Gender justice in global tourism: exploring tourism transformation through the lens of feminist alternative economics

Abstract

Tourism is one of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Women make up the majority of tourism and hospitality workers and are bearing the brunt of the impact of COVID-19. Evidence suggests that women’s economic and productive lives will be disproportionately and differently affected, with the economic impacts lingering for many years after the end of the pandemic. Feminist political economics critiques the intertwined neo-liberal, patriarchal, capitalist structures, which are deemed to be at the root of the global crises society is facing. Using a critical, feminist perspective, this conceptual article explores alternative economic approaches. We suggest a Feminist Alternative Tourism Economics (FATE) approach, embracing an integration of Feminist Ethic of Care, Social Solidarity Economy and Human Rights Based Economy, critiqued through the lens of decolonisation, could present an alternative pathway to achieving a more gender just society and tourism system. We argue a focus on feminist values of care, solidarity and Human Rights could provide a chance for tackling major global climate and pandemic emergencies by reducing crisis vulnerability and increasing resilience and sustainability.

Keywords:

• Gender justice
• ‘Feminist Alternative Tourism Economics’ (FATE)
• ethics of care
• solidarity
• human rights

Introduction

In the face of the current global health and climate crises, society appears on the threshold of a fundamental re-positioning of human and environmental values. The neo-liberal, capitalist system is increasingly being questioned as an appropriate model for creating economic efficiency, equality and justice, and for realising the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Oksala, 2018; Jacobs & Mazzucato, 2016; Bianchi & de Man, 2021).

This conceptual article explores the question to what extent a feminist, alternative vision of a global social and economic order could create structural transformation towards a more just and inclusive system within the tourism sector.

The World Bank estimates the COVID-19 pandemic will push between 71 million and 100 million people into extreme poverty, erasing almost all progress made in the last five years in the fight against extreme poverty, and any achievements on fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (UN/DESA, 2020). Gender equality and poverty are intrinsically linked. Levels of poverty can be substantially reduced where women are able to contribute to households with their own independent income, through the restructuring of care responsibilities, the eradication of gender-based violence and input into public policy and decision-making fora (Bessell, 2015; Nieuwenhuis et al., 2018). Like most crises, the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities, affecting women and other vulnerable groups disproportionately (Moriarty et al., 2020; Nanthini & Nair, 2020). The 2021 World Economic Forum Insight Report on the Global Gender Gap estimated that closing the economic participation gender gap would take 268 years, and that the pandemic may have further slowed progress by 1%−4%.

Women are the majority of tourism and hospitality workers, particularly in the Global South and in the informal sector. Added to existing discrimination, they faced redundancies, business failure, home schooling responsibilities, additional care work, and, worse, increased levels of gender based violence. Globally women earn and save less, hold jobs that are more insecure and lack advancement opportunities (Nanthini & Nair, 2020). Besides the economic impact, the pandemic is likely to affect women’s mental well-being, as studies have established an association between insecure employment or unemployment and decrease in psychological wellbeing (Flint et al., 2013). Women of colour, with disabilities, Indigenous and migrant women are even more vulnerable (Grandy et al., 2020).

Issues of gender equality have gained prominence in sustainable tourism and development debates (UNWTO, 2019; UN Women, 2020; World Economic Forum, 2021). Yet, overall, at implementation level in tourism organisations and destinations, genuine commitment to mainstreaming gender equality tends to be lacking (Ferguson, 2018). Furthermore, scant attempts have been made to address the root causes of structural gender injustices, caused by a patriarchal economic system that uses tourism as a tool for neoliberal capital accumulation and development (Britton, 1991; Bianchi, 2011). Bianchi and de Man (2021) critiqued the UNWTO’s growth paradigm, unearthing the contradictions between tourism’s expansionist aspirations and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Their argument for a ‘radical re-distribution of power and wealth’ (p.365) deserves some scrutiny in the context of a feminist political economy perspective.

In this article we examine alternative economic approaches through the lens of a critical feminist analysis, within the framework of Feminist Alternative Economics (FAE), potentially indicating a route towards structural change and gender justice in tourism and hospitality. Our interpretation of critical feminism locates feminist struggles within a critique of capitalist, neo-liberal values, within decolonisation, and transnational alliances, in solidarity with marginalised and Indigenous women in the Global South (Mohanty, 2003a). Tourism, specifically, as a cross-border force of capitalist appropriation and cultural othering requires such alliances. ‘Tourism is a key site for the (re)production of difference at the contemporary conjuncture of the transnational and the postcolonial’ (Patil, 2011, p. 206).

This article answers Jamal and Higham (2021) call for a richer body of insights to justice, feminism and an ethics of care, and Higgins-Desbiolles (2008) call for alternatives to the corporatised, neo-liberal free market system. The article concludes with a vision for a justice-based future for tourism in the context of a feminist alternative tourism economics (FATE) analysis, and its potential for increasing crisis resilience and sustainability.

