Tourism, Value Appropriation, and Ecological Degradation

Abstract

This article highlights the main characteristics of the rapid development of tourism during recent decades, as well as the limitations of the existing literature concerning this development. An alternative (Marxist) theoretical framework is then developed for the explication of the development of commodified tourism, the role of ecological and cultural (value) appropriation in the determination of capitalist profitability, and its developmental implications. As argued, this value and resource appropriation and the exploitation/appropriation dialectic have adverse socioeconomic and ecological implications, while leading to the rapid growth of tourism against other sectors. On the other hand, the cultural homogenization and ecological degradation brought about especially by mass tourism imply a self-limiting development of tourism itself. Concluding that the current mode of tourism development is ecologically and socially unsustainable, we end with a broad outline of a different perspective of decommodified tourism within a post-capitalist development.

1. Introduction

The rapid and global development of tourism during recent decades has led to a huge and methodologically variegated literature concerning the premises, various aspects, and thematic categories of tourism (such as heritage or cultural tourism, summer or winter sports tourism, agro tourism, etc.) and the environmental or socioeconomic implications of tourism. A very extensive mainstream literature, on the one hand, embracing a neoliberal and business-oriented approach, has mainly focused on issues related to the preconditions and marketing of tourism, the commodification and appropriation of culture, the authenticity of cultural practices and products for tourists (souvenirs, etc.), the contribution of tourism to employment and economic growth, the environmental impact from tourism, and the conditions for the sustainability of tourism [1,2,3]. On the other hand, a relatively extensive critical literature has stressed that the abstract and often artificial treatment of tourism development and the inadequate understanding of concepts such as capital, commodity, value, and rent in the context of the relevant mainstream literature lead to a serious misunderstanding of the dialectical relation between society and nature, and of the character of tourism itself, as well as to a failure to identify the underlying (capitalist) relations of production and the concomitant relations of power, exploitation, and inequality within and around the tourism sector [4,5,6,7]. Critical research on tourism has also engaged with the precarious and exploitative work relations in tourism and the destructive social and ecological implications particularly of mass tourism and over-tourism [4,8,9,10].

The dominant capitalist interests and the mainstream literature have led during the last few decades to a substantial corruption of the “sustainable development” concept and to the relevant concept of sustainable tourism to merely mean a sustainable profitability and accumulation of capital, without taking into account social and ecological sustainability or human development. This superficial treatment of sustainability has also been embraced by international Organizations such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). It is clearly reflected on the WTO’s descriptive epigraph, which is rather empty in terms of the dynamics and the implications of the underlying capitalist relations of production and thus expresses the view and interests of transnational capital and capitalist nation-states. According to WTO, sustainable tourism is “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities” [11]. However, the class-divided and conflict-ridden character of recent developments has given rise to a considerable and ongoing debate concerning the contestable content of sustainability itself and the preconditions for a truly sustainable development of tourism [12,13,14,15,16].

It is also remarkable that, while some radical and Marxist-oriented research has significantly contributed with valuable insights concerning the importance of space and the production of natures utilized in tourism and the role of neoliberal states in the privatization of the conditions of production, they are mistaken to consider that nature and natural resources have been commodified, and that value can also be produced by the services provided by nature and other “assets” apart from human labor [17,18,19]. A more consistent Marxist literature, based on Marx’s theory of value and capital, has recently shed enough light on several important aspects of political economy and the society–nature relation, showing that nature cannot produce value and take a commodity form [20,21,22,23,24,25]. This research has great significance for a better understanding of the development of tourism. Part of this research has shown that profits based on the utilization of land or natural resources and certain “assets” assigned by the state are merely another form of the rents captured by the owners of (exclusive) property rights based on the appropriation of surplus value produced by wage labor in the sphere of commodity production [21,22]. Another part of this research concerning tourism has pointed out that the profitability of capital in tourism is largely determined by rents, differential rents, and increasingly differential rents of type II in particular, which may result from investments in nature and social infrastructures, as well as from cultural developments [25]. All this research is of great significance as it allows for an adequate understanding of the tremendous distributional, developmental, and ecological implications associated with the development of tourism.

