Women On The Road

The Pros And Cons Of Slum Tourism: Crass Voyeurism Or Enlightened Travel?

Let me begin by saying I  have  engaged in slum tourism (a basic definition of slum tourism would be the kind of tourism that takes you to see impoverished communities).

I took  an African slum Soweto tour  during a long-ago visit to South Africa, to see a place that overflowed with meaning. In 1976, during the Soweto Uprising in which unarmed students were stormed and killed by police for refusing to study in Afrikaans, I was a university student in Political Science, engulfed (at a distance) in liberation movements and revolutions. Soweto was part of that, as well as a major chapter in the bigger  South African story of apartheid  and discrimination.

It was a place I wanted to see, but the then  boycott  of South Africa was in full swing and I would have to wait nearly two decades.

favela tours

Years later as a journalist, I was escorted through some of the most  crowded favelas  in Rio by a young community nurse who worked with drug addicts and knew everyone. He was respected and we were stopped on every corner for a bit of a chat.

The afternoon I spent in Rocinha gave me  a slightly better understanding of the poverty  that fuels much of the addiction and crime, something I certainly would not have learned from the back of a bus.

It also showed me a side that surprised me – the  regular everyday life  of people less fortunate than myself. The streets were dirty and the housing rickety but people came and went, shopped, talked, laughed – and went to work, determined to make things better.

Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro

Oddly enough, at least to me,  not everyone was poor . Walking around highlighted differing characteristics of slums. Some dwellings were decidedly middle-class, because here as everywhere else, when people succeed they don’t necessarily want to leave their friends and family. 

Over the years, visits to  poorer urban and slum areas  have left me unsettled. Children sniffing glue under a bridge in Brasilia. Mothers scavenging on the world’s biggest scrap heap in Manila. Begging for food near a Nairobi slum. Homeless children in Malawi.

These are scenes that drive home the accident of humanity, of where I happened to be born, of my race and privilege, and how easily it might have been otherwise.

On the one hand, it showed me what is life like in a slum, but on the other, it left me unsure of whether I was engaging in ethical tourism.

So was slum tourism positive or detrimental, and does it hurt or help a slum economy?  it still begs to question; “Is slum tourism good or bad?” 

WHAT IS A SLUM? AND WHAT IS SLUM TOURISM?

SLUM DEFINITION

•  noun: 1 –  a squalid and overcrowded urban area inhabited by very poor people.  2 –  a house or building unfit for human habitation.

•  verb:  ( slummed ,  slumming ) (often  slum it)  informal voluntarily spend time in uncomfortable conditions or at a lower social level than one’s own.

Source: Compact Oxford English dictionary

Slum tourism has been around  since Victorian times , when wealthy Londoners trudged down to the East End for a view. The end of apartheid in South Africa fueled a more politically-oriented type of ‘township tour’ while Rocinha has been receiving tourists for years – some 50,000 a year now.

In India, the release of the movie  Slumdog Millionnaire  created space for even more slums of India tours. In Nairobi, enterprising Kenyans are guiding tourists on Kibera slum tours, one of the better-known urban slums (and one of the world’s bigger slum areas) with a population of one million inhabitants.

Kibera slum - people often ask why is slum tourism bad - slum tourism advantages and disadvantages

The  voyeur aspect  of slum tourism makes me intensely uneasy.

Imagine a busload of foreign visitors traipsing down your street, peering into your house, taking a selfie in front of your door… Yet that’s exactly what happens on some township tourism slum tours, often labeled poverty tourism, pity tours, ghetto tourism, reality tours or even poorism – there is no dearth of labels.

So is  slum tourism  ethically acceptable or is it exploitative? What are the advantages and disadvantages of slum tourism? Do our tourist dollars actually help these communities or are we simply paying for a peek into lives we have no intention of ever experiencing for more than a few minutes? What are the impacts of slum development?

SLUM TOURISM PROS AND CONS

Negatives of slum tourism: exploitation and voyeurism.

Why slum tourism is bad (or can be):organized slum visits have come under  harsh criticism , particularly as they become more popular.

Much of the criticism revolves around these slum tourism cons:

  • Slum tours treat people like  animals in a zoo  – you stare from the outside but don’t dare get too close.
  • Visitors aren’t interested in meaningful interaction; they just want their  photo op . Contact with locals is minimal.
  • Money rarely trickles down. Instead,  operators fill their pockets  but the vaunted ‘benefits to the community’ don’t materialize. Slum tourism profits from poverty, which is why it is often called “poverty tourism”.
  • People feel degraded  by being stared at doing mundane things – washing, cleaning up, preparing food, things that are private. Their rights to privacy may be violated. Imagine yourself at the receiving end: how would you feel?
  • Even when they participate as hosts, local people are often  underpaid and exploited .
  • The  image of a country  may be tarnished by publicizing slums (this is an actual concern among certain segments of certain populations – usually the more wealthy).
  • The  tours make poverty exotic , otherworldly, almost glamorizing what to inhabitants is a harsh reality which will remain once the tourists are long gone, which is one of the main slum tourism disadvantages.

How true is this picture?

UN-HABITAT  defines a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following: 1. Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions. 2. Sufficient living space which means not more than three people sharing the same room. 3. Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price. 4. Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people. 5. Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions.

Slum tourism benefits: improving local lives

So are there slum tourism advantages? There may be a flip side. Slum tourism has supporters, many of whom believe  tourism will ultimately benefit  the favela or the township and help improve the lives of people who live there.

Visitors who take these tours may  genuinely care  and are interested in knowing more about the people they meet and the places they see.

Here are some of the potential benefits of slum tourism:

  • Even if it’s only a little,  some money does enter the community , whether through meals at home or the purchase of art or souvenirs. Many say this tourism boosts the local economy. This trickle-down economy is bound to be better for local residents than picking trash off a stinking garbage heap.
  • The tours  change our perceptions of poverty  by putting a face to it and showing visitors that however poor, people are the same everywhere and share similar thoughts and emotions.
  • Tourists will visit areas they would never go to otherwise.
  • Some operators have made sure part of their profits are recycled into local hands, for example by  starting local charities .
  • A spotlight on poor areas by foreigners may help governments move more quickly to  improve conditions by using tourism as an economic developement tool.
  • Even in the poorest areas  development and innovation  can take place: slum tours can showcase the economic and cultural energies of a neighborhood.
  • They can  improve our understanding  of poverty and of one another – and of the world at large.
  • Local people may support them. Locally-run  slum tourism examples  include Zezinho da Rocinha’s own favela tour (a slum-dweller himself, see below what he has to say on the effects of tourism in his community).
  • They can  bring us closer  and demystify and  debunk some of our stereotypes . This excellent video (below) by one of my favorite authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, highlights the dangers of what she calls a ‘single story’, or what happens when a single point of view is hammered home, in this case, the ‘single story’ of poverty and pity.

THE SLUM TOURISM DEBATE: SO, IS IT A GOOD THING OR A BAD THING?

There is no such thing as a star system for slum tours, an ethical rating that will tell you how well an operator is performing or what the real economic benefits of tourism in the community really are. So, it’s up to us to find out before booking.

Here are some of the things we should look for:

  • Size matters . A huge tour rumbling through a neighborhood in an air-conditioned bus is probably not going to promote much interchange with local residents.  Ask how many people will be on your tour.
  • Look at the highlights and figure  how long you’ll be  in each place. If you’re expected to eat in a home, visit a local shebeen and walk through several streets in the space of an hour, chances are you won’t be getting to know your hosts in any significant way. Visitors need and have asked for more time for real exchanges with local people, as real as such unequal exchanges can be.  Make sure you have enough time to interact.
  • Explore how the tour was  designed . Who put it together? Who came up with the itinerary? Why are you visiting one place and not another?  Ask the organizers if local people were involved, and double-check once you’re in the community.
  • Follow the money.  Find out where the profits go and if the tourism economics are more beneficial than harmful. Are some profits returned to the community? What has been achieved – are there more schools, projects, education or jobs as a result?  Ask the operators, and double check their answers.

Granted, much of this information will not be easy to find, especially before you book.

But you have the ethical obligation to find out: what are the disadvantages of slum tourism in the area you are visiting? But by asking the right questions, you are showing you care, and are forcing tour operators to  tackle these issues .

Once you’re on the tour, you’ll have a better sense of its ethics and if you don’t like what you see, there’s always social media. If a tour is exploitative – well, word gets around fast.

There are many signs  slum tourism is changing the future of tourism.

More charities are being set up to spread profits around, local people are becoming increasingly involved, negative stereotypes are being challenged, local artisans are being encouraged to sell their work to tourists at fair prices, and tour operators themselves are beginning to understand that slum tourism is not like mass tourism: they don’t have to cram every possible attraction into the shortest possible time.

While some feel much good can come from  properly thought-out slum tours , others believe slum tourism has done more harm than good, with insensitive itineraries pulled together purely for gain.

So which is it: Would visitors be better off staying in a  luxury downtown hotel  while pretending not to see the slum next door? Or is knowledge and awareness the first step towards understanding?

For more information on slum tourism, these resources may help:

  • Slum Dwellers International  is a is a network of community-based organizations of the urban poor in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
  • Slumtourism.net  brings together academics and practitioners working on tourism in slums and poor rural areas. 
  • The  world’s five largest slums .

Both For And Against Slum Tourism

By Zezinho Da Rocinha, Proud Favela Resident In Rio De Janeiro

I certainly understand the  controversy about slum tours . I am both FOR and AGAINST them. Let me explain this.

I was born, grew up and still live in Brazil’s largest slum, or  favela . Life is dificult yes, but not impossible. I am proud to live here in Rocinha. I will never leave here, I do not want to leave here. This is my home. This is my feeling about this issue of  slum/favela tourism .

What I like about the tours is the contact I get from foreigns who come here. This interaction helps me to educate people about my life here in the favela. When foreigners come here I feel like my home or favela has value and is worth to be seen. The Brazilian government mostly ignores us and helps us very little.  We want our voice to be heard . I want to feel that somebody on the outside cares about us and recognizes that we exist. Up until about a few years ago favelas did not exist on maps. Why was this?

Many foreigners come to learn how we create and live in our comunity with little or no goverment involvement. Others come because of the art and culture that exist here.

I do not judge why people come, they confirm that we exist. 

slum tourism pros and cons - entertainment in the favela - economic benefits of tourism

I started in tourism because I saw the opportunity to show my favela and help create jobs for others here.

We live here, and should be making the tours here. I have heard outsider tour companies exaggerate things or  tell outright lies  about my favela. They do this because they do not know and do not live here. I am here to share a social experience, not provide some adrenalin tour.

With my work, many visitors return to volunteer with social projects or to start their own programs in the favela. Recently people have contacted me wanting to make projects like a rooftop garden class. Another person wants to help bring solar energy here. These are people who came on visits here in the favela. Is this bad? What I do NOT like about the tours …tours that use jeeps or trucks are the worst because they present us like a zoo. The tourists have no contact with the locals and this reinforces a sense of possible danger. Tours or visits where the guests walk in the favela are more welcome. There is one company that tells their guests not to interact with the locals if they are approached. This is wrong.

The glamorization of violence is another thing that we do not like here. It is as if these companies are trying to capitalize on some kind of excitement. Favelas are not war zones, and people need understand that real, honest hardworking people live there, we just make less money. There are tour companies here who use the community to make money but they give very little or nothing back to the community. This is not right. They should contribute something for the betterment of the favela. There are plenty of social projects here that could use help.  I am not ashamed to live in the favela and people should not feel shame to come and visit. All we ask is please do not take photos of us like we are animals, and do not have fear if we say hello to you on the street.  If we want to stop or reduce poverty, we need to stop pretending it does not exist. I call it socially responsible tourism. If you chose to tour this type of community, try to give something back, however big or small. I work with an art school and encourage people to bring art supplies, not money. Slums, favelas and shanties are where 1/3 of the population live in all major cities, serving the needs of mostly the rich. Visiting these places may increase your knowledge and awareness at a much deeper level than visiting a museum or art exhibition.  Ignoring poverty is not going to make it go away  and those who have more, should not feel guilt. Unfortunately, this world will always have this unbalance of wealth. Sad but true. Read more about Zezinho on his blog,  Life in Rocinha  or  book a favela walking tour .

— Originally published on 06 February 2011

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a children playing in the Baseco community in Manila, Philippines

Inside the Controversial World of Slum Tourism

People have toured the world’s most marginalized, impoverished districts for over a century.

Hundreds of shanty towns line the riverbanks, train tracks, and garbage dumps in the Filipino capital—the most jammed-packed areas in one of the world’s most densely populated cities. Around a quarter of its 12 million people are considered “informal settlers.”

Manila is starkly representative of a global problem. According to the United Nations , about a quarter of the world’s urban population lives in slums—and this figure is rising fast.

Rich cultural heritage brings visitors to Manila, but some feel compelled to leave the safety of the historic center sites to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality. Tour operators in the Philippines —as well as places like Brazil and India —have responded by offering “slum tours” that take outsiders through their most impoverished, marginalized districts.

Slum tourism sparks considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. No matter what you call it—slum tours, reality tours, adventure tourism, poverty tourism—many consider the practice little more than slack-jawed privileged people gawking at those less fortunate. Others argue they raise awareness and provide numerous examples of giving back to the local communities. Should tourists simply keep their eyes shut?

a slum tour in the Baseco community in Manila, Philippines

Around a quarter of Manila's 12 million people are considered “informal settlers."

a slum tour in the Baseco community in Manila, Philippines

Rich cultural heritage brings visitors to Manila, but some feel compelled to leave the safety of the historic center sites to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality.

Slumming For Centuries

Slum tourism is not a new phenomenon, although much has changed since its beginning. “Slumming” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in the 1860s, meaning “to go into, or frequent, slums for discreditable purposes; to saunter about, with a suspicion, perhaps, of immoral pursuits.” In September 1884, the New York Times published an article about the latest trend in leisure activities that arrived from across the pond, “‘Slumming’ will become a form of fashionable dissipation this winter among our Belles, as our foreign cousins will always be ready to lead the way.”

Usually under the pretense of charity and sometimes with a police escort, rich Londoners began braving the city’s ill-reputed East End beginning around 1840. This new form of amusement arrived to New York City from wealthy British tourists eager to compare slums abroad to those back home. Spreading across the coast to San Francisco, the practice creeped into city guide books. Groups wandered through neighborhoods like the Bowery or Five Points in New York to peer into brothels, saloons, and opium dens.

Visitors could hardly believe their eyes, and justifiably so. “I don’t think an opium den would have welcomed, or allowed access to, slummers to come through if they weren’t there to smoke themselves,” Chad Heap writes in his book Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife , 1885–1940 . Recognizing the business opportunity, outsiders cashed in on the curiosity by hiring actors to play the part of addicts or gang members to stage shoot-’em-ups in the streets. After all, no one wanted the slum tourists to demand a refund or go home disappointed.

a slum tour in the Baseco community in Manila, Philippines

Smokey Tours does not allow participants to take photos, but this policy proves difficult to enforce.

a girl playing in the Baseco community in Manila, Philippines

The city of San Francisco eventually banned such mockery of the poor, the New York Times reported in 1909: “This is a heavy blow to Chinatown guides, who have collected a fee of two dollars each. The opium smokers, gamblers, blind paupers, singing children, and other curiosities were all hired.”

Tours also brought positive results, as Professor of History Seth Koven highlights in his research of slumming in Victorian London. Oxford and Cambridge Universities opened study centers in the late 19th-century to inform social policy, which was only possible by seeing the underprivileged neighborhoods firsthand.

Popularity waned after World War II with the creation of welfare and social housing—then rose again in the 1980s and 1990s as those state provisions declined and labor demands increased.

Presenting Poverty

Plastic arrives from all over India to the dark alleys and corrugated shacks of Dharavi in Mumbai —the second-largest slum on the continent of Asia (after Orangi Town in Pakistan ) and third-largest slum in the world. Ushered around by the company Reality Tour and Travel , tourists see a thriving recycling industry which employs around ten thousand to melt, reshape, and mould discarded plastic. They stop to watch the dhobiwallahs , or washermen, scrub sheets from the city’s hospitals and hotels in an open-air laundry area.