Various authors have addressed the need for a more justice-informed future of tourism (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020, 2008; Jamal & Camargo, 2014; Jamal & Higham, 2021). Camargo et al. (2016) propose an eco-feminist paradigm for ecocultural justice. A recent Special Issue on Gender and Tourism Sustainability casts a challenging light on tourism sustainability from the perspective of feminist epistemologies (Eger et al., 2022). However, in general, gender in tourism is still under-researched; in particular, in the context of a systems-based analysis, which, according to hooks (1994) focuses on the significance of ‘the interlocking, interdependent nature of systems of domination’ and the recognition of the ‘specific ways each system is maintained’ (p. 290). Rare, too, is a focus on intersectionality, decolonisation and the consequent understanding of the complexity of women’s oppression in the post-colonial Global South (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Chambers, 2022), where tourism prevails as a capitalist development tool. Capitalism has burgeoned with the riches from colonial legacies. Structural transformation therefore depends not only on critiquing patriarchy and neo-liberal capitalism, but also on decolonising individual and organisational worldviews and institutional structures. Decolonisation demands a critical anti-racist approach, dismantling the presence of colonial and imperial theory and practice in every societal context, including in feminist movements and economic analysis (Grey, 2004; Chambers & Buzinde, 2015; Saini & Begum, 2020).

Positionality and reflexivity are crucial aspects of decolonising mindsets (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015). We wish to share our positionality as feminist, white Europeans and acknowledge our privilege and the limitations of our lived experiences to informing our analysis, but locate ourselves as allies to women in the Global South (Grey, 2004). We attempt to include critiques and standpoints which emanate from other cultures and from traditionally marginalised women in our analysis, and in the spirit of educating ourselves, we invite critique and comment from majority world voices.

In the following sections we introduce the concept of Feminist Alternative Economics and analyse three models of social and economic organisation: Ethics of Care, Social Solidarity Economy and a Human Rights Based Economy as alternative feminist approaches. We explore their suitability as pathways towards structural transformation of the core tenets of the global tourism system. Our analysis suggests that these three models, albeit requiring further critical scrutiny, offer substantive transformative potential for a critical feminist analysis in tourism.

Feminist alternative economics

Economics is largely organised on the basis of androcentric power relations, alien to the female experience and devoid of the female voice, especially Indigenous and subaltern voices. We argue that economics, in particular tourism economics needs to be re-configured from the perspective of the diversity of women’s experiences. Neoliberal approaches to the economy focus exclusively on maximisation of financial returns. Conversely, feminist economic alternatives holistically address relational spheres conventionally considered outside the labour process, such as patriarchy, power dynamics, care, social reproduction, and community as integral constituents of economic analysis (Bakas et al., 2018; Nobel et al., 2020). As discussed by Nobel et al. (2020) ‘In contrast to mainstream economics, alternative feminist perspectives strive for holistic understandings of the processes that support life and social provisioning, paying attention to dynamics of power, exclusion and gender and how these play out in economic analysis and decision-making.’ (Vol.1:10). This includes exposing the contradictions inherent in capitalism’s approach to social reproduction as a necessity for its survival, while simultaneously devaluing it (Fraser, 2016). Feminist political economics critiques the patriarchal structures of exploitative capitalist economics (Burris, 1982), which are also deemed to be at the root of the global crises society is currently facing, such as climate change and the coronavirus pandemic (Wright & Nyberg, 2015; Bump et al., 2021). Within the tourism system, these structures create, amongst others, discrimination along gender and race lines in the labour market, the gender pay gap, commodification and exploitation of sexual and racial relations (Pritchard, 2014), and commodification and appropriation of natural resources, which disadvantage women’s rights and livelihoods (Cole, 2014; Neef, 2021). The following three models offer the potential for transforming these exploitative structures.

Ethics of care

The ethics of care arose as a counterpoint to Rawls’ theory of justice and Kohlberg’s model of the stages of moral development. Emanating from research in the 1980s on the differences between boys’ and girls’ responses to specific ethical dilemmas, Carol Gilligan concluded that the masculinist bias embedded in the thought processes behind Kohlberg’s model prevented and, potentially, negated the acknowledgement of an alternative moral worldview informed by the female experience (Gilligan, 1983).

Gilligan’s ethic of care takes a more nuanced, embodied stance. It addresses individual difference, emotional dynamic, and situated complexity and is therefore more fluid and flexible, less rule-bound and abstract. Gilligan conceives the ethic of care as ‘an ethic of resistance to the injustices inherent in patriarchy’; an ethic to ‘free democracy from patriarchy’, transcending the demands of a purely feminist perspective to a concern for all of society (Gilligan, 2011). Care is conceived as a shared human condition, assuring human and planetary survival, an ‘inevitable feature of human life’ rather than a ‘pathology’ (Robinson, 2015, p.15), merely related to child-and age care or illness and disability. bell hooks (2001) believes care can only reap societal benefits, if it is conceived through the prism of love; love as ethical living among all sentient beings, ‘embracing a global vision wherein we see our lives and our fate as intimately connected to those of everyone else on the planet’ (p. 88). Moreover, ethics of care and love are, arguably, inherently interwoven with ethics of justice (Jamal & Camargo, 2014).

