why is slum tourism so popular

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Slum tourism: how it began, the impact it has, and why it became so popular.

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Looking for something different than the usually dose of museums, beach resorts, and restaurants, many foreign tourists are now turning to places that may at first seem to be the antithesis of the typical vacation destination: slums. Far from being viewed as off-limits, no-go-zones that outsiders would be wise to avoid, some slum-like areas in cities like Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro have now become bonafide tourist attractions, bringing in tens and even hundreds of thousands of curious visitors each year.

This photo taken on March 19, 2015 shows an Indian man bathing in an open area at Dharavi in Mumbai. ... [+] (PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP/Getty Images)

A brief history of slum tourism

Whether called a township, a favela, a barrio, a slum, a shantytown, or a ghetto, outsiders recreationally visiting these typically impoverished places is nothing new. There are records of middle and upper class Londoners heading over to the East End to gawk at the poor in the 19th century, which grew in such popularity that the colloquial term for this endeavor — “slumming” — was included in the 1884 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Meanwhile, curious visitors began venturing into the Lower East Side of Manhattan. More recently, following the global attention paid to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, many tourist began traveling to see the places where this struggle first arose, as “slum tourism” developed into a formalized commercial offering.

Today, slum tourism has grown into a legitimate global industry, bringing in over a million tourists per year. Tour operators are now offering visits to places like the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg, the favelas of Rio, the slums of Mumbai and New Delhi, or even the skid rows of LA, Detroit, Copenhagen, and Berlin.

SALVADOR, BRAZIL- FEBRUARY 8: Hundreds of thousands of Afro-Brazilians live in flavelas like this ... [+] one on the edge of Salvador, Brazil February 8, 2005. (Photo by David Turnley/Getty Images)

Why visit a slum?

“For me, there were many factors that initially drew me to visiting what locals refereed to as “slum areas,” said David Ways, a travel writer at TLWH who often visits disadvantaged urban areas around the world, although never as a part of a formal tour. “I enjoy urban exploration, was researching the topic of the homeless in developing countries, and I found the contrasts of the wealthy urbanites living next to “slums” curious.”

However, Ways was quick to qualify what he meant by curiosity: “This curiosity is not about ‘how do they live’ but more about their life stories and oftentimes the discrimination they face from local governments and from those with permanent housing.”

This interest in social issues and concern for the general human condition was one of the main motivations for slum visits that was identified by Fabian Frenzel, a professor at the University of Leicester and author of the definitive book on the topic, Slumming It: The Tourist Valorization of Urban Poverty .

“In slum tourism, what I find clearly is that people are interested in this fact of inequality," Frenzel said. "Whatever you can say about it otherwise, the tourists will have some interest to deal with this question of inequality in the cities or the places they visit.”

However, there is another, perhaps more fundamental, attraction of visiting some slum-like areas. Frenzel pointed out that the initial rise in interest in local slums in New York and London coincided with the advent of a new technology: photography. Seeing images of some of these areas provoke the desire in many outsiders to go and see them for themselves.

This sentiment has been continuously amplified over time as more and more visuals of the human condition around the world become more readily available.

“So instead of just consuming these pictures at home and then trying to do something there, people are increasingly trying to follow those images back to their source, trying to see for themselves,” Frenzel explained. “Every mediated picture seems to create more desire to actually see for yourself.”

Two Indian boys walk in a back alley in the recycling district of Mumbai's Dharavi slum on December ... [+] 12, 2012. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images)

According to tour operators, the effect of that the film Slumdog Millionaire had on attracting visitors to Mumbai’s Dharavi slum has been massive. Although the tours existed long before the movie, the film increased their popularity and became a reference point for what people expected to see there.

“Then you have people using media themselves, as they write about travel, as they rate places, generating these places by electronic word of mouth,” Frenzel explained. “An attraction can be made simply by people referring to it on TripAdvisor.”

What actually happens on slum tours?

“What you see is life, urban life,” Frenzel said. “Which of course is complicated, limited in some ways. Often there is clear evidence of neglect, when sewage or rubbish or all these basic services of a city don't really function. But at the same it's often very lively, vibrant.”

Most slum tours will usually consist of visits to various project sites, where NGOs or similar organizations are working in the community -- places like schools, educational centers, projects like a bathroom that composts feces to produce gas for cooking, and, of course, orphanages. Often, these sites are chosen to show tourists what’s being done to better the community, and sometimes include suggestions as to how they can lend their support, if they so choose.

One of the major impacts of slum tourism is the change of perception they often facilitate.

“You might have certain ideas about Dharavi, maybe from Slumdog Millionaire , but we show you a very different side,” Frenzel said. “We show you how this is a place of business, how people work, how people make small but very successful businesses, how there's a variety of aspects here. That . . . is the classical, educational aspect of tourism.”

A French family looking at Rocinha, one of the 752 'favelas' (shantytowns) in Rio de Janeiro, ... [+] Brazil, 17 July 2007 during a visit called 'Favela-Tour'. (M.CHARGEL/AFP/Getty Images)

The local reaction?

What about what the local people in slum areas think of groups of relatively moneyed tourists from countries far away suddenly showing up and poking about?

“My sense has always been that there's more or less a curiosity, surprise, maybe a sense of puzzlement,” Frenzel said. “I remember walking through a neighborhood in Mumbai with a fairly large group of tourists and the people were like ‘Why are you here? This is not the Gate of India.’ Sometimes you find hostility. I think it's particular when people feel you've stepped onto their toes. That's like a phenomenon you find with tourism everywhere, though.”

The University of Pennsylvania study found that “ambivalence” was the most common reaction in Dharavi.

While David Ways has found that even people living within slum areas often repeat the same, common warnings:

“No matter what “slum” I've visited there's always been a concerned citizen warning me away from that area for genuine fear of my wallet or life. Strangely, this happens inside the “slums” too. In Sabah, Malaysia, for example, a nice Indonesian man warned me to stay away from the Filipino community there, the Pakistani shop keeper told me to avoid the Indonesian areas, and the Filipinos told me to avoid everyone. In all cases, I've never had any criminal issues other than a few bored youths whom I usually try to avoid anywhere in the world.

The controversy

As slum tourism grows in popularity it has become an increasingly polarizing and controversial topic.

“Slum tourism is happening,” Frenzel began, “people are actually going on three hour tours in flavelas, then many more politically inclined travelers would say ‘That's horrible, how can you do this? Obviously that's voyeuristic,’ and so on. [But] if you decide to do this you are at least showing some interest in the fact that there's inequality, and that is something that, fundamentally, is a good thing in comparison with people who go to Rio and say, 'I will not look at this,' even though it's clearly there.”

What is the real impact?

As far as who makes the money from these tours, Ways claims that, “Tour operators promise they give money to the people there but in comparison to what they themselves are earning, it's a pittance.” Frenzel concurred that the direct economic stimulation in the communities from these tours is negligible.

“What adds to that is that these tours are often combined with some notion of charity. So the tour operator will say some of the money you give us will flow into a project here in the neighborhood, or we'll do this, or we'll do that with some of your money. Or we employ local guides," Frenzel explained. "[But] so very little of the money that is spent on these tours actually ends up in the places being visited.”

However, there is another, potentially much larger, impact of slum tourism: connectivity. Tourists going into urban areas that are often regarded as no-go zones, as places that are conceptually severed off from the rest of the city, drives home the fact that these areas exist, that they serve a function, that there is something of value there that shouldn’t be ignored. In other words, it can put them on the map.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - JUNE 25: Tourists were parking in an area where homes once stood. The ... [+] favela has seen many homes leveled ahead of the World Cup. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images,)

“So I think when you look at the details you can tell some of these stories of how the tourists entering these spaces kind of creates connectivity and maybe new opportunities for setting up little businesses or maybe a whole new level of connectivity,” Frenzel posited.

Frenzel explained how this has been especially evident in Rio, where tourists have blazed trails into previously taboo areas, which subsequently opened them up for better-off expats and locals, facilitating cross-class encounters to a new extent.

“It does enable getting out of the rigid value regime which says that an area basically doesn't exist, it's not really part of the city, don't go there, it doesn't matter,” Frenzel said. “I think it's a first step in recognizing these areas and you can build on it, hopefully. . . I think that's where tourism can come in helpful, in making that connection.”

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Inside the Controversial World of Slum Tourism

People have toured the world’s most marginalized, impoverished districts for over a century.

Hundreds of shanty towns line the riverbanks, train tracks, and garbage dumps in the Filipino capital—the most jammed-packed areas in one of the world’s most densely populated cities. Around a quarter of its 12 million people are considered “informal settlers.”

Manila is starkly representative of a global problem. According to the United Nations , about a quarter of the world’s urban population lives in slums—and this figure is rising fast.

Rich cultural heritage brings visitors to Manila, but some feel compelled to leave the safety of the historic center sites to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality. Tour operators in the Philippines —as well as places like Brazil and India —have responded by offering “slum tours” that take outsiders through their most impoverished, marginalized districts.

Slum tourism sparks considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. No matter what you call it—slum tours, reality tours, adventure tourism, poverty tourism—many consider the practice little more than slack-jawed privileged people gawking at those less fortunate. Others argue they raise awareness and provide numerous examples of giving back to the local communities. Should tourists simply keep their eyes shut?

Around a quarter of Manila's 12 million people are considered “informal settlers."

Rich cultural heritage brings visitors to Manila, but some feel compelled to leave the safety of the historic center sites to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality.

Slumming For Centuries

Slum tourism is not a new phenomenon, although much has changed since its beginning. “Slumming” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in the 1860s, meaning “to go into, or frequent, slums for discreditable purposes; to saunter about, with a suspicion, perhaps, of immoral pursuits.” In September 1884, the New York Times published an article about the latest trend in leisure activities that arrived from across the pond, “‘Slumming’ will become a form of fashionable dissipation this winter among our Belles, as our foreign cousins will always be ready to lead the way.”

Usually under the pretense of charity and sometimes with a police escort, rich Londoners began braving the city’s ill-reputed East End beginning around 1840. This new form of amusement arrived to New York City from wealthy British tourists eager to compare slums abroad to those back home. Spreading across the coast to San Francisco, the practice creeped into city guide books. Groups wandered through neighborhoods like the Bowery or Five Points in New York to peer into brothels, saloons, and opium dens.

Visitors could hardly believe their eyes, and justifiably so. “I don’t think an opium den would have welcomed, or allowed access to, slummers to come through if they weren’t there to smoke themselves,” Chad Heap writes in his book Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife , 1885–1940 . Recognizing the business opportunity, outsiders cashed in on the curiosity by hiring actors to play the part of addicts or gang members to stage shoot-’em-ups in the streets. After all, no one wanted the slum tourists to demand a refund or go home disappointed.

Smokey Tours does not allow participants to take photos, but this policy proves difficult to enforce.

The city of San Francisco eventually banned such mockery of the poor, the New York Times reported in 1909: “This is a heavy blow to Chinatown guides, who have collected a fee of two dollars each. The opium smokers, gamblers, blind paupers, singing children, and other curiosities were all hired.”

Tours also brought positive results, as Professor of History Seth Koven highlights in his research of slumming in Victorian London. Oxford and Cambridge Universities opened study centers in the late 19th-century to inform social policy, which was only possible by seeing the underprivileged neighborhoods firsthand.

Popularity waned after World War II with the creation of welfare and social housing—then rose again in the 1980s and 1990s as those state provisions declined and labor demands increased.

Presenting Poverty

Plastic arrives from all over India to the dark alleys and corrugated shacks of Dharavi in Mumbai —the second-largest slum on the continent of Asia (after Orangi Town in Pakistan ) and third-largest slum in the world. Ushered around by the company Reality Tour and Travel , tourists see a thriving recycling industry which employs around ten thousand to melt, reshape, and mould discarded plastic. They stop to watch the dhobiwallahs , or washermen, scrub sheets from the city’s hospitals and hotels in an open-air laundry area.

In a TripAdvisor review, one recent participant from Virginia appreciated the focus on community. “It was great to hear about the economy, education and livelihood of the residents,” she writes. “The tour group doesn't allow photography or shopping which I think is really important. It didn't feel exploitative, it felt educational.”

One traveler from London commented on the extremity of the scene. "Had to stop after about 20 minutes into it due to the overbearing nature of the surroundings. The tour is not for the faint hearted. I would've liked a few more disclaimers on the website to warn us about the nature of it." Another guest from the United Kingdom expressed disappointment over the so-called family meal. “This was in the home of one of the guides and, whilst his mum made lunch a delicious meal that we ate in her house, she didn’t eat with us so it wasn’t really what I had expected from a family lunch (or the photos promoting such on the website).”

Smokey Tours enters the Manila North Cemetery, inhabited by some of Manila's poorest people.

Children jump from grave to grave in the city’s largest cemetery.

Reality Tours hopes to challenge the stereotypical perception of slums as despairing places inhabited by hopeless people. The tour presented slum residents as productive and hardworking, but also content and happy. Analyzing more than 230 reviews of Reality Tour and Travel in her study , Dr. Melissa Nisbett of King’s College London realized that for many Dharavi visitors, poverty was practically invisible. “As the reviews show, poverty was ignored, denied, overlooked and romanticized, but moreover, it was depoliticized.” Without discussing the reason the slum existed, the tour decontextualized the plight of the poor and seemed only to empower the wrong people–the privileged, western, middle class visitors.

With good intentions, the company states that 80 percent of the profits benefit the community through the efforts of its NGO that works to provide access to healthcare, organize educational programs, and more. Co-founder Chris Way spoke to National Geographic after his company surged in popularity from the sleeper hit Slumdog Millionaire . “We do try and be as transparent as possible on our website, which does allay many people’s fears.” Way personally refuses a salary for his work.

No Two Cities Alike

The main question should be: Is poverty the central reason to visit?

Other cities take different approaches to slum tourism. In the early 1990s, when black South Africans began offering tours of their townships—the marginalized, racially-segregated areas where they were forced to live—to help raise global awareness of rampant human rights violations. Rather than exploitation inflicted by outsiders, local communities embraced slum tourism as a vehicle to take matters of their traditionally neglected neighborhoods into their own hands.

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Some free tours of favelas in Rio de Janeiro provided an accessible option to the crowds that infiltrated the city during the World Cup and Summer Olympics, while most companies continue to charge. Tour manager Eduardo Marques of Brazilian Expeditions explains how their authenticity stands out, “We work with some local guides or freelancers, and during the tour we stop in local small business plus [offer] capoeira presentations that [support] the locals in the favela. We do not hide any info from our visitors. The real life is presented to the visitors.”

Smokey Tours in Manila connected tourists with the reality facing inhabitants of a city landfill in Tondo (until 2014 when it closed) to tell their stories. Now the company tours around Baseco near the port, located in the same crowded district and known for its grassroots activism. Locally-based photographer Hannah Reyes Morales documented her experience walking with the group on assignment for National Geographic Travel. “I had permission to photograph this tour from both the operator and community officials, but the tour itself had a no photography policy for the tourists.” With the policy difficult to enforce, some guests secretly snapped photos on their phones. “I observed how differently tourists processed what they were seeing in the tour. There were those who were respectful of their surroundings, and those who were less so.”

All About Intention

Despite sincere attempts by tour operators to mitigate offense and give back to locals, the impact of slum tourism stays isolated. Ghettoized communities remain woven into the fabric of major cities around the world, each with their individual political, historical, and economic concerns that cannot be generalized. Similarly, the motivations behind the tourism inside them are as diverse as the tour participants themselves. For all participants involved, operators or guests, individual intentions matter most.

The Baseco neighborhood is located on the Pasig river near the city port, but lacks access to clean drinking water.

Better connections between cities allow more people to travel than ever before, with numbers of international tourists growing quickly every year. While prosperity and quality of life have increased in many cities, so has inequality. As travelers increasingly seek unique experiences that promise authentic experiences in previously off-limits places, access through tours helps put some areas on the map.

Travel connects people that would otherwise not meet, then provides potential to share meaningful stories with others back home. Dr. Fabian Frenzel, who studies tourism of urban poverty at the University of Leicester, points out that one of the key disadvantages of poverty is a lack of recognition and voice. “If you want to tell a story, you need an audience, and tourism provides that audience.” Frenzel argues that even taking the most commodifying tour is better than ignoring that inequality completely.

For the long-term future of these communities, the complex economic, legal, and political issues must be addressed holistically by reorganizing the distribution of resources. While illuminating the issue on a small scale, slum tourism is not a sufficient answer to a growing global problem.

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Slumming it: how tourism is putting the world’s poorest places on the map

Lecturer in the Political Economy of Organisation, University of Leicester

Disclosure statement

From 2012-2014 Fabian Frenzel was a Marie-Curie Fellow and has received funding from the European Union to conduct his research on slum tourism.

University of Leicester provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Back in Victorian times, wealthier citizens could sometimes be found wandering among London’s poorer, informal neighbourhoods, distributing charity to the needy. “Slumming” – as it was called – was later dismissed as a morally dubious and voyeuristic pastime. Today, it’s making a comeback; wealthy Westerners are once more making forays into slums – and this time, they’re venturing right across the developing world.

According to estimates by tour operators and researchers , over one million tourists visited a township, favela or slum somewhere in the world in 2014. Most of these visits were made as part of three or four-hour tours in the hotspots of global slum tourism; major cities and towns in Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai.

There is reason to think that slum tourism is even more common than these numbers suggest. Consider the thousands of international volunteers, who spend anything from a few days to several months in different slums across the world.

The gap year has become a rite of passage for young adults between school and university and, in the UK, volunteering and travel opportunities are often brokered by commercial tourism operators. In Germany and the US, state sponsored programs exist to funnel young people into volunteering jobs abroad.

International volunteering is no longer restricted to young people at specific points in their lives. Volunteers today are recruited across a wide range of age groups . Other travellers can be considered slum-tourists: from international activists seeking cross-class encounters to advance global justice, to students and researchers of slums and urban development conducting fieldwork in poor neighbourhoods.

Much modern tourism leads richer people to encounter relatively poorer people and places. But in the diverse practices of slum tourism, this is an intentional and explicit goal: poverty becomes the attraction – it is the reason to go.

Many people will instinctively think that this kind of travel is morally problematic, if not downright wrong. But is it really any better to travel to a country such as India and ignore its huge inequalities?

Mapping inequality

It goes without saying that ours is a world of deep and rigid inequalities. Despite some progress in the battles against absolute poverty, inequality is on the rise globally . Few people will openly disagree that something needs to be done about this – but the question is how? Slum tourism should be read as an attempt to address this question. So, rather than dismissing it outright, we should hold this kind of tourism to account and ask; does it help to reduce global inequality?

My investigation into slum tourism provided some surprising answers to this question. We tend to think of tourism primarily as an economic transaction. But slum tourism actually does very little to directly channel money into slums: this is because the overall numbers of slum tourists and the amount of money they end up spending when visiting slums is insignificant compared with with the resources needed to address global inequality.

But in terms of symbolic value, even small numbers of slum tourists can sometimes significantly alter the dominant perceptions of a place. In Mumbai, 20,000 tourists annually visit the informal neighbourhood of Dharavi , which was featured in Slumdog Millionaire. Visitor numbers there now rival Elephanta Island in Mumbai – a world heritage site.

Likewise, in Johannesburg, most locals consider the inner-city neighbourhood of Hillbrow to be off limits. But tourists rate walking tours of the area so highly that the neighbourhood now features as one of the top attractions of the city on platforms such as Trip Advisor . Tourists’ interest in Rio’s favelas has put them on the map; before, they used to be hidden by city authorities and local elites .

Raising visibility

Despite the global anti-poverty rhetoric, it is clear that today’s widespread poverty does benefit some people. From their perspective, the best way of dealing with poverty is to make it invisible. Invisibility means that residents of poor neighbourhoods find it difficult to make political claims for decent housing, urban infrastructure and welfare. They are available as cheap labour, but deprived of full social and political rights.

Slum tourism has the power to increase the visibility of poor neighbourhoods, which can in turn give residents more social and political recognition. Visibility can’t fix everything, of course. It can be highly selective and misleading, dark and voyeuristic or overly positive while glossing over real problems. This isn’t just true of slum tourism; it can also be seen in the domain of “virtual slumming” – the consumption of images, films and books about slums.

Yet slum tourism has a key advantage over “virtual slumming”: it can actually bring people together. If we want tourism to address global inequality, we should look for where it enables cross-class encounters; where it encourages tourists to support local struggles for recognition and build the connections that can help form global grassroots movements. To live up to this potential, we need to reconsider what is meant by tourism, and rethink what it means to be tourists.

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Slum Tourism: What Is It, and Is It Okay?

