"So you are planning your next holiday. It's been a fraught and busy year; you've thought it over and decided that even though the money is tight, you deserve to spoil yourself a bit. The last thing in the world any of us wants is have our dream planning interrupted by some squeaky, small voice of conscience whispering: What about the environment? What about human rights? What about the poverty?" This is the beginning of Mark Mann's forward to his book "The Good Alternative Travel Guide: Exciting Holidays for Responsible Travelers."

The problem mentioned by Mann and others who deal with so-called "responsible tourism" is simple: Our vacation destination is someone's home. The people who live there are not only the background or the stage set for our dream vacation. They are of importance and, regrettably, do not often get any share of the money we have paid for the vacation. "The Good Alternative Travel Guide" uses an ethical code for choosing tourism sites, explains in simple language the principles of "community-based tourism," and above all lists hundreds of guest houses and tour operators that belong to the inhabitants of the places that are visited. The money paid to them does not pass through the hands of many middlemen, but goes directly into the local community that needs it.

Prof. Erik Cohen is a Hebrew University anthropologist who has specialized for many years in tourism to Thailand and other destinations. He sees greedy real estate entrepreneurs, both local and foreign, as the root of evil in the realm of tourism. Their irresponsible construction in many cases destroys cultural and environmental values, while the tourists themselves, he says, are consumers who are unaware of the problematic nature of the projects created by these entrepreneurs. The absence of local participation in tourism-related undertakings substantially decreases the local community's profits. The problem gets worse, Cohen adds, when local government encourages the construction of projects aimed at the wealthy - a small group that exploits local resources and returns very little to the community. Local residents feel discriminated against because their resources have been exploited and they have not been financially compensated.

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Harming the locals

A nonprofit organization called Tourism Concern has been operating in England for nearly 20 years, and seeks to solve the problem of the irksome conscience of the responsible traveler: How can I tour without harming the local community that I will be visiting? The organization's staff deal with problems that are caused by the flourishing of tourism all over the world and especially in Third World countries, or as they define it, "the Southern World" (the poor world, as opposed to the rich north). "The Good Alternative Travel Guide" was published with funding from the organization.

In a telephone interview from London, Tricia Barnett, the director of Tourism Concern, explains what she sees as the main problems facing the world of tourism today: "The first problem is the huge, rapid and unplanned increase in tourism. This derives from greed, corruption and above all a lack of long-term planning. The second key problem is that local inhabitants of tourism destinations are all too often terribly poor. They are supposed to profit from tourism, but this doesn't happen. A third key problem is the moving of populations - transfer. In many places entire villages are cleared out in order to build a large hotel or a tourism site on the beach. Here, too, greed drives the rulers and the developers mad."

The solution, in Barnett's opinion, must come through a different channel: Everyone's voice must be heard, and this includes that of local residents, international organizations concerned with responsible tourism, governments that act in a reasonable and noncorrupt way, and developers who understand the importance of the local population's partnership and aren't just looking for a fast buck.

When Barnett is asked to name the most problematic destinations, she points an accusatory finger at Burma. Her organization has called for a comprehensive tourism boycott of this country until it changes its nonhumanitarian policy and implements a more democratic regime. This call is Tourism Concern's answer to the call for a tourism boycott issued by Aung San Suu Ky, the Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has been under house arrest for several years now.

As for more concrete examples from the area of tourism, Barnett cites hotels and resorts around the world, and especially on the islands of the Maldives in the Pacific Ocean, that operate on the system of everything being included in one price: "At all of those destinations," she explains, "they make the tourists entirely ignore the local population. When we are guests at a hotel in the 'all-inclusive' system, there is significant pressure applied to us not to leave the hotel. In that way we don't make any acquaintance, even the most minimal, with the local people. We don't see them and we don't provide them with a living. The proprietors of the small local restaurants don't get the opportunity to host us, the local shopkeepers don't get the opportunity to sell us suntan lotion, and the boat owners won't take us out on the water.

"That is to say, we don't contribute to the local economy and all the money we have paid for the holiday goes directly to the tour operators and the international chain that owns the hotel. After all, we aren't deceiving ourselves that this luxurious hotel is owned by the local community."

In the Maldives, she continues, the situation is especially bad: For the past 28 years the islands have been ruled by a brutal government that rakes in profits from leasing out the land. Every year 30 islands are leased to huge companies for $30 million per island for 10 years. The inhabitants of these islands live in subhuman conditions. On some of them, 40 percent of the population suffers from malnutrition. The employees at the luxurious hotels are often from Sri Lanka and thus the local population remains penniless.

One of the concepts that worry the Tourism Concern people and other organizations that seek to advance international ethics in tourism is "ecological tourism." Today there are many tourism enterprises that cause tremendous damage to the environment, while claiming to be concerned about it. There is no ecological tourism, the people of these organizations argue with conviction. This is a contradiction in terms; all tourism causes damage.

One of the most energetic campaigns at present is being waged against the opening of a tourism site on Bimini Islands in the Bahamas, in the Caribbean. The wealthy American entrepreneur in question has promised to build a school and a fire department along with a hotel - and, of course, not to harm the environment. But not one of these promises has been kept. The construction has caused environmental damage already; and future plans include a golf course, a casino and a marina. Local residents and environmental protection organizations are fighting back, but even before the completion of the project, a huge shortage of drinking water has been created in the area of Bimini Bay and the supply to the villages has been curtailed.

The ECPAT organization (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) in Great Britain deals with another grave problem, the dimensions of which have grown considerably in recent years: the sexual exploitation of children by Western tourists. Spokeswoman Farrah Bokhari says ECPAT is conducting an information campaign against sex tourists and simultaneously working with local police forces to bring about their arrest.

Christine Beddoe, the director of ECPAT, is calling for much stricter action to be taken against sex tourists, especially those who harm children. According to the organization's data, in recent years sex offenders have set up orphanages and shelters in East Asia in order to exploit children there for the benefit of tourists. Much of the money for this, according to the organization, has been raised in Britain.

As in the territories

When Prof. Cohen and Tricia Barnett are asked about the reputation of the Israeli tourist when visiting distant destinations, they find it difficult to hand out any compliments. According to Cohen, the in-your-face behavior of Israelis is liable to be offensive in many cases. The problem is especially bad when it comes to Israeli backpackers, whose main aim is to travel for another day without spending a thing. They tend to haggle loudly and aggressively, which creates a negative impression and image. Another problem that Cohen notes is the use of behavior patterns that were acquired during military service in the territories in relating to "locals" in Thailand. All of this does not help Israeli tourists acquire an especially good reputation.

Barnett's impression is similar: "The Israelis are very curious," she admits, "but the moment they have the possibility of saving another small sum, they are prepared to haggle for hours. In many cases this is haggling with poor children who need to support a large family with amounts of money that the tourist spends in a single evening at a pub. The thought that should be guiding tourists in places like that is: 'How can I help them live better?' - not 'How can I better exploit their poverty?' Israeli tourists sometimes tend to forget that they are in fact coming from the wealthy part of the globe and they lose their heads in the competition over 'who will pay less.'"

For more information, see the Web sites of Tourism Concern - www.tourismconcern.org.uk - and of ECPAT: www.ecpat.org.uk