Gilligan’s anti-patriarchal stance is related to a North American feminism and has evolved over time. It is imperative to reassess it against the lived realities of women of colour and marginalised and Indigenous women, who interpret their gender struggle through a different lens of historical (colonial), class and cultural context. In that context, ‘gender is found alongside issues of socio-economic inequality, racism, assimilation, cultural renewal and self-determination’ (Grey, 2004, p. 19). The philosophy of human and planetary care as a shared human condition has similarities in other cultures, such as the African notion of ‘ubuntu’, and the Maori philosophy of ‘whenua’. Ubuntu holds that ‘people can only be human through other people’ and the self is interwoven with the community through countless bonds and relationships (Gouws & Van Zyl, 2015). However, Gouws and van Zyl assert that Ubuntu has failed women, as they are still considered subordinate to men. They assert that a feminist ethic of care, integrated with Ubuntu, provides an ethical framework for justice. Similarly whenua, a Maori philosophy, places the land, plants, animals and people within an unbreakable, reciprocal bond with the self, and the self within community (Irwin, 2013). Aspects of kinship, respect and the ethics of kaitiakitanga – obligation, sustainability and nurture –are inherent in Maori culture (Barnes et al., 2018). Traditionally, women had an equal role at the centre of this system. However, since colonisation and capitalism have fostered a ‘Maori male hegemony’ (Hoskins, 1997, p. 40), Maori women are re-interpreting their cultural identity and agency in the context of a post-colonial, feminist analysis, which might integrate a feminist ethic of care within their own cultural context.

Care is a core element of tourism and hospitality. Marketised as customer care and personal service, affective, or emotional, labour, is a crucial component of tourism management. However, care for tourism workers is less of a priority for managers. The majority of women’s tourism labour mirrors their taken for granted predisposition for domestic labour and care work, usually outsourced, and, as such, condemned to the lowest ranks by an exploitative, capitalist system. Low pay, rising food prices (inflation often caused by tourism) and budget cuts lead to poverty and disintegration of the family (Federici, 2008), most pertinently in times of crises, such as Covid-19. Women with access to higher career positions face stark choices: outsource domestic and child-care duties to poorer, frequently marginalized migrant women (thus continuing the chain of oppression), while accepting lower wages than their male counterparts (Bakas et al., 2018), or accept the triple burden of a paid career, unpaid care and domestic work, and be branded as a less than ‘ideal’ worker (Costa et al., 2017). While some domestic tasks can be contracted out, less tangible tasks cannot. Love, affection and discipline tend to fall by the wayside. Ferguson (2010) cautions that women’s empowerment through increased income and control over finances is mediated by the stresses of competing demands on household budgets and pressures on family dynamics, caused by both traditional social structures and a capitalist, globalised tourism system.

Yet, to date, the ethic of care has received scant attention in the tourism literature, with varying interpretations. Smith and Duffy (2003) focus on Gilligan’s perspective as a guideline for ethical field research in tourism, while Fennell (2006) analyses ethic of care in relation to sex tourism, and Lovelock and Lovelock (2013) devote just one paragraph to it, with a brief reference to disability and tourism provision. Jamal and Camargo (2014) understanding of ‘ethic of care’ embeds the meaning of care within a range of ethical theories and notions of justice in their discussion on a ‘Just Destination’. However, they do not consider ethic of care from a feminist perspective for tourism transformation and structural change.

Jamal, Camargo and Higgins-Desbiolles have produced important analyses of research on ethics and justice in tourism, albeit with scant reference to feminism, a feminist ethic of care or feminist alternative economics, which could be applied in tourism context. Conscious of this gap in sustainable tourism research, Camargo et al. (2016) propose an ‘eco-feminist’ research paradigm focusing on ‘gender awareness and emotions, such as love’ for people and nature, which also addresses ‘exploitative economic structures and power relations’ (p. 70).

However, judging from recent research contributions, feminist tourism paradigms, incorporating justice and ethic of care standpoints, have still not developed substantially to question the socio- economic and political structures that foster inequality in tourism and advance to a decolonised, non-Western, non-patriarchal analysis of gendered power relations in tourism (Jamal & Higham, 2021). Referring to the contributions in the Special Issue on Justice and Tourism, Jamal and Higham emphasise the need for a richer body of multi/post-disciplinary approaches and insights to justice, feminism, and an ethic of care.