The purpose of the present research is not to offer a detailed review of the huge literature concerning a great number of issues associated with tourism. It should rather be stressed that as the existing long literature following a mainstream approach has hardly (or insufficiently) contributed to a mitigation of the adverse implications of the rapid development of tourism, or over-tourism, there is an urgent need for an alternative and more methodologically adequate theoretical approach. Taking some distance from the relevant mainstream literature may give some degree of freedom to our search for a more promising theoretical perspective. The objective of this research, then, is to contribute to the development of such a theoretical framework, akin to the Marxist approaches outlined above, which would allow: (1) an adequate answer to the question as to why tourism develops more rapidly and at the expense of other socioeconomic sectors; (2) an adequate understanding and rational assessment of the socioecological implications of the currently dominant mode of tourism development; and (3) a clarification of the basic premises for the development of an alternative and socioecologically more sustainable mode of tourism. Our more specific purpose, apart from contributing to the development of an adequate theoretical framework for understanding tourism and its implications, is to highlight some aspects or processes concerning tourism which may require further research, and, more specifically, to focus on a variety of different forms of value and resource appropriation which, arguably, imply an increasingly uneven socioeconomic and spatial development, increasing inequalities, various (intra- and inter-class and intergenerational) conflicts, and an exacerbation of ecological degradation and socioecological crisis. The Section 2 will take up the task of developing such a Marxist theoretical framework concerning the political economy of tourism. The Section 3 will explore the various processes and forms of value and resource appropriation, and some of their implications. The Section 4 will be an attempt to investigate the main socioeconomic and ecological implications from the development of tourism. The final, Section 5 will offer a broad outline of a different form of decommodified tourism within an alternative social and organizational context.

2. A Theoretical Framework for Tourism

Following a dialectical and historical materialist methodology, it is pertinent to start from the so-called metabolism between society and nature, mediated by human labor, as exemplified in Marx’s work and in some contemporary Marxist analyses [20,26,27]. Within this natural and ecological context, the historically specific capitalist mode of production (CMP) during the last five centuries and the relevant organization and exploitation of labor are of particular importance. According to Marx’s work, the CMP is based on a particular class structure associated with the private ownership of the means of production owned by the capitalist class, while the working class is obliged to offer their wage labor in order to survive. It involves generalized commodity production and the goal is maximal profitability and the accumulation of capital. A crucial component of this mode of production concerns the market mechanism, which serves the coordination between productive possibilities and social needs, and the allocation of productive resources and the commodities produced. The generalized commodity production and market exchange imply a monetization of commodity values and the economy at large. A commodity is whatever material or immaterial use-value (a good) is produced by human labor in order to be sold in the market for profit. Another important constituent element of capitalism (the CMP) concerns the specific law of value, which governs the historical society–nature metabolism under which labor takes the form of value and regulates commodity production and exchange by determining commodity prices according to the relevant commodity values. In this context, the value of any commodity is determined by the socially necessary quantity of abstract labor (labor-time) required for the production of a commodity unit. The price of a commodity is the monetary expression of its exchange value based on its value. Capital, for Marx, is a specific social relation of production reflected on a self-expanding value associated with the exploitation of wage labor in the sphere of production [26].

The internally competitive character of capital and its maximal profitability and accumulation goal lead to an inherent tendency towards economic growth and external (outward) expansion. The rapid development of tourism during recent decades is clearly a manifestation of this growth imperative of the CMP.

A crucial process for the historical development of capital relates to the original or so-called primitive accumulation, which concerns not only the privatization of common resources and the enclosure movement during the early stages of capitalist development (especially in England) but may also concern contemporary developments, the privatization of common resources, and the expropriation of direct producers resulting in the concentration of the means of production and subsistence in a few private hands (capitalists or land-owners) while the majority of producers are turned into wage labor (proletarianization) [26] (Vol. 1, pp. 714–715). This process, elsewhere characterized by D. Harvey as “accumulation by dispossession” [28], essentially concerns a class differentiation based on the expropriation and private appropriation of the means of production (including land). As pointed out, even ecological conservation projects and the establishment of ecologically protected areas may serve as a basis of primitive accumulation. These processes are constitutive of the basic conditions for the development of capital in general and may also concern the current (capitalist) development of tourism and the recent trend towards “land grabbing” in particular [22,29,30,31].

