DEVELOPMENT: Taking the Rural Tour

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Clive Freeman

BERLIN, Mar 7 2008 (IPS) - With talk of rocketing growth in the worldwide travel industry, the mood at the 42nd International Travel Fair (ITB) has been bullishly upbeat this year, with 186 countries and regions represented in Berlin, and a record number of 11,147 exhibitors crowding the city’s trade pavilions.

Despite all the talk of global tourism growth, the world’s largest travel fair has also been focussing on the role of the environment and the impact travel plays on climate change, with a dozen or more forums addressing sustainability issues and the less attractive effects of mass tourism in some regions.

A fascinating aspect of the ITB Fair has been the degree of interest shown in rural and community tourism development in hitherto less frequently visited regions of the world.

“We see it as a new form of tourism in India,” Shilabhadra Banerjee, a top official at India’s Ministry of Tourism told IPS, speaking about the growth of rural tourism in his country. “We are very positive about it.”

Already some 124 locations in India have been considered for rural tourism projects, with the UNDP involved in a pilot project embracing 36 different locations in India.

“Some of us in India have forgotten our roots in the villages,” said Banerjee, noting the vast number of Indians who have moved to big cities and more industrial areas in the past 50 years.

Banerjee said such tourism was something that India was eager “to open up to international visitors. For it’s in many of these rural villages that you still have the traditional customs, crafts, textiles, food – you name it, it’s all there.”

Similar tourism projects are under way in several countries in Africa. Bongani E. Diamini, marketing manager of the Swaziland Tourism Authority, said that the European Union had sponsored a community tourism project in the country in 2002. “Since then we have been able to develop eight projects in different communities,” he said.

“With a lot of the people in Swaziland based in small communities, we are eager for them to benefit from this kind of tourism, which also offers them the chance of making full use of their local resources.”

Diamini said it had proved a challenge marketing holiday projects, because local people have a different mindset when it came to marketing. “When you suddenly introduce tourism (to villagers) as a means of livelihood, it takes a lot of time before they get used to the idea.”

But there is a lot of interest from people abroad, “particularly from the Netherlands, but also from England, France and the U.S.” Swaziland is next looking at the German market.

Most visitors to Swaziland are young people – backpackers and adventure tourists wishing to explore the region, said Diamini. “But there are also other people who are curious to learn the way of life and traditions of people in the communities.”

In Ghana, several similar projects have proved popular in recent years. Visitors arrive to stay at humble guesthouses with thatched roofs in Mesomago, a village of 400 residents some 50 km from capital Accra. Visitors are welcomed by a local musician named Bismark and his band.

Some 14 villages in Ghana are geared for foreign tourism, and a further 16 are preparing themselves. A popular destination is the Kasapa Centre, 50 km west of Accra, where village musicians offer workshops, dancing, drumming, singing and xylophone lessons.

Kofi Acheampong and Dr.Suzanne Stemann-Acheampong, a Ghanaian-German couple, have been organising intercultural get-togethers and travel tours there since 1996.