Slum Tourism?

Slum tourism…what does that mean? Based on what I researched recently it is a type of tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas with poor conditions and understanding other people’s lifestyles of local inhabitants.  More popular slum tourism tours exist around the world in cities like Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Cape Town, and others. Slum Tourism is now a controversial issue.

While slum tourism isn't a new phenomenon, slum tours have slowly become more popular in the 1990's. Slum tours in South Africa are called "township tours" because in South Africa the term "township" generally refers to impoverished and underdeveloped urban areas. Currently there area an estimated 40-50 township tour operators in Cape Town alone and about 25% of international overseas tourists to South Africa take a township tour. The segregation of people according to race during Apartheid-the political system that ruled in South Africa in 1994-led to a very segregated townships with most colored people being forced to live together in impoverished areas.

Some pros to slum tourism are that tourist get the opportunity to experience other parts of the world and how they manage to survive in the environments today. It's not like they can help the environment, but it's more like they can see how much better their lives are compared with people in some of these third world countries. Tourists also pay extra just to get into the specifics of these countries. They get to see the houses, bathroom (which aren't even real bathrooms, more like holes out in the open where no one sees), water, and other resources. In the picture above it shows how third world slums are and how dirty the environments people how to live in. People living in first world countries should be thankful of how clean our regions are and the fresh air we get to breathe everyday compared with these people. 

Some cons or disadvantages to the slums are that they are often being visited by outsiders and don't really get a peace and quiet environment because people always come into their areas to "observe how they are living. People who live in slums often are portrayed as poor and incompetent people. They have to live in areas where it's like trash and puddles of mud everywhere. When they have to go to the bathroom, there aren't even real bathrooms in those areas. People have to go find holes in the ground and pee. When they want to find places to shower they have to find the nearest pond or river and everyone sees them showering, sometimes they don't or can't even shower because the water is contaminated by bacteria. While other houses are in the hills and roofs are falling down. Many people living in the slums are always effected by water because water surrounds the roots of most of the bottom slums and the grounds are often dirty. (481 words)