In a TripAdvisor review, one recent participant from Virginia appreciated the focus on community. “It was great to hear about the economy, education and livelihood of the residents,” she writes. “The tour group doesn't allow photography or shopping which I think is really important. It didn't feel exploitative, it felt educational.”

One traveler from London commented on the extremity of the scene. "Had to stop after about 20 minutes into it due to the overbearing nature of the surroundings. The tour is not for the faint hearted. I would've liked a few more disclaimers on the website to warn us about the nature of it." Another guest from the United Kingdom expressed disappointment over the so-called family meal. “This was in the home of one of the guides and, whilst his mum made lunch a delicious meal that we ate in her house, she didn’t eat with us so it wasn’t really what I had expected from a family lunch (or the photos promoting such on the website).”

a slum tour in the Manila North Cemetery, Philippines

Smokey Tours enters the Manila North Cemetery, inhabited by some of Manila's poorest people.

a child playing in the Manila North Cemetery, Philippines

Children jump from grave to grave in the city’s largest cemetery.

Reality Tours hopes to challenge the stereotypical perception of slums as despairing places inhabited by hopeless people. The tour presented slum residents as productive and hardworking, but also content and happy. Analyzing more than 230 reviews of Reality Tour and Travel in her study , Dr. Melissa Nisbett of King’s College London realized that for many Dharavi visitors, poverty was practically invisible. “As the reviews show, poverty was ignored, denied, overlooked and romanticized, but moreover, it was depoliticized.” Without discussing the reason the slum existed, the tour decontextualized the plight of the poor and seemed only to empower the wrong people–the privileged, western, middle class visitors.

With good intentions, the company states that 80 percent of the profits benefit the community through the efforts of its NGO that works to provide access to healthcare, organize educational programs, and more. Co-founder Chris Way spoke to National Geographic after his company surged in popularity from the sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire . “We do try and be as transparent as possible on our website, which does allay many people’s fears.” Way personally refuses a salary for his work.

No Two Cities Alike

The main question should be: Is poverty the central reason to visit?

Other cities take different approaches to slum tourism. In the early 1990s, when black South Africans began offering tours of their townships—the marginalized, racially-segregated areas where they were forced to live—to help raise global awareness of rampant human rights violations. Rather than exploitation inflicted by outsiders, local communities embraced slum tourism as a vehicle to take matters of their traditionally neglected neighborhoods into their own hands.

Some free tours of favelas in Rio de Janeiro provided an accessible option to the crowds that infiltrated the city during the World Cup and Summer Olympics, while most companies continue to charge. Tour manager Eduardo Marques of Brazilian Expeditions explains how their authenticity stands out, “We work with some local guides or freelancers, and during the tour we stop in local small business plus [offer] capoeira presentations that [support] the locals in the favela. We do not hide any info from our visitors. The real life is presented to the visitors.”

Smokey Tours in Manila connected tourists with the reality facing inhabitants of a city landfill in Tondo (until 2014 when it closed) to tell their stories. Now the company tours around Baseco near the port, located in the same crowded district and known for its grassroots activism. Locally-based photographer Hannah Reyes Morales documented her experience walking with the group on assignment for National Geographic Travel. “I had permission to photograph this tour from both the operator and community officials, but the tour itself had a no photography policy for the tourists.” With the policy difficult to enforce, some guests secretly snapped photos on their phones. “I observed how differently tourists processed what they were seeing in the tour. There were those who were respectful of their surroundings, and those who were less so.”

All About Intention

Despite sincere attempts by tour operators to mitigate offense and give back to locals, the impact of slum tourism stays isolated. Ghettoized communities remain woven into the fabric of major cities around the world, each with their individual political, historical, and economic concerns that cannot be generalized. Similarly, the motivations behind the tourism inside them are as diverse as the tour participants themselves. For all participants involved, operators or guests, individual intentions matter most.

the Baseco community in Manila, Philippines

The Baseco neighborhood is located on the Pasig river near the city port, but lacks access to clean drinking water.

Better connections between cities allow more people to travel than ever before, with numbers of international tourists growing quickly every year. While prosperity and quality of life have increased in many cities, so has inequality. As travelers increasingly seek unique experiences that promise authentic experiences in previously off-limits places, access through tours helps put some areas on the map.

Travel connects people that would otherwise not meet, then provides potential to share meaningful stories with others back home. Dr. Fabian Frenzel, who studies tourism of urban poverty at the University of Leicester, points out that one of the key disadvantages of poverty is a lack of recognition and voice. “If you want to tell a story, you need an audience, and tourism provides that audience.” Frenzel argues that even taking the most commodifying tour is better than ignoring that inequality completely.

For the long-term future of these communities, the complex economic, legal, and political issues must be addressed holistically by reorganizing the distribution of resources. While illuminating the issue on a small scale, slum tourism is not a sufficient answer to a growing global problem.

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Tourism Teacher

Slum tourism: What is it and how does it work?

Disclaimer: Some posts on Tourism Teacher may contain affiliate links. If you appreciate this content, you can show your support by making a purchase through these links or by buying me a coffee . Thank you for your support!

Slum tourism is, believe it or not, a real type of tourism . Yep, you got that right- people go to slums whilst on holiday. But, why? In this article I will introduce you to the concept of slum tourism and tell you what it’s all about. Interested to learn more? Read on…

What is slum tourism?

Slum tourism definitions, what is white saviour syndrome, what does a slum tour involve, positive impacts of slum tourism, negative impacts of slum tourism, the ethics of slum tourism, slum tourism in south africa, slum tourism in brazil, slum tourism in india, slum tourism in indonesia, slum tourism in africa, slum tourism: conclusion, further reading.

Slum tourism

Slum tourism is essentially when people visit slums – or, more widely, poverty stricken areas – as a form of tourism. This will generally be in a foreign country, one they are visiting as a tourist on holiday or on a business trip. It has also been referred to as ghetto tourism and poverty tourism.

In ‘ Theorizing Slum Tourism ’, researchers Eveline Dürr and Rivke Jaffe described slum tourism as follows: 

‘ Slum tourism involves transforming poverty, squalor and violence into a tourism product. Drawing on both altruism and voyeurism, this form of tourism is a complex phenomenon that raises various questions concerning power, inequality and subjectivity. ‘

While this describes slum tourism, it doesn’t necessarily define what it actually is. Bob Ma of the University of Pennsylvania says this:

‘ Slum tourism is one of the fastest-growing niche tourism segments in the world, but it is also one of the most controversial. The United Nations defines a slum as, “a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security” (UN, 2007). Slum tourism is the organization of tours in these areas. As a niche segment, slum tourism is distinguished from developmental tourism, which is a broader term that includes tourism in any region that is undergoing development. ‘

Slum tourism as charity tourism

Some people engage in charity tourism – visiting slums or areas of high poverty with the intention of ‘making things better’. This is also sometimes called volunteer tourism . You can see this on Children In Need in the UK, for example, where we see videos of people heading to various underdeveloped areas of Africa to build schools or install wells for fresh water access etc. You can pay (a lot of) money to do this yourself through various organisations.

Slum tourism

People do this as it is within human nature to want to help people who have less than we do. But it is also, of course, a chance to see somewhere new and explore a different culture . It can also be a great way to boost your CV. This means that taking part in slum tourism isn’t a purely selfless act, and this is why it can sometimes be frowned upon.

Studies show that slum tourism can have negative impacts on local communities – the use of unskilled labour, for example, and the taking of jobs that could ultimately have gone to local people. There is also usually no long term commitment involved, and of course there is the concept of white saviour syndrome.

The following extract comes from De-constructing the ‘White Saviour Syndrome’: A Manifestation of Neo-Imperialism by Felix Willuweit:

‘With the recent widespread of protests for black civil rights and against racism across the Western world, the topic of white prejudice has risen to the centre of public attention, of which one manifestation is the so-called ‘White Saviour Syndrome’.   Whether it is Ed Sheeran posing for ‘Comic Relief’ with a number of black children (Hinsliff, 2019), Madonna adopting children from Malawi (Hinsliff, 2019), or students going on adventures advertised for ‘young philanthropists’ within a multi-million dollar gap-year industry (Bandyopadhyay, 2019), numerous cases of altruistic acts of ‘White Saviours’ can be found throughout popular culture in the global North.’

Whereas these practices follow an altruistic narrative, they are commonly criticised as serving to satisfy a ‘White Saviour Syndrome’, the phenomenon in which a white person “guides people of colour from the margins to the mainstream with his or her own initiative and benevolence” which tends to render the people of colour “incapable of helping themselves” and disposes them of historical agency (Cammarota, 2011: 243-244).

So what does slum tourism involve? Many tour operators offer literal ‘slum tours’ as part of their packages, and of course you can visit slum areas alone as they are just parts of various areas. AfricanTrails.co.uk, for example, have a page discussing slum tours and they state that some of their packages do offer slum visits in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and more.

favela tour

Reality Tours and Travel are another company offering slum tours. As the company name suggests, they hope to offer a ‘realistic’ side to the places tourists visit. Based in India , a country with a lot of poverty, their slogan is ‘USING TOURISM TO CHANGE LIVES’. They say: Our ethical and educational Dharavi slum tours give visitors a unique glimpse into everyday life for many Mumbaikars while breaking down the negative stereotypes associated with slums. 80% of the profits from every tour are invested back into the community through the programs of our NGO, Reality Gives , and most of our guides are from the community.

Slum tourism has some positives to it. It gives people an insight into how poverty can affect people – humans are curious by nature, and if you are not living in poverty yourself, or never have, then it can be hard to imagine what it is really like. Visiting a slum whilst on holiday is like opening a window to another life, however briefly. 

It is also a chance to provide an income to people living in slums, if the tour involves some sort of opportunity to purchase goods or donate money. And with some tours, as you can see from Reality Tours and Travel above, the booking cost goes into improving the community.

Of course, there are negatives impacts associated with slum tourism too. The main one is that it treats those who live in slums as though they are in a zoo, dehumanising them so tourists can see what it’s like before swanning off back to their hotel and other luxuries. Some would go so far as to argue that they are a form of ‘ human zoo ‘. These tours portray poverty as something exotic, rather than a very real danger to the lives of the people impacted by it. It is also questionable how far the money trickles down. With people paying for organised tours, how sure can we be that real people are accessing the money?

Slum tourism

Looking at the pros and cons it is clear that there is an ethical question surrounding slum tourism . People who live in poverty and live in slums are real people. We need to ask ourselves whether it is fair for them to be paraded around in front of us as part of an organised tour that we are paying a company to go on.

Some questions we should ask ourselves when looking to engage in slum tourism, courtesy of slumtourism.net, are:

  • To what extent does slum tourism provide an income and positive visibility for people in deprived areas? 
  • Which stakeholders are involved in slum tourism and who profits most? 
  • How are guided tours organised or composed?  
  • What are the geographical scopes of slum-tourism and which place does it occupy in the new mobility system? 
  • Where does slum tourism fit in a globalised world of tourist consumption?

It is similar to visiting remote tribes, in a way, just as I explain in my article about the long neck tribe in Thailand . Tourists coming in from outside to view life in a slum through a western lens for a few minutes… does this paint a fair picture of slums?

Slum tourism destinations

There are various places around the world where slum tourism is prevalent. Here are some examples-

Slum tourism exists across South Africa . Here it is also known as township tourism – in SA, townships are the underdeveloped urban areas, generally populated by people of colour as a fall out from the Apartheid era. Apparently, around 25% of visitors to Cape Town engage in township tours. This city alone has around 40-50 township tour operators.

Slum tourism in Brazil equates to ‘favela tours’. Favelas are slums or shanty towns built on the outskirts of major cities across Brazil, and many people visit them for tourist purposes while on holiday in this beautiful country. Favelas are known to be dangerous areas. They are rife with crime, violence and drug dealing, but thousands of tourists every month visit these areas with curiosity.

As mentioned above when I spoke about Reality Tours and Travel, India is a prime spot for slum tourism due to the high levels of poverty here. The film Slumdog Millionaire put Indian slums onto the screens of millions of people, many of whom became keen to see it for themselves on a trip to India. There are around 15,000 people visiting the Dharavi slum each year alone.

Jakarta is home to a slum where families of 5 squeeze into ‘houses’ no bigger than the average western bathroom. They survive on pennies, and welcome tourists into their homes to see what it is like. Jakarta Hidden Tours is run by Ronnie. He’s a charity worker who donates half of his profits to the local community in an attempt to improve their lives.

Across Africa there are poor and underdeveloped communities. Slums tend to exist in Kenya and Uganda, for the most part. AfricanTrails say:

Going on an Africa slum tour is a great way to see what life is like for the majority of residents in a specific African town or city. Visitors can see how people live and the work they carry out in order to provide for their families. Slum tours are not purely filled with misery, the towns often have vibrant communities with shops, schools and market stalls.

I t is easy to forget that there are people living in these conditions, as it is not something you see every day, so for many, Africa slum tours are a real eye-opening experience. Visitors leave the area with the intention of donating to charities, helping those living in these places. Slum tours give the chance for tourists to interact with others from different backgrounds and see the true beauty of Africa and its people.

To conclude, slum tourism occurs around the world, and has done since Victorian times in England. Back then, the aristocracy would visit the capital’s poorest areas for voyeuristic and/or philanthropic purposes. And still it continues. People are, of course, eager to see another way of life. Often they believe that they are helping, and visiting people at their lowest can be a great way to remind you that really, you don’t have it all that bad. The ethics are questionable, but there are definitely ways you can visit a slum without it being a negative thing.

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Slumming It At Dharavi: What Are Our Intentions With Slum Tourism?

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With cities like Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro now becoming bonafide tourist attractions, bringing in hundreds and thousands of curious visitors each year, Slum Tourism has also seen a rise in popularity. It takes outsiders through the most impoverished, marginalised districts of the city to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality. 

Filled with hundreds of shanty towns lined by the riverbanks, train tracks, and garbage dumps, “Slumming” has become the key to capturing the attention of the wanderlust, experiential, thrill-seeking traveller. Spending time at a slum through one’s own curiosity or for the charitable purpose of pro-poor tourism, there are benefits and detriments. 

Slum tourism does spark a considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. Is the practice in line with privileged people gawking at those less fortunate or do they raise awareness and provide numerous examples of giving back to the local communities? Yet to further look into this travel practice, we need to set out the basics of the same.

Slum Tourism, Poverty Tourism, Ghetto Tourism or Reality Tours Defined:

Slum Tourism also known as Poverty tourism or ghetto tourism is a type of city tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas. Originally focused on the slums and ghettos of London and Manhattan in the 19th Century, Slum tourism is now prominent in South Africa, India, Brazil, Poland, Kenya, Philippines and the United States. Whether called a township, favela, a barrio, a slum, a shantytown, or a ghetto, outsiders recreationally visiting these typically impoverished places is nothing new.  

What began in the mid-80s, ‘Slumming’ was first used in the Oxford English Dictionary, as people in London visited slum neighbourhoods such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch in order to observe life in this situation. In the 1980s, South African communities organised township tours to educate the whites in local governments on how the black population lived. Similarly, in the mid-1990s, international tours were organised with destinations in the most disadvantaged areas of developing nations, thus starting the trend of slum tourism, attracting thousands across the globe.  

Motivated by the ‘out of the ordinary’ experience , tourism is in itself the exploration and experience of the reality of a particular place. Therefore slum tourism actually returns to this practice, it allows the tourists to get a sense of real-life for the poorest communities, creating a path to development and poverty alleviation- funnelling tourists dollars into slums, or installing exploitative practices that enhance the western travellers need to ‘feel good’. 

Reality Check with Slum Tour and Travel.