With regard to the law of value governing the currently prevalent CMP, it is remarkable that, while some ecological critics have misleadingly charged Marx with considering labor as the exclusive source of value and disregarding the contribution of nature, it must be stressed that it is capitalism itself that should be blamed for this type of valuation and not Marx [24]. Marx’s intention was basically to study capitalism as it is and operates and not to offer a normative proposal for how society should be or operate [26]. While he accepts that labor is the only source of value, he clearly recognizes the equally important contribution of nature, with a variety of use-values, in the production of social wealth [32] (p. 319). From the standpoint of capital, on the other hand, which freely appropriates nature as a gift [26] (Vol. 3, p. 745), [20] (ch. 6), it makes sense to attribute value to labor and to whatever requires labor for its production, which (however undervalued and underpaid) is a cost for capitalist production. While the operational logic of capital does not attribute value to nature and, indeed, to all human labor apart from waged labor, some recent literature speaks of the commodification of nature and land, which appears to have a price and hence a value. This is not true, however, as the land is not produced by human labor and therefore cannot be properly considered as a commodity and hence has no value. Though it has an exchange value and a price, this price is not an expression of its value, but rather capitalized ground rent, as Marx has extensively analyzed in the third volume of Capital, and this rent (in its various forms) is the result of the (exclusive) property on the land by land owners [26]. As pointed out elsewhere, this theory of ground rent is also applicable in the case of tourism and, as in other cases, can also explain how different types of rent can take the form of above-average rates of profit for the capital invested in this sector [22,23,25].

As in all class and exploitative societies, the state plays a crucial role in supporting the dominant mode of production. Under capitalism, nation states serve the reproduction of the capitalist relations of production and the maximal profitability of capital by various means. They also play a significant role in the creation of the institutional and material infrastructures and in the regulation of monetary and credit relations as well as the work relations to facilitate a sustainable capitalist accumulation. The state may also play an important role in the process of (original) primitive accumulation with various policies of land expropriation and privatization, large developmental projects, and by supporting large investment programs or facilitating land grabbing [22]. Neoliberal states in particular play an even more significant role in the privatization of common natural or social resources and by imposing extremely exploitative labor conditions to attract foreign investments and facilitate the development of capital in tourism or other sectors [30].

Coming now more specifically to tourism, it should be noted that it currently involves the production and offer of a variety of commodified services to tourists who travel for pleasure and recreation, or to acquire new experiences (ecological, cultural, gastronomic, etc.). Contrary to some rather abstract mainstream approaches which argue that people travel to satisfy their need to acquire “a global consciousness” [2], I would first argue that recreation may be a more important need than the need for a global consciousness, and secondly, that a great proportion of tourists travel not because they want to satisfy their own (authentic) needs, but rather as a result of tourism advertisement and “sales push”. I take this assumption for granted and this may be considered a reflection of the growth imperative of capitalism. At the same time, I would also stress the class nature of tourism. This may concern not only the capitalist relations of production and exploitation and the intensifying capital–labor contradiction within tourism production, but also the different implications of tourism for different social classes. With respect to the consumption of tourism services, again, luxurious tourism is for the bourgeois elite, while cheap, mass tourism if for working class, and in this case, the income and price differences between the country of origin and the tourism destination become an important determinant of tourism flows and the attractiveness of a destination.

As in any other sector of production, tourism is based on the utilization and depletion of a variety of natural and social resources, and has several adverse environmental effects, including causing a strain on natural resources, pollution (as it produces a variety of solid and liquid waste), and multifaceted ecological degradation. The tourism sector is tightly interlinked, both backwards (primary production, construction of material infrastructures, transportation and communications infrastructures, museums, technological and credit/banking networks, etc.) and forwards (accommodation, food and trade services, car rentals, entertainment, etc.). Because of its particular features and these tight linkages with other sectors, it can be argued that tourism, more than any other sector, is heavily based on positive and negative economic externalities, which may have serious social and ecological implications.

