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Substack Articles of Note
Substack Articles of Note
China, India and the New Geography of Cultural Tourism
China, India and the New Geography of Cultural Tourism
Two keynote tours, a fortnight apart, on how the world's rising powers are turning culture into influence
By 2040, China and India are projected to be the two largest economies on earth. That much is familiar. Less understood is how deliberately both countries are now using tourism, an industry neither strictly depends on, as an instrument of economic and social transformation.
I spent a fortnight moving between the two in April: first as an invited keynote speaker at Hainan University, then at a conference in Gujarat. Different audiences, different politics, different tourism systems. But the same undercurrent kept surfacing in both rooms: culture, carefully shaped and deployed, is becoming one of the most consequential tools either country has for building influence, at home and abroad.
That undercurrent splits into two related stories: how creative cultures are being engineered into soft power, and how policy does, or doesn’t, translate into the governance that makes cultural tourism actually work on the ground...
Rural Revitalisation, Rural Tourism and the Promise of Countryside Capital
Rural Revitalisation, Rural Tourism and the Promise of Countryside Capital
The rural idyll sells the countryside as an antidote to modern life. The reality is a decades-long structural crisis, and tourism is being asked to fix it.
The countryside sells itself well. Slower mornings, fresh air, close-knit communities, landscapes running from mountain isolation to coastal calm: the rural idyll is one of the most durable fantasies urban life produces, and one of the most reliable draws for tourism, migration and the elusive tree-change or sea-change.
It is also, mostly, a fantasy. Behind the picture-postcard version of rural life sits a harder set of structural realities: unrelenting urbanisation, falling birth rates, ageing populations, transport routes that bypass small towns altogether, family farms giving way to corporatised agriculture, and the closure of the industries, fishing, mining, manufacturing, food processing, that rural economies were built on. Meanwhile, housing pressure in the cities and the rise of remote work are pushing new demand into rural areas within commuting distance of urban centres, adding a fresh layer of complexity to places already in decline...
The Paradox of Wellness Tourism: Sustainable, Exploitative, Elitist?
The Paradox of Wellness Tourism: Sustainable, Exploitative, Elitist?
In Bali this week for the 11th Euro-Asia Tourism Studies Conference, asking who wellness tourism is really for, and whether its benefits ever reach the people and places it depends on.
This week I’m in Bali for the 11th Euro-Asia Tourism Studies Association Conference, themed “Wellness and Sustainability Tourism in ‘Paradise’.” The theme sits a little uneasily with the place hosting it. Bali has spent half a century perfecting itself as a paradise for other people’s wellbeing, rest and rejuvenation. My keynote this week asks a blunter question: who is that wellness for?
Sustainable tourism, at its best, fosters authentic cultural exchange and community empowerment: engaging travellers in meaningful activities that highlight local traditions, arts and crafts, and in doing so, revitalising communities, promoting cultural heritage and contributing to economic resilience. This year’s EATSA theme pushes us to think beyond conventional sustainability practice and toward a tourism industry that thrives on creativity, inclusiveness and mutual respect. Bali is as good a place as any to test whether that vision holds...
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