces within 22 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 destination areas that provide experiences to destabilise and transform the constructed self can then become possible and temporal. Otherness within this framework can include difference without inferiorisation and identity fixity. An approach is presented that suggests modes of tourist experience that allow for a fluid two-way process of interaction between tourist and host with possible benefits for both. This we maintain is the “nature of engagement” required to ensure that tourism management can operate on a sustainable basis. It also allows for a widening of who is the tourist beyond the fixed view incorporated in current tourism-management practice through traditional stereotyping by tourism marketeers (Hall & Tucker 2004). This includes those who are traditionally omitted from representation in destination-marketing campaigns, including older people, those of colour and those with disability (Echtner & Prasad 2003; Joy & Venkatesh 1994; Small 2004). The domination of tourist operations by Western developed countries has allowed the tourism industry and particularly the corporate, economically powerful transnational tourism corporations to design, plan, implement and market tourist adventures into developing countries and set the agenda for who should be involved (Lea 1988). Without consultations with these host communities or the range of potential market segments in the countries of origin, this is a one-way process that has the potential to ensure a cultural hegemony that marginalises host communities. The establishment of cultural hegemonies means that the values of the tourist culture not only encroach on, and often destroy, the host culture, but also reinforce the narrow codes of cultures based in Western linear historicity, White (Indo- Anglo) mythologies and industrialised capitalism. Under these circumstances the tourist is encouraged to develop a self–other expectation, which reinforces the tourist–other views of the interactions that occur in tourist spaces. This reinforces tourists’ seeking of the refuge of Western-constructed tourism spaces constructed by globalised tourism corporations. This in turn creates changes in host-community values based on this idealised corporate tourism culture. Yet, such hegemonic construction of the tourist space is not inviolable. We rely on the juxtaposition between coded objectified place and “being in place”, which resists hegemonic constructions of tourism in place and space. Commodified images and their discursive constructions can be disrupted and disassociated so that the host and tourist move toward a re-inscription of place with a different sense of self and identity. In effect, we are arguing for a destabilisation of a sense of place that explores deeper desires and meaning in the primordial and unknowable sensing of cultural locales. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 23 The engagement of the tourist with the host community The acknowledgement that a higher degree of experiential interaction (a being in place) can occur in tourist spaces when social value and identities are developed within the host's cultural presentation allows a widening of the types of stakeholders who need to be included in the development of tourism enterprise. In doing this, there is a need to develop social valuing where cultural Third Spaces of particular hosts are significantly included through community consultation, policy decision making, other participation opportunities in policy implementation and cultural constructions in this process. There is then the possibility of a breakdown of the self–other in the dominant–subordinate dichotomy, and freedom in re- presentation of the host identity to explore a Third Space of the hybrid selves created for both parties. The tourist's interactive experiences of nature and culture can deconstruct the programmatic coding of tourist markets and socio-cultural re-presentations of the self in cultural settings. How these cultural worlds are accessed and experienced depends, amongst other things, upon the manufactured or socially constructed nature of otherness in tourist experience, the resistance and subversion of host cultures to this programmatic coding and the counter-discourses to the gaze/surveillance of touristic power. In Hollinshead's (1999a) Foucauldian terms, re-presentation of host identity can be understood as resisting the normalising judgments and “essentialising governmentality” of tourism. Such cultural politics involves a postcolonial touristic approach that concentrates on countering the inferiorisation of exotic otherness in the discursive repertoires and codings of Western tourism, and in the political economy of postcolonialism governance. A Foucauldian approach to governmentality is included in this politics (Foucault 1991). Resistance as re- presentation in a Third Space is how the symbolic associations constitute new identities of otherness beyond hegemonic spaces, that is, a reflexive difference that re-presents self in Third Space rather than representations of identity according to cultural hegemony (Bhabha 1994; Latour 1988; Law 1994). Subordinated knowledge and counter-discourse operating as a self-textual anarchism and subterranean translation involves a spontaneous resistance that denies re-inscription and re-presentation in Western imperialism and postcolonial governance (O'Malley 1998; Wearing 1991; Wearing & Wearing 1999). As such, a break is suggested by moving to the theory of Third Spaces, however fleeting and temporal, with the White logos, Western imperialisms and the colonial past (Derrida 1974; Spivak 1999). These Westernised hegemonic constructions are deeply embedded in global and local cultures and are associated 24 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 with tourism in developing countries and indigenous communities in developed countries (Hannerz 1990). Our examples are taken from touristic governance and self-governance of Australian Aboriginal communities and sex tourism in Asia. The paper suggests, first, that within a macro-social explanation of cultural hegemony we see an approach to tourism management that enables more powerful tourist cultures to construct the host culture's otherness as inferior to tourists' own, resulting in cultural cannibalism. Second, we see that the relationship between the self and social space can only be addressed with the notion of “engagement” and is then addressed with the possibilities of incorporating otherness into the self without cannibalism when hierarchical dichotomies are deconstructed. Third, the value of inclusion in tourist planning, marketing and practice of the unique view from the other, that is, the host culture, through the social value that hosts place on particular spaces and re-inscription in commercial discourse, is suggested. Finally, the arguments are drawn together into a model of tourism that challenges cultural hegemony and offers alternatives to hegemonic cultural logic. This re-presentation of touristic identities can allow for a cultural and experiential process of interaction and exchange between tourist and host communities through the idea of “engagement”. Here, the argument relies on how interactions are performed under conditions of re-presenting self-knowing the detrimental logic of Western tourism. In this way, the domination of the tourist experience by Western countries can be challenged and, following de Certeau's (1988) arguments on experiential resistance, the balance of knowledge–power can be destabilised and resisted to favour the cultural uniqueness of host communities. As Wearing and Wearing (1999) have argued elsewhere, there is an important role for local governance, local economies, and indigenous self-management by host communities in counter-imperialistic strategies. In effect, these and other strategies provide revitalised social ethics of association amongst minority and marginal groups in the developed and developing nations of global civil society to overcome the highly commodified, normalising and marketed nature of globalised Western tourism (cf. Wearing & Wearing 1999). Such strategies can constitute a new politics of Third Space tourist cultures. This is greatly assisted by new approaches to theory that are enabling and that allow the involvement of a wider cross-section of societies in tourism. We now move to the use of a number of case studies to explain how host communities can be more involved in the planning and management of tourism. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 25 Ecotourism: A Way Forward? This section seeks to provide examples of how we can conceptualise a process that enables engagement that may then deliver empowered social justice and provide an economic share for grass-roots communities involved in ecotourism. In doing so, this challenges neoliberal ideologies that dominate corporate tourism interests and power relations in local contexts and economies. Ecotourism by its nature suggests a symbolic or mutual relationship where the tourist is not given central priority but becomes an equal part of the system. This is not apparent in much of the tourism that occurs in developing countries and many developed countries, nor does it appear likely to occur in the future within current operating practices. Further, the tendency to ignore or exploit local culture to enhance tourist experience has seen conflict arise both environmentally and culturally. Tourists have been conditioned to accept a structured experience, often packaged by large operators with little understanding of the local natural and cultural resources. The framework created can often relegate the people and their natural and cultural resources to being a stage show or a backdrop for the tourism experience. This ignores the opportunity for cultural exchange, and forgoes understanding the rich natural and cultural heritage that can be part of the tourist experience. Overcoming this problem takes us back to the underlying problems inherent in development issues and tourism, which can be addressed with the use of a community-development process that engages a wider spectrum of stakeholders in the process and is sensitive to host-community cultural issues (Campbell 1999). By its nature, this process allows a more diverse spectrum of opportunities to be explored, in the context of issues that may require detailed engagement at the local level. Wearing and MacDonald (2002) explored this in PNG, offering some insights into what the process revealed, the type of engagement regarded as meaningful and the outcomes from the process. A number of examples are now reviewed. The concept of struggle is a key sociological insight for grass-roots activism and social change because the outcome is never a zero sum. In modernity, this has been more commonly related to the working class or more recently to host and indigenous