Lessons from the Emerald Isle: The Implications of Mass Tourism

Every year, millions of tourists embark on the pursuit of foreign adventures, hoping to escape from the everyday and to cast their gaze upon an exotic “other.” Sometimes, this “golden horde” of pleasure seekers leaves behind a healthy and vibrant host community, but other times the impact of tourism is decidedly negative. The Irish case stands as an impressive success story. After centuries of poverty, men and women from across Irish society banded together during the second half of the twentieth century, creating not only an industry that is among the most important in Ireland, but also a unique sense of what it means to be Irish in the twenty-first century. This talk uses the Irish example to illustrate what is involved in creating a tourist product that benefits the host culture, in sharp contrast with places such as Cancún where tourism resulted in “socioeconomic apartheid” and the creation of what some call “Cancún’s Soweto.”