As pointed out in the relevant literature, the rapid globalization of capitalism as a strategic response to the over-accumulation crisis after the 1970s and the significant advances in transportation and communication technologies have not only enabled an equally rapid development of tourism, but tourism itself has contributed to these developments and operated as a vehicle for the transnational expansion of capital on a global level [15,25,33]. In many countries, tourism has been promoted as a means to increase market demand and employment, stimulate further economic growth, and overcome a protracted economic crisis. As has been pointed out, however, in most cases, the rapid development of tourism has rather amplified and exacerbated crisis, while increasing inequalities and economic instability [25,34]. The relevant literature has, moreover, demonstrated that the property relations associated with tourism and the investment and capitalization of nature and tourism infrastructures enable capital to extract and appropriate large amounts of ground rents in the form of above-average profits, which may imply considerable distributional effects and give rise to significant class tensions within any country and across geographical regions [22,23,25]. As this type of value appropriation and other forms of value transfer and appropriation of natural or social resources may also play a significant role in the uneven development of tourism and capitalism at large, as well as for the conditions of socioecological viability on a planetary level, it may be useful to proceed to a more comprehensive exploration of these forms of value appropriation. This task is undertaken in the following section.

3. Value and Resource Appropriation in Tourism

Marxist research in political economy, encompassing also international relations, has offered valuable insights regarding various forms of value transfer and unequal exchange (UE) between different economic sectors and different countries or geographical regions. This research, spanning several decades, from the classic study of UE by A. Emmanuel in the 1970s to more recent contributions, concerns wage differences between countries, the formation of commodity values, and the formation of production prices determined according to differences in the organic composition of capital in various sectors [25,35,36]. These transfers and appropriation of value undoubtedly apply also in the case of tourism as it develops on a national and transnational level, with considerable implications for the competitiveness of different countries or tourism destinations and the uneven development of tourism and capitalism more broadly.

However, while most of this (Marxist) political economy research accepts the determination of commodity values as defined above, it stops short regarding a broader consideration of the socioecological conditions of production, without taking seriously Marx’s hint concerning nature’s contribution with a variety of use-values in the production of social wealth [32]. Undoubtedly, the quantity of labor is the main determinant of commodity values, but this quantity depends on the productivity of labor, which, in turn, depends on the socioecological conditions of production and the available technology, and these conditions may geographically vary and change over time. In addition, as technologies advance and increase labor productivity, this may also imply an increased throughput of material and energy resources. Such a consideration is of great importance in the case of tourism, where tourism production draws heavily on various natural use-values (natural resources, ecological particularities, landscapes, etc.) and social conditions (cultural and historical sites, etc.). In this case, capital freely appropriates (as positive externalities) all these resources, including an extensive unwaged household and reproductive labor.

Several recent attempts have tried to broaden the scope of research and cope with this deficiency. Some authors, based on Marx’s relevant insights, have attempted to further illuminate the process of commensuration (and abstraction) of different modes of labor and the integration of non-capitalist forms of production with capitalist production in the context of the world market [37] (p. 256). In this direction, it has been pointed out that, “the law of value constitutes a regulating force, unifying this integrated development, assimilating non-capitalist forms of production within the dominant capitalist mode of production and ensuring the expanding reproduction of global capitalism and of the growing tourism sector within it” [25] (p. 5). J. Moore considers “ecological surplus” as a major determinant of capitalist accumulation and throughout his work stresses the dialectic of exploitation and ecological appropriation (plunder) [38,39,40]. However, as he points out,

this is not merely a story of appropriation, but also of capitalization and socio-technical innovation. The ecological surplus emerges as new accumulation regimes combine plunder and productivity, joining the enclosure of new geographical frontiers … and new scientific-technological revolutions in labor productivity

[39] (p. 96)

This dialectic, which also applies and clearly unfolds in tourism development, combines the exploitation of wage labor in the relevant sphere of commodity production with an open-ended appropriation of uncommodified nature, social resources, and unpaid reproductive labor. As the same author notes, the imperial expansion of capital has historically denied even the humanity of indigenous people, considering them as a mere part of nature to be freely plundered and appropriated. The free appropriation of social and ecological resources by capitalist firms in the tourism sector increases labor productivity and the potential extraction of surplus value in the sphere of production. Increased profitability may induce technological innovations and result in an even further appropriation of natural or social resources. On the other hand, a declining profitability of capital may also be offset by a more expansive and intensive extraction and appropriation of such resources.