A study in 2012 by the University of Pennsylvania showed that tourists in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum were motivated primarily by curiosity, as opposed to several competing push factors such as social comparison, entertainment, education, or self-actualization. The study also found that most slum residents were ambivalent about the tour, with interest and intrigue as the most commonly cited feelings. Take Reality Tour and Travel of Mumbai, India. Often ushered by this slum tour operator, tourists get to see a thriving recycling industry which employs around ten thousand people, to melt, reshape, and mould discarded plastic.

Also, followed by dhobi wallahs, or washermen in open-air laundry areas, tourists get to connect with locals for memorable cooking experiences, presenting the residents as productive and hardworking yet content and happy with their lifestyle and socio-economic status. However, Dr, Melissa Nisbett in her study of Slum Tourism found that the concept of poverty to these Dharavi visitors was practically invisible. She added:

“As the reviews show, poverty was ignored, denied, overlooked and romanticized, but moreover, it is depoliticized. The tours decontextualized the plight of the poor and seem only to empower the wrong people- the privileged, western, middle-class visitors”. 

The primary accusation here is that slum tourism takes away the poverty from poverty tours, often turning hardship into entertainment- something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from. Yet the tours do provide employment and income for guides from the slum and an opportunity for craft-workers to sell souvenirs, allowing them to re-invest in the community and motivating tourists to help such economies. 

View this post on Instagram Join us in Kumbharwada and get hands-on with pottery making! Last week we had our inaugural Pottery Tour. Here's a sneak peek. #mumbai #bombay #kumbharwada #dharavi #slum #pottery #workshop #travel #travellove #travelworld #traveller #travelling #explore #wanderlust #neverstopexploring #incredibleindia #adventure #adventuretravel #indiatravel #passionpassport #exploreindia #travelbug #neverstoptravelling #india Picture @bunny_mayur A post shared by Reality Tours (@realityindia) on Jan 8, 2018 at 1:35am PST

Now Let Us Talk Numbers:

Considered to be one of the world’s largest slum, Dharavi in Mumbai, India is spread over 2.1 square kilometres (520 acres) with a population of somewhere between 700,000 to a million. With an active informal economy in which numerous household enterprises employ many of the slum residents- leather, textiles and pottery products are among the goods made inside Dharavi. The estimated total annual turnover for this informal economy is over USD 1 billion . 

An estimated 5000 businesses and 15,000 single-room factories operate in the area. The per capita income of the residents, depending on estimated population range of 300,000 to about 1 million , ranges somewhere between USD 500 to USD 2000 per year. The slums were also named by travel website TripAdvisor.com as the 2019 top visited experiences in India and also one of the 10 most favourite tourist sites in Asia. 

After being featured in award-winning films like Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire and much-appreciated Gully Boy, Dharavi has gained a lot of popularity, growing footfall in the area. Due to lack of data, one cannot determine the actual tread of visitors to the area. However, Reality has reportedly had about 15,000 visitors annually for the year 2016, with an expectation of the same growing further in the next 5 years. 

View this post on Instagram From #oxford to the slums of #slumdogmillionaire #dharavi #mumbai #india … only 9 of us were brave enough to try it ?? @oxfordsbs @oxford_uni A post shared by R U D I N A ? (@rudisuti) on Dec 4, 2019 at 10:30am PST

What About Your Intention? 

However, with tour operators trying to mitigate offence and give back to locals, the impact of slum tourism stays rather isolated. Fabian Frenzel, Author of the definitive book, Slumming It: The Tourist Valorization of Urban Poverty. , writes “ In slum tourism, what I find is that people are interested in this fact of inequality”.  Images of these areas create a sense of sentiment that amplifies over time as more and more visuals of the human condition around the world, especially within these slums surface. 

So, instead of consuming these images at home, people are increasingly trying to follow those images back to its origin, in order to “see it themselves” and then try and do something about it. According to the tour operator, the effect of such desire is massive. Take movies based around the areas. Slumdog Millionaire- an oscar winning movie that portrays the journey of two brothers in the slums of Mumbai to riches. Might it be a mere representation of the slums in its entirety, the actual essence of the “slum life” is something that creates this need to rate the place, see the place, feel the desperation of poverty?

View this post on Instagram #streetphotography #dharavi #oldhomes A post shared by bunny (@dharavi__17) on Dec 11, 2019 at 8:15am PST

“What you see is life, urban life”, as Frenzel puts it. Even though limited in many ways, might it be the lack of basic sanitation or all basic services of a city, there is a sense of vibrancy that has fantasised poverty. This is where the issue starts. Yes, the intention behind slum tourism itself is diverse in nature, but they all are pushed from a place of empathy, that adds personal value to the visitor rather than the actual settlement. It does help educate us about inequality in the world, but it takes away the poor in poverty by depoliticizing and romanticising life in slums. 

Is there something good that comes from ‘Slumming’. 

Regardless of your intention, slum tourism does open our eyes to inequality. It takes poverty and inequality and commodifies it in the sense of tours educating (might it even be a small group of people) about a global issue. While it might illuminate the issue on a small scale, slum tourism is not a sufficient answer to a growing global problem. 

But as Frenzel puts it “if you want to tell a story, you need an audience, and slum tourism provides that audience”.  

Yes, slum tourism can provide a way to challenge the stigma that represents slum life something dangerous. Take Reality Tours and Travels , for a mere INR 900 per person (USD 12.72), you can get a 2-hour eye-opening tour of ‘one of the largest slums in Asia’ and learn about the very vibrant life of Dharavi and its people. The best part, 80 per cent of the profit goes back into the slum to organise programs and run a community centre that houses many NGOs – including what Reality Tours gives to help better the conditions of the area.

Thus to conclude, what I would like to say is, yes slum tourism has many implications, but what matters is what your intentions are. Are you indulging in pro-poor tours to make yourself feel better? Or is it because you want to be educated about inequality and poverty?

Ask yourself this the next time you or someone you know goes on a slum tour.  

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Slumming it: how tourism is putting the world’s poorest places on the map

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Lecturer in the Political Economy of Organisation, University of Leicester

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From 2012-2014 Fabian Frenzel was a Marie-Curie Fellow and has received funding from the European Union to conduct his research on slum tourism.

University of Leicester provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Back in Victorian times, wealthier citizens could sometimes be found wandering among London’s poorer, informal neighbourhoods, distributing charity to the needy. “Slumming” – as it was called – was later dismissed as a morally dubious and voyeuristic pastime. Today, it’s making a comeback; wealthy Westerners are once more making forays into slums – and this time, they’re venturing right across the developing world.

According to estimates by tour operators and researchers , over one million tourists visited a township, favela or slum somewhere in the world in 2014. Most of these visits were made as part of three or four-hour tours in the hotspots of global slum tourism; major cities and towns in Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai.

There is reason to think that slum tourism is even more common than these numbers suggest. Consider the thousands of international volunteers, who spend anything from a few days to several months in different slums across the world.

The gap year has become a rite of passage for young adults between school and university and, in the UK, volunteering and travel opportunities are often brokered by commercial tourism operators. In Germany and the US, state sponsored programs exist to funnel young people into volunteering jobs abroad.

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International volunteering is no longer restricted to young people at specific points in their lives. Volunteers today are recruited across a wide range of age groups . Other travellers can be considered slum-tourists: from international activists seeking cross-class encounters to advance global justice, to students and researchers of slums and urban development conducting fieldwork in poor neighbourhoods.

Much modern tourism leads richer people to encounter relatively poorer people and places. But in the diverse practices of slum tourism, this is an intentional and explicit goal: poverty becomes the attraction – it is the reason to go.

Many people will instinctively think that this kind of travel is morally problematic, if not downright wrong. But is it really any better to travel to a country such as India and ignore its huge inequalities?

Mapping inequality

It goes without saying that ours is a world of deep and rigid inequalities. Despite some progress in the battles against absolute poverty, inequality is on the rise globally . Few people will openly disagree that something needs to be done about this – but the question is how? Slum tourism should be read as an attempt to address this question. So, rather than dismissing it outright, we should hold this kind of tourism to account and ask; does it help to reduce global inequality?

My investigation into slum tourism provided some surprising answers to this question. We tend to think of tourism primarily as an economic transaction. But slum tourism actually does very little to directly channel money into slums: this is because the overall numbers of slum tourists and the amount of money they end up spending when visiting slums is insignificant compared with with the resources needed to address global inequality.

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But in terms of symbolic value, even small numbers of slum tourists can sometimes significantly alter the dominant perceptions of a place. In Mumbai, 20,000 tourists annually visit the informal neighbourhood of Dharavi , which was featured in Slumdog Millionaire. Visitor numbers there now rival Elephanta Island in Mumbai – a world heritage site.

Likewise, in Johannesburg, most locals consider the inner-city neighbourhood of Hillbrow to be off limits. But tourists rate walking tours of the area so highly that the neighbourhood now features as one of the top attractions of the city on platforms such as Trip Advisor . Tourists’ interest in Rio’s favelas has put them on the map; before, they used to be hidden by city authorities and local elites .

Raising visibility

Despite the global anti-poverty rhetoric, it is clear that today’s widespread poverty does benefit some people. From their perspective, the best way of dealing with poverty is to make it invisible. Invisibility means that residents of poor neighbourhoods find it difficult to make political claims for decent housing, urban infrastructure and welfare. They are available as cheap labour, but deprived of full social and political rights.

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Slum tourism has the power to increase the visibility of poor neighbourhoods, which can in turn give residents more social and political recognition. Visibility can’t fix everything, of course. It can be highly selective and misleading, dark and voyeuristic or overly positive while glossing over real problems. This isn’t just true of slum tourism; it can also be seen in the domain of “virtual slumming” – the consumption of images, films and books about slums.

Yet slum tourism has a key advantage over “virtual slumming”: it can actually bring people together. If we want tourism to address global inequality, we should look for where it enables cross-class encounters; where it encourages tourists to support local struggles for recognition and build the connections that can help form global grassroots movements. To live up to this potential, we need to reconsider what is meant by tourism, and rethink what it means to be tourists.

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Inside the Very Real World of 'Slum Tourism'

By Mark Ellwood

Image may contain Urban Building Slum Human and Person

Hurricane Katrina left physical and emotional scars on New Orleans, and America, but nowhere was its impact more devastating than the city’s Lower Ninth Ward. Three years after the storm, in October 2008, the district was still pockmarked with half-demolished homes and patches of overgrown grass. It was also dotted with artworks, site-specific installations by the likes of Wangechi Mutu and her Ms Sarah House . Those works formed part of the city’s inaugural art biennial, Prospect New Orleans , bringing tourists to drive and wander through the area in droves. But visitors were caught in an uncomfortable paradox, their art viewing underpinned by the backdrop of one of America’s poorest neighborhoods—or what was left of it.

Locals stood by as various VIPs peered at Mutu’s work. When one of the arterati mustered up courage enough to ask if she minded the influx of gawkers, she shrugged and dodged the question. “It’s nice to have the art here, because it means people are coming to see more than just our ruined homes.” Not everyone reacted to the incomers with such neutrality, though—take one hand-painted sign erected in the neighborhood post-Katrina, that read:

TOURIST Shame On You Driving BY without stopping Paying to see my pain 1,600+ DIED HERE

Both reactions are understandable, and spotlight the uneasy distinction locals in the area might have drawn between being viewed rather than feeling seen. Is it wrong, though, to go beyond the sightseeing mainstays of somewhere like the French Quarter and into a corner of the city that might be blighted or underprivileged as these visitors did? It’s an awkward, but intriguing, question, and one that underpins a nascent niche in travel. It has been nicknamed ‘slum tourism,’ though it’s a broad umbrella term travel that involves visiting underprivileged areas in well-trafficked destinations. Such experiences are complex, since they can seem simultaneously important (bringing much-needed revenues, educating visitors first hand) and inappropriate (a gesture of misunderstanding fitting for a modern-day Marie Antoinette).

Indeed, even those who operate in the field seem to struggle to reconcile those divergent urges. Researching this story, there was resistance, suspicion, and even outright hostility from seasoned slum tourism vets. Deepa Krishnan runs Mumbai Magic , which specializes in tours around the city, home to what’s estimated as Asia’s largest slum; here, about a million people live in ad hoc homes a few miles from Bollywood’s glitz (it’s now best known as home to the hero of Slumdog Millionaire ). "The Spirit of Dharavi" tour takes in this settlement, a two-hour glimpse into everyday life aiming to show that the squalor for which it’s become shorthand is only part of Dharavi story. It’s also a hub of recycling, for example, and home to women’s co-op for papadum-making. Organized as a community project, rather than on a commercial basis, all profits are ploughed back into Dharavi. Yet pressed to talk by phone rather than email, Deepa balked. “I’ve been misquoted too often,” she said.

The organizer of another alt-tourism operation was even more reluctant, and asked not to be quoted, or included here, at all. Its superb premise—the formerly homeless act as guides to help visitors see and understand overlooked corners of a well-trafficked city—seemed smartly to upend tradition. Rather than isolating ‘the other,’ it shows the interconnectedness of so much in a modern city. The fact that both of these firms, whose businesses fall squarely into such non-traditional tours, are so squeamish about the topic is instructive—and reassuring for the rest of us when we’re conflicted about whether or not it’s ethical to treat deprivation as a distraction.

Call it poorism, misery tourism, poverty tourism—it still smacks of exploitation.

The contemporary concept of slum tourism dates back about 30 years, according to Ko Koens, Ph.D., a Dutch academic who specializes in this field and runs slumtourism.net . The South African government began bussing municipal workers into townships like Soweto in the 1980s, he explains, intending to educate them on no-go areas within their fiefdom. “International tourists, mostly activists, who wanted to show their support [for township-dwellers] started doing these tours, too. And after apartheid ended, the operators who were running them for the government realized they could do them commercially.” (It’s now a vital part of the country’s tourism economy, with some estimates that one in four visitors to the country book a Township Tour. )

Simultaneously, tourists were beginning to explore the slums or favelas of Rio de Janeiro. These are the shantytowns that six percent of Brazil’s population calls home. Bolted to the steep hills overlooking the waterfront mansions where wealthy Cariocas chose to live, these higgledy piggledy shacks perch precariously, as if jumbled in the aftermath of an earthquake. From here, the idea of slum tourism began spreading across the world, from Nairobi to the Dominican Republic, and of course, India. Mumbai Magic isn’t alone in operating tours of Bombay’s Dharavi slums—there are countless tours available of areas that now rival the Marine Drive or the Gateway of India as local attractions.

Yet though it’s a thriving new niche, many travelers remain squeamish about the idea. In part, of course, it’s thanks to the words "slum tourism," yet none of the alternatives seem any less confrontational. Call it poorism, misery tourism, poverty tourism—it still smacks of exploitation. There are also safety concerns, too: After all, Brazil supplied almost half the entries in a recent list of the world’s 50 most dangerous cities , not to mention that the world’s latest health crisis is headquartered in the stagnant waters on which the favela residents rely. The sense of being an interloper, or that such deprivation is Disneyfied into a showcase solely for visitors, is an additional factor—especially when spoofish ideas like Emoya’s Shanty Town hotel , a faux South African slum that offsets discomforts like outdoor toilets with underfloor heating and Wi-Fi, turn out not to be Saturday Night Live skits.

Muddled motivations add to the discomfort; one in-depth study found it was pure curiosity, rather than education, say, or self-actualization, that drove most visitors to book a trip around the Dharavi slums. One first-hand account by a Kenyan who went from the slums of Nairobi to studying at Wesleyan University underlines those awkward findings. “I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes… “ he wrote. “Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.” He makes one rule of any such trips all too clear: If you undertake any such tours, focus on memories rather than Instagram posts.

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Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage.