communities, who are looking to wrest control and resources back from transnational companies who are complicit with governments in developing and overdeveloping natural environments and “modernising” such communities. We find that in reacting to this, the inclusion of more 26 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 members of the destination communities and other organisations such as NGOs is able to balance the outcomes for both the communities and tourists. Wearing and McDonald (2002) suggested that the relationship between intermediaries and rural and isolated area communities can be seen as a process involving many actions and participants’ fields of knowledge and space – a continuous process where different social values meet and new meanings are created: Each individual meaning will be constructed according to the tourist’s own cultural and social background, the purpose of the visit, the companions, preconceived and observed values of the host culture, the marketing images of the destination and, above all the relationships of power between visitor and within the host culture (Wearing 1998, p. 248). The changing position and focus of some in the tourism industry has created, in some circumstances, a movement away from the predominance of Western industrialised society’s ownership and control of rural and isolated area tourism operations. However, the models of operations that have been represented to rural and isolated area communities has led to a paradoxical problem; as rural and isolated area communities have very few models to operate within other than those of the dominant Western models, tour operators then tend to treat their own communities as “other” to be exploited as part of the profit motive. Despite this, due to changing discourses on the role of rural and isolated area communities and the increased availability of economic access, there are expanding opportunities for these communities to explore tourism as a business (Wearing & MacDonald 2002). However, these explorations will not simply materialise without a strategy of local engagement, awareness of cultural and resource capacity and a strategy to operationalise business or micro-business opportunities. Figure 1 shows a process of working with local porters in developing their trekking support business. The process required a series of workshops in the local language, sharing of stories and developing an understanding of working with the tour operators. If we look at what is occurring around ecotourism and Aboriginal culture and identity, most notably in the Northern Territory of Australia, there is often a complicated nexus between welfare and tourism at the peripheries of these societies, as low incomes are bound up with semi-traditional communities and lifestyle. It seems these tourist sites are also targets of “welfare reform” and their populations seen as welfare dependent, along with associated white racist or classist stereotypes. For example, regional Australian Aboriginal communities Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 27 Figure 1: Working with local porters in developing their trekking business Source: Stephen Wearing 2001 are commonly depicted in the media as being dependent on welfare benefits for their existence and are immersed in a series of other social issues, including alcoholism (Hollingshead 2007). Less visible in the Australian media are positive images of Aboriginal communities as proprietors, custodians and owners of key tourist and heritage areas such as Kakadu National Park and Uluru. Yet, with these views and the engagement of these communities that have been traditionally “othered”, we see that through initiatives such as joint management the growth of tourism in a more equitable manner can provide a diversity of natural and cultural experiences that offer the tourist a diverse and engaged experience, where the interest of the host communities is sustained. Joint management arrangements has been successfully brokered whereby Aboriginal landowners and Parks Australia work together and decide how best to manage a national park with and on behalf of traditional owners and for other interests. Joint management is about working together to enhance and protect Aboriginal rights and interests while looking after the natural and cultural values of Kakadu National Park, and providing opportunities for 28 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 visitors to experience and appreciate these values safely (Wearing & Huyskens 2001). For example, the joint management of Kakadu is an example of integrated nature conservation and community development. In Australia, joint management is achieved through the appointment of a management board that has a majority of Indigenous people nominated by traditional owners if the reserve is wholly or mostly on Indigenous people’s land. The board makes policy and strategic decisions about park management and tourism. Other examples of this engagement through ecotourism can be seen in cases such as Leksakundilok and Hirsch (2008), who outlined engaging with host communities in developing ecotourism in Thailand. The research found that outcomes are improved for both the host communities and the visitors due to the greater understanding of each that is fostered by community based ecotourism development strategies employed. In particular, as they found it should not be surprising that the outcomes vary from area to area due to local