As one of the thought leaders in the debate on justice in tourism in the context of neo-liberal globalisation (2008; 2020) and global crises (Rastegar et al., 2021), Higgins-Desbiolles has focused on women as one of several marginalised groups within local communities to be prioritised over tourists and corporates (Higgins-Desbiolles et al.,2019). However, her proposals for a ‘radical transformation’ of tourism (2008) and a justice framework for post-COVID-19 recovery (2020) are overall generic as alternatives to neo-liberal capitalism and do not include a gendered feminist economic analysis. On the other hand, her most recent collaborative research signals a welcome new analysis of a feminist ethic of care in the context of social entrepreneurship and the purpose economy in the events sector (Higgins-Desbiolles & Monga, 2021). Social Entrepreneurship is part of the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE), which provides an alternative economic model challenging the capitalist, neo-liberal worldview. The following section explores the potential of SSE for a feminist transformation in tourism.

Social solidarity economy

The Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) is an umbrella term for a non-patriarchal alternative to neoliberal capitalism, embracing values of humanism, ethics, democracy, diversity, solidarity, inclusiveness, equality and justice (Réseau Intercontinental de Promotion de L’Economie Sociale Solidaire, RIPESS, 2015; Quiñones, 2008). It is built on the notion of collective, participatory, non-hierarchical organisation and management, and principles of autonomy, self-sufficiency, productive diversification and sustainable regional resource management. Its primary objective is to benefit human and planetary well-being, serving the needs of people and ecological sustainability (RIPESS, 2015; Barkin & Lemus, 2014). As such, SSE consciously invokes the goal of structural, transformational social and economic change. The practical embodiment of this ideology at micro level comprises cooperative structures, social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, legally incorporated social benefit corporations (B-Corps), trade and credit unions (Fonteneau et al., 2010) and collective mobilisation of resistance struggles (Verschuur et al., 2015; Barkin & Lemus, 2014).

Ideological debates over the nature of social and economic change and structural transformation still indicate some fluidity in interpretations of what genuinely constitutes SSE. For example, while RIPESS are committed to ‘transformative, systemic change’ (RIPESS, 2015, p.2), Quiñones (2008) more ambiguously emphasises the potential integral relationship of the solidarity economy with traditional market logic ‘for as long as its approaches continue to be innovative’ (p. 21). Whilst SSE philosophy propounds an equitable ethic, Borowiak et al. (2018) claim that ‘racial and class divides suffuse the ….Solidarity Economy movement’ (p.582). Historical distrust of white middle-class driven initiatives, combined with constraints of poverty, diminish the positive impact on an alternative socio-economic reality. The UN promote the SSE as a new paradigm for sustainable production and consumption (UNTFSSE. , 2020) and for the realisation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNTFSSE, 2019), without challenging the contradictory nature of sustainable development within a neo-liberal capitalist growth paradigm. Hence, whether SSE is a systemic alternative to hegemonic global capitalism is still open to interpretation (Verschuur et al., 2015).

Research on feminist positions on SSE is extremely limited (Verschuur et al., 2015), although women’s participation within SSE is strong, whether at leadership or grassroots levels (UNTFSSE, 2014). The SSE has been associated with women being the driving force, and gender equality being a core value of SSE (Quiñones, 2015). Hillenkamp et al. (2019) propose a ‘post-colonial feminist perspective’ (p.10) of social enterprise and entrepreneurship, which overcomes the Western feminist informed ‘market-household dichotomy’. Their perspective recognises the domestic domain as a seed bed for solidarity and political and economic emancipation, especially for Indigenous and subaltern women. Soler-i-Martí et al. (2021) posit that the very nature of SSE is suitable for challenging gender inequality and patriarchal structures. However, Verschuur et al. (2015) analysis of SSE initiatives in Latin America and India, as one of the rare examples of a feminist perspective on SSE (albeit not tourism-related), critique this very notion. They found that even within SSE, women’s (re)productive work was unrecognized and undervalued; work/life balance was blurred, work was poorly paid, and the need to compete with markets in the capitalist economy, which often profit from Social and Solidarity Economy Enterprises and Organisations (SSEEOs), put them at an economic disadvantage. Lack of state support and, at times, collusion between the state and corporations, potentially undermined and threatened their solidarity goals.

Women’s motives for entering into entrepreneurship are usually different from men’s intentions (Bakas, 2017) and are more aligned with social entrepreneurship, even if not always formalised as such. Deen et al.’s (2016) research on small tourism accommodation establishments suggests they engage less with a profit motive than to make a lifestyle change for a better quality of life, personal growth, and economic benefit combined with social value to society. However, they face multiple obstacles, including societal gender bias, undermining their independence and credibility, restricted access to financial support, and lack of sustainable tourism knowledge and business management training (Kearins & Schaefer, 2017; Deen et al., 2016).

