Why Tourism Matters

I found this article (and the lecture) very interesting. Initially, I really wouldn't have given much thought to tourism being an explored field in anthropology. Mainly because when one thinks of a tourist they think of someone is naturally "naive" to the host country's customs, traditions, and people. For example, when we watched the documentary Life and Debt, the tourist seemed so oblivious to the plight of the Jamaican people in a way that almost seemed ignorant. But I Gmelch's article she discussed (overall) some of the positive and negative effects of tourism and how tourism anthropology works. One thing that I found pretty alarming about the whole tourism market is that a lot of developing nations are now havens for tourists. However, in many of those countries as little as .10 is actually given to their economy. In addition,  a huge supply of natural resources with tourism and bring a lot of pollution to the country. So while we see tourism as a positive thing for these less developed countries, we should take a closer look at how we are really affecting their country.