A remarkable and ongoing debate has also recently surged concerning the so-called “ecologically unequal exchange” (EUE) [41,42,43,44,45]. Although there are considerable disagreements among the participants of this debate, and there is surely a need for a conceptual clarification and further research in this area, the intention of some participants is to stress the materiality and asymmetries of world trade. Others start from a recognition of the narrowness of capitalist value analysis and attempt a wider dialectical synthesis between ecological science, Marxian political economy, and environmental science [41]. Focusing, apart from human labor, on natural use-values and their contribution to the production of social wealth, they explore the asymmetry and EUE of such values and social wealth on a global level. These asymmetric exchanges and the related class and international appropriation of value are certainly relevant to the development, the operation, and the implications of tourism. The destructive overexploitation of nature and the exacerbated socioecological crisis have obviously led not only to a multifaceted resistance of nature itself (which often “takes revenge”, to use F. Engels’ expression) but to various struggles from populations to protect their common or private property and defend their subsistence and the supporting ecosystem. There is also a growing theoretical awareness of the need to take the contribution of nature and the appropriation of natural or social use-values clearly into account in order to modify, accordingly, the capitalist law of value, and to eventually supersede this law. At issue, in other words, is the supersession of “the absurd and horrific logic of squandering and devaluing human and extra-human life under the law of value” [46] (p. 3). This, of course, would require the supersession of the prevailing CMP itself, and it is conceivable that no single universal metric could ensure a rational interchange between society and nature.

As becomes clear from the preceding analysis and the overview of relevant literature, various forms of value and resource appropriation are taking place, intimately intertwined with the development of the tourism industry on a global level. These transfers and appropriation of value may concern, as noted above, the “normal” operation of tourism as a particular capitalist sector of production. Within this context, capital can exploit wage labor in the sphere of tourism production and thus extract and appropriate surplus value. This is the core of value production for this sector. At the same time, capital freely appropriates (as a gift, with no cost) huge amounts of various natural or social resources, which reduce the (private) cost of tourism production and increase capitalist profitability. These resources, as already noted, either concern the inputs and the conditions of tourism production (human labor, water, energy, natural landscapes, built environment, historical/archaeological sites, cultural environment, material, and social infrastructures, etc.) or the more general implications and huge quantities of solid or liquid waste and the atmospheric pollution created by tourism. In this case, the land, seas, oceans, and the atmosphere are appropriated and used as a “sink” to dispose or dump the wastes produced by tourism. As J. Moore correctly highlights, “the arc of capitalist development is to pollute … in ways that exceed the web of life’s capacity to absorb it”, and as stated, “the general law of over pollution’s disproportionality thesis [is]: every quantum of surplus value demands a disproportionally greater quantum of surplus pollution. The geographical expansion of commodity complexes implies—and necessitates—new and expanded waste frontiers”. As is finally noted, “So long as waste frontiers could be enclosed, conquered, or otherwise subordinated, the costs of toxification could be effectively externalized”, but currently “Cheap Nature is imploding—an epochal reversal of the cost minimization that has underwritten world accumulation since 1492” [46] (pp. 27–30).

The appropriation of all these resources may concern those resources which still remain under common property (the commons), as well as those on which capital can, to one degree or another, exert a private monopolistic control (private property or privatized commons). As noted above, and as has been extensively analyzed in Marx’s work [26] (Vol. 3) and the relevant recent literature [21,22,23,25], based on the monopoly of private property rights or an effective control of resources relevant to tourism, capital can appropriate various forms of rent, including monopoly rents, differential rent (of type I and II), and absolute rent. Monopolistic rents may be determined by a mere monopolistic control of a certain resource, while the differential rents may concern the differentiated significance of land or other resources (landscapes, ecological or archaeological sites, etc.) and their geographical location, which may determine the productivity of labor in tourism or the attractiveness of a place as a tourism destination. Here, ecological, and cultural resources are of great significance in so far as they can be appropriated by private capital and captured as rent [47]. In the case of differential rent of type II, such a differentiated role may be partly created through investment in the capitalization of nature and the development of culture or related infrastructures. The potential of extracting absolute rent depends on the relative (monopolistic) strength of the tourism industry and the aggregate effective demand for tourism services. In all these cases, capital invested in tourism can appropriate various natural or ecological and cultural resources as rent, which means that it can capture, in the form of excess profits, value that is produced elsewhere in the sphere of commodity production (where wage labor is exploited) within the tourism sector or in other sectors of production.