priorities. King and Steward (1996, p. 293) suggest that to protect both people and their places, native people's claim to control should be legitimised by conservation and government authorities. For example, indigenous people's role in technical management of the protected area can be invaluable. With respect to technical management, park authorities can learn a great deal from traditional land-management practices. While the evolution of ecotourism has seen many failures and successes, it demonstrates that ecotourism moves beyond the mere merging of conservation with capitalism. It has demonstrated that it is able to embrace concern for the economic and social welfare of indigenous people, and at times, appears to portray ecotourism as a mechanism allowing the engagement of grass-roots communities to protect their cultures (Farrell & Runyan 1991). In this sense, ecotourism has been presented as different from other kinds of tourism in that it claims to be controlled development that builds engagement and relationships between the tourism industry and other stakeholders, who can be often “othered”, like those involved in protected areas and indigenous people. Examples of how this engagement can be formulated can be found in the development of Indigenous tourism businesses in Australia. Beyer, Anda, Elber, Revell and Spring (2005), in looking at the development of remote tourism facilities in the three case studies, found that consultation with Indigenous stakeholders led to the success of the projects. They also found that the development of criteria that engaged with other stakeholders was able to guide the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 29 “developer” in establishing a successful partnership with local Indigenous cultural interests in a remote tourism facility development in a process that ensures cultural integrity and respect and understanding of the colonisation of “Aboriginal Australia”. They suggested that the engagement of Indigenous cultural interests in the development process must be genuine and transparent and must embrace the knowledge that cultural tourism is the only commercial use of land that can be done, and only by Indigenous people. Finally, they maintained that wherever possible the “developer” should be formed from the local and or regional Indigenous community, in whole or in part, which tells us about new ways of doing (Beyer et al. 2005, p. 20). It is interesting to note that in other areas of Indigenous tourism businesses being developed, where there is engagement of Indigenous stakeholders, measures of success are higher (Tremblay & Wegner 2009), as Ali (2009) found for the Brambuk Visitor/Cultural Centre, which was a culmination of nearly a decade of consultation between a committee of five Aboriginal communities from the western district and various tourism and government agencies. The Aboriginal (Koori) communities who were partners to this project included the Kirrae, the Whurang, the Goolum, the Gunditjmara and the Kerrup-Jmara, located in the South West Victoria and the Wimmera Regions. The interest here is that the outcome found these communities satisfied with how they were included and represented within the ecotourism industry and it was found that tourists were usually satisfied with the visit and the level of enjoyment they experienced from the visit was very high. An example of a comment reflecting that the Centre exceeded a visitor’s expectations is ‘I expected much less things then there is. I walked in and I was amazed’ (Ali 2009, p. 26). Brambuk’s core competencies are the provision of insights into Indigenous culture and the provision of an understanding of Indigenous history for the visiting public. Generally, one would expect that visitors would gain a better insight into Indigenous culture, as the Centre has engaged with the communities being interpreted; Ali (2009) found this was generally the case. Palmer’s (2001) research on what is a major aspect of the tourism industry, the guided sport fishing and commercial safari hunting ventures conducted on Aboriginal lands in the “Top End” of the Northern Territory, also reinforces this view. In this report, the perspectives of Aboriginal landowners and Aboriginal organisations, along with government organisations and fishing and hunting tourism operators, about the conflicts, environmental impacts and potential economic benefits of safari hunting, recreational fishing and sport fishing are 30 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 addressed. The opportunities and constraints for the development of these niche industries and increasing Aboriginal participation are outlined. Palmer found that in small-scale commercial tourism enterprises, traditional Aboriginal owners and their representative local community organisations should be encouraged to take a more proactive role in facilitating the development of their own tourism enterprises (Palmer 2001, p. i), This report has suggested that if Aboriginal communities and landowners wish to increase their direct involvement in the safari hunting and sports fishing industries, the initial years of a business operation should be undertaken through a cooperative arrangement with an existing operator. In most instances, a joint-venture approach, with operators who have pre-existing market experience, is likely to be more commercially viable than if traditional Aboriginal owners directly run operations themselves from the outset. These case