Slumming It

Is ‘slum tourism’ educational or exploitative?

As increasing numbers of wealthy travelers explore the world’s poorest areas—the slums of Mumbia, the favelas, or shantytowns, of Brazil for example—is this growing trend offering educational opportunities for tourists, a mere exploitation of native peoples, or both?

Green has made fifteen trips to Rio, ten of which, she says, were student groups; she has introduced over 225 students to Brazil.

“On a personal trip there, after having gone with students for five years, I decided to overcome my fears of danger in the favela and overcome my hesitation to consider a tour of a favela as a tourism product acceptable,” Green says.

Choosing to travel with Favela Tour, she says the trips, during which she says, she felt completely safe, “was an amazing, eye opening experience about which I felt positive after I completed it.”

Unlike the depressing, ramshackle shanties that most visitors expect to confront, the beauty and workmanship of the homes in the favela may surprise some travelers. “Within the favela, our tour guide introduced us to people and showed us through the winding staircases,” she adds. “We would often see a home with beautiful tile work, a roof top barbecue area and more. The reason for this is that many of the people who live in the favela also work in the construction trade and take unused materials from the work site to enhance their favela-homes.”

Tourists may also be surprised at how advanced these poverty-stricken areas are; far from primitive, some have First World amenities. “Through the maze of electrical wires, I spotted the blue high speed internet wire which makes the internet available in the favela,” Green states. 

Contrary to popular opinion, favela residents are not necessarily desperate to get out and move on to gentrified areas. Family ties may prevail over social position. “In some circumstances, a family may have the resources to move out of the favela, but do not do so because this is where the rest of their extended family lives,” she notes.

With such positive experiences, why does slum tourism remain so controversial?

"Tourism is generally regarded as a threat to desirable environment because of the traffic, demands and strain it puts on that location,” Chip Rankin of Hollis Resort & Tourism Development Services explains.

Whether the destination is London, Peru’s Machu Pichu, Disneyland or the rainforest hotels of Costa Rica, Rankin contends, complaints of “environmental, facility and social wear and tear, if not out-right harm” abound.

For example, Green says, far from being voyeuristic or destructive, the tour offered a glimpse into the small business workings of favela residents.

“I learned about the working social structure in the favela including the entrepreneurial efforts of women who make crafts and art such as jewelry, pocketbooks, paintings, [and so on] along the way and sell them to tourists,” Green explains.

Tourism and the interest in the favelas actually offer income to business owners and their employees, she notes.

“These micro enterprises often provide a much more acceptable and ‘live able’ income than these women would earn otherwise,” Green maintains.

It is these kinds of advantages—sustainability and profit—Rankin says, that should offset the drawbacks that traveling to these areas may bring.

“In theory, the benefits should balance out the sacrifices made in the name of tourism,” Rankin contends. “Tourism promotes understanding and opportunity for personal, economic and cultural growth.”

When it comes to slum tourism, Rankin adds, the benefit or harm depends on intent. “I'd offer that the opinion someone billing their service as ‘voluntourism’ probably is more mindful of what they give than someone offering ‘slum tourism,’" he notes.

“Slum tourism is a tool that can be used positively or negatively,” says Jorge Chojolan, executive director of the Miguel Angel Asturias Academy.

Like Rankin, Chojolan agrees that the tour organization’s intention is the key in deciding if the excursion is altruistic or exploitative.

“The determining factor is on whose terms the traveler is entering the community,” Chojolan explains. “A tour company only trying to make profit is probably causing a lot of destruction; however if the community itself is designing the visitation experience on its terms then there is the opportunity for a positive exchange.”

Chojolan says that it is challenging for impoverished communities to compete with large travel firms. Travelers who want to learn about the community and its members, he says, benefit from visiting the Miguel Angel Asturias Academy, where community residents design the tourist experience and the school and small businesses in the area gain business as well.

As focus has turned to the Haitian earthquake, hopes that eventually tourism will help the devastated island nation rebuild have been voiced. Perhaps travel to this and other impoverished areas will prove beneficial to both communties and visitors. Experts agree that intention is behind whether it works or not.