Slum tourism, also sometimes referred to as "ghetto tourism," involves tourism to impoverished areas, particularly in India , Brazil, Kenya, and Indonesia. The purpose of slum tourism is to provide tourists the opportunity to see the “non-touristy” areas of a country or city.

While slum tourism has gained some international notoriety in recent years, it is not a new concept. In the mid-1800s, rich Londoners would travel to the squalid tenements of the East End. Early visits began under the guise of “charity,” but over the next few decades, the practice spread to the tenements of U.S. cities like New Yorkand Chicago . With demand, tour operators developed guides to tour these impoverished neighborhoods.

Slum tourism, or seeing how the other half lived, died off in the mid-1900s, but regained popularity in South Africa due to apartheid. This tourism, though, was driven by the oppressed Black South Africans who wanted the world to understand their plight. The success of the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" brought India’s poverty to the world’s attention and slum tourism expanded to cities like Dharavi , home to India’s largest slum.

Modern tourists want an authentic experience, not the white-washed tourist zones that were so popular in the 1980s. Slum tourism meets this desire, offering a look into the world beyond their personal experience.

Safety Concerns

Like it is in all areas of tourism, slum tourism can be safe, or not. When choosing a slum tour, guests should use due diligence to determine if a tour is licensed, has a good reputation on review sites and follows local guidelines.

For instance, Reality Tours and Travel , which was featured on PBS, takes 18,000 people on tours of Dharavi, India each year. The tours highlight the slum’s positives, such as its infrastructure of hospitals, banks and entertainment, and its negatives, such as the lack of housing space and bathrooms and mounds of garbage. The tour shows guests that not everyone has a middle-class home, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a vibrant life. Further, 80% of proceeds from the tours are pumped back into community improvement projects.

Unfortunately, other companies, taking on similar names and logos, offer “tours” that don’t showcase the positives and negatives but exploit the community. They don’t pump funds back into the community, either.

Because there is no standard for slum tour operators yet, tourists need to determine for themselves whether a particular tour company is acting as ethically and responsibly as it claims.

Brazil’s favelas , slum areas that are typically located on the outskirts of big cities like  São Paulo , draw 50,000 tourists each year. Rio de Janeiro has by far the most slum tours of any city in Brazil. Slum tourism of Brazil’s favelas is encouraged by the federal government. Tours provide an opportunity to understand that these hill communities are vibrant communities, not just drug-infested slums portrayed in movies. Trained tour guides drive tourists to the favela by van and then offer walking tours to highlight local entertainment, community centers, and even a meet with people who live there. Generally, photography is prohibited on slum tours preserving respect for the people who live there.

The government goals for touring favelas include:

• explaining the economy of a favela (employment, welfare, rental markets and more)
• highlighting the infrastructure of the favela (hospitals, shopping, banking, fashion, and entertainment)
• touring schools and community centers
• touring community projects
• interacting with the citizens and visits to their homes
• enjoying a meal at a local restaurant

While Brazil has carefully structured its program for slum tourism, concerns remain. Despite regulations and guidelines, some tourists take photos and share them on social media. Whether for shock value or in an effort to enlighten the world to the plight of people in slums, these photos can do more harm than good. Some tour operators, likewise, exploit tourists, claiming that their tours support local businesses without actually giving back to the community. Perhaps the greatest concern, though, is that when slum tourism goes wrong, real lives are impacted.

Responsible slum tourism depends on government guidelines, ethical tour operators, and considerate tourists. When these come together, tourists can have  safe travel experiences, gain a wider worldview and communities can benefit.​

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Inside the Very Real World of 'Slum Tourism'

By Mark Ellwood

Hurricane Katrina left physical and emotional scars on New Orleans, and America, but nowhere was its impact more devastating than the city’s Lower Ninth Ward. Three years after the storm, in October 2008, the district was still pockmarked with half-demolished homes and patches of overgrown grass. It was also dotted with artworks, site-specific installations by the likes of Wangechi Mutu and her Ms Sarah House . Those works formed part of the city’s inaugural art biennial, Prospect New Orleans , bringing tourists to drive and wander through the area in droves. But visitors were caught in an uncomfortable paradox, their art viewing underpinned by the backdrop of one of America’s poorest neighborhoods—or what was left of it.

Locals stood by as various VIPs peered at Mutu’s work. When one of the arterati mustered up courage enough to ask if she minded the influx of gawkers, she shrugged and dodged the question. “It’s nice to have the art here, because it means people are coming to see more than just our ruined homes.” Not everyone reacted to the incomers with such neutrality, though—take one hand-painted sign erected in the neighborhood post-Katrina, that read:

TOURIST Shame On You Driving BY without stopping Paying to see my pain 1,600+ DIED HERE

Both reactions are understandable, and spotlight the uneasy distinction locals in the area might have drawn between being viewed rather than feeling seen. Is it wrong, though, to go beyond the sightseeing mainstays of somewhere like the French Quarter and into a corner of the city that might be blighted or underprivileged as these visitors did? It’s an awkward, but intriguing, question, and one that underpins a nascent niche in travel. It has been nicknamed ‘slum tourism,’ though it’s a broad umbrella term travel that involves visiting underprivileged areas in well-trafficked destinations. Such experiences are complex, since they can seem simultaneously important (bringing much-needed revenues, educating visitors first hand) and inappropriate (a gesture of misunderstanding fitting for a modern-day Marie Antoinette).

Indeed, even those who operate in the field seem to struggle to reconcile those divergent urges. Researching this story, there was resistance, suspicion, and even outright hostility from seasoned slum tourism vets. Deepa Krishnan runs Mumbai Magic , which specializes in tours around the city, home to what’s estimated as Asia’s largest slum; here, about a million people live in ad hoc homes a few miles from Bollywood’s glitz (it’s now best known as home to the hero of Slumdog Millionaire ). "The Spirit of Dharavi" tour takes in this settlement, a two-hour glimpse into everyday life aiming to show that the squalor for which it’s become shorthand is only part of Dharavi story. It’s also a hub of recycling, for example, and home to women’s co-op for papadum-making. Organized as a community project, rather than on a commercial basis, all profits are ploughed back into Dharavi. Yet pressed to talk by phone rather than email, Deepa balked. “I’ve been misquoted too often,” she said.

The organizer of another alt-tourism operation was even more reluctant, and asked not to be quoted, or included here, at all. Its superb premise—the formerly homeless act as guides to help visitors see and understand overlooked corners of a well-trafficked city—seemed smartly to upend tradition. Rather than isolating ‘the other,’ it shows the interconnectedness of so much in a modern city. The fact that both of these firms, whose businesses fall squarely into such non-traditional tours, are so squeamish about the topic is instructive—and reassuring for the rest of us when we’re conflicted about whether or not it’s ethical to treat deprivation as a distraction.

Call it poorism, misery tourism, poverty tourism—it still smacks of exploitation.

The contemporary concept of slum tourism dates back about 30 years, according to Ko Koens, Ph.D., a Dutch academic who specializes in this field and runs slumtourism.net . The South African government began bussing municipal workers into townships like Soweto in the 1980s, he explains, intending to educate them on no-go areas within their fiefdom. “International tourists, mostly activists, who wanted to show their support [for township-dwellers] started doing these tours, too. And after apartheid ended, the operators who were running them for the government realized they could do them commercially.” (It’s now a vital part of the country’s tourism economy, with some estimates that one in four visitors to the country book a Township Tour. )

Simultaneously, tourists were beginning to explore the slums or favelas of Rio de Janeiro. These are the shantytowns that six percent of Brazil’s population calls home. Bolted to the steep hills overlooking the waterfront mansions where wealthy Cariocas chose to live, these higgledy piggledy shacks perch precariously, as if jumbled in the aftermath of an earthquake. From here, the idea of slum tourism began spreading across the world, from Nairobi to the Dominican Republic, and of course, India. Mumbai Magic isn’t alone in operating tours of Bombay’s Dharavi slums—there are countless tours available of areas that now rival the Marine Drive or the Gateway of India as local attractions.

Yet though it’s a thriving new niche, many travelers remain squeamish about the idea. In part, of course, it’s thanks to the words "slum tourism," yet none of the alternatives seem any less confrontational. Call it poorism, misery tourism, poverty tourism—it still smacks of exploitation. There are also safety concerns, too: After all, Brazil supplied almost half the entries in a recent list of the world’s 50 most dangerous cities , not to mention that the world’s latest health crisis is headquartered in the stagnant waters on which the favela residents rely. The sense of being an interloper, or that such deprivation is Disneyfied into a showcase solely for visitors, is an additional factor—especially when spoofish ideas like Emoya’s Shanty Town hotel , a faux South African slum that offsets discomforts like outdoor toilets with underfloor heating and Wi-Fi, turn out not to be Saturday Night Live skits.

Muddled motivations add to the discomfort; one in-depth study found it was pure curiosity, rather than education, say, or self-actualization, that drove most visitors to book a trip around the Dharavi slums. One first-hand account by a Kenyan who went from the slums of Nairobi to studying at Wesleyan University underlines those awkward findings. “I was 16 when I first saw a slum tour. I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes… “ he wrote. “Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.” He makes one rule of any such trips all too clear: If you undertake any such tours, focus on memories rather than Instagram posts.

Jessica Puckett

Olivia Morelli

Rachel Chang

Suddenly a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage.

The biggest challenge, though, is the lack of accreditation. It's still a frustratingly opaque process, to gauge how profits made will directly improve conditions in that slum, admits Tony Carne, who runs Urban Adventures , a division of socially conscious firm Intrepid Travel. His firm is a moderated marketplace for independent guides—much like an Etsy for travel—and offers a wide range of slum tours around the world. Carne supports some form of regulation to help reassure would-be clients of a slum tour’s ethical credentials. “The entire integrity of our business is sitting on this being the right thing to do,” he says, though he also predicts a shift in the business, likely to make such regulation unnecessary. Many charities have begun suggesting these slum tours to donors keen to see how and where their money is used, outsourced versions of the visits long available to institutional donors. He is already in to co-brand slum tours with several major nonprofits, including Action Aid via its Safe Cities program; Carne hopes that such partnerships will reassure travelers queasy about such tours’ ethics and finances. “Everyone from the U.N. down has said poverty alleviation through tourism can only be a reality if someone does something,” he says. “It will not solve itself by committee. It will solve itself by action.”

Carne’s theory was echoed by my colleague Laura Dannen Redman, who visited the Philippi township in Cape Town under the aegis of a local nonprofit. It was a private tour, but the group hopes to increase awareness to bolster the settlement’s infrastructure. She still vividly recalls what she saw, half a year later. “The homes were corrugated iron, but tidy, exuding a sense of pride with clean curtains in the windows. But there was this one open gutter I can't forget. The water was tinged green, littered with what looked like weeks’ worth of garbage—plastic wrappers and bottles and other detritus. It backed the neighborhood like a gangrenous moat," she says. "They deserve better. It does feel disingenuous, shameful, even if you’re there to learn and want to help. But the end result was motivating. We did feel called to action, to pay more attention to the plight of so many South Africans.” In the end, perhaps, it isn’t what we call it, or even why we do it that matters—it’s whether the slum tourism experience inspires us to try to make a change.

Slumming It At Dharavi: What Are Our Intentions With Slum Tourism?

With cities like Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro now becoming bonafide tourist attractions, bringing in hundreds and thousands of curious visitors each year, Slum Tourism has also seen a rise in popularity. It takes outsiders through the most impoverished, marginalised districts of the city to get a glimpse of the city’s inequality. 

Filled with hundreds of shanty towns lined by the riverbanks, train tracks, and garbage dumps, “Slumming” has become the key to capturing the attention of the wanderlust, experiential, thrill-seeking traveller. Spending time at a slum through one’s own curiosity or for the charitable purpose of pro-poor tourism, there are benefits and detriments. 

Slum tourism does spark a considerable debate around an uncomfortable moral dilemma. Is the practice in line with privileged people gawking at those less fortunate or do they raise awareness and provide numerous examples of giving back to the local communities? Yet to further look into this travel practice, we need to set out the basics of the same.

Slum Tourism, Poverty Tourism, Ghetto Tourism or Reality Tours Defined:

Slum Tourism also known as Poverty tourism or ghetto tourism is a type of city tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas. Originally focused on the slums and ghettos of London and Manhattan in the 19th Century, Slum tourism is now prominent in South Africa, India, Brazil, Poland, Kenya, Philippines and the United States. Whether called a township, favela, a barrio, a slum, a shantytown, or a ghetto, outsiders recreationally visiting these typically impoverished places is nothing new.  

What began in the mid-80s, ‘Slumming’ was first used in the Oxford English Dictionary, as people in London visited slum neighbourhoods such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch in order to observe life in this situation. In the 1980s, South African communities organised township tours to educate the whites in local governments on how the black population lived. Similarly, in the mid-1990s, international tours were organised with destinations in the most disadvantaged areas of developing nations, thus starting the trend of slum tourism, attracting thousands across the globe.  

Motivated by the ‘out of the ordinary’ experience , tourism is in itself the exploration and experience of the reality of a particular place. Therefore slum tourism actually returns to this practice, it allows the tourists to get a sense of real-life for the poorest communities, creating a path to development and poverty alleviation- funnelling tourists dollars into slums, or installing exploitative practices that enhance the western travellers need to ‘feel good’. 

Reality Check with Slum Tour and Travel.

A study in 2012 by the University of Pennsylvania showed that tourists in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum were motivated primarily by curiosity, as opposed to several competing push factors such as social comparison, entertainment, education, or self-actualization. The study also found that most slum residents were ambivalent about the tour, with interest and intrigue as the most commonly cited feelings. Take Reality Tour and Travel of Mumbai, India. Often ushered by this slum tour operator, tourists get to see a thriving recycling industry which employs around ten thousand people, to melt, reshape, and mould discarded plastic.

Also, followed by dhobi wallahs, or washermen in open-air laundry areas, tourists get to connect with locals for memorable cooking experiences, presenting the residents as productive and hardworking yet content and happy with their lifestyle and socio-economic status. However, Dr, Melissa Nisbett in her study of Slum Tourism found that the concept of poverty to these Dharavi visitors was practically invisible. She added:

“As the reviews show, poverty was ignored, denied, overlooked and romanticized, but moreover, it is depoliticized. The tours decontextualized the plight of the poor and seem only to empower the wrong people- the privileged, western, middle-class visitors”. 

The primary accusation here is that slum tourism takes away the poverty from poverty tours, often turning hardship into entertainment- something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from. Yet the tours do provide employment and income for guides from the slum and an opportunity for craft-workers to sell souvenirs, allowing them to re-invest in the community and motivating tourists to help such economies. 

View this post on Instagram Join us in Kumbharwada and get hands-on with pottery making! Last week we had our inaugural Pottery Tour. Here's a sneak peek. #mumbai #bombay #kumbharwada #dharavi #slum #pottery #workshop #travel #travellove #travelworld #traveller #travelling #explore #wanderlust #neverstopexploring #incredibleindia #adventure #adventuretravel #indiatravel #passionpassport #exploreindia #travelbug #neverstoptravelling #india Picture @bunny_mayur A post shared by Reality Tours (@realityindia) on Jan 8, 2018 at 1:35am PST

Now Let Us Talk Numbers:

Considered to be one of the world’s largest slum, Dharavi in Mumbai, India is spread over 2.1 square kilometres (520 acres) with a population of somewhere between 700,000 to a million. With an active informal economy in which numerous household enterprises employ many of the slum residents- leather, textiles and pottery products are among the goods made inside Dharavi. The estimated total annual turnover for this informal economy is over USD 1 billion . 

An estimated 5000 businesses and 15,000 single-room factories operate in the area. The per capita income of the residents, depending on estimated population range of 300,000 to about 1 million , ranges somewhere between USD 500 to USD 2000 per year. The slums were also named by travel website TripAdvisor.com as the 2019 top visited experiences in India and also one of the 10 most favourite tourist sites in Asia. 

After being featured in award-winning films like Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire and much-appreciated Gully Boy, Dharavi has gained a lot of popularity, growing footfall in the area. Due to lack of data, one cannot determine the actual tread of visitors to the area. However, Reality has reportedly had about 15,000 visitors annually for the year 2016, with an expectation of the same growing further in the next 5 years. 

View this post on Instagram From #oxford to the slums of #slumdogmillionaire #dharavi #mumbai #india … only 9 of us were brave enough to try it ?? @oxfordsbs @oxford_uni A post shared by R U D I N A ? (@rudisuti) on Dec 4, 2019 at 10:30am PST

What About Your Intention? 

However, with tour operators trying to mitigate offence and give back to locals, the impact of slum tourism stays rather isolated. Fabian Frenzel, Author of the definitive book, Slumming It: The Tourist Valorization of Urban Poverty. , writes “ In slum tourism, what I find is that people are interested in this fact of inequality”.  Images of these areas create a sense of sentiment that amplifies over time as more and more visuals of the human condition around the world, especially within these slums surface. 

So, instead of consuming these images at home, people are increasingly trying to follow those images back to its origin, in order to “see it themselves” and then try and do something about it. According to the tour operator, the effect of such desire is massive. Take movies based around the areas. Slumdog Millionaire- an oscar winning movie that portrays the journey of two brothers in the slums of Mumbai to riches. Might it be a mere representation of the slums in its entirety, the actual essence of the “slum life” is something that creates this need to rate the place, see the place, feel the desperation of poverty?

View this post on Instagram #streetphotography #dharavi #oldhomes A post shared by bunny (@dharavi__17) on Dec 11, 2019 at 8:15am PST

“What you see is life, urban life”, as Frenzel puts it. Even though limited in many ways, might it be the lack of basic sanitation or all basic services of a city, there is a sense of vibrancy that has fantasised poverty. This is where the issue starts. Yes, the intention behind slum tourism itself is diverse in nature, but they all are pushed from a place of empathy, that adds personal value to the visitor rather than the actual settlement. It does help educate us about inequality in the world, but it takes away the poor in poverty by depoliticizing and romanticising life in slums. 

Is there something good that comes from ‘Slumming’. 

Regardless of your intention, slum tourism does open our eyes to inequality. It takes poverty and inequality and commodifies it in the sense of tours educating (might it even be a small group of people) about a global issue. While it might illuminate the issue on a small scale, slum tourism is not a sufficient answer to a growing global problem. 

But as Frenzel puts it “if you want to tell a story, you need an audience, and slum tourism provides that audience”.  

Yes, slum tourism can provide a way to challenge the stigma that represents slum life something dangerous. Take Reality Tours and Travels , for a mere INR 900 per person (USD 12.72), you can get a 2-hour eye-opening tour of ‘one of the largest slums in Asia’ and learn about the very vibrant life of Dharavi and its people. The best part, 80 per cent of the profit goes back into the slum to organise programs and run a community centre that houses many NGOs – including what Reality Tours gives to help better the conditions of the area.

Thus to conclude, what I would like to say is, yes slum tourism has many implications, but what matters is what your intentions are. Are you indulging in pro-poor tours to make yourself feel better? Or is it because you want to be educated about inequality and poverty?

Ask yourself this the next time you or someone you know goes on a slum tour.  

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Slum Tourism: Promoting participatory development or abusing poverty for profit?

Author : Aditi Ratho

Issue Briefs Published on Feb 21, 2019 PDF Download

This brief is part of ORF’s series, ‘Urbanisation and its Discontents’. Find other research in the series   here :

Attribution:   Aditi Ratho, “Slum Tourism: Promoting Participatory Development or Abusing Poverty for Profit?”,   ORF Issue Brief No. 278,   February 2019, Observer Research Foundation.

The concept of “slum tourism” has been around since the time the rich wanted to experience life in the “deprived” and “risqué” spaces occupied by the marginalised communities of late-19 th -century London. [1]   Today it is a profitable business, bringing more than a million tourists every year to informal settlements in various cities across the world. [2]   Proponents of the industry say that slum tourism creates discourse that could result in positive change, and that the profits help the local slum communities. Critics argue that the tours are intrinsically exploitative. This brief takes stock of some of the more well-established slum tours in different parts of the world, evaluates the genesis of the industry and, using Mumbai’s Dharavi as a case study, probes its current relevance.