The biggest challenge, though, is the lack of accreditation. It's still a frustratingly opaque process, to gauge how profits made will directly improve conditions in that slum, admits Tony Carne, who runs Urban Adventures , a division of socially conscious firm Intrepid Travel. His firm is a moderated marketplace for independent guides—much like an Etsy for travel—and offers a wide range of slum tours around the world. Carne supports some form of regulation to help reassure would-be clients of a slum tour’s ethical credentials. “The entire integrity of our business is sitting on this being the right thing to do,” he says, though he also predicts a shift in the business, likely to make such regulation unnecessary. Many charities have begun suggesting these slum tours to donors keen to see how and where their money is used, outsourced versions of the visits long available to institutional donors. He is already in to co-brand slum tours with several major nonprofits, including Action Aid via its Safe Cities program; Carne hopes that such partnerships will reassure travelers queasy about such tours’ ethics and finances. “Everyone from the U.N. down has said poverty alleviation through tourism can only be a reality if someone does something,” he says. “It will not solve itself by committee. It will solve itself by action.”

Carne’s theory was echoed by my colleague Laura Dannen Redman, who visited the Philippi township in Cape Town under the aegis of a local nonprofit. It was a private tour, but the group hopes to increase awareness to bolster the settlement’s infrastructure. She still vividly recalls what she saw, half a year later. “The homes were corrugated iron, but tidy, exuding a sense of pride with clean curtains in the windows. But there was this one open gutter I can't forget. The water was tinged green, littered with what looked like weeks’ worth of garbage—plastic wrappers and bottles and other detritus. It backed the neighborhood like a gangrenous moat," she says. "They deserve better. It does feel disingenuous, shameful, even if you’re there to learn and want to help. But the end result was motivating. We did feel called to action, to pay more attention to the plight of so many South Africans.” In the end, perhaps, it isn’t what we call it, or even why we do it that matters—it’s whether the slum tourism experience inspires us to try to make a change.

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Slum and Pro-Poor Tourism

Slum tourism is becoming increasingly popular amongst international travel visitors, but is it an ethical or socially acceptable travel experience many would argue no. here is some background on the controversial travel trend..

Posted on : 2020-02-05 09:43:22

Slum tourism: what is it?

The United Nations defines a slum as a ‘run down area of a city characterised by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security’.

The popularity of slum tourism has rapidly increased in recent years, with slums around the world seeing millions of visitors each year. While slum tourism is nothing new, it’s grown into a legitimate global industry. Tour operators now promote visits to places like the favelas of Rio, the barrios of Medellín, the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg, the sprawling slums of Mumbai and New Delhi, and even the skid row areas of Detroit, LA and Berlin. A slum tour may contain a variety of components, from visits to schools, community projects and orphanages, to a jaunt around a local market. Some tours may even include a cookery lesson at an inhabitants home. Much of the time, a slum tour will focus on sites that show betterment to the community and include suggestions on how you can lend your support. Slums are often known as being vibrant and hectic areas, rife with small businesses and trade. Many tours will capitalise on these aspects, presenting a slum as an area of development and urban life. Slum tourism has the potential to be a contributor to economic and social growth in local communities. However, it’s often difficult to judge whether this type of tourism truly benefits impoverished areas. Who truly makes money from these tours? How do local people feel about moneyed tourists coming into their communities? These are key question that need considering.

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Why is it so popular?

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Post-Conflict

Post conflict, or ‘phoenix’ tourism, is tourism that takes place in a country after political unrest, war, or damaging weather events. Often, after a major conflict, policy makers will look for ways to rebuild the economy. One way this has been done is by development of tourism in poorer areas, including undocumented tours, small business enterprise development and simple accommodation startups.

An example of this can be seen in post-war Rwanda. Despite having a violent past, the country is known for its beautiful national parks and diverse wildlife. After the civil war ended, the government made a commitment to developing tourism within the country. They began utilising natural resources and provided wildlife tours, as well as opening hotels and accommodation in poorer areas. They implemented policies that improved the business environment and involved private sector investments and local guides. Small private tour operator – New Dawn Associates (NDA) established tours of Mayange village (part of the UN Millennium Villages project) and, Kigali’s poorer suburb. Both tours ensure that a fixed percentage of the benefits goes into a Community Development Fund and focus on sharing the country’s developmental challenges. This was successful because the government viewed tourism as an instrument to reduce poverty by directly involving local communities.

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What are the benefits?

Economic benefits.

While controversial, there are many potential economic benefits to slum tourism. Increased foot traffic in communities where people make a living selling traditional crafts helps them to see a higher profit. In the Dhavari Slum, much of Mumbai’s waste paper and plastic is recycled to support the craft industries, and tourists are encouraged to buy local wares. When locals are directly involved in the tours being given, it provides them with a source of income and security. Some tour operators contribute profits directly into the slums as well. However, in comparison to what they are earning themselves, it may only be a very small fraction. This unfair distribution of profit means that some marginalised communities may never see the benefits of tourism in the area they call home.

Another matter of contention is that often slum tours are heavily associated with charity. Many operators will promote tours as a means of local development, promising that an excerpt of the money you give will end up going to community projects or local guides. Even so, it is doubtful that the money actually ends up in these places and if it does, it may not be a lot.

Increased Local Development

In 2018, over 1 billion people lived in slums or informal settlements (UN). Many of these areas have become infamous for being unsafe or having a reputation for crime, much like Medellín, Columbia or the ‘a murder capital’ as it was once called. Some might say that by visiting these slums, it helps to promote awareness and puts more marginalised communities on the map. It could increase local development and social mobility. But some would say these visits overly-romanticise and trivialise slums; places where there is overburdened infrastructure, poor sanitation, unplanned urbanisation and lack of access to clean water and waste services.

Often it is the case that many tourists feel uncomfortable ‘touring’ around somebody else’s home or neighborhood, especially when the dynamics of wealth and power are severely imbalanced.

Questions to ask

If you do want to visit a slum it is worth asking yourself some hard questions:

Who runs the slum tour?

Is it run by an external company?

Are they in partnership with those who live in the slum?

Do they have permission to be there?

Does the local community benefit?

The issue of slum tourism remains controversial, despite valid arguments on both sides. Ultimately, the only way for slum tourism to be ethical is if it directly involves and benefits the people living in these communities, and is for the purpose of education and acceptance, not only monetary gain.

Slum Tourism: What Is It, and Is It Okay?

Slum tourism, also sometimes referred to as "ghetto tourism," involves tourism to impoverished areas, particularly in India , Brazil, Kenya, and Indonesia. The purpose of slum tourism is to provide tourists the opportunity to see the “non-touristy” areas of a country or city.

While slum tourism has gained some international notoriety in recent years, it is not a new concept. In the mid-1800s, rich Londoners would travel to the squalid tenements of the East End. Early visits began under the guise of “charity,” but over the next few decades, the practice spread to the tenements of U.S. cities like New Yorkand Chicago . With demand, tour operators developed guides to tour these impoverished neighborhoods.

Slum tourism, or seeing how the other half lived, died off in the mid-1900s, but regained popularity in South Africa due to apartheid. This tourism, though, was driven by the oppressed Black South Africans who wanted the world to understand their plight. The success of the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" brought India’s poverty to the world’s attention and slum tourism expanded to cities like Dharavi , home to India’s largest slum.

Modern tourists want an authentic experience, not the white-washed tourist zones that were so popular in the 1980s. Slum tourism meets this desire, offering a look into the world beyond their personal experience.

Safety Concerns

Like it is in all areas of tourism, slum tourism can be safe, or not. When choosing a slum tour, guests should use due diligence to determine if a tour is licensed, has a good reputation on review sites and follows local guidelines.

For instance, Reality Tours and Travel , which was featured on PBS, takes 18,000 people on tours of Dharavi, India each year. The tours highlight the slum’s positives, such as its infrastructure of hospitals, banks and entertainment, and its negatives, such as the lack of housing space and bathrooms and mounds of garbage. The tour shows guests that not everyone has a middle-class home, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a vibrant life. Further, 80% of proceeds from the tours are pumped back into community improvement projects.

Unfortunately, other companies, taking on similar names and logos, offer “tours” that don’t showcase the positives and negatives but exploit the community. They don’t pump funds back into the community, either.

Because there is no standard for slum tour operators yet, tourists need to determine for themselves whether a particular tour company is acting as ethically and responsibly as it claims.

Brazil’s favelas , slum areas that are typically located on the outskirts of big cities like  São Paulo , draw 50,000 tourists each year. Rio de Janeiro has by far the most slum tours of any city in Brazil. Slum tourism of Brazil’s favelas is encouraged by the federal government. Tours provide an opportunity to understand that these hill communities are vibrant communities, not just drug-infested slums portrayed in movies. Trained tour guides drive tourists to the favela by van and then offer walking tours to highlight local entertainment, community centers, and even a meet with people who live there. Generally, photography is prohibited on slum tours preserving respect for the people who live there.

The government goals for touring favelas include:

  • explaining the economy of a favela (employment, welfare, rental markets and more)
  • highlighting the infrastructure of the favela (hospitals, shopping, banking, fashion, and entertainment)
  • touring schools and community centers
  • touring community projects
  • interacting with the citizens and visits to their homes
  • enjoying a meal at a local restaurant

While Brazil has carefully structured its program for slum tourism, concerns remain. Despite regulations and guidelines, some tourists take photos and share them on social media. Whether for shock value or in an effort to enlighten the world to the plight of people in slums, these photos can do more harm than good. Some tour operators, likewise, exploit tourists, claiming that their tours support local businesses without actually giving back to the community. Perhaps the greatest concern, though, is that when slum tourism goes wrong, real lives are impacted.

Responsible slum tourism depends on government guidelines, ethical tour operators, and considerate tourists. When these come together, tourists can have  safe travel experiences, gain a wider worldview and communities can benefit.​

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Voluntourism – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The concept of voluntourism has been debated about for many years. Opinions on the issue vary from the belief that it is another way for white people to exploit developing countries, to people who believe that exposure to other cultures will cause progress in terms of international development. While in the past, I’ve tended to side with the opposition, after reading several articles arguing both the pros and the cons I’ve realized the complexity behind the idea of voluntourism. In order for young people to understand the complexities of the worlds issues, they must be exposed. But the programs with which they experience these cultures with must be aware of the threat of the white savior complex and the danger of a single story that could be an aftershock of the exposure.

One of the main issues seems to be the short term voluntourism that so many young people take part of. It’s hard to argue that two weeks in a new culture can expose you to the full culture, regardless of one’s level of immersion. Even living in Senegal for just three months, I have seen families during the transition from summer to school, the start of the dry season, the changing of crop yields, and three major religious holidays. Had I’d stayed here for even just one month, my perception of the Senegalese culture as a whole would have been utterly different from what it is now. To truly understand another culture you must truly immerse for long periods of time, but this is not an easy task and it’s understandable that long-term immersion is not plausible for everyone who wants to go abroad. But it is important for short-term volunteers to be aware of the complexity of the culture they are surrounded by. Programs should offer information to their volunteers that delves into the social context of their country. By being aware of the complexity of the country they are in, it may provide individuals a better perspective on the true reasoning behind the issues they may be exposed to while in country exist. Along with this, if an individual has a deeper understanding of these issues, it may push them to question the WHY behind the issue. By asking why, voluntarists may take away quite a lot from the experience, possibly even how their country may play a role in the issue the foreign country is experiencing. This deeper understanding can perhaps truly cause the voluntarist to want to make a change in their lives or affect what course of work they may choose to go into.

Another issue is the concept of “real good versus feel good”.  Are the volunteers really going to Kenya for two weeks to help or to take good pictures for their social media? The concept of real good- creating real, positive, responsible change in a place, versus feel good- going somewhere and having the only effect be a boost in your self esteem, is a serious issue. This cannot be totally solved by a program, as the person going abroad is responsible for how they interpret their experience, but it can be discussed. Within the Global Citizen Year program we discussed the importance of thinking about whether your actions are benefitting your community or really just yourself. Having awareness of the difference is the first step to changing how people view their role in their host community.

There’s also the argument that voluntourism is just a way for rich, white people to see “how the other half” lives. For example, slum tours exploit the local communities and often take away the pride of the people who live there. Kennedy Odede, who wrote the article “Slumdog Tourism” in 2010, wrote about the experience of having white woman walk through his home, “I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square foot house washing dishes, looking at the utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage.” This obvious exploitation needs to stop. But that does not mean that all forms of voluntourism are so blatantly disrespectful. While it’s not enough to simply recognize your privilege, voluntourism can provide a great platform for people from developing countries to recognize changes they can make in their lives back home, if they’re given the right information. Not everyone will work to make massive change internationally, but if you live in a developed country you play some role in the oppression of developing countries and you can attempt to make changes to help, no matter how small. For some, only seeing the issues first hand, may push them to make these changes. Programs should educate people on what they can do to become more responsible in the realm of international aid, even if that may just be not shopping from certain companies that exploit developing countries. Programs should also not separate people from the local communities. The locals should be seen as people and not something to take a photo of. I believe it’s the responsibility of voluntarist programs to sensitize people to that as, unfortunately, some people may be so disconnected that they do not view the local communities in that way.

Another argument is that issues should be dealt with at home before working abroad. For example, in the states, there are many issues around poverty, health care, education, gun violence, and other topics. Some believe that working internationally is simply ignoring that the fact that there are many domestic issues. People believe that international issues are more “exotic” and “attractive” than domestic issues, but I disagree. While domestic issues are incredibly important, the fact is that working internationally also relies on domestic work. Because the economies of the developing world and the already developed are so intertwined, it is unlikely one will work internationally without domestic aid. This idea that we should work to fix domestic issues before international issues also brings up the idea that one is more important than the other. As our world becomes more globalized, I believe it’s time to stop viewing someone from another country as an “other”. While it’s important to value diversity in culture, language, and ethnicity, one country should not get priority of help over another. But it is very important to realize that international issues are just, if not more, complex than domestic issues. Courtney Martin made a perfect analogy in her 2016 article, “The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems”. She gave the scenario of a 22-year-old college student in Kampala, Uganda who stumbled upon a news story of a mass shooting in the United States. The student wonders if she could go there and come up with gun restriction legislation to end gun violence. As a reader from the U.S., my first thought was how I wish it was only that easy. That is the same mindset people who wish to work internationally must go into it with- that it will not be as easy as it seems.

So while voluntourism has its good sides and its bad sides, overall the pros out way the cons. In order to make responsible, beneficial, sustainable change, people, young or old, must experience the issues first hand. Interacting with the local communities, hearing from them what their issues truly are, and then working with them to solve them are when true positive change occurs. And I promise, while you will find issues, you will also find some of the most beautiful people, languages, values, and places that will make you wish those people could help your own community. This cultural exchange is just one of the many benefits of voluntourism. So go out into the world, but always remember to remain humble, respectful, open minded, patient, and caring- anywhere in the world could use some of those things.

Wyatt Foster

About Wyatt Foster

Wyatt is passionate about international women's reproductive health. She is involved in women's health advocacy, refugee outreach, and social justice issues in her community. Her goals for the year are to learn how to effectively make positive change in our globalized world in regards to her passion. She also wants to fully engage in the Senegalese culture and learn how she can better herself by incorporating their culture in her life when she returns home. Her favorite quote is "the future is no place to place your better days" from Dave Matthews Band. (She's been to 22 of their concerts so you could say she's a fan.)

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Slum Tourism: 17 Responsible Travel Guidelines for Travelers

Last updated: July 12, 2022 - Written by Jessica Norah 10 Comments

Slum tourism is defined as the practice of travelers visiting poor urban areas, typically in the Global South, to view the impoverished conditions and understand more of the lifestyles of local inhabitants. It is also known as poverty tourism, township tourism, community tourism, and other terms.

Tourism is often used to help alleviate poverty, but in this case, poverty is also the attraction. It is a controversial tourism practice but one that has become increasingly popular. Slum tours are particularly popular in South Africa, Brazil, and India. It was estimated by Frezel et al. (2015) that over 1 million tourists take a slum tour each year.

The goal of this article is to provide information that will be useful to both those interested in learning about the practice of slum tourism as well as those travelers who are considering taking a slum tour.

We begin with providing information on the history of slums and slum tourism, the current state of slum tourism, the potential pros and cons of the practice, and the ethical debates around slum tourism. We also provide information for those looking for further resources about the practice. We encourage everyone to do their own research and come up with their own informed opinions on slum tourism.