SSE has not featured as such on the radar of tourism researchers. Only Quiñones (2015) mentions the potential of the solidarity economy for creating emancipatory programmes for women in the governance of tourism projects in Lao PDR and Sri Lanka. On the other hand, there is a nascent body of research on the relationship between social capital and social entrepreneurship and tourism, in particular community-based tourism (Dyah-Pramanik et al., 2019; Reindrawati, 2018; Reinke, 2018; Mottiar, 2016; Robinson, 2006). Social capital, incorporates trust, reciprocity, collective, participatory decision-making, solidarity and mutual respect in individual or community economic activity (Ruiz & Adie, 2020).

Mottiar (2016) suggested that tourism social entrepreneurs can create social value and, thereby, exert long-term impact on the structure of the tourism industry. However, this literature does not explore SSE as structurally transformative, nor is gender equality considered as a key component, or even a driver of social capital or social change through tourism. In view of reassessing capitalism, there is a compelling need, for substantially more research in the tourism academy on the SSE from a feminist perspective, taking account of situated realities for women in the Global South. Solidarity is also critical to a Human Rights Based Economy which we now present as our third strand to drive gender justice.

Human rights based economy

Within human rights debates, women’s rights are specifically enshrined in the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action presented an important milestone for ‘Human Rights as Women’s Rights’, which pledges to ‘ensure the full implementation of the human rights of women and of the girl child as an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of all human rights and fundamental freedoms’ (p.2). Nevertheless, while these are important, binding obligations for UN member states agreed on paper, human rights, and specifically women’s rights, have been widely ignored in practice, including in tourism and hospitality settings, namely in respect of unequal pay and labour rights (Baum & Hai, 2019), social, cultural and economic rights, land and water rights (Cole, 2017; 2014; Neef, 2021), and, by implication, international and national trade and socio-economic policies (Toussaint, 2020; Kalisch, 2010).

A Human Rights Based Economy (HRBE), re-interpreted from a critical feminist perspective and based on a widely agreed framework of ethical values and legal obligations provides an alternative to the present capitalist neo-liberal economic system. The human right to safe, empowering, dignified work, for example, will require moving from a fixation on economic growth to a more holistic, ecologically sound and human centred measure of success (Donald, 2020). The neoliberal economy has devalued, exploited and taken for granted the work performed by the majority of women, confined to the lowest ranks, in and outside tourism (Pritchard, 2014; Bakas et al., 2018; Cole, 2018). Taking a Human Rights Based approach would rebalance this inequity and provide economic justice. As Human Rights lie in a comprehensive framework of binding principles and laws, agreed by the majority of governments, a unifying framework for holding companies and governments accountable already exists. Furthermore, international financial institutions are also bound by international obligations and cannot divest themselves of responsibility (Toussaint, 2020). A Human Rights Based Economy would be based on the principles of dignity, equity, solidarity, accountability and justice (Donald, 2020).

In a Human Rights Based Economy dignity would be central to ensuring that workers can have proper working conditions, combined with a decent work/life balance. As Baum and Hai (2019) suggest, all individuals have equal rights to a family life. Presently, tourism can impact family members for example, through child labour within family businesses or the extended absence of parents due to split shifts (Bhat & Rather, 2009; Ferguson, 2010). Tourism and hospitality are renowned for a lack of work place dignity. Workers suffer low pay, emotional exhaustion, and abusive treatment (Winchenbach et al., 2019; Unite the Union Unite Hotel Workers Branch, 2018). Across the globe, this is worsened by low or declining trade union membership in the sector, due to employer hostility and COVID-19 induced unemployment (Wood, 2020). The lack of employee voice in the tourism and hospitality sector is a factor behind the exploitative relations and poor working conditions that many in the sector experience (Curran, 2021). Victories of striking chambermaids, such as Las Kellys in Spain and staff at the Ibis Batignolles in Paris, have shown what the power of collective voice can achieve in improving dignity for female hotel staff. After many months of striking, they managed to achieve improved working conditions and raised wages (Abdelghani, 2020; Hird, 2021).

Businesses (in tourism and every other sector) can intensively combat working poverty by paying a living wage to their suppliers and employees. This includes closing the gender pay gap, which is most pronounced in tourism in higher hierarchical positions dominated by men, but less visible through horizontal segregation in low paid jobs, where women predominate (Bakas et al., 2018). When people are paid adequately for their work, they can experience less dependence on overtime and tips, improved work/life balance, decreasing risks of child labour, increased spending power, overall well-being and a life of dignity. A living wage should, therefore be regarded as a long-term investment, rather than a cost factor.

A fundamental principle running through Human Rights is equality. The inequalities in tourism have been widely discussed in the literature (Cole, 2018; Guimarães & Silva 2016; Bakas et al., 2018; Costa et al., 2011). One prominent area in tourism is the growing precarity in tourism employment (Robinson et al., 2019), and COVID-19 demonstrated this with far greater rapidity than in other sectors. Precarity is driven by the growing practice of outsourcing and flexibilisation, which lowers costs for employers, but is rarely reciprocal (Bolton & Houlihan, 2007), with industry benefitting far more than workers in the long term. Terry (2011) discusses this in relation to cruise workers, and Seifert and Messing (2006) in relation to hotel cleaners in Canada.