This is a preliminary first attempt to explore the various forms of value appropriation and transfer as well as the private appropriation of common or privately controlled resources involved in tourism, and there is undoubtedly a need for further research in this area. It must be clear, however, that these processes of value transfer and resource appropriation involved in the development of tourism have significant distributional and socioecological implications. For this reason, it is useful to briefly analyze these implications for the development of tourism in order to evaluate the currently dominant mode of tourism development and examine the prospects of an alternative course of development.

4. Socioeconomic and Ecological Implications from the Development of Tourism

As already mentioned, tourism uses a great variety of natural and social resources, while polluting the environment and disrupting the ecosystem in important ways. The extensive use of these resources leads to their depletion or degeneration. Extensive land areas are deforested and developed for tourism, and contrary to a broadly accepted view, tourism is also an energy-intensive sector. Great quantities of energy are used, especially for transportation, air-conditioning, etc. Tourism also needs great quantities of water. According to an estimate, a tourist consumes three or four times more water per day than a permanent resident and, what is more, this consumption often occurs in water-scarce seasons and areas [48]. Huge quantities of solid and liquid waste are produced daily. The solid waste of tourists largely exceeds that of residents and sewage is a major source of water pollution. Cruise ships also release (from toilets and sinks) a huge quantity of sewage into oceans and seas every day [48]. Air pollution and noise are also serious problems. As estimated, the share of air transportation in the total international tourism transportation exceeds 50 percent and is rapidly increasing [14,48]. Air transportation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and a significant contributor to climate change. As becomes clear, apart from resource and energy depletion or degeneration, the accumulation of waste from tourism and the development of capitalism more broadly constitute a serious limit to capital [46,49]. Tourism as a new commodity frontier has historically worked to partly relax the over-accumulation crisis of capitalism, but it inescapably leads to another and rather insurmountable waste frontier [46].

Economic growth and the rapid development of tourism are certainly a major cause behind this rapid resource depletion and environmental degradation. After a short decline in the period 2020–2022, related to the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism growth has resumed unabated. This growth tendency is further reinforced through tourism diversification, thematic tourism, and a changing pattern from seasonal to all-year tourism. In order to face acute environmental problems, some researchers have suggested a policy and development reorientation towards decoupling (of growth from its adverse effects) or an ecological reregulation and internalization of the cost of natural services. These policies, however, have rather limited reasoning and equally limited empirical effects [18]. Others have suggested a degrowth of tourism, but this again is a largely unrealistic proposal in so far as the growth of tourism (and of capital in general) is not a matter of policy but rather an inherent imperative of the dominant CMP [50]. Such degrowth could be seriously considered only in the context of a post-capitalist development and within social planning.

The rapid development of tourism itself, in many countries and on a global level, can be largely attributed to the relatively higher profitability of capital in tourism compared to other sectors, which may be due to the extensive positive and negative externalities of tourism production, as well as to the capacity of capital to extract and appropriate various resources and categories of rent, as explained above. The extensive externalities of tourism significantly reduce the private cost of capitalist production and thus increase the rates of profit for the capital invested in this sector. This increased profitability, intertwined with the capacity to freely appropriate various resources and forms of rent, makes the tourism sector more attractive for the investment of capital. At the same time, it enables capital invested in tourism to out-compete other sectors of production, such as agriculture and residence, depriving them of crucial resources such as land and water. In this way and as tourism tends to increase land prices, agriculture tends to be marginalized in many countries with a significant tourism sector, despite the potential linkages between these two sectors [25,51]. This asymmetric and unbalanced relation between tourism and other sectors, which may also encompass EUE, reinforces the uneven development between sectors on a national and international level. There is also an increasingly uneven development within the tourism sector itself, which may be attributed to a rising competition between tourism destinations and the differentiated appropriation of resources and rent capture along the value chain of tourism. This latter trend is strengthened in so far as a pattern of considerable dispersion of providers of tourism services is centralized, coordinated, and controlled through complex technological networks by big transnational companies (TNCs) and tour operators. This technological complexity, along with the volatility of tourism itself and the tight inter-linkage with the banking and credit sector, tends to increase not only inequalities but also the economic instability of the tourism sector, which in turn is largely transmitted to other sectors and the capitalist economy at large [25,34].