For those travelers who want to take a slum tour, we propose a set of responsible slum tour guidelines for travelers which were developed based on the research literature, policy papers, and tourism ethic codes. These guidelines are designed for those tourists who plan to take a slum tour and want to do so in the most responsible way possible.

We provide lots of tips and advice for travelers in choosing a responsible tour operator, engaging in behaviors that minimize potential harm and maximize potential benefits to the visited community, and visiting in a safe and responsible manner.

slum tourism responsible travel guidelines for travelers

Table of Contents:

Overview of Slum Tourism 

This first section gives a brief overview of the history of slums, the evolution of slum tours, the ethical debate on slum tourism, and the research on the topic of slum tourism. We also provide links to further resources for those wanting to explore these topics further.

What are Slums?

The word slum is often used to refer to urban low-income settlements that are characterized by substandard housing and poor human living conditions. They are usually in crowded urban areas, although they can also sometimes be found in suburban areas. There are a lot of different definitions of the term slum, but one of the most recognized by policymakers is the one used by the United Nations.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) came up with a formal and operational definition for slums to aid in their reporting. They define a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following: access to an improved water source, access to improved sanitation facilities, sufficient living area, housing durability, and security of tenure.

The term informal settlement is often used interchangeably, but specifically is defined by the UN-Habitat to mean that the inhabitants have no security of tenure (e.g., don’t have rights to the land, can be easily evicted), may lack basic services and infrastructure, and the housing may not comply with local regulations.

It should be noted that many people, such as the Australian writer Alan Mayne , consider the word slum to be a pejorative and offensive term and argue against its use. He similarly argues against the use of similar foreign terms like favela , ghetto , and bustee which often have the same negative connotations. He doesn’t suggest an alternative term though and notes that “there is no one term that can describe the diversity of disadvantaged low-income settlement types.”

It should also be noted that many residents living in these areas refer to them as a “slum” (or a similar word in their own local language) themselves, and the UN notes that in many developing countries, “the word lacks the pejorative and divisive original connotation, and simply refers to lower quality or informal housing.” However, in general, the word slum has a negative connotation and is not considered a politically correct term in everyday conversation.

Slum is the main term used by organizations, policymakers, and researchers and it is therefore the one used in this article. This is done for the sake of consistency and for the lack of a better term. But one should be aware that it can often be perceived as an offensive term, and travelers should be aware of the language used in the area in which they are visiting.

Although crowded impoverished areas have existed for hundreds of years, modern urban slums are generally said to date from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The first use of the term “slum” comes from Victorian England in reference to the crowded living conditions of the poor who lived in the alleys of London’s East End.

The first slums began to appear in the early nineteenth century due to rapid industrialization and urbanization, as well as increasing populations, poor urban planning, and discrimination. The first slums occurred in big cities in Europe and North America like London, New York City, Dublin, Boston, and Paris. However, while slum areas can still be found in the Global North, the largest slums of today primarily exist in the developing countries of the Global South.

According to a 2021 report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, about 24% of the world’s urban population resided in slums in 2018. It is estimated that over 1 billion people are currently living in slums or informal settlements. Unfortunately, the number of people residing in slums has been increasing over time in many parts of the world.

The UN notes a number of reasons for the creation and continuation of slums which include rapid rural-to-urban migration, poor policy and city planning, increasing urban poverty and inequality, insecure tenure, and the global economic cycle.

slum tourism ethical responsible travel guidelines for travelers

What are Slum Tours?

Slum tours are guided visits to a slum area. Slum tours are generally walking tours led by a local guide, and most take place in cities in the Global South.

Slum tours are called different things in different parts of the world. They may also be called favela tours, township tours, ghetto tours, poverty tours, community tours, cultural tours, etc.

Although many people think that slum tours are a very recent phenomenon, the practice actually dates back to the nineteenth century. According to Frenzel et al. , upper-class British people in the mid-1800s started to take an interest in visiting the slums of London and that this was the beginning of informal slum tourism.

Londoners then began to visit slums when traveling in the cities of the United States and Europe, causing more interest in this behavior. It is believed that the first commercial guided tours of slums began in the early 20th century in the cities of New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Later slums began to develop in the Global South as industrialization and urbanization took place in those countries. However, there was relatively little slum tourism in the Global South for many decades, likely due to safety concerns from travelers and the lack of formal tours.

According to Frenzel (1992 ), the first commercial slum tours in the Global South are believed to date from the early 1990s, taking place in South Africa and Brazil. The first tours in both of these countries surprisingly have political and social justice roots.

Township tours in South Africa were first organized and promoted by the local governments during apartheid (which lasted from approximately 1948 to the early 1990s). These official propaganda township tours (along with cultural villages, museums, etc.) were designed to show government officials and visitors that apartheid policies were working. However, informal township tours also sprung up that were designed to show the social injustices of apartheid.

After apartheid legislation was repealed in 1991 and the first multiracial election took place in 1994, tourism increased in South Africa. The informal township tours that had sprung up during apartheid started to become less political over time and began to focus more on heritage, cultural diversity, and local life.

Today, township tours are popular in several cities in South Africa, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban. These tours are not only popular with foreign tourists but also attract a significant number of South Africans.

The year of the first commercial favela tours in Rio de Janeiro is unclear but the interest in slum tourism in Brazil was really sparked in 1992. During the Rio Summit in 1992 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), some of the conference delegates wanted to visit the favela areas instead of just seeing the popular tourist attractions. So, a tour operator arranged a tour for them to visit Rocinha. Some of the journalists and policymakers wrote about these visits; this made people aware of favelas and caused others to want to visit.

The early visitors to the favelas in Rio were mainly “political tourists” and journalists, but soon regular leisure tourists were also coming. Today, Rocinha is one of the most visited slums in the world and favela tours are one of the popular tourist things to do in Rio de Janeiro.

Where do Slum Tours Take Place?

Slum tours take place in dozens of countries, primarily in the Global South. Three countries that attract the most slum tourism are Brazil, South Africa, and India.

A group of researchers on slum tourism estimated in a 2015 paper that approximately 1 million tourists were taking part in slum tours each year. They noted that about 80% of those tourists are doing so in just two countries: Brazil and South Africa. In Brazil, tourists are mainly visiting the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. In South Africa, tourists are taking township tours in several cities.

As noted in the prior section, the first commercial slum tours in the Global South are believed to have started in the early 1990s in South Africa and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These early tours sprung from political and social justice roots. Today these remain two of the most popular slum tourism destinations.

The influence of media and promotion by the local tourism industry have also had a huge effect on where slum tourism is popular. The films Slumdog Millionaire , District 9 , and City of God depicted the slums of Dharavi, District Six, and Cidade de Deus, respectively. These films are often credited with making slum tourism popular in Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro.

There are often multiple tour operators offering tours in the most popular slum tourism cities. For example, you’ll find a number of tours options to visit the slums of Soweto in Johannesburg (South Africa), Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Manshiyat Nasser (“Garbage City”) in Cairo (Egypt), Kibera in Nairobi (Kenya), Dharavi in Mumbai (India), and Langa in Cape Town (South Africa).

However, it should be pointed out that most slum areas around the world receive relatively little tourist interest. For example, although Orangi in Karachi, Pakistan is twice the size of Dharavi and is believed to be Asia’s largest slum area (perhaps the world’s largest), it is not a popular tourist destination. Similarly, although there are hundreds of favelas in Brazil, there are only a handful of them that attract tourist visits.

What are Slum Tours Like?

Every slum tour is different, but in general, they are often walking tours led by a tour leader through a particular neighborhood or slum area.

Slum tours are organized and run by a variety of different types of operators, including private tour companies, charities, and non-governmental organizations. The size of the operators ranges from solo tour guides running their own business to fairly large tour operators that employ a number of guides.

Most slum tours take place mainly outdoors and view the explored neighborhood on foot from the streets. Most include at least a couple of planned stops at local businesses, cultural sites, homes, schools, humanitarian projects, markets, or other points of interest.

Slum areas are all very different. Even slums in the same city can be very different in terms of infrastructure, history, cultural diversity, and level of affluence.

Slums like Soweto and Rocinha, which are two of the most visited slum areas in the world, have more developed tourist services than many other slums around the world. For instance, they offer museums, restaurants, bars, clubs, cultural centers, gift shops, and overnight lodging options for guests. Some evening tours include going to clubs for music, drinks, and entertainment. Soweto even has a 4-star hotel and conference center!

However, most slum areas offer few, if any, tourist services. It is important to remember that many people living in these areas lack access to basic necessities and resources like safe drinking water, electricity, and good sanitation services.

slum tourism responsible travel guidelines for travelers

Is Slum Tourism Ethical?

Despite a lot of writings on the subject, there does not appear to be any agreed-upon consensus as to whether slum tourism is ethical or not. Determining whether an activity is morally right or wrong is often more of a philosophical debate than a scientific one.

It is difficult to argue that a walking tour through any neighborhood is inherently unethical. So the ethical arguments are often around tourists’ motivations for taking slum tours, tourists’ behaviors while on tours, the impact of the “tourist gaze” , the feelings of local residents about slum tourism, and the costs and benefits of such tourism on the local community.

It is a complex issue and has been discussed by many researchers, journalists, and others. Just note that many of these opinions, especially those of journalists and bloggers, are coming from people living in developed Western countries, not those actually living in slum communities themselves. We encourage you to read the debates and discussions pertaining to the ethics of slum tourism to make up your own beliefs. You can find some articles online here to get started.

In order to examine whether slum tours are responsible or not, many people look at the potential positive and negative impacts of slum tourism in a particular local community.

Those who support slum tourism often note potential benefits such as reducing stigmatization, increasing awareness, employing local residents, generating revenue for community projects, increasing profits of local businesses, and improving local services, infrastructure, and security.

Those opposed to slum tourism typically note the negative impacts that include the voyeuristic and intrusive nature of the practice, the potential exploitation of local people (particularly children), the problematic practice of using poverty as an attraction, and the limited economic benefits to locals,

A small number of studies have looked at residents’ thoughts and feelings, indicating that most slum residents believe that there are both negative and positive potential impacts of slum tourism. But the attitudes, concerns, and perceptions of residents seem to vary across slum areas.

For example, a study of residents in a Cairo slum area , noted a number of both positive (e.g., donations, employment, improved infrastructure) and negative aspects (e.g., rights and assets being used for tourism, voyeuristic nature of some tours, concerns about human trafficking) related to slum tourism. Although most residents generally had positive attitudes towards slum tourism, they reported there are a lot of barriers to benefiting from slum tourism. The most common barrier they reported to benefiting from slum tourism was actually the high-density population of the slum itself.

The biggest concern many residents have is that slum tourism does not directly benefit them and only benefits a limited number of people in the slum. This is a particular concern for slum areas like Kibera in Nairobi ( Kieti & Magio, 2013 ) where there are few tourism-focused businesses due to limited capacity and investment. So locals can’t benefit from ventures such as selling crafts, meals, and souvenirs to visitors or offering overnight accommodation as residents of other slum areas do. Many residents in Kibera had more negative overall attitudes toward slum tourism and believe that most of the profits go to outsiders.

To learn more about ethics in tourism, you can check out this code of ethics developed by The World Tourism Agency called the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism. They also provide this set of tips for being a responsible tourist to help people make more responsible choices when traveling.

Further Resources on Slum Tourism

We highly encourage you to do your own research on slums, informal settlements, and slum tourism.

One of the best sources for information and research about slums is the United Nations Habitat (UN-Habitat) website. One of the major goals of UN-Habitat is to improve the conditions of slum dwellers around the world. They regularly release data, reports, and information related to slums and their projects.

Cities Alliance is a global partnership fighting urban poverty and promoting the role of cities. One of the main goals is to improve living conditions in existing slums and prevent new slums from forming.

Another organization that provides information on slums and their work on slum rehabilitation is Habitat for Humanity. Other international organizations that do research and work on improving slum conditions are Oxfam and Save the Children.

  • United Nations Habitat (UN-Habitat): https://unhabitat.org/topic/slum-upgrading
  • Cities Alliance Cities Without Slums: https://www.citiesalliance.org/cities-without-slums-action-plan
  • Habitat for Humanity: https://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/what-we-do/slum-rehabilitation/

To get a good overview of slum tourism history and research, we recommend the book and literature review by Fabian Frenzel. Frenzel’s work focuses on the intersection of tourism and urban poverty, and he has written several articles and edited a few books on the topic of slum tourism.

  • Frenzel, F., Koens, K., & Steinbrink, M. (Eds.) (2012) Slum tourism :  Poverty, power and ethics. New York: Routeldge.
  • Frenzel, F., Koens, K., Steinbrink, M., & Rogerson, C. (2015). Slum tourism: State of the art. Tourism Review International , 18 , 237-252. doi: 10.3727/154427215X14230549904017

Just note that there are a lot of limitations to the studies on slum tourism. As someone who has published psychological and health services research and has read dozens of these research studies, I find that there is a lack of strong empirical studies in the area of slum tourism. Much of the research relies on small samples, non-random sampling, self-reporting, qualitative data, anecdotes, and retrospective data.

Most of the research on slum tourism is published in tourism journals.

  • Google Scholar is a good place to go and search if you don’t have access to a paid research database like Scopus, PsycINFO, or PubMed. Many of the articles listed in Google Scholar are available online for free.

There are studies that examine different issues in specific slums, so if you are interested in a specific slum (e.g., Rocinha, Kibera, Soweto, Dharavi) or geographical region, you can search for that in the research literature.

slum tourism responsible travel guidelines for travelers

17 Responsible Traveler Slum Tour Guidelines

If you are planning to take a slum tour, we have come up with a proposed set of guidelines and tips for travelers who want to do so in the most responsible way possible.

Ultimately, we believe the main responsibility in regulating slum tourism and conducting responsible tours lies with the local governments and tour operators. They should strive to ensure that tours are responsible and are designed in a way to maximize the positive impact on local communities while minimizing any negative effects.

However, realistically, we also know that most tour operators respond to the demands and behaviors of the traveler and that government regulations are often lax. The communities themselves often have minimal power. So travelers often have to vote with their wallets in determining what tourist products are available and how they are structured.

Our tips are based on research in the area of slum tourism, the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, and our personal experience. A strong influence was the proposed guidelines for township tour operators in Cape Town, South Africa that were developed in 2013 by tourism researcher Jeanett Søderstrøm. While those guidelines were specifically proposed for the slum tour operators, we have written a set of proposed guidelines for responsible travelers.

slum tourism ethical responsible travel guidelines for travelers

1. Choose a Responsible Tour Operator

The first step is to choose a responsible tour operator. However, this is much easier said than done as it can be hard to identify whether a tour is operated in a responsible, ethical, and sustainable way.

There is no third-party international regulation of slum tours, although there may be local regulations of such tours. So, the best you can do is to read the company’s policies, tour descriptions, and past reviews by travelers who have taken the tour.

There are lots of things to look out for (many are covered in more detail in this post) but here are some things that may indicate a more responsible company:

  • The company is locally based and employs local resident guides
  • The company focuses on small group walking tours
  • The company pays fair wages to guides and compensates any visited households
  • The company uses tours to benefit the local community (e.g., profits support a local community project)
  • The company provides guidance on tourist behaviors concerning photography, dress, safety, tipping, and home visits
  • The company promotes its tours with a focus on learning and the local community rather than on the more voyeuristic aspects of visiting slums
  • The company allows tourists the opportunity to support local businesses and projects if they wish
  • The company doesn’t promote tour activities that are likely to exploit or cause harm to children, animals, or vulnerable people
  • The company consults with local residents to get feedback and inform their tours
  • The company has a responsible travel or sustainable tourism policy
  • The company provides evidence of its responsible or sustainable claims

Now, the chances of realistically being able to know and confirm all the above is pretty low with most companies that lead slum tours. Many are very small companies and some may just be a single person leading tours, and there may not be a ton of information available.