The solidarity aspect of a HRBE is not only about workers’ rights and collective bargaining, which is critical to ensuring a decent wage and working conditions. It is also about stewardship and fostering collective ownership of the planet. Tourism’s record on environmental destruction (Brohman, 1996, Stonich, 1998) and the removal of rights has been debated in tourism in relation to water (Cole, 2014, 2017; Nobel et al., 2012) and the loss of land rights (Neef, 2019). As the Human Rights Council (2021) suggests, our human rights are intertwined with the environment in which we live. Environmental harm interferes with the enjoyment of human rights, and the exercise of human rights helps to protect the environment and to promote sustainable development.

It is the state’s duty to uphold Human Rights and for business to protect them (UN’s (2011) the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,). The problem is lack of enforcement. Governments and businesses need to be made more accountable. Governments must enforce on businesses to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence, and this must extend to their supply chains and be gender sensitive. Since their publication, the Guiding Principles (GPs) have been promoted to the major tourism businesses to encourage their commitment. For example, to assist hotels, in 2014, the International Tourism Partnership and Green Hotelier published the Know How Guide: Human Rights & the Hotel Industry. It details human rights issues prevalent for a hotel business, including workers’ rights, supply chain related issues, community rights, human trafficking risks, customers’ rights and governance related issues (International Tourism Partnership & Green Hotelier, 2014). However, thus far action has been limited to single issue causes, e.g. the Modern Slavery Act 2015, with training produced for members of hospitality (Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, 2021) and travel agencies (ABTA, 2018). As Donald (2020) suggests, in order to reflect the indivisibility of rights, the duty of due diligence should instead reflect a broader range of risks to rights.

The final component of a HRBE is justice. Human Rights, if viewed holistically, are profoundly redistributive. Injustice in the tourism system became apparent to everyone during COVID-19. For example, high-profile tourism companies showed little concern for workers’ rights, enacting sackings, and leaving cruise ship crews, denied access to ports, trapped on ships at sea for many months, in degrading conditions (Kaji, 2020; Radic et al., 2020; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2020). A vast number of tourism workers in the informal sector (mostly women), were left with little or no social security, lacking any form of protection. Social justice, and working towards a more equal society, lies at the heart of human rights. A HRBE can ensure people are treated with dignity and respect.

As valiant as human rights conventions and treaties are, many feminists in the Global South have critiqued the seemingly universal, androcentric nature of the principles, which they consider as steeped in Western neo-liberal values. As such, they are not considered representative of the diversity of women’s lived experiences, particularly in respect of the dichotomy between the private and public spheres, the issues of cultural rights, Islam and feminism, the experience of Indigenous women, and LGBTQ + women (Wichterich, 2021; Women LEAD, 2019; Parisi, 2017; Cheruvallil-Contractor, 2018; Weldon, 2018; Binion, 1995). Women from the Global South demand a focus on Indigenous values systems to inform feminism and justice, and decolonisation of Western values and institutions (Mikaere, 1994; Grey, 2004; Saini & Begum, 2020).

It is beyond the parameters of this paper to delve into a detailed, critical analysis of the many debates on the universality of Human Rights and tourism. We suggest further in-depth future research on this subject. At this stage, we propose a HRB economy, which would offer the scope for a review of HR principles from a feminist perspective that includes the diversity of women’s lived experiences globally, and specifically in the context of tourism and hospitality. Moreover, we argue that a decolonised, anti-patriarchal HRBE, would present a space for constructive debates and potential transformation.

Discussion

Transformative implications of feminist alternative economics for the tourism system

In the context of a Feminist Alternative Economics (FAE) paradigm, we have analysed three alternative economy approaches (Feminist Ethic of Care, Social Solidarity Economy, and Human Rights Based Economy). They embrace the core tenets of FAE (see below).

Based on Urban and Pürckhauer (2016); Nobel et al. (2020) (Table 1)

We suggest a Feminist Alternative Tourism Economics (FATE), consisting of an integration of Feminist Ethic of Care (FEoC), Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) and Human Rights Based Economy (HRBE) and critiqued through a transnational feminist, decolonising lens. This could offer an alternative pathway to achieving a more gender just society and, by extension, tourism system (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Feminist Alternative Tourism Economics (FATE).

At the centre of FATE, a decolonised feminist ethic of care, as an ethic of individual and collective responsibility for both men and women, of resistance and activism for emancipation and structural transformation, provides the ethical foundation that suffuses every aspect of that system. The Social Solidarity Economy offers a practical pathway towards structural transformation, creating equitable and inclusive trade for societal and environmental flourishing. The Human Rights Based Economy provides the overarching international, legally binding framework, which fosters accountability and compliance according to internationally agreed values, guidelines, and commitments.