• Introduction

Typing in “slum tours” on the popular travel website,  Tripadvisor , will lead to pictures of smiling, well-dressed foreign tourists, their arms around locals, with derelict slums in the background. “Slum tours”, as a concept, can be traced to the act called “slumming” in the 1860s; “slumming” itself was a word added to the Oxford Dictionary at the time, meaning “to go into, or frequent, slums for discreditable purposes; to saunter about, with a suspicion, perhaps, of immoral pursuits.” [3]  Slumming became a routine activity when rich Londoners braved the city’s notorious East End in the late 19 th   century. They left their elegant homes and clubs in Mayfair and Belgravia – still London’s most upmarket neighbourhoods until today – and crowded onto horse-drawn omnibuses bound for midnight tours of the slums of East London. [4]   More than a century later, the practice was brought to New York City as a form of amusement to compare slums abroad, giving birth to the designated touring practices through the non-white section of Harlem. [5]   Oxford and Cambridge Universities also started using the concept to understand underprivileged neighbourhoods and inform 19 th -century social development policy by witnessing first-hand the lives of people living in those areas. [6]

The Oxford dictionary has since revised its definition of slumming to mean, “to spend time at a lower social level than one’s own through curiosity or for charitable purposes”—which might aptly describe the current phenomenon of “slum tourism” in different parts of the world. Today, it is estimated that one million people go on slum tours every year. [7]   This number is remarkable enough, even if compared with the big number of 300 million tourists who visited religious sites in 2017. [8]   Eight out of every 10 of these tourists go to either the shanty towns of Cape Town or the   favelas [1]   of Rio de Janeiro. [9]   To be sure, tourism is an ever-evolving commercial activity that continuously looks for novelty in destinations. [10]   This nature lends tourism to a variety of genres of interest, depending on the assortment of sites and experiences offered by particular destinations. In a time of globalised experiences, however, the novelty factor in travelling tends to get muted more easily, and the demand for more unique forms of travel increases: among them, adventure tourism, reality tours, artisanal tours, and poverty tours. These are called “niche travel” in tourism parlance. Slum tourism itself has grown into a well-organised, global industry, with over 300,000 visitors touring slums in Cape Town in 2007 and 40,000 tourists exploring the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in 2009. [11]

The contemporary wave of slum tourism started in South Africa and Brazil in the 1990s, and it has now expanded to several cities, as seen in Figure 1.

Tours of the South African townships were first conducted in the 1990s by local residents to help raise global awareness about the rampant human rights violations in their marginalised and racially segregated areas. Meanwhile, in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and landfills of Tondo in the Philippines, tours are conducted not by the community people but by outsiders who work with local guides. Whether in Cape Town or Tondo, however, these tours purport to have the same aim of offering the experience of “real-life surroundings” to visitors. [12]

A 2010 research paper on slum tourism in Mumbai found that most people embark on slum tours because they are interested in that culture, and they want to learn about the living conditions of the residents of those communities. [13]   Herein lies the inherent paradox in slum tourism: while its supposed objective is to increase awareness about the lives of the poor, it also attempts to show tourists the positive aspects of those very same lives. In these tours, slums are ingeniously described as places meant for the experience of reality, where the focus is not on the squalor and poverty of the residents but on the presentation of “positive socio-economic development impulses and alternative forms of development that defy normal approaches”. [14]   This creates a dissonance between the   intent   and   effect   of slum tourism – while it is meant to create awareness, it invariably ends up glossing over the unfortunate facets of poverty and adversity, much less their structural causes.

Existing scholarly work on the subject focuses on whether this form of tourism engenders positive socio-economic impact. As elaborated by Frenzel, “slum tourism promoters, tour providers as well as tourists claim that this form of tourism contributes to development in slums by creating a variety of potential sources of income and other non-material benefits.” [15]   The question, however, is how far in fact do tourists come to an understanding of local problems, or whether they indeed engage in any actions, post-tour, to affect concrete change. Slum tourism also raises ethical issues: do these tours end up merely objectifying the poor, and do these visits not violate the people’s privacy, to begin with?

• Slum Tourism: Dimensions and Forms

Following the end of apartheid in South Africa in the early 1990s, the country saw a significant increase in the number of international arrivals from 3.6 million in 1994 to 9.1 million in 2002. In that period, the tourism sector outshined the historically lucrative gold-mining sector in revenues. [16]   Tourism in post-apartheid South Africa started off as a niche form of tourism for politically interested travellers who wanted to visit the South Western Townships (or Soweto), which were the centre of political repression during the anti-apartheid struggle. [17]   Since then, tour destinations in the country have expanded along the same theme, trying to engage tourists with the urban residents of areas that were formerly classified as “non-white” and planned according to the old regime’s championship of racial segregation.

Today most of the slum tourists who visit South Africa are from Britain, Germany, Netherlands and the US. [18]   Organisers say that these slum tours can be a direct way of raising awareness about the debilitating effects of policy-level racial segregation. Such awareness, in turn, could lead to changes in the cognisance and attitudes of the tourists towards issues of racism affecting migrants in their own countries. The result of these tours, therefore, may be different from those in Mumbai, Rio, or Manila—there is potential for these tourists to learn certain lessons from the tour and contribute positively to their home country, as opposed to ending their engagement with the tour itself. However, most other slum tours – for example, in Mumbai – are not based on a narrative of historical discrimination, but merely highlight the current problems of inequality and poverty and are touted to help lead to solutions.

In both South Africa and Brazil, unlike in India, policy has played a key role in the expansion of slum tourism.  Policymakers have promoted, for example, locations of the anti-apartheid struggle by creating museums and sites of political heritage in cities like Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. Rio de Janeiro, for its part, has developed plans for museums of the favela region. [19]   Sports has also played a part in promoting slum tourism in both Brazil and South Africa. The FIFA World Cup, which both countries have hosted, involved tours where football was at the centrestage of the experience. Those tours happened to be in the poorer sections of society.

Due to high-level policy interventions, local involvement in tours in both these countries is limited. This is not the case with the slum tours in Mumbai. According to the research by Frenzel et al (2015), “in practicality all major slum tourism destinations the most popular tours are run by tour operators, NGOs, or guides who are based outside the slums.” [20]   Some of the earliest tours in South Africa were operated by local residents, but they have now been displaced by the more professional tour operators, many of them under external ownership (i.e., white). [21]   Therefore, even as there could potentially be an increase in awareness, the lack of local participation negates the argument that slum tourism benefits the society that is being “experienced”. Freire-Medeiors, in an extensive research of Rio’s favelas, further points to significant levels of economic leakage occurring in slum tourism and recommends that visitors be made aware of what portions of the profit of slum tours actually goes back into local communities. [22]   A study of the residents’ reactions by Frenzel et al. shows that these tours “challenge negative perspectives, breaks the isolation of citizens, and [engenders] a sense of pride that foreign tourists are interested” [23]   in their lives. At the same time, the research also mentions that few residents mention direct economic gain or employment as benefits of these tours; therefore, whatever positive results that are obtained are insubstantial and short-term.

• The Case of Dharavi

The Dharavi area of Mumbai is the second-largest slum in Asia, and the third-largest in the world. Dharavi is not a desolate and deprived community of unemployed squatters. Within the congested alleys of shanties there are booming home industries that sustain 20,000 small-scale units. [24]

A  New York Times  mapping of the industrial slum area describes the northern 13th Compound as the heart of Dharavi’s recycling industry, where an estimated 80 percent of Mumbai’s plastic waste is recycled in approximately 15,000 single-room factories. [25]   It also describes the southern Kumbharwada region as production spaces of the  migrant potters from Saurashtra . The Maharashtra Slum Redevelopment Authority (SRA) describes Dharavi’s growth as “closely interwoven with the pattern of migration into Bombay”, [26]  due to the land being free and unregulated. Together with Muslim tanners from Tamil Nadu, artisans and embroidery workers from Uttar Pradesh and other migrants setting up retail food shops, the area provides employment opportunities irrespective of region, caste, and religion. The SRA also states that most of the land in Dharavi is owned by government agencies, making it easier to set up informal settlement.

These industries and labour are part of the informal economy – it is not taxed, it is not monitored by the government, nor is its contribution to the overall economy of the city properly accounted for. Interventions to improve the infrastructure, provide sanitation, drainage, and electricity facilities are ad-hoc and not policy-driven.

In order to increase awareness about the poor living conditions, there exist several profit-making Dharavi slum tours, which also claim to be facilitating the development of the community. A company founded in 2005 provides educational walking tours of Dharavi. The company claims that 80 percent of its profits go to its NGO, which runs high-quality education programmes for Dharavi residents. Another company, started by Dharavi residents themselves, works to support local students to study full-time and also trains and employs them as tour guides.

On several global tourism portals, “five-star” reviews for these tours highlight their so-called “awareness quotient”. The reviews range from wanting to “meet some additional locals as they were all extremely nice and friendly” to expressing surprise that there was “extreme poverty everywhere, but so much life!” [27]  Most of the “Poor” and “Terrible” reviews do not mention the nature of tourism, but rather disapprove of the experience in the dirty, congested slum. Reviewers generally note that though there was poverty, there was no suffering and people living in the slums “seemed happy”. Melissa Nisbett, professor at King’s College London, analysed more than 230 such reviews and concluded that for most Dharavi visitors, desolation in poverty simply did not exist. Nisbett’s analyses of the reviews show that  “poverty was ignored, denied, overlooked and romanticised, but moreover, it was de-politicised.” [28]  Without discussing the reasons why the slums existed, the tours de-contextualised the plight of the poor and seemed only to empower the privileged, she noted. A contrary view is held by other analysts, including for instance, Fabian Frenzel, who argues that since poverty lacks recognition and voice, tourism provides the audience a much-needed story to be told, and even “ taking the most commodifying tour is better than ignoring that inequality completely .” [29]  

One of the main slum tour operators in Dharavi is not based in the area and only ropes in locals to lead the tours. Its website [30]   takes pride in Dharavi’s thriving industry. Dharavi is portrayed as the hub that “supplies celebrations for a century” (through handcrafted idols and sweets), “the height of fashion” (the second-largest leather apparel industry in India), and the birth of “Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan” (due to 80 percent of the city’s plastic being recycled here). The website then describes how tourists have been “inspired” by visiting these successful industries “in the midst of derelict conditions”. The question that needs to be asked is whether such depictions end up obscuring the need to improve the living conditions of the residents.

The company claims that “bulldozing [Dharavi] and starting again” would be unfeasible. In slums like Dharavi, common ground needs to be found where industry is recognised and legalised and given the correct infrastructure to thrive. Property rights on land and dwellings must be created for the residents under the purview of the development schemes of the government to enable them to participate actively in the formal economy with better access to credit.

Plans for the redevelopment of Dharavi have been mooted for nearly 15 years and gone through multiple stages, recommending various permutations and combinations of public-private-partnerships (PPP) for the project. The current Dharavi Redevelopment Plan will be operated as a Special Purpose Vehicle under the Dharavi Redevelopment Authority and funded by the government and a private company based in Dubai. While it seems like this plan might finally take shape in the near future, there needs to be a concerted effort to not only focus on amenities, maintenance, and rehabilitation, but a clear understanding of the nature of economic activities and the spatial requirements. The Dharavi slum industry is thriving and income-generating, and any significant adverse impact of the SRA’s redevelopment plan would be detrimental and unsustainable for its denizens. Until such time that the much-debated redevelopment becomes a reality, Dharavi will continue to attract slum tourists.

• Awareness of poverty or obfuscation of development?

Slum tours can become part of a vicious cycle where the run-down aspects of a community are used for commercial gain. The section of the community that benefits from the tours has no incentive to participate in improving the community. While infrastructure development projects are at a standstill due to the lack of property rights and the informal nature of the economic activities, being outside the tax net is also beneficial to the poor artisans. These factors have led to a community that has—either willingly or unwillingly—found itself embedded into an ethically-inappropriate but financially-viable conundrum.

The government needs to find viable alternatives for such communities – alternatives that support its active industry, while also covering the opportunity costs of eliminating slum tourism. There are currently already about 100 construction projects in Dharavi undertaken by the SRA, which are mainly limited to housing. [31]   However, such redevelopment must ensure that the existing industrial infrastructure is also protected and refurbished. Residents are likely to reject housing that does not sustain their current ecosystem for income-generation. These residents can have better housing conditions and commercial opportunities and should not be living in the squalor that slum tours tend to glorify and sustain. The redevelopment plan will face stiff opposition, distrust, and backlash, unless the complexity of economic activities and the interrelated nature of dwellings and industrial units is properly mapped and taken into account in the design of the redevelopment plan. It is essential to educate the community through the process by providing examples of successful redevelopment projects, imparting the importance of basic infrastructure (including hygiene, sanitation, electricity, and housing), and ensuring that there is no loss to indigenous industries. Slum tourism will die a natural death if the people living in slums are empowered with efficient civic amenities along with housing, workplaces, and formal property rights.

Writer Manu Joseph’s account of eco-tourism is relevant in the slum tourism debate as well: if an industry is going to function without the support of the informed and the ethical, then it is at risk of becoming more callous. [32]   Slum tours in the townships of South Africa and the favelas of Brazil have a clear objective of raising historical and cultural awareness about the destitute areas. Similar tours in Dharavi, however, seem to be running on the profitability of showcasing uplifting stories of industriousness despite adversity, altogether forgetting to bother with any element of historical or cultural awareness.

While citizens of the slum areas might seem to benefit from these tours, finding an alternative form of development in terms of industry and employment is essential in order to lift the community from this irony of “profitable poverty”. Slum tourism in India does not appear to have created any impetus in this direction, as is evident from the case of Dharavi. Slum tours aim to dispel notions that people may have of slums being a place of misery; however, the glorification of slum tourism is unjustified, as it may actually serve to evade the real issues and challenges confronting slum dwellers and their prospects for improving their lives.

Aditi Ratho is a lecturer of Political Science at the Government Law College, Mumbai. She has previously worked as a researcher for the World Bank and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

[1]   A favela is a Brazilian Portuguese term to describe an urban area of slums, shantytown, or shacks.

[1]   Meschkank, Julia. “ Investigations into Slum Tourism in Mumbai: Poverty Tourism and the Tensions between Different Constructions of Reality “.  GeoJournal   76, no. 1 (2010): 47.

[2]   Shepard, Wade. “ Slum Tourism: How It Began, the Impact It Has, and Why It Became so Popular “.  Forbes , July 16, 2016.

[3] Blau, Christine. “ Inside the Controversial World or Slum Tourism “.  National Geographic , April 25, 2018.

[4]   Meschkank,  “Investigations,” 48

[6]   Blau, “Inside.”

[7]   Shepard, Wade. “ Slum Tourism: How It Began, the Impact It Has, and Why It Became so Popular “.  Forbes , July 16, 2016.

[8]   Tomljenović, Renata, and Larisa Dukić. “ Religious Tourism – from a Tourism Product to an Agent of Societal Transformation “.  Proceedings of the Singidunum International Tourism Conference – Sitcon 2017   (2017): 1.

[9]   Frenzel, Fabian, Ko Koens, Malte Steinbrink, and Christian M. Rogerson. “ Slum Tourism: State of the Art “.  Tourism Review International 18, no. 4 (2015): 237.

[10]   Steinbrink, Malte. “‘We Did the Slum!’ – Urban Poverty Tourism in Historical Perspective.”  Tourism Geographies 14, no. 2 (2012): 215

[11]   Steinbrink,”‘We.”215.

[12]   Blau, “Inside.”

[13]   Meschkank, “Investigations.” 48-50.

[14]   ibid

[15]   Frenzel, Fabian. “Slum Tourism in the Context of the Tourism and Poverty (Relief) Debate.”   Die Erde,   144 (2013): 117

[16]   Steinbrink, “‘We,” 216..

[17]   ibid, 217

[18]   ibid

[19]   ibid

[20]   Frenzel et al, “Slum,” 242.

[21]   ibid, 244

[22]   Friere-Medeiros, Bianca. “ The Favela and Its Touristic Transits “.  Geoforum 40, no. 1 (2009), 586.

[23]   Frenzel et al, “Slum,” 246

[24]   Assainar, Raina. “ At the Heart of Dharavi Are 20,000 Mini-factories “.  The Guardian , November 25, 2014.

[25]   “ An Industrial Slum at the Heart of Mumbai “.  The New York Times , December 28, 2011.

[26]   “ Growth History “, Slum Rehabilitation Authority, Accessed January 10, 2019.

[27]   “ Dharavi Slum Tours of Mumbai ”, Tripadvisor, Accessed January 10, 2019.

[28]   Nisbett, Melissa. “ Empowering the Empowered? Slum Tourism and the Depoliticization of Poverty “.  Geoforum 85 (2017): 42.

[29]   Blau, “Inside.”

[30]   “ How Dharavi Makes a Difference: Eight Surprising Facts About Mumbai’s Largest Slum ”, Reality Tours & Travels, accessed February 15, 2019.

[31]   “ Our Projects ”, Slum Rehabilitation Authority, Accessed January 10, 2019.

[32]   Jospeh, Manu. “ How much conscience should a traveler possess ”.  Conde Nast Traveller , September 4,  2017.

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Aditi Ratho

Aditi Ratho was an Associate Fellow at ORFs Mumbai centre. She worked on the broad themes like inclusive development gender issues and urbanisation.

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Slum tourism: helping to fight poverty ...or voyeuristic exploitation?

Slum tourism – which involves touring marginalised and impoverished areas that tourists would normally never visit – is becoming increasingly popular in many locations around the world. Proponents argue that it can enable economic and social mobility for residents, and that it can also change the perspectives of those visiting. However, many critics see it as little more than voyeuristic classism with potentially damaging consequences, and few benefits for those who live in the slums. This report presents findings from desk-based research which sought to answer the following questions: What is slum tourism and why do people choose to visit slums? How can slum tourism benefit people in deprived areas? When is slum tourism voyeuristic and exploitative? Is it possible to define best practice principles in slum tourism?

Type of Publication

Author(s) / editor(s), year of publication.

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Slum and Pro-Poor Tourism

Slum tourism is becoming increasingly popular amongst international travel visitors, but is it an ethical or socially acceptable travel experience many would argue no. here is some background on the controversial travel trend..

Posted on : 2020-02-05 09:43:22

Slum tourism: what is it?

The United Nations defines a slum as a ‘run down area of a city characterised by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security’.

The popularity of slum tourism has rapidly increased in recent years, with slums around the world seeing millions of visitors each year. While slum tourism is nothing new, it’s grown into a legitimate global industry. Tour operators now promote visits to places like the favelas of Rio, the barrios of Medellín, the townships of Cape Town and Johannesburg, the sprawling slums of Mumbai and New Delhi, and even the skid row areas of Detroit, LA and Berlin. A slum tour may contain a variety of components, from visits to schools, community projects and orphanages, to a jaunt around a local market. Some tours may even include a cookery lesson at an inhabitants home. Much of the time, a slum tour will focus on sites that show betterment to the community and include suggestions on how you can lend your support. Slums are often known as being vibrant and hectic areas, rife with small businesses and trade. Many tours will capitalise on these aspects, presenting a slum as an area of development and urban life. Slum tourism has the potential to be a contributor to economic and social growth in local communities. However, it’s often difficult to judge whether this type of tourism truly benefits impoverished areas. Who truly makes money from these tours? How do local people feel about moneyed tourists coming into their communities? These are key question that need considering.

Why is it so popular?

Post-Conflict

Post conflict, or ‘phoenix’ tourism, is tourism that takes place in a country after political unrest, war, or damaging weather events. Often, after a major conflict, policy makers will look for ways to rebuild the economy. One way this has been done is by development of tourism in poorer areas, including undocumented tours, small business enterprise development and simple accommodation startups.

An example of this can be seen in post-war Rwanda. Despite having a violent past, the country is known for its beautiful national parks and diverse wildlife. After the civil war ended, the government made a commitment to developing tourism within the country. They began utilising natural resources and provided wildlife tours, as well as opening hotels and accommodation in poorer areas. They implemented policies that improved the business environment and involved private sector investments and local guides. Small private tour operator – New Dawn Associates (NDA) established tours of Mayange village (part of the UN Millennium Villages project) and, Kigali’s poorer suburb. Both tours ensure that a fixed percentage of the benefits goes into a Community Development Fund and focus on sharing the country’s developmental challenges. This was successful because the government viewed tourism as an instrument to reduce poverty by directly involving local communities.

What are the benefits?

Economic benefits.

While controversial, there are many potential economic benefits to slum tourism. Increased foot traffic in communities where people make a living selling traditional crafts helps them to see a higher profit. In the Dhavari Slum, much of Mumbai’s waste paper and plastic is recycled to support the craft industries, and tourists are encouraged to buy local wares. When locals are directly involved in the tours being given, it provides them with a source of income and security. Some tour operators contribute profits directly into the slums as well. However, in comparison to what they are earning themselves, it may only be a very small fraction. This unfair distribution of profit means that some marginalised communities may never see the benefits of tourism in the area they call home.

Another matter of contention is that often slum tours are heavily associated with charity. Many operators will promote tours as a means of local development, promising that an excerpt of the money you give will end up going to community projects or local guides. Even so, it is doubtful that the money actually ends up in these places and if it does, it may not be a lot.

