Reality-Check Tourism Becomes Fashionable Trend

As Brazil is now selling tours around its best-known favela (skid row) of Rocinha, the economic crisis that swept Argentina in the waning days of 2001 brought about another unexpected phenomenon: groups of visitors who travel to that country to take pictures of people walking picket lines in Plaza de Mayo (May Square). Local newspaper El Independiente recently published an assessment of this fledgling travel modality.

The new trend is definitely taking adventure tourism up a notch, giving trippers the chance of touring unknown and dangerous places, either for the residents or the local wildlife. In this particular case, curiosity is the name of the game and a good dose of in-the-raw reality check is what actually drives people to snoop around, the newspaper reports.

As part of the same phenomenon, travel agents in the Dominican Republic –the Caribbean paradise that heralded the marketing of all-inclusive resorts- are weighing the possibility of giving tourists a view of some forbidden places in an effort to quench their interest in connecting to Latin America´s real daily life, no matter how hard it might actually be.

Regardless of the fact that it´s almost impossible to tell when the unwritten guideline that links travel agents with consumers on the basis of the latter´s safety began to change, truth is these security codes were cracked for the first time by Global Exchange, a U.S. tour operator based in San Francisco, California, that sketched out travel to red-hot zones in Haiti, Palestine and Afghanistan.

A case in point is Brazil, a country that seems to highlight people´s desire to live a emotional rollercoaster as far as tourism is concerned, chiefly when it comes to learning about the way of life of Latin America´s biggest slum.

A couple of years ago, a travel agency called Favela Tours opened in Rio de Janeiro. Since then, 750 people have paid for the stroll around the ill-famed skid row.

Safety and security matters were worked out with drug dealers themselves, who were persuaded to do everything “within their power” to prevent tourists from stepping into harm´s way.

Experts rushed to outline a couple of theories based on this kind of “help.” One theory maintains that drug smugglers are aware of the economic benefits that tourism brings for the national economy. The other theory states that narcotic dealers are cashing in on these tours to keep cops away from the favela.

The difference between traditional travel and reality-check tourism lies in the latter´s ability to take tourists to watch conflicts in progress, on-the-spot occurrences with a hands-on attitude, even when they witness everything through the lenses of their cameras and camcorders.

When the Chernobyl tour hit the market after the fatal blast in one of its nuclear reactor, or when Nazi concentration camps were opened for tourists, those episodes were long gone by then as they had already been sifted by history itself.

The same happens with the tour that recreates Che Guevara´s last hours in Bolivia or the whereabouts of sub-commander Marcos in the Mexican region of Chiapas. Both strolls are considered the forerunners of a highly efficient kind of tourism.

For years, travelers have been flocking to Lebanon´s Beirut –not a tourist country in any way- to take a firsthand look at armed conflicts, crumbling buildings and suffering people.

It´s true this is not a commonplace kind of tourist, but we should only say “not yet,” because the survival of this trend will depend on how agents happen to “sell” these tour packages that are likely to flood the travel market worldwide.