Tourism is essentially a people-centred industry, focused on service. Therefore, care should be at its core, not just for tourists, but for its workers, for the communities, who are the stewards for the social and natural environment, and all other sentient beings. However, in the drive for profit, privatisation, growth, and increased automation, values of care within the capitalist model of tourism are becoming ever more marginalised. Fraser (2016) argues that the current form of financialised capitalism has spawned a ‘crisis of care’, resulting from the contradiction that capitalism’s success depends on ‘free-riding on the life-world’ (p.101) while, simultaneously, draining it of the resources it needs to thrive.

A Feminist Ethic of Care in tourism and hospitality re-envisions human and non-human relations from the perspective of women’s contextualised and empowered experience. FEoC redefines care and social reproduction, defeminises and destigmatises it. Care becomes a core requirement for social and planetary survival and, as such, is accorded the respect it deserves, allowing women to achieve their full potential, generally and in the tourism environment. Achieving full potential also means recognition and analysis of intersectional dimensions of oppressions, relating, for example, to race, class, (dis)ability, and sexual orientation, ‘drawing on insights from Black feminist literature’ (Chambers, 2022, p. 1590), both in tourism consumption and production.

Colonialism has been explored in the tourism literature (Hall & Tucker, 2004; Bandyopadhyay, 2010; Koot, 2016), as has the link between colonialism and gender inequality (Chambers & Buzinde, 2015). Patriarchal relations have been discussed, especially in respect of tourism labour (Sinclair, 1997) and ‘the male gaze’ (Pritchard & Morgan, 2000). However, the complex relationship between patriarchy, colonialism, capitalism and tourism in the debate on gender justice needs to be more fully explored. We argue that a focus on patriarchal and neo/post-colonial structures in tourism within a critique of capitalism are key priorities for examining the potential for gender equality and justice in tourism.

Overcoming unequal systems of domination requires activism and political engagement, as well as a democratic, participatory environment to allow collective action, solidarity, debate and intellectual diversity, and thus, structural transformation, to flourish (Mohanty, 2003b; Gibson-Graham, 2006). The analysis of SSE demonstrates, the seeds for a reconfiguration of capitalist economic models already exist, where care and social value creation have taken on a central position. Over the past twenty years, the tourism industry has made some progress in respect of sustainable and responsible tourism. As our analysis indicates, a greater awareness of the environment, ethical consumption and justice for destination communities, has spawned an increasing plethora of organisational and market initiatives embracing more just and ethical tourism and hospitality business models. These include social enterprises, community-based tourism, stakeholder ownership, and legally incorporated social benefit companies/corporations (B-Corps) (Dyah-Pramanik et al., 2019; Zebryte & Jorquera, 2017; Higgins-Desbiolles, 2012). The B-Corp business model in tourism has become particularly prevalent in America and Latin America (Acevedo-Duque et al., 2021). Nevertheless, we contend that, within tourism and hospitality practice and academia they require a more extensive, deeper and critical engagement with decolonised, feminist economic analysis.

A HRBE, with feminist values at its core, would focus on women’s empowerment by acknowledging the indivisibility of social and economic rights. Such analysis would place social reproduction and care at the centre of social policies, including tourism and labour policies; care as a moral imperative and a public responsibility, no longer solely the responsibility of women. In the context of global economic governance, a Human Rights Based Economy would reorient international trade rules in tourism, to include human rights obligations and fair trade principles for domestic and foreign investors in respect of employment, land and water rights, Indigenous rights (Kalisch, 2010; Choudhury, 2012; OHCR, 2015), and overall adherence to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Women would be the main benefactors of such a strategy, as gender equality is integral to all the seventeen SDGs (Moreno-Alarcón & Cole, 2019).

The opportunities of the integrated FATE system for crisis resilience and future crises prevention

In the current global environment, the question arises, to what extent FATE could provide answers for managing or preventing future crises, and creating social and economic resilience. Analysis of gender issues in the research on sustainability, crisis management, resilience, vulnerability and adaptation is seriously lacking (Ravera et al., 2016). Gender and resilience in particular is notably absent in tourism research, apart from rare studies, such as Bakas (2017), Rydzik and Anitha (2020), and Cole and Gympaki (2021).

Academic literature tends to portray women as particularly vulnerable to broader environmental and structural forces (Dean & Stain, 2010). This may be correct, but mainly so due to embedded socio-cultural norms and inequalities within societies (Jordan, 2019). Pre-existing political, social and economic inequalities, poverty and exploitation often come to the fore and are aggravated by crisis-induced socio-economic and ecological upheaval (Jordan, 2019; Lindberg Falk, 2012). Furthermore, as demonstrated by the impact of COVID-19 on the tourism industry, the lack of diversification in tourism-dependent economies exacerbates vulnerability (UNCTAD., 2020).