Increased Local Development

In 2018, over 1 billion people lived in slums or informal settlements (UN). Many of these areas have become infamous for being unsafe or having a reputation for crime, much like Medellín, Columbia or the ‘a murder capital’ as it was once called. Some might say that by visiting these slums, it helps to promote awareness and puts more marginalised communities on the map. It could increase local development and social mobility. But some would say these visits overly-romanticise and trivialise slums; places where there is overburdened infrastructure, poor sanitation, unplanned urbanisation and lack of access to clean water and waste services.

Often it is the case that many tourists feel uncomfortable ‘touring’ around somebody else’s home or neighborhood, especially when the dynamics of wealth and power are severely imbalanced.

Questions to ask

If you do want to visit a slum it is worth asking yourself some hard questions:

Who runs the slum tour?

Is it run by an external company?

Are they in partnership with those who live in the slum?

Do they have permission to be there?

Does the local community benefit?

The issue of slum tourism remains controversial, despite valid arguments on both sides. Ultimately, the only way for slum tourism to be ethical is if it directly involves and benefits the people living in these communities, and is for the purpose of education and acceptance, not only monetary gain.

Urban Informal Settlements pp 119–135 Cite as

Slum Tourism: Towards Inclusive Urbanism?

• Yannan Ding 2  
• First Online: 10 February 2022

193 Accesses

This chapter takes slum tourism as niche tourism and relates it to two cases of art-led chengzhongcun tourism in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Instead of retrieving moral critiques, it is argued that slum tourism is a niche tourism that actively engages the slum community. Slum tourism has the right to exploit this market niche as long as consent is gained from local communities. The Chinese case takes a trajectory that is different from some renowned cases in other countries. The situation and strategy could vary greatly and yet they share similar effects. In the search for able agencies in community development, the potentialities of slum tourists as the agents of inclusive development should not be overlooked. It offer a democratic approach complimentary to conventional power apparatuses. More comparative studies between China and other countries in the Global South are needed.

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Slum tourism: What is it and how does it work?

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Slum tourism is, believe it or not, a real type of tourism . Yep, you got that right- people go to slums whilst on holiday. But, why? In this article I will introduce you to the concept of slum tourism and tell you what it’s all about. Interested to learn more? Read on…

What is slum tourism?

Slum tourism definitions, what is white saviour syndrome, what does a slum tour involve, positive impacts of slum tourism, negative impacts of slum tourism, the ethics of slum tourism, slum tourism in south africa, slum tourism in brazil, slum tourism in india, slum tourism in indonesia, slum tourism in africa, slum tourism: conclusion, further reading.

Slum tourism is essentially when people visit slums – or, more widely, poverty stricken areas – as a form of tourism. This will generally be in a foreign country, one they are visiting as a tourist on holiday or on a business trip. It has also been referred to as ghetto tourism and poverty tourism.

In ‘ Theorizing Slum Tourism ’, researchers Eveline Dürr and Rivke Jaffe described slum tourism as follows: 

‘ Slum tourism involves transforming poverty, squalor and violence into a tourism product. Drawing on both altruism and voyeurism, this form of tourism is a complex phenomenon that raises various questions concerning power, inequality and subjectivity. ‘

While this describes slum tourism, it doesn’t necessarily define what it actually is. Bob Ma of the University of Pennsylvania says this:

‘ Slum tourism is one of the fastest-growing niche tourism segments in the world, but it is also one of the most controversial. The United Nations defines a slum as, “a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security” (UN, 2007). Slum tourism is the organization of tours in these areas. As a niche segment, slum tourism is distinguished from developmental tourism, which is a broader term that includes tourism in any region that is undergoing development. ‘

Slum tourism as charity tourism

Some people engage in charity tourism – visiting slums or areas of high poverty with the intention of ‘making things better’. This is also sometimes called volunteer tourism . You can see this on Children In Need in the UK, for example, where we see videos of people heading to various underdeveloped areas of Africa to build schools or install wells for fresh water access etc. You can pay (a lot of) money to do this yourself through various organisations.

People do this as it is within human nature to want to help people who have less than we do. But it is also, of course, a chance to see somewhere new and explore a different culture . It can also be a great way to boost your CV. This means that taking part in slum tourism isn’t a purely selfless act, and this is why it can sometimes be frowned upon.

Studies show that slum tourism can have negative impacts on local communities – the use of unskilled labour, for example, and the taking of jobs that could ultimately have gone to local people. There is also usually no long term commitment involved, and of course there is the concept of white saviour syndrome.

The following extract comes from De-constructing the ‘White Saviour Syndrome’: A Manifestation of Neo-Imperialism by Felix Willuweit:

‘With the recent widespread of protests for black civil rights and against racism across the Western world, the topic of white prejudice has risen to the centre of public attention, of which one manifestation is the so-called ‘White Saviour Syndrome’.   Whether it is Ed Sheeran posing for ‘Comic Relief’ with a number of black children (Hinsliff, 2019), Madonna adopting children from Malawi (Hinsliff, 2019), or students going on adventures advertised for ‘young philanthropists’ within a multi-million dollar gap-year industry (Bandyopadhyay, 2019), numerous cases of altruistic acts of ‘White Saviours’ can be found throughout popular culture in the global North.’

Whereas these practices follow an altruistic narrative, they are commonly criticised as serving to satisfy a ‘White Saviour Syndrome’, the phenomenon in which a white person “guides people of colour from the margins to the mainstream with his or her own initiative and benevolence” which tends to render the people of colour “incapable of helping themselves” and disposes them of historical agency (Cammarota, 2011: 243-244).

So what does slum tourism involve? Many tour operators offer literal ‘slum tours’ as part of their packages, and of course you can visit slum areas alone as they are just parts of various areas. AfricanTrails.co.uk, for example, have a page discussing slum tours and they state that some of their packages do offer slum visits in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and more.

Reality Tours and Travel are another company offering slum tours. As the company name suggests, they hope to offer a ‘realistic’ side to the places tourists visit. Based in India , a country with a lot of poverty, their slogan is ‘USING TOURISM TO CHANGE LIVES’. They say: Our ethical and educational Dharavi slum tours give visitors a unique glimpse into everyday life for many Mumbaikars while breaking down the negative stereotypes associated with slums. 80% of the profits from every tour are invested back into the community through the programs of our NGO, Reality Gives , and most of our guides are from the community.

Slum tourism has some positives to it. It gives people an insight into how poverty can affect people – humans are curious by nature, and if you are not living in poverty yourself, or never have, then it can be hard to imagine what it is really like. Visiting a slum whilst on holiday is like opening a window to another life, however briefly. 

It is also a chance to provide an income to people living in slums, if the tour involves some sort of opportunity to purchase goods or donate money. And with some tours, as you can see from Reality Tours and Travel above, the booking cost goes into improving the community.

Of course, there are negatives impacts associated with slum tourism too. The main one is that it treats those who live in slums as though they are in a zoo, dehumanising them so tourists can see what it’s like before swanning off back to their hotel and other luxuries. Some would go so far as to argue that they are a form of ‘ human zoo ‘. These tours portray poverty as something exotic, rather than a very real danger to the lives of the people impacted by it. It is also questionable how far the money trickles down. With people paying for organised tours, how sure can we be that real people are accessing the money?

Looking at the pros and cons it is clear that there is an ethical question surrounding slum tourism . People who live in poverty and live in slums are real people. We need to ask ourselves whether it is fair for them to be paraded around in front of us as part of an organised tour that we are paying a company to go on.

Some questions we should ask ourselves when looking to engage in slum tourism, courtesy of slumtourism.net, are:

• To what extent does slum tourism provide an income and positive visibility for people in deprived areas? 
• Which stakeholders are involved in slum tourism and who profits most? 
• How are guided tours organised or composed?  
• What are the geographical scopes of slum-tourism and which place does it occupy in the new mobility system? 
• Where does slum tourism fit in a globalised world of tourist consumption?

It is similar to visiting remote tribes, in a way, just as I explain in my article about the long neck tribe in Thailand . Tourists coming in from outside to view life in a slum through a western lens for a few minutes… does this paint a fair picture of slums?

Slum tourism destinations

There are various places around the world where slum tourism is prevalent. Here are some examples-

Slum tourism exists across South Africa . Here it is also known as township tourism – in SA, townships are the underdeveloped urban areas, generally populated by people of colour as a fall out from the Apartheid era. Apparently, around 25% of visitors to Cape Town engage in township tours. This city alone has around 40-50 township tour operators.

Slum tourism in Brazil equates to ‘favela tours’. Favelas are slums or shanty towns built on the outskirts of major cities across Brazil, and many people visit them for tourist purposes while on holiday in this beautiful country. Favelas are known to be dangerous areas. They are rife with crime, violence and drug dealing, but thousands of tourists every month visit these areas with curiosity.

As mentioned above when I spoke about Reality Tours and Travel, India is a prime spot for slum tourism due to the high levels of poverty here. The film Slumdog Millionaire put Indian slums onto the screens of millions of people, many of whom became keen to see it for themselves on a trip to India. There are around 15,000 people visiting the Dharavi slum each year alone.

Jakarta is home to a slum where families of 5 squeeze into ‘houses’ no bigger than the average western bathroom. They survive on pennies, and welcome tourists into their homes to see what it is like. Jakarta Hidden Tours is run by Ronnie. He’s a charity worker who donates half of his profits to the local community in an attempt to improve their lives.

Across Africa there are poor and underdeveloped communities. Slums tend to exist in Kenya and Uganda, for the most part. AfricanTrails say:

Going on an Africa slum tour is a great way to see what life is like for the majority of residents in a specific African town or city. Visitors can see how people live and the work they carry out in order to provide for their families. Slum tours are not purely filled with misery, the towns often have vibrant communities with shops, schools and market stalls.

I t is easy to forget that there are people living in these conditions, as it is not something you see every day, so for many, Africa slum tours are a real eye-opening experience. Visitors leave the area with the intention of donating to charities, helping those living in these places. Slum tours give the chance for tourists to interact with others from different backgrounds and see the true beauty of Africa and its people.

To conclude, slum tourism occurs around the world, and has done since Victorian times in England. Back then, the aristocracy would visit the capital’s poorest areas for voyeuristic and/or philanthropic purposes. And still it continues. People are, of course, eager to see another way of life. Often they believe that they are helping, and visiting people at their lowest can be a great way to remind you that really, you don’t have it all that bad. The ethics are questionable, but there are definitely ways you can visit a slum without it being a negative thing.

Top 10 dark tourism destinations (including WUHAN!)

Dark tourism explained: What, why and where

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Why Is Slum Tourism So Popular?

By Michael Ferguson

Slum tourism, also known as poverty tourism or reality tourism, is a type of tourism that involves visiting slums or impoverished areas in developing countries. Despite the controversy surrounding slum tourism, it has become increasingly popular over the years. In this article, we will explore why slum tourism is so popular.

Exposure to Different Cultures

One of the main reasons why people are drawn to slum tourism is the opportunity to experience different cultures and ways of life. By visiting slums, tourists get a chance to interact with locals and learn about their daily struggles and challenges. This exposure can help break down stereotypes and preconceptions about poverty-stricken areas.

Authentic Travel Experience

Slum tourism also offers a more authentic travel experience compared to traditional tourist destinations. Many tourists are looking for something different from the typical beach resorts or theme parks. Slums offer an alternative that is raw and unfiltered, allowing visitors to see the reality of life in these areas.

Charitable Aspect

Some people choose to participate in slum tourism as a way of giving back. Tourists may visit local charities or volunteer organizations that work in impoverished areas, providing much-needed support and resources. This allows visitors to make a positive impact while also experiencing a new culture.

Controversial Nature

Despite its popularity, slum tourism remains controversial. Critics argue that it exploits vulnerable communities for profit and reduces them to mere attractions for wealthy tourists. Others argue that it perpetuates negative stereotypes about developing countries and fails to address the root causes of poverty.

The Bottom Line

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The Pros And Cons Of Slum Tourism: Crass Voyeurism Or Enlightened Travel?

Let me begin by saying I  have  engaged in slum tourism (a basic definition of slum tourism would be the kind of tourism that takes you to see impoverished communities).

I took  an African slum Soweto tour  during a long-ago visit to South Africa, to see a place that overflowed with meaning. In 1976, during the Soweto Uprising in which unarmed students were stormed and killed by police for refusing to study in Afrikaans, I was a university student in Political Science, engulfed (at a distance) in liberation movements and revolutions. Soweto was part of that, as well as a major chapter in the bigger  South African story of apartheid  and discrimination.

It was a place I wanted to see, but the then  boycott  of South Africa was in full swing and I would have to wait nearly two decades.

Years later as a journalist, I was escorted through some of the most  crowded favelas  in Rio by a young community nurse who worked with drug addicts and knew everyone. He was respected and we were stopped on every corner for a bit of a chat.

The afternoon I spent in Rocinha gave me  a slightly better understanding of the poverty  that fuels much of the addiction and crime, something I certainly would not have learned from the back of a bus.

It also showed me a side that surprised me – the  regular everyday life  of people less fortunate than myself. The streets were dirty and the housing rickety but people came and went, shopped, talked, laughed – and went to work, determined to make things better.

Oddly enough, at least to me,  not everyone was poor . Walking around highlighted differing characteristics of slums. Some dwellings were decidedly middle-class, because here as everywhere else, when people succeed they don’t necessarily want to leave their friends and family. 

Over the years, visits to  poorer urban and slum areas  have left me unsettled. Children sniffing glue under a bridge in Brasilia. Mothers scavenging on the world’s biggest scrap heap in Manila. Begging for food near a Nairobi slum. Homeless children in Malawi.

These are scenes that drive home the accident of humanity, of where I happened to be born, of my race and privilege, and how easily it might have been otherwise.

On the one hand, it showed me what is life like in a slum, but on the other, it left me unsure of whether I was engaging in ethical tourism.

So was slum tourism positive or detrimental, and does it hurt or help a slum economy?  it still begs to question; “Is slum tourism good or bad?” 

WHAT IS A SLUM? AND WHAT IS SLUM TOURISM?

SLUM DEFINITION

•  noun: 1 –  a squalid and overcrowded urban area inhabited by very poor people.  2 –  a house or building unfit for human habitation.

•  verb:  ( slummed ,  slumming ) (often  slum it)  informal voluntarily spend time in uncomfortable conditions or at a lower social level than one’s own.

Source: Compact Oxford English dictionary

Slum tourism has been around  since Victorian times , when wealthy Londoners trudged down to the East End for a view. The end of apartheid in South Africa fueled a more politically-oriented type of ‘township tour’ while Rocinha has been receiving tourists for years – some 50,000 a year now.

In India, the release of the movie  Slumdog Millionnaire  created space for even more slums of India tours. In Nairobi, enterprising Kenyans are guiding tourists on Kibera slum tours, one of the better-known urban slums (and one of the world’s bigger slum areas) with a population of one million inhabitants.

The  voyeur aspect  of slum tourism makes me intensely uneasy.

Imagine a busload of foreign visitors traipsing down your street, peering into your house, taking a selfie in front of your door… Yet that’s exactly what happens on some township tourism slum tours, often labeled poverty tourism, pity tours, ghetto tourism, reality tours or even poorism – there is no dearth of labels.

So is  slum tourism  ethically acceptable or is it exploitative? What are the advantages and disadvantages of slum tourism? Do our tourist dollars actually help these communities or are we simply paying for a peek into lives we have no intention of ever experiencing for more than a few minutes? What are the impacts of slum development?

SLUM TOURISM PROS AND CONS

Negatives of slum tourism: exploitation and voyeurism.

Why slum tourism is bad (or can be):organized slum visits have come under  harsh criticism , particularly as they become more popular.

Much of the criticism revolves around these slum tourism cons:

• Slum tours treat people like  animals in a zoo  – you stare from the outside but don’t dare get too close.
• Visitors aren’t interested in meaningful interaction; they just want their  photo op . Contact with locals is minimal.
• Money rarely trickles down. Instead,  operators fill their pockets  but the vaunted ‘benefits to the community’ don’t materialize. Slum tourism profits from poverty, which is why it is often called “poverty tourism”.
• People feel degraded  by being stared at doing mundane things – washing, cleaning up, preparing food, things that are private. Their rights to privacy may be violated. Imagine yourself at the receiving end: how would you feel?
• Even when they participate as hosts, local people are often  underpaid and exploited .
• The  image of a country  may be tarnished by publicizing slums (this is an actual concern among certain segments of certain populations – usually the more wealthy).
• The  tours make poverty exotic , otherworldly, almost glamorizing what to inhabitants is a harsh reality which will remain once the tourists are long gone, which is one of the main slum tourism disadvantages.

How true is this picture?

UN-HABITAT  defines a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following: 1. Durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions. 2. Sufficient living space which means not more than three people sharing the same room. 3. Easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price. 4. Access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people. 5. Security of tenure that prevents forced evictions.

Slum tourism benefits: improving local lives

So are there slum tourism advantages? There may be a flip side. Slum tourism has supporters, many of whom believe  tourism will ultimately benefit  the favela or the township and help improve the lives of people who live there.

Visitors who take these tours may  genuinely care  and are interested in knowing more about the people they meet and the places they see.

Here are some of the potential benefits of slum tourism:

• Even if it’s only a little,  some money does enter the community , whether through meals at home or the purchase of art or souvenirs. Many say this tourism boosts the local economy. This trickle-down economy is bound to be better for local residents than picking trash off a stinking garbage heap.
• The tours  change our perceptions of poverty  by putting a face to it and showing visitors that however poor, people are the same everywhere and share similar thoughts and emotions.
• Tourists will visit areas they would never go to otherwise.
• Some operators have made sure part of their profits are recycled into local hands, for example by  starting local charities .
• A spotlight on poor areas by foreigners may help governments move more quickly to  improve conditions by using tourism as an economic developement tool.
• Even in the poorest areas  development and innovation  can take place: slum tours can showcase the economic and cultural energies of a neighborhood.
• They can  improve our understanding  of poverty and of one another – and of the world at large.
• Local people may support them. Locally-run  slum tourism examples  include Zezinho da Rocinha’s own favela tour (a slum-dweller himself, see below what he has to say on the effects of tourism in his community).
• They can  bring us closer  and demystify and  debunk some of our stereotypes . This excellent video (below) by one of my favorite authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, highlights the dangers of what she calls a ‘single story’, or what happens when a single point of view is hammered home, in this case, the ‘single story’ of poverty and pity.

THE SLUM TOURISM DEBATE: SO, IS IT A GOOD THING OR A BAD THING?

There is no such thing as a star system for slum tours, an ethical rating that will tell you how well an operator is performing or what the real economic benefits of tourism in the community really are. So, it’s up to us to find out before booking.

Here are some of the things we should look for:

• Size matters . A huge tour rumbling through a neighborhood in an air-conditioned bus is probably not going to promote much interchange with local residents.  Ask how many people will be on your tour.
• Look at the highlights and figure  how long you’ll be  in each place. If you’re expected to eat in a home, visit a local shebeen and walk through several streets in the space of an hour, chances are you won’t be getting to know your hosts in any significant way. Visitors need and have asked for more time for real exchanges with local people, as real as such unequal exchanges can be.  Make sure you have enough time to interact.
• Explore how the tour was  designed . Who put it together? Who came up with the itinerary? Why are you visiting one place and not another?  Ask the organizers if local people were involved, and double-check once you’re in the community.
• Follow the money.  Find out where the profits go and if the tourism economics are more beneficial than harmful. Are some profits returned to the community? What has been achieved – are there more schools, projects, education or jobs as a result?  Ask the operators, and double check their answers.

Granted, much of this information will not be easy to find, especially before you book.

But you have the ethical obligation to find out: what are the disadvantages of slum tourism in the area you are visiting? But by asking the right questions, you are showing you care, and are forcing tour operators to  tackle these issues .

Once you’re on the tour, you’ll have a better sense of its ethics and if you don’t like what you see, there’s always social media. If a tour is exploitative – well, word gets around fast.

There are many signs  slum tourism is changing the future of tourism.

More charities are being set up to spread profits around, local people are becoming increasingly involved, negative stereotypes are being challenged, local artisans are being encouraged to sell their work to tourists at fair prices, and tour operators themselves are beginning to understand that slum tourism is not like mass tourism: they don’t have to cram every possible attraction into the shortest possible time.

While some feel much good can come from  properly thought-out slum tours , others believe slum tourism has done more harm than good, with insensitive itineraries pulled together purely for gain.

So which is it: Would visitors be better off staying in a  luxury downtown hotel  while pretending not to see the slum next door? Or is knowledge and awareness the first step towards understanding?

For more information on slum tourism, these resources may help:

• Slum Dwellers International  is a is a network of community-based organizations of the urban poor in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
• Slumtourism.net  brings together academics and practitioners working on tourism in slums and poor rural areas. 
• The  world’s five largest slums .

