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VIDEOTourist Attraction of the Moment? Poverty
World's slums see rubbernecking boom.
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But while the film has undeniably become the year’s breakout phenomenon, Slumdog producer Fox Searchlight (NWS) isn’t the only business reaping rewards. It's also meant a windfall for Reality Tours and Travel, an organization that's been providing tours of the world-famous slum of Dharavi for almost 3 years. It’s the greatest single development in what might be termed "poorism" -- scenic tours of the world's most brutally deprived places -- and one of the travel industry's fastest growing trends.
“There has been an increase in the numbers of people going on out tour since Slumdog Millionaire,” says Reality Tours co-founder Chris Way. “It’s very difficult to quantify it. If I were to give a guestimate, I would say about a 25% increase due to Slumdog.”
In an attempt to evade charges of exploitation, Reality Tours prohibits its clients from taking photographs; it claims that 80% of is net profits are donated to area NGOs such as the Modern Educational Social and Cultural Organization - a Mumbai-based group whose activities include education and medical services as well as poverty relief and women-empowerment services.
But Mumbai is also an economic boomtown, and Dharavi occupies some of its prime real estate. So, despite the sudden growth in poorism, the local government is looking to demolish the slums in favor of building high-rises and parks. But for adventurous tourists looking to see how the other 90% live, Dharavi is just one of countless slum-tourism hotspots.
Kenya's Victoria Safaris has established itself as a go-to resource for travelers looking to experience Nairobi’s slums firsthand. Like Dharavi, the intrigue surrounding these tours of the Kibera slums -- Africa’s largest -- is increasing thanks to a popular film, 2005's The Constant Gardener.
But in the race to accommodate a growing industry, tour groups have managed to cross certain lines.
In Rio de Janeiro, one group, Private Tours, made waves last year when local media revealed it was taking tourists into Rocinha, the city's largest slum, and arranging meetings with area gang leaders. The company’s brain trust insisted that such tours were commonplace in Rio, where slum tourism has become a major industry.
It started in 2002, when groups appealing to so-called “urban adventurers” began giving tours of Philadelphia’s inner city. Years later, Hurricane Katrina inspired its own cottage industry, revolving primarily around walking tours of New Orleans’ destroyed Lower Ninth Ward.
The HBO series The Wire saw the establishment of tours of the tough East Baltimore neighborhoods that provided the show’s backdrop. As recently as this past December, tourists were coming to Galveston, Texas -- which had been leveled by Hurricane Ike just 2 months earlier -- to witness the level of destruction firsthand.
In slums as massive as Dharavi and Kibera, regulatory oversight seems daunting. But with more people forgoing a day at the beach in favor of a day in the slum, it might actually speak volumes about the changing mood of the global tourism industry during tough economic times.
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