As has become clear from above, the rapid development of tourism implies an increasing ecological degradation, and it can be argued that it also significantly contributes to an increasing rift between society and nature [52]. It also has important social implications. There is, as noted above, a major distributional issue regarding the extensive appropriation of ecological and social resources and the capture of rents by the capital invested in tourism, whereas the cost for the development of the relevant resources and infrastructures is backed by public financing and ultimately by the great social majority who also bear the greatest burden of the adverse effects of tourism development [25]. Here, we must also include the cost for the wear and tear of museums and related infrastructures, and the cost of repair and conservation in the case of heritage tourism [53]. This distributional conflict (with national and international dimensions) gives rise to social tensions and intensified class struggles. At the same time, while tourism may create opportunities for employment, it usually leads to precarious and extremely exploitative labor conditions and capital–labor conflicts and struggles, which are currently intensified [4,8,16]. At the same time, tourism development tends to increase the cost of labor reproduction in so far as it usually leads to an increase in land and rent prices as well as of the general price level, while degrading the quality of life, especially in major tourism destinations. This may involve increased noise and traffic jams or accidents, urban and communication congestion, increased criminality, and cultural degradation, increased pollution, and ecological degradation, and intensified social tensions or struggles.

It should also be stressed that the market and technological standardization associated with tourism and especially the rapid development of mass tourism tend to erode the basic premises of tourism itself. On the one hand, these developments and the need to utilize scale economies lead to the construction of huge tourism infrastructures (big hotels, large cruise ships, etc.) and a homogenized mode of travel and accommodation. On the other hand, ecological degradation and cultural homogenization tend to undermine or erode the particularity and uniqueness of any place as a potential tourism destination. Although cultural values are commonly conceived as substantially different and unrelated with economic values, one could argue, in agreement with our dialectical materialist framework, and without any reductionist inclination, that the expansion of the dominant capitalist relations of production and market exchange through tourism will tend to induce a similar and intimately related set of cultural values and practices. In this regard, the commodified and massive capitalist development of tourism becomes a self-defeating business. It is also remarkable that tourism, as already noted, significantly contributes to atmospheric emissions and to climate change; while on the other hand, the exacerbated climate crisis undermines the basis of tourism for some destinations and may radically change tourism flows.

Within this context, market competition and the exploitation–appropriation (plunder) dialectic lead to an increasing concentration and centralization of capital invested in tourism, and this gives rise to an establishment of correspondingly concentrated and authoritarian power relations. This power structure involves the dominant state mechanisms and policies, as well as the “public” or private mass media, where the capitalist oligarchs who dominate in tourism also reign supreme. From the standpoint of capital and this power structure, there are good reasons for the perpetuation of the same “business as usual” policy, while the currently dominant mode of tourism development is profoundly unsustainable, both socially and ecologically. What is more, the agents of tourism not only support themselves, but also demand a public financing of costly campaigns for the further promotion of tourism. The question arising then, under these conditions, is whether there is an alternative, sustainable mode of tourism development ensuring an ecologically and socially rational dialectic between society and nature.

5. Conclusions and the Prospects of an Alternative Tourism

This research effort is a first (preliminary) attempt to contribute to a theoretical understanding of some crucial aspects, tendencies, and implications of the currently dominant mode of tourism development. As such, it may suffer, even on a theoretical level, from some inadequacies or shortcomings. Nevertheless, it is a research initiative which may invite further theoretical critique and conceptual clarification, as well as a radical social reorganization. Focusing on theoretical understanding and a qualitative analysis of tourism, this research effort does not include sufficient empirical support. There is, however, plenty of evidence in the relevant literature which seems to support our conclusions, and further empirical evidence may of course be provided by other researchers. Arguably, theoretical analysis and conceptual clarification is of primary importance compared to a perhaps misguided, theoretically blinded, and futile empiricism. This research may be considered as a probe and suggestion for further theoretical and empirical research in a number of related areas including a further critical elaboration of some issues discussed above, a more specific analysis of value transfers and EUE concerning tourism, an empirical assessment of the extent of value transfers and EUE involved in tourism on a regional or global level, the specific engagement of the credit and banking sector in the political economy of tourism, and the institutional or sociopolitical preconditions and prospects of an alternative course of sustainable tourism.