Both For And Against Slum Tourism

By Zezinho Da Rocinha, Proud Favela Resident In Rio De Janeiro

I certainly understand the  controversy about slum tours . I am both FOR and AGAINST them. Let me explain this.

I was born, grew up and still live in Brazil’s largest slum, or  favela . Life is dificult yes, but not impossible. I am proud to live here in Rocinha. I will never leave here, I do not want to leave here. This is my home. This is my feeling about this issue of  slum/favela tourism .

What I like about the tours is the contact I get from foreigns who come here. This interaction helps me to educate people about my life here in the favela. When foreigners come here I feel like my home or favela has value and is worth to be seen. The Brazilian government mostly ignores us and helps us very little.  We want our voice to be heard . I want to feel that somebody on the outside cares about us and recognizes that we exist. Up until about a few years ago favelas did not exist on maps. Why was this?

Many foreigners come to learn how we create and live in our comunity with little or no goverment involvement. Others come because of the art and culture that exist here.

I do not judge why people come, they confirm that we exist. 

I started in tourism because I saw the opportunity to show my favela and help create jobs for others here.

We live here, and should be making the tours here. I have heard outsider tour companies exaggerate things or  tell outright lies  about my favela. They do this because they do not know and do not live here. I am here to share a social experience, not provide some adrenalin tour.

With my work, many visitors return to volunteer with social projects or to start their own programs in the favela. Recently people have contacted me wanting to make projects like a rooftop garden class. Another person wants to help bring solar energy here. These are people who came on visits here in the favela. Is this bad? What I do NOT like about the tours …tours that use jeeps or trucks are the worst because they present us like a zoo. The tourists have no contact with the locals and this reinforces a sense of possible danger. Tours or visits where the guests walk in the favela are more welcome. There is one company that tells their guests not to interact with the locals if they are approached. This is wrong.

The glamorization of violence is another thing that we do not like here. It is as if these companies are trying to capitalize on some kind of excitement. Favelas are not war zones, and people need understand that real, honest hardworking people live there, we just make less money. There are tour companies here who use the community to make money but they give very little or nothing back to the community. This is not right. They should contribute something for the betterment of the favela. There are plenty of social projects here that could use help.  I am not ashamed to live in the favela and people should not feel shame to come and visit. All we ask is please do not take photos of us like we are animals, and do not have fear if we say hello to you on the street.  If we want to stop or reduce poverty, we need to stop pretending it does not exist. I call it socially responsible tourism. If you chose to tour this type of community, try to give something back, however big or small. I work with an art school and encourage people to bring art supplies, not money. Slums, favelas and shanties are where 1/3 of the population live in all major cities, serving the needs of mostly the rich. Visiting these places may increase your knowledge and awareness at a much deeper level than visiting a museum or art exhibition.  Ignoring poverty is not going to make it go away  and those who have more, should not feel guilt. Unfortunately, this world will always have this unbalance of wealth. Sad but true. Read more about Zezinho on his blog,  Life in Rocinha  or  book a favela walking tour .

— Originally published on 06 February 2011

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What Is Slum Tourism?

By: Author The Drivin' & Vibin' Team

Posted on January 24, 2023

Wandering off into the unknown places of the world sounds like quite an exhilarating adventure for many people. And it should be. A trek across Antarctica, a Tasmanian expedition, even a Mongolian Shaman tour — many people seek this type of travel instead of a trip to Paris or London.

It’s understandable that people are seeking different vacation experiences, but should slum tourism be the same? An off-the-beaten-path adventure? What exactly is slum tourism?

 If you’ve never heard of this term, it’s time to learn more because it could be the next big thing for tourists, and that might not be good at all.

What Is a Slum?

A slum got its name in London in the early 1800s as an area of ill-repute. The United Nations has long since redefined slums as “a contiguous settlement where the inhabitants are characterized as having inadequate housing and basic services.” 

In some of the world’s largest slums, you’ll find deplorable conditions. These areas lack waste management and running water. Many places even have sewage running down the streets.

The people have limited, if any, electricity; tin roofs and walls balanced precariously against each other, offering very little privacy. You’ll often find no formal toilets and no land or house titles. 

Additionally, the people here have limited access to healthcare, schools, and almost everything many of us take for granted.

These areas are also not deemed a part of a city, resulting in continued decay and a lack of basic services. And with millions of people residing in slums across the globe, slums are in fact, cities.

Three of some of the largest slums in the world include Orangi Town in Karachi, Pakistan, with 2.4 million inhabitants, and Neza, Mexico, with 1.2 million persons. Third, we have the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, India, with 1 million residents. 

Additionally, Khayelitsha in Cape Town, South Africa, has 400,000 residents, and Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, with 700,000 people.

According to Habitat for Humanity, low estimates report that around 900 million people live in slums worldwide.

It’s easy to think that anything with the word tourism in it equates to a vacation — one filled with adventure and excitement. And slum tourism might be that way, too, just not quite how you may envision it.

Slum tourism at the very heart of those two words is exactly what it sounds like — tourists visiting slums. This growing trend involves traveling to these impoverished areas. 

Slum tours typically focus on the stark realities of living in such areas with little access to basic amenities, such as housing and sanitation. 

However, some argue that slums can also offer cultural vibrancy. After all, slums are home to many local businesses, such as banks, hospitals, and entertainment venues. 

Slum tourists need to approach this in a dignified manner by viewing these areas through the lens of what makes them unique instead of being judgmental about other people’s lives and poverty.

Why Is There Slum Tourism? 

And maybe that is why there is slum tourism. If done ethically and with integrity, traveling to a slum to visit a different place can allow people to see what life is like outside of their own. 

Slum tourism has become increasingly popular as a form of unconventional tourism, providing those interested with an often very real view into the conditions experienced by poorer populations in developing nations. 

This type of tourism can prompt people to open their eyes and become more aware of social inequalities around the world. And it can educate individuals about economic hardship and encourage reflection and conversations about poverty. 

Pro Tip: Get the inside scoop about RV Medical Tourism: Despite the Downsides, RVers Love It .

How Did Slum Tourism Begin?

An article published by National Geographic helps explain the origin of slum tourism. Beginning around the mid-1800s in East London, wealthy citizens gave the impression that they were visiting struggling neighborhoods for charitable work. Instead, they just wanted to see what life was like “on the other side of the tracks.” 

Spreading to cities outside of England, this became a regular practice for tour operators to bring tourists into poverty-stricken neighborhoods so people could experience the “real” side of cities such as New York, Chicago, and even San Francisco.

Not wanting to disappoint the tourists, some groups even went so far as to hire paid actors to act as though they were drug addicts or gang members. They didn’t want the tourists to feel disappointed if they didn’t experience the expected poverty-stricken activities.

Slum tourism dissipated during the mid-1990s until it became popular again in South Africa due to apartheid. Communities chose to share their neighborhoods in hopes of creating increased awareness of the effects the apartheid had on them. 

In this way, they took control, telling their own stories, and helping to promote education and service instead of gawking and possible exploitation.

Since then, slum tourism has flourished, with many charities that claim to assist. However, many don’t provide what the residents need or want or keep more for themselves.

Are There Any Benefits to Slum Tourism? 

This type of tourism can provide an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of different cultures and lifestyles in ways going beyond just visiting tourist hotspots. 

It can open people’s eyes to real issues like poverty and bring awareness worldwide. 

Perhaps most importantly, slum tourism can provide funds that could manifest as job opportunities, businesses, and resources for those living within the slums, helping them to improve their lives.

Therefore, we don’t want to write off slum tourism completely. With proper guidelines and research ahead of time, it can benefit those seeking an understanding of unfamiliar living conditions.

What Are the Impacts of Slum Tourism?

The trend of slum tourism has grown in recent years, but many people debate its impacts. On the one hand, some argue that slum tourism can bring economic benefits to locals and create jobs and income for guides and other area businesses. 

On the other hand, slum tourism could have a negative impact on its visitors. Critics argue that tourists may not understand the local culture and customs, which could result in insensitive behavior toward residents. 

Additionally, slum tours can exploit the people and their conditions. Some tourists don’t wish to improve living conditions and only take pictures from afar. 

Also, certain tourism agencies say the money spent will flow back into communities when in reality, it only goes into the pockets of the scammers.

Slum tourism carries many complex considerations that one should take seriously before considering this type of travel.

What Are the Arguments Against Slum Tourism? 

As was mentioned previously, slum tourism can be a meaningful way to engage individuals from all backgrounds in important conversations. These conversations can help to create more understanding between different social strata while potentially providing some benefit to those living in slums.

But many argue against slum tourism. Slum tours often devalue certain cultures or destigmatize poverty by providing a movie-like version of a reality that millions of people face. 

By capitalizing on slums and their inhabitants, this type of travel has seen pushback from locals and other groups who argue that it problematically portrays slums as an attraction to be experienced and monetized. 

Furthermore, the income that slum tourism brings isn’t evenly distributed. The residents in these areas often receive very little benefit. 

Overall, slum tourism can present complex ethical dilemmas and raise uncomfortable questions about how we represent, understand, and ultimately engage with poverty in our world.

Should Slum Tourism Be Discouraged? 

Slum tourism is a complex and often polarizing issue. You can find valid arguments on both sides of the debate surrounding its impact on the people who reside in slums. 

However, it ultimately falls upon tourists to make informed decisions about whether or not this type of tourism is something they feel comfortable supporting.

In the end, you’ll have to decide for yourself if slum tourism is an ethical and responsible way to experience a new culture. 

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Slum Tourism: 17 Responsible Travel Guidelines for Travelers

Last updated: July 12, 2022 - Written by Jessica Norah 10 Comments

Slum tourism is defined as the practice of travelers visiting poor urban areas, typically in the Global South, to view the impoverished conditions and understand more of the lifestyles of local inhabitants. It is also known as poverty tourism, township tourism, community tourism, and other terms.

Tourism is often used to help alleviate poverty, but in this case, poverty is also the attraction. It is a controversial tourism practice but one that has become increasingly popular. Slum tours are particularly popular in South Africa, Brazil, and India. It was estimated by Frezel et al. (2015) that over 1 million tourists take a slum tour each year.

The goal of this article is to provide information that will be useful to both those interested in learning about the practice of slum tourism as well as those travelers who are considering taking a slum tour.

We begin with providing information on the history of slums and slum tourism, the current state of slum tourism, the potential pros and cons of the practice, and the ethical debates around slum tourism. We also provide information for those looking for further resources about the practice. We encourage everyone to do their own research and come up with their own informed opinions on slum tourism.

For those travelers who want to take a slum tour, we propose a set of responsible slum tour guidelines for travelers which were developed based on the research literature, policy papers, and tourism ethic codes. These guidelines are designed for those tourists who plan to take a slum tour and want to do so in the most responsible way possible.

We provide lots of tips and advice for travelers in choosing a responsible tour operator, engaging in behaviors that minimize potential harm and maximize potential benefits to the visited community, and visiting in a safe and responsible manner.

Table of Contents:

Overview of Slum Tourism 

This first section gives a brief overview of the history of slums, the evolution of slum tours, the ethical debate on slum tourism, and the research on the topic of slum tourism. We also provide links to further resources for those wanting to explore these topics further.

What are Slums?

The word slum is often used to refer to urban low-income settlements that are characterized by substandard housing and poor human living conditions. They are usually in crowded urban areas, although they can also sometimes be found in suburban areas. There are a lot of different definitions of the term slum, but one of the most recognized by policymakers is the one used by the United Nations.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) came up with a formal and operational definition for slums to aid in their reporting. They define a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following: access to an improved water source, access to improved sanitation facilities, sufficient living area, housing durability, and security of tenure.

The term informal settlement is often used interchangeably, but specifically is defined by the UN-Habitat to mean that the inhabitants have no security of tenure (e.g., don’t have rights to the land, can be easily evicted), may lack basic services and infrastructure, and the housing may not comply with local regulations.

It should be noted that many people, such as the Australian writer Alan Mayne , consider the word slum to be a pejorative and offensive term and argue against its use. He similarly argues against the use of similar foreign terms like favela , ghetto , and bustee which often have the same negative connotations. He doesn’t suggest an alternative term though and notes that “there is no one term that can describe the diversity of disadvantaged low-income settlement types.”

It should also be noted that many residents living in these areas refer to them as a “slum” (or a similar word in their own local language) themselves, and the UN notes that in many developing countries, “the word lacks the pejorative and divisive original connotation, and simply refers to lower quality or informal housing.” However, in general, the word slum has a negative connotation and is not considered a politically correct term in everyday conversation.

Slum is the main term used by organizations, policymakers, and researchers and it is therefore the one used in this article. This is done for the sake of consistency and for the lack of a better term. But one should be aware that it can often be perceived as an offensive term, and travelers should be aware of the language used in the area in which they are visiting.

Although crowded impoverished areas have existed for hundreds of years, modern urban slums are generally said to date from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The first use of the term “slum” comes from Victorian England in reference to the crowded living conditions of the poor who lived in the alleys of London’s East End.

The first slums began to appear in the early nineteenth century due to rapid industrialization and urbanization, as well as increasing populations, poor urban planning, and discrimination. The first slums occurred in big cities in Europe and North America like London, New York City, Dublin, Boston, and Paris. However, while slum areas can still be found in the Global North, the largest slums of today primarily exist in the developing countries of the Global South.

According to a 2021 report by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, about 24% of the world’s urban population resided in slums in 2018. It is estimated that over 1 billion people are currently living in slums or informal settlements. Unfortunately, the number of people residing in slums has been increasing over time in many parts of the world.

The UN notes a number of reasons for the creation and continuation of slums which include rapid rural-to-urban migration, poor policy and city planning, increasing urban poverty and inequality, insecure tenure, and the global economic cycle.

What are Slum Tours?

Slum tours are guided visits to a slum area. Slum tours are generally walking tours led by a local guide, and most take place in cities in the Global South.

Slum tours are called different things in different parts of the world. They may also be called favela tours, township tours, ghetto tours, poverty tours, community tours, cultural tours, etc.

Although many people think that slum tours are a very recent phenomenon, the practice actually dates back to the nineteenth century. According to Frenzel et al. , upper-class British people in the mid-1800s started to take an interest in visiting the slums of London and that this was the beginning of informal slum tourism.

Londoners then began to visit slums when traveling in the cities of the United States and Europe, causing more interest in this behavior. It is believed that the first commercial guided tours of slums began in the early 20th century in the cities of New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Later slums began to develop in the Global South as industrialization and urbanization took place in those countries. However, there was relatively little slum tourism in the Global South for many decades, likely due to safety concerns from travelers and the lack of formal tours.

According to Frenzel (1992 ), the first commercial slum tours in the Global South are believed to date from the early 1990s, taking place in South Africa and Brazil. The first tours in both of these countries surprisingly have political and social justice roots.

Township tours in South Africa were first organized and promoted by the local governments during apartheid (which lasted from approximately 1948 to the early 1990s). These official propaganda township tours (along with cultural villages, museums, etc.) were designed to show government officials and visitors that apartheid policies were working. However, informal township tours also sprung up that were designed to show the social injustices of apartheid.

After apartheid legislation was repealed in 1991 and the first multiracial election took place in 1994, tourism increased in South Africa. The informal township tours that had sprung up during apartheid started to become less political over time and began to focus more on heritage, cultural diversity, and local life.

Today, township tours are popular in several cities in South Africa, including Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban. These tours are not only popular with foreign tourists but also attract a significant number of South Africans.

The year of the first commercial favela tours in Rio de Janeiro is unclear but the interest in slum tourism in Brazil was really sparked in 1992. During the Rio Summit in 1992 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), some of the conference delegates wanted to visit the favela areas instead of just seeing the popular tourist attractions. So, a tour operator arranged a tour for them to visit Rocinha. Some of the journalists and policymakers wrote about these visits; this made people aware of favelas and caused others to want to visit.

The early visitors to the favelas in Rio were mainly “political tourists” and journalists, but soon regular leisure tourists were also coming. Today, Rocinha is one of the most visited slums in the world and favela tours are one of the popular tourist things to do in Rio de Janeiro.

Where do Slum Tours Take Place?

Slum tours take place in dozens of countries, primarily in the Global South. Three countries that attract the most slum tourism are Brazil, South Africa, and India.

A group of researchers on slum tourism estimated in a 2015 paper that approximately 1 million tourists were taking part in slum tours each year. They noted that about 80% of those tourists are doing so in just two countries: Brazil and South Africa. In Brazil, tourists are mainly visiting the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. In South Africa, tourists are taking township tours in several cities.

As noted in the prior section, the first commercial slum tours in the Global South are believed to have started in the early 1990s in South Africa and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These early tours sprung from political and social justice roots. Today these remain two of the most popular slum tourism destinations.

The influence of media and promotion by the local tourism industry have also had a huge effect on where slum tourism is popular. The films Slumdog Millionaire , District 9 , and City of God depicted the slums of Dharavi, District Six, and Cidade de Deus, respectively. These films are often credited with making slum tourism popular in Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Rio de Janeiro.

There are often multiple tour operators offering tours in the most popular slum tourism cities. For example, you’ll find a number of tours options to visit the slums of Soweto in Johannesburg (South Africa), Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Manshiyat Nasser (“Garbage City”) in Cairo (Egypt), Kibera in Nairobi (Kenya), Dharavi in Mumbai (India), and Langa in Cape Town (South Africa).

However, it should be pointed out that most slum areas around the world receive relatively little tourist interest. For example, although Orangi in Karachi, Pakistan is twice the size of Dharavi and is believed to be Asia’s largest slum area (perhaps the world’s largest), it is not a popular tourist destination. Similarly, although there are hundreds of favelas in Brazil, there are only a handful of them that attract tourist visits.

What are Slum Tours Like?

Every slum tour is different, but in general, they are often walking tours led by a tour leader through a particular neighborhood or slum area.

Slum tours are organized and run by a variety of different types of operators, including private tour companies, charities, and non-governmental organizations. The size of the operators ranges from solo tour guides running their own business to fairly large tour operators that employ a number of guides.

Most slum tours take place mainly outdoors and view the explored neighborhood on foot from the streets. Most include at least a couple of planned stops at local businesses, cultural sites, homes, schools, humanitarian projects, markets, or other points of interest.

Slum areas are all very different. Even slums in the same city can be very different in terms of infrastructure, history, cultural diversity, and level of affluence.

Slums like Soweto and Rocinha, which are two of the most visited slum areas in the world, have more developed tourist services than many other slums around the world. For instance, they offer museums, restaurants, bars, clubs, cultural centers, gift shops, and overnight lodging options for guests. Some evening tours include going to clubs for music, drinks, and entertainment. Soweto even has a 4-star hotel and conference center!

However, most slum areas offer few, if any, tourist services. It is important to remember that many people living in these areas lack access to basic necessities and resources like safe drinking water, electricity, and good sanitation services.

Is Slum Tourism Ethical?

Despite a lot of writings on the subject, there does not appear to be any agreed-upon consensus as to whether slum tourism is ethical or not. Determining whether an activity is morally right or wrong is often more of a philosophical debate than a scientific one.

It is difficult to argue that a walking tour through any neighborhood is inherently unethical. So the ethical arguments are often around tourists’ motivations for taking slum tours, tourists’ behaviors while on tours, the impact of the “tourist gaze” , the feelings of local residents about slum tourism, and the costs and benefits of such tourism on the local community.

It is a complex issue and has been discussed by many researchers, journalists, and others. Just note that many of these opinions, especially those of journalists and bloggers, are coming from people living in developed Western countries, not those actually living in slum communities themselves. We encourage you to read the debates and discussions pertaining to the ethics of slum tourism to make up your own beliefs. You can find some articles online here to get started.

In order to examine whether slum tours are responsible or not, many people look at the potential positive and negative impacts of slum tourism in a particular local community.

Those who support slum tourism often note potential benefits such as reducing stigmatization, increasing awareness, employing local residents, generating revenue for community projects, increasing profits of local businesses, and improving local services, infrastructure, and security.

Those opposed to slum tourism typically note the negative impacts that include the voyeuristic and intrusive nature of the practice, the potential exploitation of local people (particularly children), the problematic practice of using poverty as an attraction, and the limited economic benefits to locals,

A small number of studies have looked at residents’ thoughts and feelings, indicating that most slum residents believe that there are both negative and positive potential impacts of slum tourism. But the attitudes, concerns, and perceptions of residents seem to vary across slum areas.

For example, a study of residents in a Cairo slum area , noted a number of both positive (e.g., donations, employment, improved infrastructure) and negative aspects (e.g., rights and assets being used for tourism, voyeuristic nature of some tours, concerns about human trafficking) related to slum tourism. Although most residents generally had positive attitudes towards slum tourism, they reported there are a lot of barriers to benefiting from slum tourism. The most common barrier they reported to benefiting from slum tourism was actually the high-density population of the slum itself.