studies suggest that through engagement we can find alternatives to the existing predominant models of tourism and that essential to this process is the engagement of the “other”, which moves beyond the current neoliberal management models. Although there are many pitfalls in this approach, it provides new directions for the future. Tourism management is driven by neoliberal economic imperatives where yield dominates the discourse (Dwyer et al. 2006). Academics and governments recognise the importance of incorporating more than just economic considerations into the management of tourism; the triple bottom line suggests that economic imperatives must be balanced with environmental and social sustainability. Fennel and Dowling (2003) note, in commenting on ecotourism planning and development, that Western paradigms of sustainability have been heavily focused on environmental values. This suggests that the concept of social sustainability is marginalised from both a tourism management and a governance perspective, in favour of economic and environmental considerations. The first part of this paper identified how the host community is an essential stakeholder in any tourism business or government tourism policy development. Yet, it is these very people that are most likely to be marginalised in influencing the type and nature of tourism development occurring in their own communities. This is more so in developing nations, where unequal economic, legal and cultural power relationships exist. The second part of this paper suggests examples of how this situation might be changed, particularly where a conscious effort is made based on a different approach to the “other”. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 31 One area that consistently provides examples of sound approaches to tourism management and the governance of tourism is ecotourism. In a tourism sense, ecotourism has enabled tourism to extend beyond individual firms through ecotourism policy, planning and development governance based on inclusiveness and engagement of stakeholders. Most countries have some form of coordination and regulation of tourism as recognition that market failure exists. Nowhere is this more evident than in the social dimension of the triple bottom line, which is used extensively in the ecotourism industry. So, where is the pay-off for tourism management of adopting a more open consultative approach with local communities and those whom they do not already consider as their market? Conclusion In this paper we have argued for a broader approach to examining the tourist–host relationships than hegemonic constructions of powerful Western industrialised countries in a period of neoliberal ascendancy have allowed. Through the acknowledgement of the value of empowering communities to act we suggest that this involves engaging in a wider participation of stakeholders, particularly at the grass-roots level of tourism. This, we suggest, enables tourism enterprises to involve a wider spectrum of stakeholders and thus move beyond the current problems of engagement and involvement for tourism management, whereby such constructions are often imposed on both developed and developing countries at the risk of destroying their own culture and values. These modes of “cultural cannibalism” have been a means of reinforcing and homogenising the cultural constraints of the dominant Western culture both in developed and developing nations. We have argued that through the use of processes that more widely engage stakeholders, tourism management is able to expand beyond the fixity of both host and tourist identity and thus provide a wider array of opportunities for tourism. The economic and, hence, representational power of tourist marketeers has enabled them to commodify and package their own interpretations of otherness and thus limit the involvement of the “other” in the tourism enterprise. Through our use of case studies, we demonstrate how, in widening the involvement of the “other”, tourism management can only benefit, rather than keeping both hosts and guests far removed from tourism enterprise by their “otherness”. The glossy tourism brochures provided by tourism marketeers are in fact ignoring a significant part of the market; the tourism developer focused on mainstream traditional design is ignoring a significant market; the tourism operator who is not engaged in involving all members of destination communities is 32 Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.3, No.2, 2011 leaving out activities that might interest the tourist. Sightseeing is not the only activity that tourists enjoy and many tourists desire to be involved with the host community. Contemporary tourists are encouraged to be voyeurs who glimpse aspects of the other culture, often dressed up to conform to the image which has been presented in glossy advertising brochures. Tourist destinations are presented as places for viewing the “other” rather than as spaces for interaction with them. Widening this process of engagement brings us views that suggest we can expand the nature of involvement and thus provide a wider array of experiences and expand the enterprise of tourism management. This can be facilitated through strategic management frameworks that value diversity in host communities and operationalise processes of engagement while incorporating those that have traditionally been “othered” in this process. 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