You can of course contact them in advance if you have questions. But for many claims, you often have to take their word for it and trust that the information provided is truthful. However, the above can be a good set of criteria for comparing tours.

Probably the best way to learn more about a specific tour is to read reviews from recent guests who did that tour. We find the best source is often the third-party websites that sell tours such as Viator and GetYourGuide as these websites generally only allow people who have booked the tour to post, and the published reviews are not controlled by the tour operator.

Other potential sources for reviews are Trustpilot , public travel forums, and other public review platforms like Google and TripAdvisor. Just note that many of these websites are often unregulated in terms of who can post. A tour company’s own website reviews can be useful but they are typically only going to share posts that are positive.

2. Visit with a Local Guide

It is best to choose a local guide and preferably someone who grew up and lives in the community. A resident of the community is going to be more likely to know more about the area, be able to share personal stories, and be more likely to be invested in ensuring that the tour visits the area in a responsible way.

One of the things that many residents of slums complain most about is that many tours are not led by local residents. The employment of local guides is one of the most direct ways for slum tourism to benefit a local community.

3. Visit on Foot

There is nothing that seems to make residents feel more like zoo animals than a bus or car full of tourists watching, pointing, and snapping photos of them. This creates a barrier between the visitor and the residents.

I think today most slum tours are done on foot, but there are tours, particularly in South Africa, that are done as a driving tour on a bus or in a private car. You should avoid these drive-by tours.

Walking tours also tend to be longer and spend more time actually seeing the area than bus or Jeep tours.

4. Don’t be in a Rush

If you are visiting a slum area to learn more about it, then you want to make sure you have the time to do so. It is going to depend on the particular slum area, but most are very large areas and it is hard to see much on a short tour.

The more time you have, the more opportunities you will have to see more, interact more with the local people, support local businesses, and learn more from your visit. We’d recommend setting aside at least half a day (about 4 hours) if you want to do a slum tour.

Most slum tours are 3 to 4 hours in length and some are even full-day experiences of 8 hours or more. Be cautious of shorter tours that are only 1 or 2 hours in length as they may rush you through the area and may be less likely to visit the area in a responsible way.

5. Visit as Part of a Small Group

Similar to the above tip about not visiting as part of a bus or driving tour, we also recommend going as part of a smaller group. Many walking tours are done as private tours or with small groups of 10 people or less.

Joining others as part of a small group tour is fine, but going as a giant group of 20 people is going to be very overwhelming when walking through narrow streets or visiting a shop or a home. Touring as part of a larger group is also going to make it harder to hear and talk to the guide, create more safety concerns, and make it more overwhelming for local people trying to go about their business.

If you want more control over your tour, a private tour may be the way to go. This will allow you to go more at your own pace, adjust the tour itinerary, and give you a chance to ask more questions.

6. Do a Little Bit of Research

One of the reasons to take a tour is to learn more about a local community, but it is also a good idea to come into the tour knowing at least a little about the area you are visiting and its history. This will help you better understand what you are seeing and ask more informed questions.

For instance, if you are visiting South Africa and plan to go on a township tour, knowing at least a little bit about the colonial history of South Africa, apartheid, and the activism of Nelson Mandela is going to be very helpful.

It is also a good idea to know what to expect on the tour by reading the tour description and recent reviews. This can help you be better prepared for the tour.

7. Dress Respectfully and Appropriately

Every area is going to be a bit different, of course, but you want to keep the local culture and customs in mind when it comes to how to dress and behave. Many slum areas are in places where most people dress modestly for cultural and/or religious reasons. So you want to be respectful of those customs.

If unsure of what would be appropriate as a visitor, it is best to err on the side of more modest and conservative clothing. Just make sure it is something that is also comfortable to wear for a lot of walking. You also want to keep sun protection in mind as you’ll likely be outside for much of the tour.

You also want to wear practical clothes and shoes that you don’t mind if they get a little dirty. For instance, when we did a walking tour of Kibera in Nairobi, we walked through a number of dirt streets and alleys and across areas that were muddy and had rubbish and open sewage.

8. Keep Safety in Mind

Many government agencies advise tourists against visiting a number of slum areas and informal settlements around the world due to safety concerns. So, it is important if you plan to visit to have a local guide, visit during daylight hours, pay attention to relevant security alerts, and take safety precautions.

Remember your guide can give you advice and try to keep an eye on you, but he or she is not your bodyguard. A guide may make it less likely you’ll be targeted, but it is not going to guarantee you won’t be pickpocketed or robbed.

Guides can provide invaluable advice but it is up to you to take it. For instance, we were talking to a guide who said he had a lady in his group who he advised twice to carry her backpack on her front rather than her back when going through a crowded market. She didn’t and by the end of the tour, she realized her pocketbook containing her money and credit cards had been stolen from her backpack.

You want to take normal safety precautions to try to prevent pickpocketing and theft. This includes leaving valuables at your hotel (or at home), not carrying a lot of money, being aware of your surroundings, not wearing flashing clothes or accessories, and storing things like your passport and a spare credit card in a hidden place like a money belt .

If you are carrying a purse or bag, we recommend a cross-body one, a sling, or fanny pack that is harder for someone to grab and one you aren’t likely to accidentally set down and leave behind. If you choose a backpack, we recommend one with lockable zippers like those by PacSafe and to consider carrying it on your front in crowded areas.

You also want to keep your surroundings in mind as many informal settlements have open sewers, rubbish tips, and animals wandering around. So staying aware as you walk around is important as you don’t want to accidentally step on a sharp object or fall into an open sewer. Wearing practical shoes and watching where you step is a good idea.

And of course, if you decide to eat while on your tour, you want to keep food and water safety in mind. Unless provided as part of the tour, you’ll want to bring along enough water for the duration of the tour. Most slum communities around the world lack access to clean drinking water.

Most slum communities are located in countries that do not have good access to clean drinking water. We have an article about finding or getting safe drinking water when traveling that may be helpful if you are traveling for the first time to a country where you can’t safely drink the tap water.

9. Bring Local Currency

You’ll want to bring local currency with you as it is likely that guides and small businesses are not going to be able to take credit cards for payment.

It is also best to leave any tips or donations in the local currency as otherwise, it costs the person money to exchange an international currency. Most slum residents lack access to banks and financial institutions, making it difficult for them to exchange foreign currency.

Of course, you do not want to carry a lot of money on you for safety reasons. So I would recommend just bringing enough to pay for the tour (if not paid for in advance), leave tips, buy souvenirs, etc.

10. Treat Everyone you Meet with Dignity and Respect

This is a fairly obvious one, but you want to treat everyone you meet with dignity and respect. People want to be treated the same way you would want others to treat you.

Impoverished people are often stigmatized, ignored, and disregarded. Not just by foreign travelers, but by more privileged people in their own communities. While visitors’ attention can help combat stigma and stereotypes, it can also have the opposite effect.

Lots of residents complain about some slum tourists making them feel like an “attraction” rather than as people. This is often due to behaviors from tourists such as pointing, staring, and photos being taken of them.

No one wants to be stared at, talked about, talked down to, or have photos taken of them without their explicit permission. Many residents, however, welcome respectful interactions with tourists.

It can also be embarrassing or hurtful to residents if tourists react in a disgusted or repulsed manner, especially if visiting someone’s home or business. If you are coming from a life of privilege, this may be the first time you have encountered true poverty. This often comes along with unfamiliar and unpleasant sights, sounds, and smells. While it is natural to be shocked and surprised, it is important to remember that this is someone’s home and community.

While the people you meet on a slum tour might all seem friendly and happy, it is important to keep in mind that most people’s lives are difficult. Many tourists leave with the impression of people who are “poor but happy” and this attitude can trivialize the lives of the residents. Many people living in slum areas struggle to obtain basic daily necessities like food, shelter, and clean water, and worry about crime, unemployment, diseases, and how to educate and protect their children. So while residents might be smiling and welcoming to visitors, most wish for an easier and more secure life.

11. Don’t Take Photos or Videos without Permission

Your guide will likely talk to you about taking photos and videos at the beginning of the tour. If you are unsure, you should ask about photography guidelines before taking any photos. Photography can make residents feel uncomfortable and like they are in a zoo so it is often discouraged when visiting slums.

Imagine if people came to your own neighborhood and started taking photos of you, your family, and your home. This is obviously not something most of us would enjoy and in some places, this behavior would be illegal.

On many slum tours, photos and videos are not allowed out of respect for the residents. Or photography may only be permitted in certain areas.

For instance, when Laurence was in Rio de Janeiro, he was advised by the guide not to take any photos in the favela areas. This policy was put into place both out of respect for the residents and the presence of gangs. So the guide took them to a viewpoint overlooking the favela areas where they were told they could take photos, but then Laurence put away his camera and took no photos while walking around in the community itself.

If photography is permitted, you want to be sure to be respectful if you do choose to take photos. As you would anywhere, if you want to take photos, particularly of people’s faces or inside their homes, you should ask permission first. Your guide should be able to help you ask permission, especially if you don’t speak the local language.

Be cautious about taking photos of children. Many residents have reported feeling particularly exploited by tourists taking photos of their children without their permission. You should have the permission of both the child and the parent before taking a photo. However, we generally recommend against taking photos of children, particularly those living in vulnerable areas.

Just understand that the power dynamics in the relationship between tourists and residents often mean that locals may agree to photos even if they would prefer not to. Some may feel it is impolite to refuse a visitor or say they feel pressured to do so by the tour guides.

We generally err on the side of not taking identifiable photos of anyone, unless they are our guides or people who are part of the tour.

If you do take photos on your tour, you also want to be respectful if you decide to share those photos publicly. You want to think about which photos you share and what you say about your experience. You don’t want to glamorize, trivialize, or romanticize these types of settings.

12. Be Respectful of People’s Private Spaces

Unless invited inside, you should respect people’s privacy in terms of people’s private living and work spaces. People may also share outdoor toilets, latrines, or bathing areas that may offer little privacy.

We have read of people gawking in windows, taking photos of people in their homes, and even wandering into people’s homes uninvited. These are not things you would do in your own town or city, and are definitely not things you should do in someone else’s neighborhood.

Some tours may include stops to visit people’s homes. It is important to be respectful of your host and their home when visiting. It is generally expected on many such tours that you will give a small donation to the hosts (e.g., money or food) at the end of the visit.

13. Be Cautious about Visiting Schools, Clinics, or Orphanages

You want to be cautious about any tour which mentions visiting schools, nurseries, clinics, or orphanages. You want to be sure to not be doing anything that is going to disrupt the care or education of children, put vulnerable people at risk, or have children involuntarily participate in tourism activities.

We personally don’t support tourists visiting or volunteering at orphanages, and you can read more about the problems with orphanages, orphanage donations, and orphanage tourism here .

Learning about a school or children’s project may be part of a tour if a tour’s profits are benefiting that school or project and the guide wants to show you actual proof of its existence. But it is best if it doesn’t involve disrupting the children’s studies. Imagine if you were a kid and every hour, some group of strangers showed up in your classroom. This is going to make it very hard to focus and learn.

Basically, you just want to think about if your visit may be doing any harm to anyone involved, especially to children and other vulnerable people.

If you feel that a tour you took could be improved, it is good to give that feedback to the tour leader (and in reviews) and suggest helpful alternatives. Tours will only change if the company thinks that is what tourists want. For example, rather than going into a classroom and talking to children in the middle of the day, it could be better to just talk to an adult volunteer at the school and/or watch a video made with the children and teachers.

14. Consider Ways to Support the Local Community

One of the things that slum residents tend to cite as one of the biggest negative things about slum tourism is that it often does not benefit the local community.

The main thing you can do is to choose a responsible tour operator that uses local resident guides and benefits the community (e.g., contributes part of profits to community-based projects). For example, in the Bwaise district of Kampala, Uganda, slum tours are used to benefit the local non-profit organization AFFCAD . The organization helps support clean water projects, local schools, and various health projects.

But there are a lot of other ways you might support the local community. You can also give direct monetary support via tips to your guides and any households you visit. You can support local businesses by buying handmade crafts and souvenirs, buying produce at the market, eating in a local eatery, and staying in local accommodation. You can support local charities and community projects by making donations.

If you are worried about giving money directly to an unknown charity or project, you might consider in-kind donations instead of cash. So you might want to donate useful and relevant goods to a local school, hospital, or community project. It is a good idea to do a bit of research first though to make sure you are able to give something that is both practical and needed.

For example, if you want to support a local school, you might consider donating some needed school supplies. This might include things like pencils, chalk, notebook paper, calculators, or solar lights.

15. Avoid Giving Money to Children

Most organizations and tour operators will advise you not to give money or candy to children who may ask or beg you for money during your tour. While many tourists give money to children with good intentions, the money often discourages the child from going to school.

As Nelson Mandela said in a speech in 1990: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Education is the best tool in fighting poverty and can help children grow up to have a better life. If children (or their families) learn that they can make money by begging, it can be difficult to get them to attend school.

If you are interested in helping local children, consider donating money or goods to a local school, children’s charity, or public hospital instead. For example, many families and schools are in need of school supplies, school uniforms, textbooks, shoes, hygiene items, and light sources (children in many informal settlements can’t read or study after dark because of a lack of reliable electricity).

16. Use the Visit as a Learning Opportunity

One of the main reasons people want to do a slum tour is to learn more about the people, the community, and the local culture. Be open to learning and listening to the tour guide and those who you encounter as part of the tour.

For many visitors, this is their first time seeing poverty up close. As someone who is financially privileged, you want to endeavor to use this as a chance to learn and try to understand rather than as just a chance to look at poverty.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions on the tour. Tour guides and residents you meet are generally very happy to answer any questions you may have. Just be sure to do so in a respectful way.

17. Leave Feedback

After the tour, we recommend leaving private feedback for the guide and tour company and a public review for future travelers. Things that can be particularly important to note is any issues around safety, if the tour was conducted in a responsible manner, and if the tour was as advertised.

If you feel that a tour you took could be improved (particularly in the issues of being more safe or responsible), it is good to give that feedback. It is also helpful to provide constructive advice that would be practical for the tour company to implement to encourage change.

Public reviews can help future travelers know more about the tour, the tour company, and your personal experience. This can help them decide if it is an appropriate tour for them or not.

So that is our overview of slum tourism and our proposed guidelines and tips on how to choose and take a slum tour in the most responsible way possible. We hope you have found it helpful.

slum tourism responsible travel guidelines for travelers

What do you think about slum tourism? Do you think it can be done in a more responsible manner? Have you taken a slum tour? If so, we’d love to hear about your experience.

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There are 10 comments on this post.

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Daniel E. Post author

February 1, 2024 at 3:07 am

Informative blog on slum tourism and lots of cited research and personal experience, exactly what i was searching for, thanks so much!

Jessica & Laurence Norah Post author

February 1, 2024 at 12:41 pm

Glad your found our information on slum tourism and slum tours helpful, just let us know if you have any questions.

Wishing you safe and happy travels! Jessica

Ravi Post author

October 11, 2022 at 5:06 am

This article enlightened me with a very detailed explanation when searching for information about slum tourism for a research report. thanks for sharing.

October 12, 2022 at 3:00 pm

Glad you found our article on slum tourism helpful for your research. If you have any questions we might be able to help with, just ask!

Best, Jessica

Irene Post author

July 28, 2022 at 9:23 pm

Some great research and tips! What a very interesting history. I would like to pay a visit to slum in Rio in 2024. I’m excited to get to know more about their people, life, and culture.

July 31, 2022 at 12:19 am

Glad you enjoyed our responsible travel tips for visiting slum areas. I hope you enjoy your time in Rio in 2024.

Seana Turner Post author

July 12, 2022 at 7:13 am

Wow, I didn’t even know this was a thing. I love the respectful tone of this post. It is so important to check your heart and motives before embarking on a trip like this. I love the granular advice about using local currency and visiting on foot. No one wants to feel like their misfortune and struggles are someone else’s entertainment. I hope this type of tourism benefits those who need the world’s help. Thanks for posting on this topic!