The biggest concern many residents have is that slum tourism does not directly benefit them and only benefits a limited number of people in the slum. This is a particular concern for slum areas like Kibera in Nairobi ( Kieti & Magio, 2013 ) where there are few tourism-focused businesses due to limited capacity and investment. So locals can’t benefit from ventures such as selling crafts, meals, and souvenirs to visitors or offering overnight accommodation as residents of other slum areas do. Many residents in Kibera had more negative overall attitudes toward slum tourism and believe that most of the profits go to outsiders.

To learn more about ethics in tourism, you can check out this code of ethics developed by The World Tourism Agency called the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism. They also provide this set of tips for being a responsible tourist to help people make more responsible choices when traveling.

Further Resources on Slum Tourism

We highly encourage you to do your own research on slums, informal settlements, and slum tourism.

One of the best sources for information and research about slums is the United Nations Habitat (UN-Habitat) website. One of the major goals of UN-Habitat is to improve the conditions of slum dwellers around the world. They regularly release data, reports, and information related to slums and their projects.

Cities Alliance is a global partnership fighting urban poverty and promoting the role of cities. One of the main goals is to improve living conditions in existing slums and prevent new slums from forming.

Another organization that provides information on slums and their work on slum rehabilitation is Habitat for Humanity. Other international organizations that do research and work on improving slum conditions are Oxfam and Save the Children.

• United Nations Habitat (UN-Habitat): https://unhabitat.org/topic/slum-upgrading
• Cities Alliance Cities Without Slums: https://www.citiesalliance.org/cities-without-slums-action-plan
• Habitat for Humanity: https://www.habitatforhumanity.org.uk/what-we-do/slum-rehabilitation/

To get a good overview of slum tourism history and research, we recommend the book and literature review by Fabian Frenzel. Frenzel’s work focuses on the intersection of tourism and urban poverty, and he has written several articles and edited a few books on the topic of slum tourism.

• Frenzel, F., Koens, K., & Steinbrink, M. (Eds.) (2012) Slum tourism :  Poverty, power and ethics. New York: Routeldge.
• Frenzel, F., Koens, K., Steinbrink, M., & Rogerson, C. (2015). Slum tourism: State of the art. Tourism Review International , 18 , 237-252. doi: 10.3727/154427215X14230549904017

Just note that there are a lot of limitations to the studies on slum tourism. As someone who has published psychological and health services research and has read dozens of these research studies, I find that there is a lack of strong empirical studies in the area of slum tourism. Much of the research relies on small samples, non-random sampling, self-reporting, qualitative data, anecdotes, and retrospective data.

Most of the research on slum tourism is published in tourism journals.

• Google Scholar is a good place to go and search if you don’t have access to a paid research database like Scopus, PsycINFO, or PubMed. Many of the articles listed in Google Scholar are available online for free.

There are studies that examine different issues in specific slums, so if you are interested in a specific slum (e.g., Rocinha, Kibera, Soweto, Dharavi) or geographical region, you can search for that in the research literature.

17 Responsible Traveler Slum Tour Guidelines

If you are planning to take a slum tour, we have come up with a proposed set of guidelines and tips for travelers who want to do so in the most responsible way possible.

Ultimately, we believe the main responsibility in regulating slum tourism and conducting responsible tours lies with the local governments and tour operators. They should strive to ensure that tours are responsible and are designed in a way to maximize the positive impact on local communities while minimizing any negative effects.

However, realistically, we also know that most tour operators respond to the demands and behaviors of the traveler and that government regulations are often lax. The communities themselves often have minimal power. So travelers often have to vote with their wallets in determining what tourist products are available and how they are structured.

Our tips are based on research in the area of slum tourism, the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, and our personal experience. A strong influence was the proposed guidelines for township tour operators in Cape Town, South Africa that were developed in 2013 by tourism researcher Jeanett Søderstrøm. While those guidelines were specifically proposed for the slum tour operators, we have written a set of proposed guidelines for responsible travelers.

1. Choose a Responsible Tour Operator

The first step is to choose a responsible tour operator. However, this is much easier said than done as it can be hard to identify whether a tour is operated in a responsible, ethical, and sustainable way.

There is no third-party international regulation of slum tours, although there may be local regulations of such tours. So, the best you can do is to read the company’s policies, tour descriptions, and past reviews by travelers who have taken the tour.

There are lots of things to look out for (many are covered in more detail in this post) but here are some things that may indicate a more responsible company:

• The company is locally based and employs local resident guides
• The company focuses on small group walking tours
• The company pays fair wages to guides and compensates any visited households
• The company uses tours to benefit the local community (e.g., profits support a local community project)
• The company provides guidance on tourist behaviors concerning photography, dress, safety, tipping, and home visits
• The company promotes its tours with a focus on learning and the local community rather than on the more voyeuristic aspects of visiting slums
• The company allows tourists the opportunity to support local businesses and projects if they wish
• The company doesn’t promote tour activities that are likely to exploit or cause harm to children, animals, or vulnerable people
• The company consults with local residents to get feedback and inform their tours
• The company has a responsible travel or sustainable tourism policy
• The company provides evidence of its responsible or sustainable claims

Now, the chances of realistically being able to know and confirm all the above is pretty low with most companies that lead slum tours. Many are very small companies and some may just be a single person leading tours, and there may not be a ton of information available.

You can of course contact them in advance if you have questions. But for many claims, you often have to take their word for it and trust that the information provided is truthful. However, the above can be a good set of criteria for comparing tours.

Probably the best way to learn more about a specific tour is to read reviews from recent guests who did that tour. We find the best source is often the third-party websites that sell tours such as Viator and GetYourGuide as these websites generally only allow people who have booked the tour to post, and the published reviews are not controlled by the tour operator.

Other potential sources for reviews are Trustpilot , public travel forums, and other public review platforms like Google and TripAdvisor. Just note that many of these websites are often unregulated in terms of who can post. A tour company’s own website reviews can be useful but they are typically only going to share posts that are positive.

2. Visit with a Local Guide

It is best to choose a local guide and preferably someone who grew up and lives in the community. A resident of the community is going to be more likely to know more about the area, be able to share personal stories, and be more likely to be invested in ensuring that the tour visits the area in a responsible way.

One of the things that many residents of slums complain most about is that many tours are not led by local residents. The employment of local guides is one of the most direct ways for slum tourism to benefit a local community.

3. Visit on Foot

There is nothing that seems to make residents feel more like zoo animals than a bus or car full of tourists watching, pointing, and snapping photos of them. This creates a barrier between the visitor and the residents.

I think today most slum tours are done on foot, but there are tours, particularly in South Africa, that are done as a driving tour on a bus or in a private car. You should avoid these drive-by tours.

Walking tours also tend to be longer and spend more time actually seeing the area than bus or Jeep tours.

4. Don’t be in a Rush

If you are visiting a slum area to learn more about it, then you want to make sure you have the time to do so. It is going to depend on the particular slum area, but most are very large areas and it is hard to see much on a short tour.

The more time you have, the more opportunities you will have to see more, interact more with the local people, support local businesses, and learn more from your visit. We’d recommend setting aside at least half a day (about 4 hours) if you want to do a slum tour.

Most slum tours are 3 to 4 hours in length and some are even full-day experiences of 8 hours or more. Be cautious of shorter tours that are only 1 or 2 hours in length as they may rush you through the area and may be less likely to visit the area in a responsible way.

5. Visit as Part of a Small Group

Similar to the above tip about not visiting as part of a bus or driving tour, we also recommend going as part of a smaller group. Many walking tours are done as private tours or with small groups of 10 people or less.

Joining others as part of a small group tour is fine, but going as a giant group of 20 people is going to be very overwhelming when walking through narrow streets or visiting a shop or a home. Touring as part of a larger group is also going to make it harder to hear and talk to the guide, create more safety concerns, and make it more overwhelming for local people trying to go about their business.

If you want more control over your tour, a private tour may be the way to go. This will allow you to go more at your own pace, adjust the tour itinerary, and give you a chance to ask more questions.

6. Do a Little Bit of Research

One of the reasons to take a tour is to learn more about a local community, but it is also a good idea to come into the tour knowing at least a little about the area you are visiting and its history. This will help you better understand what you are seeing and ask more informed questions.

For instance, if you are visiting South Africa and plan to go on a township tour, knowing at least a little bit about the colonial history of South Africa, apartheid, and the activism of Nelson Mandela is going to be very helpful.

It is also a good idea to know what to expect on the tour by reading the tour description and recent reviews. This can help you be better prepared for the tour.

7. Dress Respectfully and Appropriately

Every area is going to be a bit different, of course, but you want to keep the local culture and customs in mind when it comes to how to dress and behave. Many slum areas are in places where most people dress modestly for cultural and/or religious reasons. So you want to be respectful of those customs.

If unsure of what would be appropriate as a visitor, it is best to err on the side of more modest and conservative clothing. Just make sure it is something that is also comfortable to wear for a lot of walking. You also want to keep sun protection in mind as you’ll likely be outside for much of the tour.

You also want to wear practical clothes and shoes that you don’t mind if they get a little dirty. For instance, when we did a walking tour of Kibera in Nairobi, we walked through a number of dirt streets and alleys and across areas that were muddy and had rubbish and open sewage.

8. Keep Safety in Mind

Many government agencies advise tourists against visiting a number of slum areas and informal settlements around the world due to safety concerns. So, it is important if you plan to visit to have a local guide, visit during daylight hours, pay attention to relevant security alerts, and take safety precautions.

Remember your guide can give you advice and try to keep an eye on you, but he or she is not your bodyguard. A guide may make it less likely you’ll be targeted, but it is not going to guarantee you won’t be pickpocketed or robbed.

Guides can provide invaluable advice but it is up to you to take it. For instance, we were talking to a guide who said he had a lady in his group who he advised twice to carry her backpack on her front rather than her back when going through a crowded market. She didn’t and by the end of the tour, she realized her pocketbook containing her money and credit cards had been stolen from her backpack.

You want to take normal safety precautions to try to prevent pickpocketing and theft. This includes leaving valuables at your hotel (or at home), not carrying a lot of money, being aware of your surroundings, not wearing flashing clothes or accessories, and storing things like your passport and a spare credit card in a hidden place like a money belt .

If you are carrying a purse or bag, we recommend a cross-body one, a sling, or fanny pack that is harder for someone to grab and one you aren’t likely to accidentally set down and leave behind. If you choose a backpack, we recommend one with lockable zippers like those by PacSafe and to consider carrying it on your front in crowded areas.

You also want to keep your surroundings in mind as many informal settlements have open sewers, rubbish tips, and animals wandering around. So staying aware as you walk around is important as you don’t want to accidentally step on a sharp object or fall into an open sewer. Wearing practical shoes and watching where you step is a good idea.

And of course, if you decide to eat while on your tour, you want to keep food and water safety in mind. Unless provided as part of the tour, you’ll want to bring along enough water for the duration of the tour. Most slum communities around the world lack access to clean drinking water.

Most slum communities are located in countries that do not have good access to clean drinking water. We have an article about finding or getting safe drinking water when traveling that may be helpful if you are traveling for the first time to a country where you can’t safely drink the tap water.

9. Bring Local Currency

You’ll want to bring local currency with you as it is likely that guides and small businesses are not going to be able to take credit cards for payment.

It is also best to leave any tips or donations in the local currency as otherwise, it costs the person money to exchange an international currency. Most slum residents lack access to banks and financial institutions, making it difficult for them to exchange foreign currency.

Of course, you do not want to carry a lot of money on you for safety reasons. So I would recommend just bringing enough to pay for the tour (if not paid for in advance), leave tips, buy souvenirs, etc.

10. Treat Everyone you Meet with Dignity and Respect

This is a fairly obvious one, but you want to treat everyone you meet with dignity and respect. People want to be treated the same way you would want others to treat you.

Impoverished people are often stigmatized, ignored, and disregarded. Not just by foreign travelers, but by more privileged people in their own communities. While visitors’ attention can help combat stigma and stereotypes, it can also have the opposite effect.

Lots of residents complain about some slum tourists making them feel like an “attraction” rather than as people. This is often due to behaviors from tourists such as pointing, staring, and photos being taken of them.

No one wants to be stared at, talked about, talked down to, or have photos taken of them without their explicit permission. Many residents, however, welcome respectful interactions with tourists.

It can also be embarrassing or hurtful to residents if tourists react in a disgusted or repulsed manner, especially if visiting someone’s home or business. If you are coming from a life of privilege, this may be the first time you have encountered true poverty. This often comes along with unfamiliar and unpleasant sights, sounds, and smells. While it is natural to be shocked and surprised, it is important to remember that this is someone’s home and community.

While the people you meet on a slum tour might all seem friendly and happy, it is important to keep in mind that most people’s lives are difficult. Many tourists leave with the impression of people who are “poor but happy” and this attitude can trivialize the lives of the residents. Many people living in slum areas struggle to obtain basic daily necessities like food, shelter, and clean water, and worry about crime, unemployment, diseases, and how to educate and protect their children. So while residents might be smiling and welcoming to visitors, most wish for an easier and more secure life.

11. Don’t Take Photos or Videos without Permission

Your guide will likely talk to you about taking photos and videos at the beginning of the tour. If you are unsure, you should ask about photography guidelines before taking any photos. Photography can make residents feel uncomfortable and like they are in a zoo so it is often discouraged when visiting slums.

Imagine if people came to your own neighborhood and started taking photos of you, your family, and your home. This is obviously not something most of us would enjoy and in some places, this behavior would be illegal.

On many slum tours, photos and videos are not allowed out of respect for the residents. Or photography may only be permitted in certain areas.

For instance, when Laurence was in Rio de Janeiro, he was advised by the guide not to take any photos in the favela areas. This policy was put into place both out of respect for the residents and the presence of gangs. So the guide took them to a viewpoint overlooking the favela areas where they were told they could take photos, but then Laurence put away his camera and took no photos while walking around in the community itself.

If photography is permitted, you want to be sure to be respectful if you do choose to take photos. As you would anywhere, if you want to take photos, particularly of people’s faces or inside their homes, you should ask permission first. Your guide should be able to help you ask permission, especially if you don’t speak the local language.

Be cautious about taking photos of children. Many residents have reported feeling particularly exploited by tourists taking photos of their children without their permission. You should have the permission of both the child and the parent before taking a photo. However, we generally recommend against taking photos of children, particularly those living in vulnerable areas.

Just understand that the power dynamics in the relationship between tourists and residents often mean that locals may agree to photos even if they would prefer not to. Some may feel it is impolite to refuse a visitor or say they feel pressured to do so by the tour guides.

We generally err on the side of not taking identifiable photos of anyone, unless they are our guides or people who are part of the tour.

If you do take photos on your tour, you also want to be respectful if you decide to share those photos publicly. You want to think about which photos you share and what you say about your experience. You don’t want to glamorize, trivialize, or romanticize these types of settings.

12. Be Respectful of People’s Private Spaces

Unless invited inside, you should respect people’s privacy in terms of people’s private living and work spaces. People may also share outdoor toilets, latrines, or bathing areas that may offer little privacy.

We have read of people gawking in windows, taking photos of people in their homes, and even wandering into people’s homes uninvited. These are not things you would do in your own town or city, and are definitely not things you should do in someone else’s neighborhood.

Some tours may include stops to visit people’s homes. It is important to be respectful of your host and their home when visiting. It is generally expected on many such tours that you will give a small donation to the hosts (e.g., money or food) at the end of the visit.

13. Be Cautious about Visiting Schools, Clinics, or Orphanages

You want to be cautious about any tour which mentions visiting schools, nurseries, clinics, or orphanages. You want to be sure to not be doing anything that is going to disrupt the care or education of children, put vulnerable people at risk, or have children involuntarily participate in tourism activities.

We personally don’t support tourists visiting or volunteering at orphanages, and you can read more about the problems with orphanages, orphanage donations, and orphanage tourism here .

Learning about a school or children’s project may be part of a tour if a tour’s profits are benefiting that school or project and the guide wants to show you actual proof of its existence. But it is best if it doesn’t involve disrupting the children’s studies. Imagine if you were a kid and every hour, some group of strangers showed up in your classroom. This is going to make it very hard to focus and learn.

Basically, you just want to think about if your visit may be doing any harm to anyone involved, especially to children and other vulnerable people.

If you feel that a tour you took could be improved, it is good to give that feedback to the tour leader (and in reviews) and suggest helpful alternatives. Tours will only change if the company thinks that is what tourists want. For example, rather than going into a classroom and talking to children in the middle of the day, it could be better to just talk to an adult volunteer at the school and/or watch a video made with the children and teachers.

14. Consider Ways to Support the Local Community

One of the things that slum residents tend to cite as one of the biggest negative things about slum tourism is that it often does not benefit the local community.

The main thing you can do is to choose a responsible tour operator that uses local resident guides and benefits the community (e.g., contributes part of profits to community-based projects). For example, in the Bwaise district of Kampala, Uganda, slum tours are used to benefit the local non-profit organization AFFCAD . The organization helps support clean water projects, local schools, and various health projects.

But there are a lot of other ways you might support the local community. You can also give direct monetary support via tips to your guides and any households you visit. You can support local businesses by buying handmade crafts and souvenirs, buying produce at the market, eating in a local eatery, and staying in local accommodation. You can support local charities and community projects by making donations.

If you are worried about giving money directly to an unknown charity or project, you might consider in-kind donations instead of cash. So you might want to donate useful and relevant goods to a local school, hospital, or community project. It is a good idea to do a bit of research first though to make sure you are able to give something that is both practical and needed.

For example, if you want to support a local school, you might consider donating some needed school supplies. This might include things like pencils, chalk, notebook paper, calculators, or solar lights.

15. Avoid Giving Money to Children

Most organizations and tour operators will advise you not to give money or candy to children who may ask or beg you for money during your tour. While many tourists give money to children with good intentions, the money often discourages the child from going to school.

As Nelson Mandela said in a speech in 1990: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Education is the best tool in fighting poverty and can help children grow up to have a better life. If children (or their families) learn that they can make money by begging, it can be difficult to get them to attend school.

If you are interested in helping local children, consider donating money or goods to a local school, children’s charity, or public hospital instead. For example, many families and schools are in need of school supplies, school uniforms, textbooks, shoes, hygiene items, and light sources (children in many informal settlements can’t read or study after dark because of a lack of reliable electricity).

16. Use the Visit as a Learning Opportunity

One of the main reasons people want to do a slum tour is to learn more about the people, the community, and the local culture. Be open to learning and listening to the tour guide and those who you encounter as part of the tour.

For many visitors, this is their first time seeing poverty up close. As someone who is financially privileged, you want to endeavor to use this as a chance to learn and try to understand rather than as just a chance to look at poverty.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions on the tour. Tour guides and residents you meet are generally very happy to answer any questions you may have. Just be sure to do so in a respectful way.

17. Leave Feedback

After the tour, we recommend leaving private feedback for the guide and tour company and a public review for future travelers. Things that can be particularly important to note is any issues around safety, if the tour was conducted in a responsible manner, and if the tour was as advertised.

If you feel that a tour you took could be improved (particularly in the issues of being more safe or responsible), it is good to give that feedback. It is also helpful to provide constructive advice that would be practical for the tour company to implement to encourage change.

Public reviews can help future travelers know more about the tour, the tour company, and your personal experience. This can help them decide if it is an appropriate tour for them or not.

So that is our overview of slum tourism and our proposed guidelines and tips on how to choose and take a slum tour in the most responsible way possible. We hope you have found it helpful.

What do you think about slum tourism? Do you think it can be done in a more responsible manner? Have you taken a slum tour? If so, we’d love to hear about your experience.

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There are 10 comments on this post.

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Daniel E. Post author

February 1, 2024 at 3:07 am

Informative blog on slum tourism and lots of cited research and personal experience, exactly what i was searching for, thanks so much!

Jessica & Laurence Norah Post author

February 1, 2024 at 12:41 pm

Glad your found our information on slum tourism and slum tours helpful, just let us know if you have any questions.

Wishing you safe and happy travels! Jessica

Ravi Post author

October 11, 2022 at 5:06 am

This article enlightened me with a very detailed explanation when searching for information about slum tourism for a research report. thanks for sharing.

October 12, 2022 at 3:00 pm

Glad you found our article on slum tourism helpful for your research. If you have any questions we might be able to help with, just ask!

Best, Jessica

Irene Post author

July 28, 2022 at 9:23 pm

Some great research and tips! What a very interesting history. I would like to pay a visit to slum in Rio in 2024. I’m excited to get to know more about their people, life, and culture.

July 31, 2022 at 12:19 am

Glad you enjoyed our responsible travel tips for visiting slum areas. I hope you enjoy your time in Rio in 2024.

Seana Turner Post author

July 12, 2022 at 7:13 am

Wow, I didn’t even know this was a thing. I love the respectful tone of this post. It is so important to check your heart and motives before embarking on a trip like this. I love the granular advice about using local currency and visiting on foot. No one wants to feel like their misfortune and struggles are someone else’s entertainment. I hope this type of tourism benefits those who need the world’s help. Thanks for posting on this topic!

July 12, 2022 at 8:00 am

Thanks for taking the time to comment, and glad you enjoyed reading the post. I like your comment of checking “your heart and motives”.

I started reading and writing about slum tourism several years ago and avoided taking any slum tours. But I decided to take one earlier this year while in Nairobi (Kibera) to better understand what the tours were like and how to do it in the most responsible way possible. It felt a bit weird to write about something I had never done.

One thing we noticed in Kibera is that it just lacks the infrastructure for large numbers of residents to benefit from tourism. There were very few things a tourist could buy or do unlike in some other slum areas where there are stalls selling local crafts and souvenirs, food markets, a museum talking about local history, places where people can eat, see a performance, or sleep. So it doesn’t appear to currently create much employment or benefit other than for tour guides and those directly involved in the tour itself. We were also the only tourists we saw there during our visit.

Tourism is such a major industry in so many countries and leaving areas like this completely out of being able to benefit from tourism seems wrong. But having tourists going just to gawk and take photos of poverty seems wrong as well. Each country and each community is different and the study in Cairo indicated that different approaches need to be taken in each community.

Individual travelers can only do so much, and ultimately changes need to come from the tour operators and local governments to ensure that offerings are as responsible and ethical as possible. But reviews, complaints, and changes in demand over time by travelers can help.

Marge D Post author

July 10, 2022 at 11:25 am

Some great research and tips as always, very interesting history. I actually did a slum tour, called a favella tour as you mention in Rio. When in Brazil, it was just part of full day walking tour we did. I have to admit I didn’t consider most of these issues or potential probelms and never heard the term slum tourism. But I do remember they asked us not to take photos. Back then, around 2002 or 2003, most people didn’t have cameras on their phones so I think that part was less of an issue. This definitely gives me some food for thought!!

I wonder if rural tours of poor villages and disaster tourism is sort of the same thing?

July 10, 2022 at 1:38 pm

Thanks for taking the time to comment and share your experience of the favela tour you did in Rio. I am glad you enjoyed the article.

Yes, I think that any kind of tour to more impoverished areas, whether rural villages or urban ones, can have very similar issues. Disaster tourism is a bit different but has many of the same potential issues of being voyeruristic and potentially exploiting vulnerable people. I know there has been discussion about the ethics of tours to areas devastated by recent floods or hurricanes (including after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans). All tourism can have negative effects. I think people just have to consider the potential harms of their travel decisions, make an informed decision, and try to minimize any harm.

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Bad buzz? Why 'slum tourism' is back in the spotlight on social media

This type of urban tourism essentially involves operators organizing guided tours of slums. debate is raging once again on twitter, about whether it's time to put an end to slum tours.

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Slumtourism.net

Home of the slum tourism research network, virtual tourism in rio’s favelas, welcome to lockdown stories.

Lockdown Stories emerged as a response to the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic has impacted communities all around the world and has brought unprecedented challenges. In the favelas of Rio de Janeiro this included the loss of income and visibility from tourism on which community tourism and heritage projects depend.  In that context, Lockdown Stories investigated how community tourism providers responded, and what support they needed to transform their projects in the new circumstances.  In these times of isolation, Lockdown Stores aims to create new digital connections between communities across the world by sharing ‘Lockdown Stories’ through online virtual tours.

We are inviting you to engage in this new virtual tourism platform and to virtually visit six favelas in Rio de Janeiro: Cantagalo, Chapéu Mangueira, Babilônia, Providência, Rocinha and Santa Marta.

The tours are free but booking is required. All live tours are in Portuguese with English translation provided.

Tours happen through November and December, every Tuesday at 7 pm (UK) / 4 pm (Brazil) Please visit  lockdownstories.travel   where you can find out more about the project.

This research project is based on collaboration between the University of Leicester, the University of Rio de Janeiro and Bournemouth University and is funded by the University of Leicester QR Global Challenges with Research Fund (Research England).

Touristification Impossible

Call for Papers – Research Workshop

Touristification Impossible:

Tourism development, over-tourism and anti-tourism sentiments in context.

4 th and 5 th June 2019, Leicester UK

TAPAM – Tourism and Placemaking Research Unit – University of Leicester School of Business

Keynotes by Scott McCabe, Johannes Novy, Jillian Rickly and Julie Wilson

Touristification is a curious phenomenon, feared and desired in almost equal measure by policy makers, businesses and cultural producers, residents, social movements and last but not least, tourists themselves. Much current reflection on over-tourism, particularly urban tourism in Europe, where tourism is experienced as an impossible burden on residents and cities, repeats older debates: tourism can be a blessing or blight, it brings economic benefits but costs in almost all other areas. Anti-tourism social movements, residents and some tourists declare ‘touristification impossible’, asking tourists to stay away or pushing policy makers to use their powers to stop it. Such movements have become evident in the last 10 years in cities like Barcelona and Athens and there is a growing reaction against overtourism in several metropolitan cities internationally.

This workshop sets out to re-consider (the impossibility of) touristification. Frequently, it is understood simplistically as a process in which a place, city, region, landscape, heritage or experience becomes an object of tourist consumption.  This, of course, assumes an implicit or explicit transformation of a resource into a commodity and carries an inherent notion of decline of value, from ‘authentic’ in its original state to ‘commodified’ after touristification. In other words, touristification is often seen as a process of ‘selling out’. But a change of perspective reveals the complexities involved. While some may hope to make touristification possible, it is sometimes actually very difficult and seemingly impossible: When places are unattractive, repulsive, controversial, difficult and contested, how do they become tourist attractions? Arguably in such cases value is added rather than lost in the process of touristification. These situations require a rethink not just of the meaning of touristification, but the underlying processes in which it occurs. How do places become touristically attractive, how is attractiveness maintained and how is it lost? Which actors initiate, guide and manipulate the process of touristification and what resources are mobilised?

The aim of this two-day workshop is to provide an opportunity to challenge the simplistic and biased understanding of tourism as a force of good and touristification as desirable, so common among destination marketing consulting and mainstream scholarly literature. But it will equally question a simplistic but frequent criticism of touristification as ‘sell-out’ and ‘loss of authenticity’.

We invite scholars, researchers, practitioners and PhD students to submit conceptual and/or empirical work on this important theme. We welcome submissions around all aspects and manifestations of touristification (social, economic, spatial, environmental etc.) and, particularly, explorations of anti-tourism protests and the effects of over-tourism. The workshop is open to all theoretical and methodological approaches. We are delighted to confirm keynote presentations by Scott McCabe, Jillian Rickly, Johannes Novy and Julie Wilson.

The workshop is organised by the Tourism and Placemaking Research Unit (TAPAM) of the School of Business and builds on our first research workshop last year on ‘Troubled Attractions’, which brought together over 30 academics from the UK and beyond.

The workshop format

The research workshop will take place in the University of Leicester School of Business. It will combine invited presentations by established experts with panel discussions and research papers. Participants will have the chance to network and socialize during a social event in the evening of Tuesday 4 th June. There is small fee of £20 for participation. Registration includes workshop materials; lunch on 4 th and 5 th June 2019 and social event on 4 th June.

Guidelines for submissions

We invite submissions of abstracts (about 500 words) by 31 st April 2019 . Abstracts should be sent by email to: Fatos Ozkan Erciyas ( foe2 (at) le.ac.uk ).

Digital Technology, Tourism and Geographies of Inequality at AAG April 2019 in DC

Digital technology, tourism and geographies of inequality.

Tourism is undergoing major changes in the advent of social media networks and other forms of digital technology. This has affected a number of tourism related processes including marketing, destination making, travel experiences and visitor feedback but also various tourism subsectors, like hospitality, transportation and tour operators. Largely overlooked, however, are the effects of these changes on questions concerning inequality. Therefore, the aim of this session is to chart this relatively unexplored territory concerning the influence of technologically enhanced travel and tourism on development and inequality.

In the wake of the digital revolution and its emerging possibilities, early debates in tourism studies have been dominated by a belief that new technologies are able to overcome or at least reduce inequality. These technologies, arguably, have emancipatory potential, inter alia, by increasing the visibility of neglected groups, neighborhoods or areas, by lowering barriers of entry into tourism service provision for low-income groups or by democratizing the designation what is considered valuable heritage. They also, however, may have homogenizing effects, for example by subjecting formerly excluded spaces to global regimes of real estate speculation or by undermining existing labour market regimes and standards in the transport and hospitality industries. These latter effects have played a part in triggering anti-tourism protests in a range of cities across the world.

In this session we aim, specifically, to interrogate these phenomena along two vectors: mobility and inequality.

Sponsor Groups : Recreation, Tourism, and Sport Specialty Group, Digital Geographies Specialty Group, Media and Communication Geography Specialty Group Day: 03.04.2019 Start / End Time: 12:40 / 16:15 Room: Calvert Room, Omni, Lobby Level

All abstracts here:

New Paper: Tourist agency as valorisation: Making Dharavi into a tourist attraction

The full paper is available for free download until mid September 2017

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016073831730110X

Tourist agency is an area of renewed interest in tourism studies. Reflecting on existing scholarship the paper identifies, develops and critically examines three main approaches to tourism agency, namely the Service-dominant logic, the performative turn, and tourist valorisation. Tourist valorisation is proposed as a useful approach to theorise the role of tourists in the making of destinations and more broadly to conceptualise the intentions, modalities and outcomes of tourist agency. The paper contributes to the structuring of current scholarship on tourist agency. Empirically it addresses a knowledge gap concerning the role of tourists in the development of Dharavi, Mumbai into a tourist destination.

Touristified everyday life – mundane tourism

Touristified everyday life – mundane tourism: Current perspectives on urban tourism (Berlin 11/12 May 2017) conference program announced / call for registration

Tourism and other forms of mobility have a stronger influence on the urban everyday life than ever before. Current debates indicate that this development inevitably entails conflicts between the various city users. The diverse discussions basically evolve around the intermingling of two categories traditionally treated as opposing in scientific research: ‘the everyday’ and ‘tourism’. The international conference Touristified everyday life – mundane tourism: Current perspectives on urban tourism addresses the complex and changing entanglement of the city, the everyday and tourism. It is organized by the Urban Research Group ‘New Urban Tourism’ and will be held at the Georg Simmel-Center for Metropolitan Studies in Berlin. May 11, 2017, 4:15 – 5:00pm KEYNOTE – Prof. Dr. Jonas Larsen (Roskilde University): ‚Tourism and the Everyday Practices‘ (KOSMOS-dialog series, admission is free).

May 12, 2017, 9:00am – 6:00pm PANELS – The Extraordinary Mundane, Encounters & Contact Zones, Urban (Tourism) Development (registration required).

See full conference program HERE (pdf)

REGISTRATION

If you are interested in the panels you need to register. An attendance fee of 40 € will be charged to cover the expenses for the event. For students, trainees, unemployed, and the handicapped there is a reduced fee of 20 €.

For registration please fill out the registration form (pdf) and send it back until April 20, 2017 to:

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Georg-Simmel-Zentrum für Metropolenforschung Urban Research Group ’New Urban Tourism’ Natalie Stors & Christoph Sommer Unter den Linden 6 10099 Berlin You can also send us the form by email.

https://newurbantourism.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/conference-program.pdf

AAG Boston Programm

The slum tourism network presents two sessions at the Association of American Geographer Annual Meeting in Boston on Friday 7 April 2017 :

3230 The complex geographies of inequality in contemporary slum tourism

is scheduled on Friday, 4/7/2017, from 10:00 AM – 11:40 AM in Room 310, Hynes, Third Level

3419 The complex geographies of inequality in contemporary slum tourism

is scheduled on Friday, 4/7/2017, from 1:20 PM – 3:00 PM in Room 210, Hynes, Second Level

Stigma to Brand Conference Programme announced

From Stigma to Brand: Commodifying and Aestheticizing Urban Poverty and Violence

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, February 16-18, 2017

The preliminary programme has now been published and can be downloaded  here .

For attendance, please register at stigma2brand (at) ethnologie.lmu.d e

Posters presenting on-going research projects related to the conference theme are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Eveline Dürr (LMU Munich, Germany) Prof. Dr. Rivke Jaffe (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Prof. Dr. Gareth Jones (London School of Economics and Politics, UK)

This conference investigates the motives, processes and effects of the commodification and global representation of urban poverty and violence. Cities have often hidden from view those urban areas and populations stigmatized as poor, dirty and dangerous. However, a growing range of actors actively seek to highlight the existence and appeal of “ghettos”, “slums” and “no-go areas”, in attempts to attract visitors, investors, cultural producers, media and civil society organisations. In cities across the world, processes of place-making and place-marketing increasingly resignify urban poverty and violence to indicate authenticity and creativity. From “slum tourism” to “favela chic” parties and “ghetto fabulous” fashion, these economic and representational practices often approach urban deprivation as a viable brand rather than a mark of shame.

The conference explores how urban misery is transformed into a consumable product. It seeks to understand how the commodification and aestheticization of violent, impoverished urban spaces and their residents affects urban imaginaries, the built environment, local economies and social relations.

What are the consequences for cities and their residents when poverty and violence are turned into fashionable consumer experiences? How is urban space transformed by these processes and how are social relationships reconfigured in these encounters? Who actually benefits when social inequality becomes part of the city’s spatial perception and place promotion? We welcome papers from a range of disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, geography, sociology, and urban studies.

Key note speakers:

• Lisa Ann Richey (Roskilde University)
• Kevin Fox Gotham (Tulane University)

Touring Katutura – New Publication on township tourism in Namibia

A new study on township tourism in Namibia has been published by a team of researchers from Osnabrück University including Malte Steinbrink, Michael Buning, Martin Legant, Berenike Schauwinhold and Tore Süßenguth.

Guided sightseeing tours of the former township of Katutura have been offered in Windhoek since the mid-1990s. City tourism in the Namibian capital had thus become, at quite an early point in time, part of the trend towards utilising poor urban areas for purposes of tourism – a trend that set in at the beginning of the same decade. Frequently referred to as “slum tourism” or “poverty tourism”, the phenomenon of guided tours around places of poverty has not only been causing some media sensation and much public outrage since its emergence; in the past few years, it has developed into a vital field of scientific research, too. “Global Slumming” provides the grounds for a rethinking of the relationship between poverty and tourism in world society. This book is the outcome of a study project of the Institute of Geography at the School of Cultural Studies and Social Science of the University of Osnabrueck, Germany. It represents the first empirical case study on township tourism in Namibia.

It focuses on four aspects: 1. Emergence, development and (market) structure of township tourism in Windhoek 2. Expectations/imaginations, representations as well as perceptions of the township and its inhabitants from the tourist’s perspective 3. Perception and assessment of township tourism from the residents’ perspective 4. Local economic effects and the poverty-alleviating impact of township tourism The aim is to make an empirical contribution to the discussion around the tourism-poverty nexus and to an understanding of the global phenomenon of urban poverty tourism.

Free download of the study from here:

https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/9591

CfP Touristified everyday life – mundane tourism : Current perspectives on urban tourism

Touristified everyday life – mundane tourism : Current perspectives on urban tourism

11 and 12 of May 2017 in Berlin

Deadline for proposals: 1st December 2016

Find the f ull call here

Touristifizierter Alltag – Alltäglicher Tourismus: Neue Perspektiven auf das Stadttouristische

CfP AAG 2017

Cfp association of american geographers, boston 5th to 9th april 2017, the complex geographies of inequality in contemporary slum tourism.

The visitation of areas of urban poverty is a growing phenomenon in global tourism (Burgold & Rolfes, 2013; Dürr & Jaffe, 2012; Freire-Medeiros, 2013; Frenzel, Koens, Steinbrink, & Rogerson, 2015). While it can be considered a standard tourism practise in some destinations, it remains a deeply controversial form of tourism that is greeted with much suspicion and scepticism (Freire-Medeiros, 2009). In the emerging research field of slum tourism, the practices are no longer only seen as a specific niche of tourism, but as empirical phenomena that bridge a number of interdisciplinary concerns, ranging from international development, political activism, mobility studies to urban regeneration (Frenzel, 2016).

Slum tourism is sometimes cast as a laboratory where the relationships and interactions between the global North and South appear as micro-sociological encounters framed by the apparent concern over inequality. Beyond questioning the ways in which participants shape the encounters in slum tourism, structural implications and conditions come to the fore. Thus spatial inequality influences opportunities and hinders governance solutions to manage slum tourism operations (Koens and Thomas, 2016). Slum tourism is found to be embedded into post-colonial patterns of discourse, in which ‘North’ and ‘South’ are specifically reproduced in practices of ‘Othering’ (Steinbrink, 2012) . Evidence has been found for the use of slum tourism in urban development (Frenzel, 2014; Steinbrink, 2014) and more widely in the commodification of global care and humanitarian regimes (Becklake, 2014; Holst, 2015). Research has also pointed to the ethical implications of aestheticizing poverty in humanitarian aid performances and the troubles of on-the-ground political engagement in a seemingly post-ideological era (Holst 2016).

More recently a geographical shift has been observed regarding the occurrence of slum tourism. No longer a phenomenon restricted to the Global South, slum tourism now appears increasingly in the global North. Refugee camps such as Calais in the north of France have received high numbers of visitors who engage in charitable action and political interventions. Homeless tent cities have become the subject of a concerned tourist gaze in the several cities of the global north (Burgold, 2014). A broad range of stigmatised neighbourhoods in cities of the global North today show up on tourist maps as visitors venture to ‘off the beaten track’ areas. The resurfacing of slum tourism to the global North furthers reinforces the need to get a deeper, critical understanding of this global phenomena.

Mobility patterns of slum tourists also destabilise notions of what it means to be a tourist, as migrants from the Global North increasingly enter areas of urban poverty in the South beyond temporal leisurely visits, but as low level entry points into cities they intent to make their (temporal) home. Such new phenomena destabilise strict post-colonial framings of slum tourism, pointing to highly complex geographies of inequality.

In this session we aim to bring together research that casts the recent developments in slum tourism research. We aim specifically in advancing geographical research while retaining a broad interdisciplinary outlook.

Please sent your abstract or expressions of interest of now more than 300 words to Tore E.H.M Holst ( tehh (at) ruc.dk ) and Thomas Frisch ( Thomas.Frisch (at) wiso.uni-hamburg.de ) by October 15 th 2016

Becklake, S. (2014). NGOs and the making of “development tourism destinations.” Zeitschrift Für Tourismuswissenschaft , 6 (2), 223–243.

Burgold, J. (2014). Slumming in the Global North. Zeitschrift Für Tourismuswissenschaft , 6 (2), 273–280.

Burgold, J., & Rolfes, M. (2013). Of voyeuristic safari tours and responsible tourism with educational value: Observing moral communication in slum and township tourism in Cape Town and Mumbai. DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin , 144 (2), 161–174.

Dürr, E., & Jaffe, R. (2012). Theorizing Slum Tourism: Performing, Negotiating and Transforming Inequality. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos Y Del Caribe , 0 (93), 113–123

Freire-Medeiros, B. (2009). The favela and its touristic transits. Geoforum , 40 (4), 580–588.

Freire-Medeiros, B. (2013). Touring Poverty . New York N.Y.: Routledge.

Frenzel, F. (2014). Slum Tourism and Urban Regeneration: Touring Inner Johannesburg. Urban Forum , 25 (4), 431–447.

Frenzel, F. (2016). Slumming it: the tourist valorization of urban poverty . London: Zed Books.

Frenzel, F., Koens, K., Steinbrink, M., & Rogerson, C. M. (2015). Slum Tourism State of the Art. Tourism Review International , 18 (2), 237–252.

Holst, T. (2015). Touring the Demolished Slum? Slum Tourism in the Face of Delhi’s Gentrification. Tourism Review International , 18 (4), 283–294.

Steinbrink, M. (2012). We did the slum! Reflections on Urban Poverty Tourism from a Historical Perspective. Tourism Geographies , 14 (2), forthcoming.

Steinbrink, M. (2014). Festifavelisation: mega-events, slums and strategic city-staging – the example of Rio de Janeiro. DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin , 144 (2), 129–145.

The dark side of Medellín’s sex tourism: Child prostitutes and depraved men

Mayor federico gutiérrez banned prostitution in tourist areas after an american was caught with two young girls in a hotel room.

