Posted on 02/11/2011 1:50:51 PM PST by WesternCulture
Pär Kjellin, the CEO of leading Swedish travel package operator Apollo, has argued that travel and tourism to countries with authoritarian regimes helps to undermine them.
Kjellin argued on Thursday that tourism can be a "good and democratic force," making a link between the high volumes of tourists to countries such as Egypt and Tunisia and the ongoing pro-democracy movements.
"The fact that people travel and meet across cultural, religious and political boundaries is a good thing. Visits, even to dictatorships, I believe helps to destroy them. I would argue that tourism, major global travel, is in itself a positive force," Kjellin wrote in an opinion piece in newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) on Thursday.
He continued to contrast these examples with the relative silence of pro-democratic voices in less-visited north African neighbours Libya and Algeria.
He also referred to the role that tourism played in liberating countries such as Portugal and Spain from dictatorships and cited Cyprus' admission into the EU and Turkey's pending membership as examples of the way the industry can help build democracy.
Swedish travel agencies have cancelled more than 70,000 trips to Egypt since uprisings began in the country late last month, according to figures compiled by the Dagens Industri daily on Friday. Travel operator Fritidsresor estimates that it has lost about 30 million kronor ($4.61 million) as a result.
Kjellin drew attention to the difference in the response of the Swedish public to the tsunami disaster in December 2004 in Thailand, a major holiday destination for Swedes, and the relatively weak assistance offered to the devastating earthquake that took place soon after in Pakistan, to which few Swedes travel.
"Receiving visitors presumably raises in many an interest in freedom and democracy. The encounters that tourism creates are a good influence. All conversations and exchanges of knowledge, thoughts and ideas must reasonably affect the country's development," he wrote.
Kjellin concluded by questioning what would happen in Burma or North Korea if those countries opened their borders more to tourists.
I'm actually being rather serious.
Compare Scandinavia of say 1935 to USA, Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, China or Italy at that time and then have a look at the differences existing today.
Scandinavian society has basically changed very little in terms of fundamental cultural values and the overall societal concept, while the other nations have become more of PC nanny-state countries fostering productive citizens that don't drink too much, don't pollute too much and engage in educative state TV shows instead of street fights.
Not only is the car safety-philosophy of Volvo since long rooted even in America and France, today you even find Italians munching on sill (pickled herring) and meatballs with lingonberry sauce at IKEA restaurants allover their country.
Mussolini never would have tolerated such traitorous behavior.
Regarding countries like North Korea, still refusing to submit to Nordic values, Scandinavia will have to send in the Trojan Horse of the legendary Swedish Bikini Team, disguised as innocent blonds tanning and sipping on fancy colorful drinks. So far, they have never failed on a mission..
Forget Grand Cayman, I’m re-booking for North Korea this March.
If there is a box of good cigars in it for me, we can talk.
I actually agree with this. Tourism from dictatorships helps destroy them.
When people get a taste of freedom they won’t settle for anything less.
Hey, let’s all meet at McDonald’s Saturday morning and carpool to Washington, D.C.
I’d go, especially if I could enter on my Road King and see
the high stepping women’s guard battalion.
I was planning for the French Riviera but darn it...I wanna go to Iran because I heard it’s so lovely there.
What ever it takes to get rid of the Castros, I support, whatever it takes!
He couldn’t be more wrong. Authoritarian regimes know how to work the tourist systmm for maximum profit while maintaining an iron grip on their people. Case in point: Burma. But then I wouldn’t exactly expect an honest opinion on the matter from the CEO of a travel agency.
For any of you who don’t understand by burning hatred of the Castros please understand this, I had a big gun pointing at my head and was a trigger pull away from being a dead man at the hands of Castro’s thugs!
- Speaking of cigars, democratization and trade with dictatorships one interesting circumstance is that if Europe would stop importing cigars from Cuba and if a single Swedish mining equipment company like Atlas Copco would stop exporting their products there, the regime would probably fall.
I guess a lot of Americans realize that unlike Chirac, many of us Europeans actually understand why there has to be a WOT - and therefore send troops to places like Afghanistan.
However, IMO, we Europeans also should aid USA in putting an end to the tragedy of Cuban Socialism once and for all..
Let’s all go to Mexico. Great fun there dodging the inept antics of the military and police.
Do we still have a CIA?
Were we to apply performance metrics to it, we wouldn’t.
They’re working out just about as well as the idiot in chief.
- Naturally, a CEO of a travel agency is biased and also there are many good examples of the leadership of totalitarian regimes gaining from the incomes generated by tourism. I'd say Cuba is one such example.
On the other hand, it is plausible that encounters between locals and visitors from Northern Europe to nations like Greece, Portugal and Spain some decades ago aided a development towards democracy, even though other factors also were of great importance.
Like mentioned in the article, a lot of Swedes yearly visit Thailand for holiday. This was the case even 20-30 years ago, but back then Thailand had a bad reputation for child prostitution. Pattaya Beach wasn't exactly a place you'd take your family to. The Thai as well as various travel agencies came to realize this and today Thailand has become one of the most popular destinations among Swedish families going on holiday (a segment of European tourists that generate more incomes than shady pedophiles doing business with the local Thai mafia).
I beg of my world friends, please come visit America.
- Personally, I already have and being Swedish/European, I think it's highly amusing to notice the difference between Europeans who've visited USA and those who have not; more or less all Europeans having made that experience say they gained a much more positive impression of America and its inhabitants than they had before, while people over here who haven't visited the US often imagine America as hostile, out of touch with the rest of the World and uncultivated.
Each and every European ought to visit America once in their lifetime and vice versa.
God bless America, Europe and cross-Atlantic collaboration!
Together, we have defeated Nazism and Communism. Together we will defeat Islamofascism.
“....travel and tourism to countries with authoritarian regimes helps to undermine them.”
Please send many Swedish tourists to America. We cannot hold out much longer.
Norweigians, Danes and Finns are okay too.
LOL!
Post of the day!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.