July 12, 2022 at 8:00 am

Thanks for taking the time to comment, and glad you enjoyed reading the post. I like your comment of checking “your heart and motives”.

I started reading and writing about slum tourism several years ago and avoided taking any slum tours. But I decided to take one earlier this year while in Nairobi (Kibera) to better understand what the tours were like and how to do it in the most responsible way possible. It felt a bit weird to write about something I had never done.

One thing we noticed in Kibera is that it just lacks the infrastructure for large numbers of residents to benefit from tourism. There were very few things a tourist could buy or do unlike in some other slum areas where there are stalls selling local crafts and souvenirs, food markets, a museum talking about local history, places where people can eat, see a performance, or sleep. So it doesn’t appear to currently create much employment or benefit other than for tour guides and those directly involved in the tour itself. We were also the only tourists we saw there during our visit.

Tourism is such a major industry in so many countries and leaving areas like this completely out of being able to benefit from tourism seems wrong. But having tourists going just to gawk and take photos of poverty seems wrong as well. Each country and each community is different and the study in Cairo indicated that different approaches need to be taken in each community.

Individual travelers can only do so much, and ultimately changes need to come from the tour operators and local governments to ensure that offerings are as responsible and ethical as possible. But reviews, complaints, and changes in demand over time by travelers can help.

Marge D Post author

July 10, 2022 at 11:25 am

Some great research and tips as always, very interesting history. I actually did a slum tour, called a favella tour as you mention in Rio. When in Brazil, it was just part of full day walking tour we did. I have to admit I didn’t consider most of these issues or potential probelms and never heard the term slum tourism. But I do remember they asked us not to take photos. Back then, around 2002 or 2003, most people didn’t have cameras on their phones so I think that part was less of an issue. This definitely gives me some food for thought!!

I wonder if rural tours of poor villages and disaster tourism is sort of the same thing?

July 10, 2022 at 1:38 pm

Thanks for taking the time to comment and share your experience of the favela tour you did in Rio. I am glad you enjoyed the article.

Yes, I think that any kind of tour to more impoverished areas, whether rural villages or urban ones, can have very similar issues. Disaster tourism is a bit different but has many of the same potential issues of being voyeruristic and potentially exploiting vulnerable people. I know there has been discussion about the ethics of tours to areas devastated by recent floods or hurricanes (including after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans). All tourism can have negative effects. I think people just have to consider the potential harms of their travel decisions, make an informed decision, and try to minimize any harm.

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Tourist and resident perspectives on ‘slum tourism’: the case of the Vilakazi precinct, Soweto

  • Published: 06 May 2019
  • Volume 85 , pages 1133–1149, ( 2020 )

Cite this article

  • Gijsbert Hoogendoorn   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7969-7952 1 ,
  • Nthabiseng Letsatsi 1 ,
  • Thabisile Malleka 1 &
  • Irma Booyens 2 , 3  

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13 Citations

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Slum tourism as a topic of investigation has seen significant growth since the beginning of this decade with increasing theoretical and empirical depth. With this growth, some inconsistencies in conceptual framing and use of terminology have emerged. The purpose of this paper is to argue for township tourism in Soweto to be regarded as a form of heritage tourism rather than slum tourism—a notion which has entered the township tourism literature in recent years. This argument is presented through two sections of analysis and debate, using Vilakazi precinct in Soweto as a case study. Firstly, the paper analyses the emergence of township tourism as an academic focus in the literature and how it came to be classified as slum tourism, considering definitional conundrums. Various South African authors emphasise the struggle heritage character of township tourism. Secondly, the historical development of townships and tourism in these areas are interrogated. The empirical data offer the perspectives on tourism in their area from: (a) residents living in and around Vilakazi Street; and (b) tourists visiting the Vilakazi precinct. The analysis reveals that neither residents nor visitors consider the Vilakazi precinct or the larger area of Orlando West as a slum; rather they perceive tourism is the area to be connected to its struggle heritage. We accordingly stress that the term ‘slum tourism’ to describe township tourism in Soweto is inaccurate and is inconsistent with the views not only of residents and visitors, but also South African authors.

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slum tourism pros

( source : authors)

slum tourism pros

( source : resident survey)

slum tourism pros

( source : visitor survey)*. *Figures subject to rounding error

slum tourism pros

( source : visitor survey)

slum tourism pros

This was in response to one of the authors’ presentations at the South African Cultural Observatory’s 2018 conference in Port Elizabeth, 7–8 March 2018.

Resident No. 46 (hereafter R with the questionnaire number), young female (18–30), unemployed.

Young female (18–30), relying on remittances.

Male, aged 41–50, informal income.

Female, aged 31–40, informal income.

Young male (18–30), relying on remittances.

Young female (18–30), informal income.

Visitor No. 30 (hereafter V with the questionnaire number), female, aged 30, on holiday.

Female, aged 30, on holiday.

Note that Youth Day is a National Holiday to commemorate the June 16th uprising, and it was coincidental that some of the fieldwork fell over this holiday. While the fieldwork was carried out over a three weeks in June and July 2018, 44% of the visitor responses (42 international and 17 domestic visitors) were collected on Youth Day due to the number of visitors on the day. We did not detect notable differences in the responses collected on Youth Day in comparison with the overall responses.

Male, aged 52, business owner from Germany.

Female, aged 52, on holiday.

Female, aged 18, student.

Female, aged 40, visiting family.

Male, aged 20, student from France.

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Hoogendoorn, G., Letsatsi, N., Malleka, T. et al. Tourist and resident perspectives on ‘slum tourism’: the case of the Vilakazi precinct, Soweto. GeoJournal 85 , 1133–1149 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-019-10016-2

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‘We are not wildlife’: Kibera residents slam poverty tourism

Tourism in Nairobi slum is rising but many residents are angry at becoming an attraction for wealthy foreign visitors.

Lotte Rasmussen

Kibera, Kenya  –  Sylestine Awino rests on her faded brown couch, covering herself with a striped green shuka, a traditional Maasai fabric.

It’s exactly past noon in a noisy neighbourhood at the heart of Kibera,  Kenya ‘s largest slum, and the 34-year-old  has just finished her daily chores.

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Directly opposite Awino, her two daughters are busy studying for an upcoming math exam.

The family will not have lunch today.

“We don’t afford the luxury of having two consecutive meals,” says Awino, a mother of three. “We took breakfast, meaning we will skip lunch and see if we can afford dinner”.

Up until five years ago, Awino made a living selling fresh food in Mombasa, Kenya’s second largest city. There, she interacted with tourists who came to enjoy the sandy beaches of the Indian Ocean.

But in 2013, she decided to move to Kibera, in the capital, Nairobi, aiming for new opportunities – only to meet camera-toting tourists again, this time eager to explore the crowded slum where many are unable to afford basic needs. 

“This was strange. I used to see families from Europe and the United States  flying to Mombasa to enjoy our oceans and beaches,”  says Awino, who is now a housewife – her husband, a truck driver, provides for the family.  

“Seeing the same tourists manoeuvring this dusty neighbourhood to see how we survive was shocking,” she adds.

Awino recalls one incident a few months ago when a group of tourists approached her, with one of them trying to take a picture of her.

“I felt like an object,” she says. “I wanted to yell at them, but I was afraid of the tour guides accompanying them”. 

Some residents say tourism in Kibera is morally wrong, while others are taking advantage of the trend by becoming tour guides [Osman Mohamed Osman/Al Jazeera]

Kibera has seen a sudden rise of tourists over the past decade, with a number of companies offering guided tours showcasing how its residents live.

The slum faces high unemployment and poor sanitation, making living conditions dire for its residents.

According to Kenya’s 2009 census, Kibera is home to about 170,000 people. Other sources, however, estimate its population to be up to two million people.

Because of the high population, housing is inadequate. Many residents are living in tiny, 12ft by 12ft shack rooms, built in some cases with mud walls, a ridged roof and dirt floor. The small structures house up to eight people, with many sleeping on the floor.

Last week, thousands of families were left homeless  after the government demolished homes, schools and churches to pave way for a road expansion.

Strolling through the dusty pathways sandwiched by the thin iron-sheet-walled houses,  Musa Hussein is angry to see the growing popularity of the guided tours.

“Kibera is not a national park and we are not wildlife,” says the 67-year-old, who was born and raised here.

“The only reason why these tours exist is because [a] few people are making money out of it,” he adds.

The trade of showing a handful of wealthy people how the poor are living, Hussein argues, is morally wrong and tour companies should stop offering this service. 

‘We created employment for ourselves’

Kibera Tours is one of the several companies that have been set up to meet the demand.

Established in 2008, the company has between 100 to 150 customers annually. Each client is charged around $30 for a three-hour tour, according to Frederick Otieno, the cofounder of Kibera Tours.

“The idea behind it was to simply show the positive side of Kibera and promote unique projects around the slums,” he says. “By doing this, we created employment for ourselves and the youth around us”.

The tour company employs 15 youths, working in shifts.

Willis Ouma is one of them.

Midmorning on a cloudy Saturday, the 21-year-old is wearing a bright red shirt. Accompanied by a colleague, he stands at one of the slum’s entrances, anxiously waiting to greet a group of four Danish tourists who have registered for the day’s tour.

“I have to impress them because tourists recommend to each other,” he says.

For three years, Ouma has been spending most of his weekends acting as a tour guide for hundreds of visitors.

“They enjoy seeing this place, which makes me want to do more. But some locals do not like it all,” he says, adding that he often has to calm down protesting residents.

Ouma earns $4 for every tour.

“This is my side hustle because it generates some extra cash for my survival,” he says. “I used my earnings to start a business of hawking boiled eggs”.

What would happen to an African like me in Europe or America, touring and taking photos of their poor citizens? by  Sylestine Awino, Kibera resident

One of the Danish tourists is 46-year-old Lotte Rasmussen, a Nairobi resident who has toured Kibera more than 30 times, often with friends who visit from abroad.

“I bring friends to see how people live here. The people might not have money like us, but they are happy and that’s why I keep on coming,” she says, carefully bending down to take an image of a smiling Kibera toddler.

The tour includes stops at sites where visitors can buy locally-made craftwork, including ornaments and traditional clothing.

“We support local initiatives like children’s homes and women’s groups hence I do not see a problem with ethical issues,” says Rasmussen.

But Awino remains adamant.

She maintains that it is morally unfair that tourists keep on coming to the place she calls home.

“Think of the vice versa,” she says, “What would happen to an African like me in Europe or America, touring and taking photos of their poor citizens?”

Sylestine Awino was shocked to see tourists visiting Kibera to see how the residents live [Osman Mohamed Osman/Al Jazeera]

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Slum Tourism – Exploring the Pros and Cons

Slum tourism, also known as poverty tourism or township tourism, is a form of tourism that involves visiting impoverished or underprivileged urban areas, often located in developing countries.

This type of tourism has sparked intense debates among various stakeholders, including travelers, locals, scholars, and policymakers. While proponents argue that slum tourism can promote awareness and generate economic benefits, opponents raise concerns about ethical considerations and potential exploitation.

In this article, we will delve into the pros and cons of slum tourism to shed light on this controversial topic.

Pros of Slum Tourism:

1. cultural exchange and awareness: .

Slum tourism provides an opportunity for travelers to gain insight into the lives of marginalized communities and understand the challenges they face. This fosters cultural exchange and empathy, leading to increased awareness and potential solidarity with those living in poverty.

2. Economic Benefits: 

The influx of tourists can create income-generating opportunities for local residents. Souvenir sales, local guides, homestays, and small businesses catering to visitors can stimulate economic growth within the slum areas.

3. Promoting Social Change: 

Slum tourism can act as a catalyst for social change by shedding light on the harsh realities of poverty. When tourists witness the living conditions, they may feel compelled to support NGOs or organizations working to improve the lives of slum dwellers.

4. Destigmatization of Slums: 

Some proponents argue that slum tourism helps challenge negative stereotypes associated with impoverished areas. This can lead to decreased discrimination and more positive perceptions of slum communities.

5. Revenue for Local Governments: 

Governments may use the revenue generated from slum tourism to improve infrastructure and living conditions in these areas, ultimately benefiting the residents.

Cons of Slum Tourism:

1. exploitation of vulnerable communities: .

One of the most significant concerns with slum tourism is the potential for exploitation. Tour operators may prioritize profit over the well-being of the local residents, commodifying poverty and disregarding ethical considerations.

2. Intrusion of Privacy: 

Constant influx of tourists can disrupt the daily lives of slum dwellers, invading their privacy and reducing their quality of life.

3. Stereotyping and Human Zoo Effect: 

Critics argue that slum tourism perpetuates negative stereotypes, reducing residents to mere objects of curiosity and reinforcing a “human zoo” dynamic. This dehumanizing effect can be demeaning and disrespectful.

4. Income Disparities: 

The economic benefits of slum tourism may not be evenly distributed among the community members. Only a few individuals or businesses may profit, exacerbating income disparities and social tensions.

5. Diversion of Resources: 

The focus on slum tourism may divert attention and resources away from implementing sustainable solutions to poverty. Instead of addressing the root causes, efforts might be directed towards creating a marketable touristic experience.

6. Dependency on Tourism: 

Slum communities might become overly reliant on tourism income, leading to a neglect of other potential economic opportunities and hindering long-term development.

7. Ethical Dilemmas: 

Slum tourism raises ethical questions concerning the responsibility of tourists to respect the dignity and privacy of those they encounter. It also highlights the role of governments in regulating and monitoring such tourism activities.

What Is The Origin Of Slum Tourism?

Slum tourism has its origins rooted in complex social and economic factors. It emerged as a distinct form of tourism in the late 20th century, with its popularity growing significantly in the early 2000s.

The phenomenon of slum tourism can be traced back to various factors:

1. Poverty and Inequality: 

The stark contrast between affluent and impoverished neighborhoods in many cities became a subject of fascination for some travelers, leading to curiosity about the living conditions and struggles of the less privileged.

2. Humanitarian Interest: 

Some tourists expressed genuine interest in understanding and raising awareness about the challenges faced by slum residents, seeking to support local communities through responsible tourism.

3. The Media and Popular Culture: 

Documentaries, movies, and media coverage depicting slum life piqued the interest of travelers who wanted to witness these environments first-hand.

4. Alternative Tourism: 

Travelers seeking unique and off-the-beaten-path experiences turned to slum areas as an alternative to traditional tourist destinations.

5. Economic Opportunities: 

Slum tourism, when conducted responsibly, could bring economic benefits to the residents through job creation, small businesses, and community development projects.

Is Slum A Legitimate Form Of Tourism?

The question of whether slum tourism is a legitimate form of tourism sparks contentious debates. Proponents argue that it promotes cultural exchange and provides income for impoverished communities, fostering economic development. They contend that visitors gain insight into the harsh realities faced by slum residents, potentially raising awareness and inspiring social change.

However, critics denounce slum tourism as exploitative “poverty voyeurism,” commodifying human suffering for profit. They argue that it perpetuates stereotypes, disregards residents’ dignity, and fails to address underlying systemic issues. Moreover, it can create a sense of “otherness” between tourists and locals, reinforcing inequality.

The debate continues, with advocates pushing for responsible and ethical slum tourism practices, while opponents call for more sustainable, community-focused alternatives.

Conclusion:

Slum tourism remains a contentious issue with both pros and cons to consider. While it can offer travelers unique insights and generate economic benefits for locals, it also presents ethical challenges and the risk of exploitation.

For slum tourism to have a positive impact, it requires careful planning, collaboration with local communities, and a commitment to prioritize the well-being and agency of those residing in the slums.

Striking a balance between raising awareness and respecting human dignity is essential to harness the potential benefits while mitigating the drawbacks of this complex form of tourism.

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The Crazy Tourist

Home » Travel Guides » United States » California (CA) » 15 Things to Do in Santa Clara (CA)

15 Things to Do in Santa Clara (CA)

Santa Clara is a city of nearly 125,000 residents that’s located in Santa Clara County, about 75 kilometers south of San Francisco .