Yenifer is standing with five other girls on a corner in the San Diego neighborhood, a 15-minute walk from Medellín and Mayor Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez’s office in City Hall. They all have tattoos, show a lot of skin, and look like teenagers. In fact, they’re all minors who have been forced into prostitution. Yenifer insists that’s her name, but it’s clearly a lie. She also claims to be 15 years old, which does seem true because she has the body and face of a child. She seems nervous and giggles a little, revealing blue braces on her teeth. She’s wearing a purple miniskirt and matching tube top that don’t cover the butterfly tattoo on her hip. Yenifer says she started at 9 p.m. and will be “working” until 4. a.m. It’s now 9.30 p.m. and raining. It’s going to be a long night.

Yenifer lowers her gaze and says she started doing this about two months ago “because of some problems.” Her friends almost look like regular teenagers, standing around and playing with their phones. Yenifer says she doesn’t have a pimp and services three or four clients a night, mostly Colombians. A half-hour with Yenifer costs about $26 dollars, the going rate in San Diego. She charges the occasional foreigners triple.

“What happens when they ask how old you are?”

“Depends on what they want.”

The girls’ corner is surrounded by parked trucks, shuttered workshops and dimly lit streets. They are among 50 or so sex workers in the neighborhood. About 10 are in their 20s, a few are between 30 and 40, and one seems to be over 50. However, most — over 30 girls — seem even younger than Yenifer. They are thin, petite and not fully developed. Last year, over 320 cases of child sexual exploitation were reported in Medellín by the Valientes Colombia NGO. Tonight in San Diego, there are at least 30 more cases that could be added to that list.

There are few people selling coffee nearby and some homeless people, but no police in sight. EL PAÍS circled the neighborhood in a taxi for about an hour and half and only saw one motorcycle with two cops pass by. They don’t stop and ask for IDs or talk to anyone. The police just don’t seem interested. “It happens every night. They just look at us and leave,” said Yenifer and her friends.

Rush hour hits San Diego around 11 p.m. As more cars pull up, the girls gradually disappear from the streets. We’re parked nearby taking in the scene when our taxi driver decides to make a confession. “I’ve been here twice with some Americans who picked up some really young girls, like 11 or 12 years old. I dropped them off at an Airbnb.”

The taxi driver’s story sounds much like the scandal that has roiled Medellín for over a week now. On March 28, a 36-year-old American named Timothy Alan Livingston was caught by the police with two underage girls in a hotel in the El Poblado neighborhood . Livingston was released two days later because he hadn’t been caught in the act, and immediately boarded a plane to Florida. A video circulating on social media shows the two girls handling money in the hotel elevator. On April 5, a Colombian judge issued an arrest warrant for Livingston and local prosecutors have asked the National Police to approach Interpol for an international arrest warrant.

The case sparked fury throughout Colombia, prompting Mayor Gutiérrez to take action. Nicknamed “The Sheriff,” the tough-on-crime mayor signed two decrees on April 1 banning “sexual services” in El Poblado, a popular tourist area. Although prostitution is legal in Colombia, Gutiérrez says human trafficking, drug trafficking and child exploitation is out of control in Parque Lleras, a gated area with nightclubs and restaurants catering to tourists. He also ordered all bars in Parque Lleras to close three hours earlier than usual for the next month.

On the night the ban was announced, Alexa Gómez stood on 10th Street in El Poblado, a block from Parque Lleras. She’s in a skimpy black dress, surrounded by women dressed much the same. After less than five minutes of small talk, Alexa reveals her business: “I manage the girls, dear.”

Alexa sits outside a bar in rainy El Poblado under a large yellow umbrella. Sipping a beer, she begins to open up. “You know how tough it is trying to sell your body? And how awful it is to be with guys you don’t even like?” Alexa has straight dark hair, piercing black eyes, thick lips, a slim body, and a tattoo on her right hand that says “Billion.”

Alexa has had a tough life. She was born in Manizales (western Colombia) and raised in Medellín’s Villa Hermosa neighborhood. It’s a working-class, downtown neighborhood, but not a slum. “I come from the dark side, from a humble family,” she said. Alexa manages a group of 40 prostitutes and services clients herself three times a week. To bear it all, she has to use drugs. Alexa says “tusi” — pink cocaine — works best for her. “It makes you happy, and everyone likes a smile,” she said. She also uses regular cocaine when she’s very tired. “My whole life, I’ve been on my own. My mom died when I was very young. I have four brothers, but I don’t talk to them. They’re involved in illegal stuff.”

“But you’re also a pimp.”

“Yeah, but I don’t like that word. I prefer being called a dealer.”

“What does being a dealer involve?”

“Well, I’ll tell you.”

Nine out of 10 clients are foreigners she meets in nightclubs, mainly in Parque Lleras. She approaches them and introduces herself. “I always start by building a rapport. I want it to be more than just business, you know?” Once they feel comfortable, she asks if they are looking for a girl. Alexa offers all her other prostitutes before offering herself. “If six of my girls are with guys, I make the same money as if I did it myself.” She claims to make around $4,000 a month, with her girls charging $120 an hour. The prostitute keeps $100 and Alexa keeps $20. For that price, they can have “oral and regular sex, but always with protection.” Once a client is hooked, the next step is to choose a girl, or several girls.

“How do they choose a girl?”

“I’ll show you.”

Alexa takes out her phone and opens a WhatsApp group called “Bichotas,” a tribute to Karol G , their favorite Colombian singer. “Who’s available tonight?” she asks the group. The girls reply almost instantly and at least six say “Me.” Alexa types “photos” and her phone quickly lights up with notifications. The girls send selfies, some very explicit. Alexa turns to me and starts asking questions.

“How do you like it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Physically, what do you like?”

“I don’t know...”

”What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’ve never done this before.”

Alexa opens messages from a girl named María and shows me several photos of María in a bathroom, a pool hall and next to a swimming pool. “If you were a client, you could be with her tonight. But you have to do a couple of things first.”

Alexa explains that all clients need to provide their full name and the address of the hotel where they’re staying. They have to pay in advance, including transportation for the girl. Once that’s settled, Alexa picks up the girl and drops her off to meet the client. She calls an hour later and if they’re done, she picks up the girl. If not, Alexa gets payment from the client for more time.

This mostly online service is safer for both clients and sex workers, says Alexa. But other online services for Medellín’s tourists have run into trouble recently: several have died or disappeared from Airbnb rentals. Once mostly known as Pablo Escobar ’s hometown and one of the world’s most dangerous cities, Medellín has become an appealing destination for international travelers. It’s now known for its innovation, beauty and festivities, which has had both positive and negative impacts, including sex tourism.

In January, the U.S. Embassy in Colombia issued a warning about using dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and Grindr in Medellín after eight American men died there in two months under strange circumstances. While there was no evidence linking the cases, one common factor emerged: many had met their dates via dating apps. “Numerous U.S. citizens in Colombia have been drugged, robbed, and even killed by their Colombian dates,” said the embassy alert . Alexa claims her girls are law-abiding, honest and hardworking people who don’t do any of that. Several women have also been killed in Medellín by foreign men.

“What are your clients like?”

“Mostly drunk and shy. They come looking for things they can’t get at home.”

“Are most of them divorced?”

“Sweetie, most of them are married,” she laughs.

In Parque Lleras, Alexa meets Bob, a potential client. Bob is 78 years old and looks like a gringo: white beard, short hair, a stained black T-shirt covering a big belly. His nose is runny from something he might have snorted.

“There’s no place in the world like this,” he said in English.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, just look around.”

Bare, tattooed legs everywhere. About 200 women are sheltering from the rain under awnings in what very much looks like an open-air brothel. Girls in sheer tops and ultra-short skirts puff on cigarettes and snort “tusi” from lipstick holders. It’s a sea of bare skin through which a few foreigners slowly swim. They awkwardly try to talk to the girls in broken Spanish. “I like,” one blurts out, pointing at a woman’s rear end. Another guy holds hands with a girl, giving her lustful glances. They soon disappear together. Bob is watching the show with three Venezuelan women who say they’re not escorts but “companions.” They stroke his thigh, trying to talk him into another night — the second in six days. Bob resists, saying he likes variety.

Bob says he has been traveling the world for years. Paying for sex is nothing new to him, and yet he says Parque Lleras is a special place. “There’s this rare level of freedom here. You can just do whatever you feel like.” It’s 11 p.m. on a Monday night. In two hours, prostitution will be banned in this area, but Bob is unfazed and says it’s good for tourists like him. “There’ll be better control over the girls and less risk of getting robbed. Plus, we can still get girls.” As Bob talks, a young Venezuelan in her twenties named Yuliet strokes his cheek. She says she’s been working as a “companion” for two years.

“What did you do before that?”

“Beg on the streets.”

For two hours, Bob sits with Yuliet and her two friends. They drink beer, smoke cigarettes and use Google Translate to communicate. A girl in a Chicago Bulls T-shirt at the next table strokes a bald guy’s head. He’s with two other men over 60 who don’t speak Spanish and certainly don’t talk to the media. “We’re on vacation. No questions, please, we just want to have a good time.” At 12.50 a.m. the police — here, there are police — arrive to clear everyone out with sirens wailing. There’s a mass exodus towards the 10th Street exit as the girls rush to catch a foreigner — they can’t afford to go a night without work. Yuliet sticks close to Bob, but he doesn’t want her. Bob points to two other girls and says “hotel” in English. No work for Yuliet tonight.

Two nights later, Parque Lleras looks very different. Sexual services are now banned there, but the area is filled with large yellow signs protesting the mayor’s decree. The signs say: “We don’t support the sexual exploitation of children. No to decree 0247 [the mayor’s ban]. 5,000 families are now jobless.” Local business owners support the sex workers and argue the decree will cost them a lot of money. Alexa tells us many of them are also “johns” (clients).

Despite the ban, about 70 women are still hanging around the park hoping to hook up with 20 or so foreigners. They exchange numbers, drink beer in bars, hold hands, and leave walking together. City officials and cops monitor the scene, stopping tourists to explain the new decree. But they just check the girls’ IDs at the entrance and let them go about their business.

“Excuse me, officer. Hasn’t prostitution been banned here since Monday?”

“Yeah, but we can’t prove they’re actually engaging in it.”

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More information

Medellín declares war on sex tourism after US citizen found with two little girls at a hotel

US Embassy warns citizens not to use Tinder or Grindr in Medellín after suspicious deaths of eight tourists

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• Fico Gutiérrez
• Pablo Escobar

Watch CBS News

Solar eclipse maps show 2024 totality path, peak times and how much of the eclipse you can see across the U.S.

By Aliza Chasan

Updated on: April 7, 2024 / 7:29 PM EDT / CBS News

A total solar eclipse crosses North America on April 8, 2024, with parts of 15 U.S. states within the path of totality. Maps show where and when astronomy fans can see the big event . 

The total eclipse will first appear along Mexico's Pacific Coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT, then travel across a swath of the U.S., from Texas to Maine, and into Canada.

About 31.6 million people live in the path of totality , the area where the moon will fully block out the sun , according to NASA. The path will range between 108 and 122 miles wide. An additional 150 million people live within 200 miles of the path of totality.

Solar eclipse path of totality map for 2024

The total solar eclipse will start over the Pacific Ocean, and the first location in continental North America that will experience totality is Mexico's Pacific Coast, around 11:07 a.m. PDT on April 8, according to NASA. From there, the path will continue into Texas, crossing more than a dozen states before the eclipse enters Canada in southern Ontario. The eclipse will exit continental North America around 5:16 p.m. NDT from Newfoundland, Canada.

The path of totality includes the following states:

• Pennsylvania
• New Hampshire

Small parts of Tennessee and Michigan will also experience the total solar eclipse.

Several major cities across the U.S. are included in the eclipse's path of totality, while many others will see a partial eclipse. Here are some of the best major cities for eclipse viewing — if the weather cooperates :

• San Antonio, Texas (partially under the path)
• Austin, Texas
• Waco, Texas
• Dallas, Texas
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Dayton, Ohio
• Cleveland, Ohio
• Buffalo, New York
• Rochester, New York
• Syracuse, New York
• Burlington, Vermont

Map of when the solar eclipse will reach totality across the path

The eclipse will begin in the U.S. on the afternoon of April 8. It will first be visible as a partial eclipse beginning at 12:06 p.m. CDT near Eagle Pass, Texas, before progressing to totality by about 1:27 p.m. CDT and progressing along its path to the northeast over the next few hours.

NASA shared times for several cities in the path of totality across the U.S. You can also  check your ZIP code on NASA's map  to see when the eclipse will reach you if you're on, or near, the path of totality. 

How much of the eclipse will you see if you live outside of the totality path?

While the April 8 eclipse will cover a wide swath of the U.S., outside the path of totality observers may spot a partial eclipse, where the moon covers some, but not all, of the sun, according to NASA. The closer you are to the path of totality, the larger the portion of the sun that will be hidden.

NASA allows viewers to input a ZIP code and see how much of the sun will be covered in their location.

Could there be cloud cover be during the solar eclipse?

Some areas along the path of totality have a higher likelihood of cloud cover that could interfere with viewing the eclipse. Here is a map showing the historical trends in cloud cover this time of year. 

You can check the latest forecast for your location with our partners at The Weather Channel .

Where will the solar eclipse reach totality for the longest?

Eclipse viewers near Torreón, Mexico, will get to experience totality for the longest. Totality there will last 4 minutes, 28 seconds, according to NASA. 

Most places along the centerline of the path of totality will see a totality duration between 3.5 and 4 minutes long, according to NASA. Some places in the U.S. come close to the maximum; Kerrville, Texas, will have a totality duration of 4 minutes, 24 seconds.

What is the path of totality for the 2044 solar eclipse?

After the April 8 eclipse, the next total solar eclipse that will be visible from the contiguous U.S. will be on Aug. 23, 2044.

Astronomy fans in the U.S. will have far fewer opportunities to see the 2044 eclipse than the upcoming one on April 8. NASA has not yet made maps available for the 2044 eclipse, but, according to The Planetary Society , the path of totality will only touch three states.

The 2024 eclipse will start in Greenland, pass over Canada and end as the sun sets in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to the Planetary Society.

Aliza Chasan is a digital producer at 60 Minutes and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.

More from CBS News

See the list of notable total solar eclipses in the U.S. since 1778

Why do total solar eclipses happen? Learn what causes the celestial show

When was the last total solar eclipse in the U.S.? Revisiting 2017

How to make pinhole cameras to watch the 2024 solar eclipse safely

Your last-minute guide to Monday's total solar eclipse

A total solar eclipse will cross North America on Monday , offering millions a rare opportunity to see afternoon skies temporarily darken as the moon blocks the face of the sun.

Tune into NBC News NOW as Lester Holt hosts a two-hour special at 2 p.m. ET Monday from Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The eclipse's path fortuitously cuts across Mexico, 15 U.S. states and a small part of eastern Canada. In all other states in the continental U.S., viewers will be treated to a partial solar eclipse, with the moon appearing to take a bite out of the sun and obscuring part of its light.

Here’s everything you need to know about the rare celestial event.

What is a solar eclipse?

Solar eclipses occur when the sun, moon and Earth align. The moon passes between Earth and sun, temporarily blocking the sun’s light and casting a shadow on Earth.

A total solar eclipse is when the moon fully obscures the sun, whereas a partial solar eclipse means it blocks just a portion of the sun’s face.

Solar eclipses occur only with the new moon. Because the moon’s orbit around Earth is tilted, the three bodies don’t always line up in a way that creates an eclipse.

“Imagine if the moon’s orbit were in the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun — if that were the case, then every new moon, you’d have a total solar eclipse and every full moon, you’d have a lunar eclipse,” Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, told NBC News. “So, because things don’t always align, it lends to the rarity of the event and the specialness of the event.”

Where and when will the eclipse be visible?

This year’s eclipse will follow a slightly wider path over more populated areas of the continental U.S. than other total solar eclipses have in the recent past.

NASA estimates that 31.6 million people live within what’s known as the path of totality, where the total solar eclipse will be visible. An additional 150 million people live within 200 miles of the path, according to the agency.

The path travels through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Tiny parts of Michigan and Tennessee will also be able to witness totality if conditions are clear.

After the eclipse crosses into Canada, it will pass over southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia.

Those outside the path of totality can still take part in the astronomical event by viewing a partial solar eclipse — visible throughout all 48 states of the contiguous U.S. — or a NASA livestream.

The timing, including how long totality lasts, depends on the location, but some spots will see the moon fully cover the sun for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds.

Below is a list of timings for some cities along the path of totality, as  provided by NASA . A number of other resources, including NationalEclipse.com  and  TimeandDate.com , can also help people plan.

• Dallas: Partial eclipse begins at 12:23 p.m. CT and totality at 1:40 p.m.
• Little Rock, Arkansas: Partial eclipse begins at 12:33 p.m. CT and totality at 1:51 p.m.
• Cleveland: Partial eclipse begins at 1:59 p.m. ET and totality at 3:13 p.m.
• Buffalo, New York: Partial eclipse begins at 2:04 p.m. ET and totality at 3:18 p.m.
• Lancaster, New Hampshire: Partial eclipse begins at 2:16 p.m. ET and totality at 3:27 p.m.

How to safely view a solar eclipse

It is never safe to gaze directly at the sun, even when it is partly or mostly covered by the moon. Special eclipse glasses or  pinhole projectors  are required to safely view solar eclipses and prevent eye damage. Failing to take the proper precautions can result in severe eye injury,  according to NASA .

Eclipse glasses are thousands of times darker than normal sunglasses and specially made to enable wearers to look at the sun during these kinds of celestial events.

Sky-watchers should also never view any part of the sun through binoculars, telescopes or camera lenses unless they have specific solar filters attached. Eclipse glasses should not be used with these devices, as they will not provide adequate protection.

However, during the few minutes of totality, when the moon is fully blocking the sun, it is safe to look with the naked eye.

Beware of fake eclipse glasses. On legitimate pairs, the lenses should have a silver appearance on the front and be black on the inside. The manufacturer’s name and address should be clearly labeled, and they should not be torn or punctured. Check, as well, for the ISO logo and the code “IS 12312-2” printed on the inside.

If you don’t have eclipse glasses, you can make a homemade pinhole projector, which lets sunlight in through a small hole, focuses it and projects it onto a piece of paper, wall or other surface to create an image of the sun that is safe to look at. 

All you need is two pieces of white cardboard or plain white paper, aluminum foil and a pin or thumbtack. Cut a 1- to 2-inch square or rectangle out of the center of a piece of white paper or cardboard. Tape aluminum foil over that cut-out shape, then use a pin or thumbtack to poke a tiny hole in the foil.

During the eclipse, place a second piece of white paper or cardboard on the ground as a screen and hold the projector with the foil facing up and your back to the sun. Adjusting how far you hold the projector from the second piece of paper will alter the size of the image on the makeshift screen.

What to look for while viewing the total solar eclipse

For people along the path of totality, there are some fun milestones to keep track of as the total solar eclipse unfolds.

As the eclipse progresses and the sun gets thinner in the sky, it will start to get eerily dark, according to Tyson.

When the last beams of sunlight are about to become obscured, look out for the “diamond ring effect”: The sun’s atmosphere will appear as an illuminated halo, and the last light still visible will look like the diamond of a giant ring.

As the sunlight decreases even further, an effect known as Baily’s beads will be created by the moon’s rugged terrain. Tiny “beads” of light will be visible for only a few seconds around the dark moon, as the last bits of sunlight peer through the moon’s mountains and valleys.

When the moon is fully blocking the sun, it is safe to remove eclipse glasses and look at the total solar eclipse with the naked eye.

Some lucky sky-watchers may even catch a glimpse of a comet .

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks — nicknamed the “ devil comet ” because an eruption last year left it with two distinct trails of gas and ice in the shape of devil horns — is currently visible from the Northern Hemisphere as it swings through the inner solar system.

The comet can be seen in the early evenings by gazing toward the west-northwest horizon. During the eclipse, when skies darken during totality, it may be possible to see the comet near Jupiter, but its visibility will depend on whether it’s in the middle of an outburst and thus brighter than normal.

Most likely, all eyes will be on the alignment of the moon and sun.

“Most people won’t even notice,” Tyson said. “But if you know to look, it’s there.”

When is the next solar eclipse?

The next total solar eclipse will be in 2026, but it will mostly pass over the Arctic Ocean, with some visibility in Greenland, Iceland, Portugal and northern Spain. In 2027, a total solar eclipse will be visible in Spain and a swath of northern Africa.

The next total solar eclipse visible from North America will be in 2033, but only over Alaska. Then in 2044, a total solar eclipse will cross Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, parts of Canada and Greenland.

The next total solar eclipse to cross the continental U.S. coast-to-coast in will occur in 2045. The path of totality for that eclipse will cut through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

Lucas Thompson is a content producer for the NBC News Climate Unit.