Resilience implies the ability to recover and ‘bounce back’ from exogenous shock, ‘the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks’ (Walker et al., 2004, p.2). More than the ability to withstand and recover from shocks, resilience must be perceived as an opportunity for structural, gendered, and transformative change, which addresses the root causes of people’s vulnerabilities (Jordan, 2019), ‘the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social (including political) conditions make the existing system untenable’ (Walker et al., 2004, p.5).

The proposed, integrated FATE incorporates the opportunity for a transformed tourism system. Greater attention to human rights and equality can reduce vulnerability. A focus on feminist values of care, on planetary boundaries and growth of human and planetary well-being, rather than GDP, will provide a chance for tackling climate change and future pandemics. Lindberg Falk (2012) suggests that social resilience ‘implies hardness or resistance in tandem with elasticity and flexibility’ (p.179). Women are accustomed to resistance and to maintaining their own and their families’ integrity in times of adversity. Research suggests, that, in times of crisis, women don’t just negotiate for personal gain, but for the benefit of their families and communities (Bakas, 2017). In business, in leadership positions, or as members of co-operatives, their risk taking and crisis solving approach incorporates a cautious, long-term orientation, tending to avoid debt and high investments, which could bankrupt them during economic hardship (Boffey, 2017). Their ability to be creative and flexible helps with diversifying products and activities. Their focus on care and social networking skills assists with creating self-help groups, as psychological, economic and knowledge support systems, fostering social cohesion (Lindberg Falk, 2012). The majority of women have to negotiate the triple burden of poverty and/or, employment/entrepreneurship, unpaid care and domestic duties, while resisting patriarchal dominance and socio-economic oppression on a daily basis: sexual harassment, gender-based violence, racial and sexual discrimination, being undervalued and ignored. Such challenges necessitate individual fortitude, as well as solidarity and social networks to create collective power, which generate individual and collective resilience.

Conclusion

Global crises, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and climate change, are exacerbating existing gender inequalities, which are reflected in the tourism and hospitality sector, where women dominate in the lowest ranking positions. The tourism system represents an integral part of the current financialised, neo-liberal, capitalist economy, based on patriarchal and neo-colonial ideology. Our analysis contends that a tourism transformation towards gender justice needs to be envisioned within a critique of that system. Feminist Alternative Economics challenges the existing economic system by incorporating an intersectional, decolonised analysis of power relations, based on the diversity of women’s experiences, and social reproduction as inherently linked to production. We have presented an integrated system of Feminist Alternative Tourism Economics (FATE) composed of feminist perspectives on human rights, solidarity and care that could potentially provide the opportunity for social and economic transformation in tourism and, by implication, a more crisis resistant economic and tourism system. FATE addresses the gap in the tourism literature on structural transformation for gender justice and enriches the debate within tourism scholarship on pathways towards sustainable tourism.

Our analysis is not exhaustive, and presents just one alternative vision for a future, where feminist perspectives on economics could lead a path to greater global and gender justice in tourism. By applying an ambitious, macro-economic, multi-disciplinary approach, we have only been able to skim the surface of several important, large fields of research. Each of these, in particular feminist research, would deserve more in-depth, critical scrutiny in relation to tourism and our proposed integrated system. Acknowledging this as a limitation, we suggest a number of future research themes to deepen the analysis of FATE.

We propose the following avenues as particularly pertinent: 1) implementation of FATE in praxis, incorporating decolonised and feminist epistemologies; 2) a critical investigation into claims of universality of feminist principles related to the ethics of care, SSE and HRBE and the present tourism system; 3) a critical feminist analysis of SSEs in tourism and an exploration into how the SSEs support the SDGs; 4) a critical feminist analysis of the UN Human Rights Council’s legally binding instruments to regulate the activities of transnational tourism corporations and other business enterprises, including transnational digital platforms.

The challenges of implementing FATE are substantial. For example, Human Rights, although internationally agreed, are interpreted differently, and systematically abused across the globe. At the time of writing, COVID-19 is still prevalent worldwide and climate change is worsening. Rather than planning for recovery, it seems that society will need to adapt to live with crises as a normal state of being. Therefore, a vision for an alternative economic and social system, in which tourism, as a powerful global force, can provide leadership for justice-based transformation, is crucial for society’s survival.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Maria Gympaki and Antonia Gkiosi for their invaluable research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Table 1. Core tenets of Feminist Alternative Economics (FAE).

Recognises the inherent interrelationship between patriarchy, colonialism and capitalism, and critiques these, with the goal of structural transformation and emancipation. Sees power relations as the central force driving social and economic dynamics, including different forms of inequality on an intersectional basis (race, gender, class). Considers care as a central element of the economic context. Understands paid labour, unpaid domestic care, and other unpaid work, as inextricably interlinked. Includes reproductive labour (raising children, caring for the elderly, feeding the family) and generative labour (bearing children). Builds on relational and contextual dynamics, acknowledging situated and Indigenous knowledge systems. Applies qualitative reflexive and embodied, as well as quantitative methodologies, conscious of the subjective, gendered nature of research.