The city was founded more than 200 years ago as a Spanish Mission. Now, it’s most well-known for its booming tech industry that’s commonly referred to around the world as Silicon Valley.

Though it’s common knowledge to most football fans, it’s a surprise to many to discover that the relatively small city is also the home of the National Football League’s San Francisco 49ers.

Visitors to Santa Clara have abundant activity options at their fingertips without venturing outside city limits, so staying engaged and entertained shouldn’t be an issue.

1. Levi’s Stadium

Levi's Stadium

With a capacity of nearly 70,000, Levi’s Stadium on Marie P. DeBartolo Way in Santa Clara is one of the country’s premier professional football stadiums.

The 49ers play their home games here, and during the off-season, the stadium hosts a variety of annual events, including concerts featuring big names in the music industry.

Taking a family to a football game isn’t the least expensive activity option in the area, but for those who’ve never taken in a pro game, it’s an exhilarating experience that may be worth the cost.

Guided tours are also regularly available, and the bars and restaurants around the stadium are fun to visit year-round.

2. Ulistac Natural Area

Ulistac Natural Area

Despite its large population and the overall hustle and bustle, the Bay Area features plenty of urban parks and natural areas that are convenient options for those interested in enjoying the great outdoors.

The Ulistac Natural Area is located on Lick Mill Road in Santa Clara. It is comprised of more than 40 acres that include a variety of distinct environments.

The natural area straddles the Guadalupe River and is home to an array of plants and animals that are well-suited to its riparian habitat.

A particularly popular attraction for bird watchers, it features a number of well-marked nature trails dotted with interpretive signs.

3. Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival

Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival

Californians take their art and wine seriously, and there’s no better way to combine the two than by visiting the Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival.

The event is held in the city’s Central Park and features nearly 200 vendors from across the country selling fine art and crafts, gourmet food, and a vast selection of California’s best wines.

Proceeds are donated to worthwhile causes that benefit residents in need. It all takes place in the early fall when the central California weather is perfect for outdoor activities.

Other highlights include live entertainment and lots of art-related activities for kids.

4. The de Saisset Museum

de Saisset Museum

Though he’s not exactly a household name for those who don’t typically travel in West Coast art circles, Ernest de Saisset was one of the Bay Area’s most prominent artists in the 19th century.

Saisset was a French immigrant who enrolled in Santa Clara University and studied painting as a young man.

The museum that now bears his name is located on the university’s campus. It includes a collection of more than 100 of his most impressive works.

It’s as much a historical attraction as it is an art one, and it also has other works from European and American artists dating back hundreds of years.

5. Intel Museum

Intel Museum

Intel is one of the titans of the tech world. Over the years, it has been responsible for some of the most significant technological leaps forward in computer hardware.

The Intel Museum is located on the campus of the company’s world headquarters in Santa Clara, and it’s regularly open to the public.

Even for those who don’t fall into the tech-savvy category, it’s a fascinating place that’s definitely worth an hour or two of time.

Though it may sound dry to technophobes, it’s packed with interactive exhibits for visitors of all ages, so it’s great for kids with short attention spans too.

6. Santa Clara Farmers’ Market

Farmers Market

There’s really no better way to rub elbows with locals, enjoy pleasant weather, and have access to tons of great products you won’t find elsewhere than by visiting a farmers’ market.

The Santa Clara Farmers’ Market is open year-round and features a little bit of everything – from seasonal produce and fresh baked goods to health and body products and prepared food items.

Held on Jackson Street near the downtown area, it’s common to find different items each time you go.

Spending a few bucks is a great way to support local farmers and entrepreneurs, and don’t be shy about asking them for suggestions for things to see and do while in town.

7. California’s Great America

California's Great America

There’s no shortage of theme parks in the Golden State, but there’s one clear choice for those visiting Santa Clara.

California’s Great America is located on Great America Parkway just outside of town. It features tons of rides, dining options, kid’s activities, and a water park that’s a huge draw during the hot summer months.

Though Great America can really draw a crowd during peak times when kids are enjoying their summer vacations, previous guests have noted that wait times for rides weren’t overly long.

Many families choose to spend an entire day on-site to avoid wasting valuable recreational time in the car.

8. Mission Santa Clara

Mission Santa Clara

Mission Santa Clara is one of the city’s premier historic sites, and it’s now conveniently located on the campus of Santa Clara University.

The mission was established by Franciscans in the 1770s to spread Christianity to the area’s Native American population.

Sadly, things didn’t go according to plan; due to several natural disasters, the mission was forced to move from its original site to where it is now.

Over the years, it was also run by the Jesuits. Though it’s no longer functioning in its original role, it now doubles as a museum and chapel that are open to visitors.

9. The Triton Museum of Art

Triton Museum of Art

Though guests tend to visit the Triton Museum of Art for the works in its collection, its stunning contemporary architecture usually makes a big impression as well.

The museum’s collection includes works from all over the country, but its emphasis is on pieces created by Bay Area artists using local people and scenery as inspiration.

The grounds also include a sprawling outdoor sculpture garden spread over nearly seven acres, and a home from the mid-1860s that’s among the most well-preserved examples of historic American architecture in the area.

The museum is located on Warburton Avenue, and most visitors spend a few hours on-site.

10. Santa Clara Players

The Santa Clara Players traces its roots all the way back to the early ‘60s, when a group of local performers began putting on small shows for the community.

Now nearly seven decades later, they’re still going strong. Their annual performances run the gamut from dramatic theater and mystery to satire and humor.

The players are part of a community theater group staffed by talented volunteers dedicated to providing high-quality, family-friendly entertainment at a reasonable cost.

They’re located on Don Avenue in Santa Clara and offer lots of volunteer opportunities for budding actors and stagehands.

11. Central Park

Santa Clara Central Park

Featuring lots of wide-open spaces and massive swimming and community rec centers, Santa Clara’s Central Park is a go-to destination for activity minded visitors looking to make the most of their limited vacation time without traveling to more distant attractions.

The park is centrally located on Keily Boulevard, has ample parking, and features lots of outdoor amenities and recreational activity options.

From tennis and basketball to softball, lawn bowling, and a big playground, there’s really no excuse for getting bored while on-site. For those looking to spend a relaxing afternoon, there are a lake, built-in BBQs, and public restrooms.

12. The 49ers Museum

49ers Museum Located In The Levi’s Stadium

Even for those who won’t be in Santa Clara during the regular season, the 49ers stadium and museum are fun attractions worth visiting for sports-minded visitors.

The museum is located inside Levi’s Stadium and features nearly a dozen distinct galleries that are open to the public year-round.

It’s a fun and educational experience for visitors of all ages. In addition to football, its exhibits touch on science, technology, and art in a way that engages and entertains young and old minds alike.

Most guests check out the introductory video in the visitor’s center before showing themselves through the impressive collection of trophies, balls, and Super Bowl memorabilia on display.

13. The Santa Clara Fire Museum

Santa Clara Fire Museum

The Santa Clara Fire Department’s roots run all the way back to the 1850s when it was founded.

The museum is now located on Walsh Avenue in an unused training center behind the city’s new fire station.

It sports an impressive collection of equipment and historical memorabilia that give visitors unique insights into the lives of fire and rescue personnel in years past.

The museum’s highlights include a fully restored Model-T fire truck that served for two decades, beginning in the 1920s.

The knowledgeable local volunteer staff also offer regular programs geared at educating the public about fire safety and prevention issues.

14. Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History

Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History

The Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History is run by a local historical society. It is housed in the depot of a now-defunct railroad on Railroad Avenue in Santa Clara.

Like many local historical attractions, the museum is staffed by local volunteers who love answering questions and showing first-time visitors around.

The museum’s exhibits include a variety of railroad equipment and memorabilia, including signals, safety equipment, and historical photographs dating back over 100 years.

The museum is regularly open to the public. It maintains an extensive library of books relating to railroad development and local history as well.

15. Voyager Coffee

Voyager Coffee, Santa Clara

Though it has only been around since 2016, Voyager Coffee’s owner and staff are dedicated to the noble pursuit of making their customers happy.

They do this largely by providing world-class coffee, but also by offering a comfortable space in which guests have opportunities to build relationships with like-minded customers.

Many of their coffees sport internationally influenced flavors, and they’re often infused with things like orange essence and cherry blossom water.

Don’t worry if you prefer your coffee straight-up, because they’ve got more traditional brews as well.

They offer fresh pastry and baked goods, tea, and other non-coffee drinks too.

15 Things to Do in Santa Clara (CA):

  • Levi's Stadium
  • Ulistac Natural Area
  • Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival
  • The de Saisset Museum
  • Intel Museum
  • Santa Clara Farmers’ Market
  • California's Great America
  • Mission Santa Clara
  • The Triton Museum of Art
  • Santa Clara Players
  • Central Park
  • The 49ers Museum
  • The Santa Clara Fire Museum
  • Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History
  • Voyager Coffee

IMAGES

  1. Pros And Cons Of Slum Tourism

    slum tourism pros

  2. The Pros and Cons of Slum Tourism in 2020

    slum tourism pros

  3. The Pros and Cons of Slum Tourism

    slum tourism pros

  4. The Pros and Cons of Slum Tourism

    slum tourism pros

  5. Pros And Cons Of Slum Tourism

    slum tourism pros

  6. Slum Tourism: Life inside the Real Dharavi

    slum tourism pros

VIDEO

  1. From Lahaina to Texas: Ululani's Hawaiian Shave Ice's Journey of Strength and Flavor

  2. YG Moris & Ben Cristovao

COMMENTS

  1. Who Does Slum Tourism Benefit?

    Slum tourism's popularity began to wane somewhat around World War II, ... will slum tourism bring a mixed bag of pros and cons. Acknowledging and examining both sides of this coin, however, is a ...

  2. The Pros and Cons of Slum Tourism

    Much of the criticism revolves around these slum tourism cons: Slum tours treat people like animals in a zoo - you stare from the outside but don't dare get too close. Visitors aren't interested in meaningful interaction; they just want their photo op. Contact with locals is minimal. Money rarely trickles down.

  3. Inside the Controversial World of Slum Tourism

    Slum tourism sparks considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. No matter what you call it—slum tours, reality tours, adventure tourism, poverty tourism—many consider the ...

  4. Slum Tourism: How It Began, The Impact It Has, And Why It ...

    A brief history of slum tourism. Whether called a township, a favela, a barrio, a slum, a shantytown, or a ghetto, outsiders recreationally visiting these typically impoverished places is nothing new.

  5. Slum tourism: What is it and how does it work?

    'Slum tourism is one of the fastest-growing niche tourism segments in the world, but it is also one of the most controversial. The United Nations defines a slum as, "a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security" (UN, 2007). ... Looking at the pros and cons it is clear that there ...

  6. Slum Tourism Research: How do Locals Feel about the Practice of Slum

    Slum tourism is a practice only geared towards making profits out of viewing the poverty of others. The practice is exploitative and voyeuristic. Locals do not like or want to be put on display for tourists and may feel demoralized by it, Most tourists only visit out of curiosity, not with the intent of giving back to the community. Viewing ...

  7. What Are Our Intentions With Slum Tourism?

    Yes, slum tourism can provide a way to challenge the stigma that represents slum life something dangerous. Take Reality Tours and Travels, for a mere INR 900 per person (USD 12.72), you can get a 2-hour eye-opening tour of 'one of the largest slums in Asia' and learn about the very vibrant life of Dharavi and its people.

  8. Slumming it: how tourism is putting the world's poorest places on the map

    Witness this. Sarah.Ahearn/Flickr, CC BY-ND. Slum tourism has the power to increase the visibility of poor neighbourhoods, which can in turn give residents more social and political recognition ...

  9. Inside the Very Real World of 'Slum Tourism'

    The contemporary concept of slum tourism dates back about 30 years, according to Ko Koens, Ph.D., a Dutch academic who specializes in this field and runs slumtourism.net. The South African ...

  10. Slum tourism: Patronising or social enlightenment?

    About 300-400,000 tourists a year visit the townships - between one-fifth and one-quarter of all tourists who visit South Africa. "If we ask why slum tourism is on the rise at the moment, one ...

  11. Slum tourism

    Slum tourism in Five Points, Manhattan in 1885. Slum tourism, poverty tourism, ghetto tourism or trauma tourism is a type of tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas, or in some cases, areas that were affected by disasters, such as nuclear fallout zones like Chernobyl or Fukushima (hence the term "trauma tourism"). Originally focused on the slums and ghettos of London and Manhattan in ...

  12. Slum and Pro-Poor Tourism

    Increased interest in slum tourism can be partially attributed to the development of new technology, particularly in photography and filmmaking. After the movie Slumdog Millionaire was released, Mumbai's Dharavi Slum saw a major increase in visitors and even became TripAdvisor's favorite tourist experience in India in 2019, beating out the ...

  13. Slum Tourism: What Is It, and Is It Okay?

    Brazil . Brazil's favelas, slum areas that are typically located on the outskirts of big cities like São Paulo, draw 50,000 tourists each year. Rio de Janeiro has by far the most slum tours of any city in Brazil. Slum tourism of Brazil's favelas is encouraged by the federal government. Tours provide an opportunity to understand that these hill communities are vibrant communities, not just ...

  14. Voluntourism

    So while voluntourism has its good sides and its bad sides, overall the pros out way the cons. In order to make responsible, beneficial, sustainable change, people, young or old, must experience the issues first hand. Interacting with the local communities, hearing from them what their issues truly are, and then working with them to solve them ...

  15. What Are the Ethics Around Slum Tourism?

    Krishna and his business partner, Chris Way, first imagined the concept of tours through Dharavi in 2005 when slum tourism was an unheard-of concept in Mumbai. "When we first came up with the plan, my friends laughed at us," commented Krishna. "' You guys are crazy,' they said.

  16. Slum Tourism: 17 Responsible Travel Guidelines for Travelers

    Slum tourism is defined as the practice of travelers visiting poor urban areas, typically in the Global South, to view the impoverished conditions and understand more of the lifestyles of local inhabitants. ... We begin with providing information on the history of slums and slum tourism, the current state of slum tourism, the potential pros and ...

  17. Tourist and resident perspectives on 'slum tourism': the case of the

    Slum tourism as a topic of investigation has seen significant growth since the beginning of this decade with increasing theoretical and empirical depth. With this growth, some inconsistencies in conceptual framing and use of terminology have emerged. The purpose of this paper is to argue for township tourism in Soweto to be regarded as a form of heritage tourism rather than slum tourism—a ...

  18. 'We are not wildlife': Kibera residents slam poverty tourism

    The slum faces high unemployment and poor sanitation, making living conditions dire for its residents. According to Kenya's 2009 census, Kibera is home to about 170,000 people.

  19. Slum Tourism

    In this article, we will delve into the pros and cons of slum tourism, Origin Of Slum Tourism to shed light on this controversial topic.

  20. Tourism Improvement Districts and Community Shared Value

    The main concern is the long- term stability of increased revenue and advocating for the value of an additional source of funding. Despite these challenges, the benefits of these additional revenue funding sources can contribute to the destination's community shared values in an invaluable way. Tourism Improvement district funding can benefit ...

  21. Santa Clara

    Santa Clara is the home of Levi's Stadium , home field of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers and has played host to some of the world's biggest sporting events and concerts, which to date have included Super Bowl 50, the 2017 Concacaf Gold Cup soccer finals, the 2019 college football national championship game, and 2023 tour performances by ...

  22. Heritage And Modernity: 15 Best Things To Do In Santa Clara, CA

    As you try to keep up with such a world, take a break to explore this vibrant city where heritage and innovation thrives. 1. Tour Levi's Stadium. Source: Photo by Flickr user Jay Galvin used under CC BY 2.0. One of Santa Clara's most prominent attractions is this magnificent 68,000-seater stadium.

  23. 15 Things to Do in Santa Clara (CA)

    A particularly popular attraction for bird watchers, it features a number of well-marked nature trails dotted with interpretive signs. 3. Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival. Californians take their art and wine seriously, and there's no better way to combine the two than by visiting the Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival.