Child Tourism In Thailand Case Study

To tour a country will enable one to gain memories and broaden their horizons, but at what cost to the local culture and heritage. Tourism is the act or practice of touring, especially for pleasure and cultural tourism can refer to all aspects of travel, whereby the travelers learn about the history and heritage of another culture. This discussion will examine the sex tourism industry in Thailand and how it can create and maintain inequality, the problem of Child labour globally and Standardisation and commodification of culture. This discussion will argue that cultural tourism creates and maintains inequality and using the functionalist perspective and post-colonial theory to address how and why.

A countries national, cultural and linguistic

Sex tours still dominate tourism in Thailand with roughly 70% of Thailand arrivals being male. (Leheny, 1995, p. 49) Tourism still flows predominantly from the developed to the developing world, “the majority of the world’s population, particularly in some of the poorest nations, will never have the chance to venture outside their country, nor perhaps even their home town or village.” (Besculides, Lee, & McCormick, 2002, p. 373) According to Smith (2009), Local and indigenous women and men are often rendered subservient to the needs of wealthy, powerful Western tourists. “Non-consensual and commercial forms of sex tourism (e.g. Those concerning sexual relations between unequal partners in terms of socioeconomic status, age, gender or race) are especially rife in Asian countries.”(Smith, 2009, p. 50) According to UN, no one shall be held in slavery or servitude. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. The right to work, the freedom of choice in employment and to have just and favorable conditions of

(Smith, 2009, p. 50) Sex tourism is organised specifically around ‘commercial exploitation. (Christiansen, 2015) These issues are fundamentally related to socioeconomic status, “relationship in the context of sex tourism appears to be based more on wealth and status than on gender.” (Smith, 2009, p. 50) Young children are systematically disadvantaged in terms of assets and opportunities, the demand for sex workers for the ever growing tourism industry in Thailand ensures that inequality is maintained. Tourism can create employment and generate income; “by 2024, Travel & Tourism will account for 3,837,000 jobs directly, an increase of 4.9% pa over the next ten years”. (The World Travel & Tourism Council, 2014) However many of those employment opportunities will be predominantly in major cities which will require a certain level of education. This leaves a number of people and their families socially excluded and it leaves poverty stricken villagers at the mercy of the wealthy. Those who are not wealthy are more inclined to enter prostitution because of the income it can generate for an individual and their family. Tourism also brings consumerism to many parts of the world previously denied access to luxury commodities and services. With an increasing demand for sex workers, human trafficking