Another interesting direction for further research may concern a critical comparison and intersection between the (Marxist) approach followed in this article and the literature regarding value chains or the “entangled” relation between global value chains (GVCs) and global wealth chains (GWCs) in particular [54]. Apart from certain commonalities, there are also substantial methodological differences between these two approaches. Our value-theoretical approach has an advantage as it allows a more robust analysis of the capitalist dynamics and the exploitative and power relations involved in the sector investigated, but the latter approach too, though based on a less satisfactory market valuation, offers some useful distributional insights. A critical intersection between these two approaches may offer fruitful results concerning the theoretical and empirical investigation of tourism or any other sector of highly internationalized economic activity.

Aside from the limitations of the present research, it can be argued that, as the historical evidence of recent decades has shown and the preceding analysis demonstrated, the currently dominant mode of tourism development within the CMP has severe adverse social and ecological effects which undermine the sustainability of both tourism and capitalism at large. Although most attempts to green capitalism and the capitalist state, or to ecologically reregulate tourism and correct market failures through state policies, have largely failed to ensure or resuscitate conditions for a truly sustainable tourism, there is still some potential for organizational reforms and policy changes which might partly face or mitigate the negative social and ecological implications of this mode of tourism development. These reforms or policy changes, however, which crucially depend on the balance of power and the strength of relevant movements, are hardly sufficient to cope with the adverse socioecological effects of tourism and overcome the exacerbated ecological crisis on a global scale. This condition leads to a growing awareness of the need to move away from the presently dominant mode of tourism development towards a radically different mode of development within a post-capitalist (socialist/communist oriented) perspective. The same awareness has given rise to an emerging literature and a growing research effort towards a decommodified and socialized tourism [55,56,57].

It is expected that the drastic institutional changes and the structural characteristics of a post-capitalist (socialist) society will create the conditions for sustainable tourism and for a socioecological sustainability more broadly. It may be necessary here to briefly outline the reasons for this plausible expectation.

The common property institutions and social planning in such a society would allow the decommodification of production and the expansion of the public goods sector. This may also concern tourism. Within this context, social solidarity and egalitarian goals and policies will drastically reduce or eliminate social inequalities, instability, and uncertainty, while encouraging a shift from individualistic to more collective behavioral patterns. With respect to tourism, we may also expect the development of more collective forms of production and consumption, within a broader social planning, and a drastic decommodification of production. Although one could not completely deny the use of the term “hospitality” for the present day commodified (commercial) tourism, it must be stressed that authentic hospitality (in the sense of philoxenia [the Greek word for hospitality]) can be offered (freely) only within a household or communitarian context as a gesture of empathy, solidarity, and sociality.

The decommodification of production, both in tourism and elsewhere, the active participation of all in production and social administration, and the democratization and enrichment of working conditions will also reduce phenomena of social alienation. The purpose of production will not be a maximal production of exchange values (commodities), but the production of use-values for the satisfaction of real social needs. In the case of tourism, the aim would not be the satisfaction of capitalistically induced, fictitious needs, but of the authentic needs of people for travel and recreation.

At the same time, the elimination of the profit and growth motive of capitalism, the collective forms of property and production, social planning, and the marginalization of individualistic attitudes will tend to eliminate cost-shifting and various forms of superfluous (fictitious) production in tourism and elsewhere. Under these conditions, a significant degrowth of production will allow substantial protection of the ecological environment. As already argued, contrary to some other approaches [58,59], it is only under such (socialist) conditions that we can plausibly expect a socially rational degrowth of tourism and production in general, with considerable implications for the protection of the ecosystem. Social planning and such a degrowth may allow for a more specific determination of a sustainable scale and rational geographical distribution of tourism, a sufficient protection of ecological conditions, and an equal participation of the people involved, both in terms of the costs and benefits from tourism.

In this sense, it is only with a supersession of the CMP that we can expect a real emancipation from the contradictions and maladies of commodified tourism, and a movement towards an ecologically and socially sustainable tourism. As becomes clear from the above, the specific historical configuration of an alternative mode and pattern of (sustainable) tourism cannot simply be the result of an elaborate theoretical model but will also significantly involve extensive institutional experimentation and social struggle.