Comment: To boycott or not to boycott

Ethical travel as a concept is now common discourse, with travelers increasingly asking now they can minimise the impact they have on local communities, as well as expressing growing interest in volunteerism and working with communities to enact change. Travelers hold a unique position of economic power over the whole tourism supply chain – transport, accommodation, hospitality and other vital aspects of many burgeoning economies. Tourism boycotts are a common and somewhat popular way to cash in on this power.

Avaaz, an international advocacy and campaigning community, has recently realised this potential in a campaign in the Maldvies against an outdated law that has led to a 15-year-old rape victim being sentenced to 100 lashes. The Maldives rely heavily on tourism, and the fact that nearly two million people have signed this petition shows the potential power that tourists have. The Maldives’ former president Mohamed Nasheed recognised this potential when he asked for a tourism boycott last year, telling the UK Financial Times newspaper that tourists visiting the country would just be bankrolling an illegitimate government.

The idea of shunning a country is far from new. Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for a tourism boycott of her country in 1999, arguing that tourism is “a form of moral support for [the military regime]…they seem to look on the influx of tourists as proof that their actions are accepted by the world.”