As Rao (1999) explained the rate of tourists coming for sex tourism is well above the international average and likely to grow, particularly child sex tourism, although data are not explicit on the numbers involved in the sex tourism trade.
There is a big silence about the trafficking in women and young girls from Burma and Yunan to Thailand, from Nepal and the north-east of India to Mumbai and Calcutta, to Japan and Europe as dancers, entertainers, and sex workers.
As Hughes (2003) believed the trafficking of women and children is based on supply and demand between sending and receiving countries. Countries with legal or tolerated prostitution create the demand and are the receiving or destination countries, while countries where traffickers easily recruit women are the sending countries.
ECPAT noticed that over the last few years an increase in the numbers of sex offenders particularly from Western industrialized countries have been traveling to less developed countries as a result of increasing vigilance and action against pedophilia in their own countries.
4.2. Study of the supply
As Tunney (2001) confirmed, sex operators advertise these days their itineraries on thousands of Web pages, offering something for everyone-straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual and even specialty interests.
Regarding Rao (1999) tourism industry offers packages offering men with low incomes in Europe and the USA an opportunity to “act like a King” on a sex tour to Asia.
Organised sex tours have been advertised in Australia, France, Japan, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. Furthermore, sex tour operators advertise their itineraries on Web pages. Brown affirmed that sexual offences are committed against tourists in Nepal by mainstream tour operators.
Child sex tourism has been reported in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North and South America and the Pacific Islands. Child sex tourism is a dynamic phenomenon and is constantly changing. It has been spreading to new destinations (CNN report, 2001).
Sex tourism takes place in communities, localities, as well as in hotels and on the street and not only in designated “red lights” districts. Thus, the supply side is also a serious concern for the Trade Unions and associations to work on (Rao,1999).
4.3. The response of agencies involved in the tourism industry
In 1996, the World Tourism Organization (WTO) established Child Prostitution and Tourism watch, a task force involving the tourism industry, governments and non governmental organizations to campaign against child sex tourism. Governments started to join in. The WTO has a committee that meets regularly to examine ways that the international travel and tourism industry can address child sex tourism. The WTO Code of Ethics for Tourism includes a special provision on combating all forms of sexual exploitation of children in tourism (CNN report, 2001).
ECPAT (an organization that fights the sexual exploitation of children) is one of those associations fighting against this problem and make the tourism industry realized it and act against it. For example, some training sessions are organized for agents on sex tourism in how to deal with the issue of sex tourism when they are confronted with it.
Progress has already been made in fighting sex tourism. For example, several European airlines are now showing in-flight videos on preventing child sex tourism (Tunney, 2001).
Since the tourism sector is making profit of this tourism market, nothing is really done to prevent it and “sex” is still used to attract and conserve the customer. We can take examples such as pornographic movies in hotels or picture ads with gifts in bikini to sell travel.
It remains difficult to track the sex tour business because these are not companies that file quarterly earnings (Tunney, 2001).
5. Methodology
To answer my question aim, I will direct my research in two different directions, one on a primary research and the other one on a secondary research.
The first part of the research will be based on qualitative method such as documentaries, anecdotes, questionnaires and interviews. The reason of this research is going to identify and have a better understanding of the demand and supply in sex Tourism. The key source for this research will be derived from the academic journals, newspapers, internet, documentaries etc. As a report of CNN (2001) noticed it is very hard to measure the incidence of child sex tourism, as it is virtually impossible to conduct quantitative research on such a clandestine and illegal industry.
The second part of the research will be an interview in some different travel agencies. This will takes place in September. The aim of this interview is to understand and identify the involvement of the professionals of the tourism sector through sex tourism. I want to understand why this type of tourism is more and more demanded. I want to identify what the travel agencies are doing to fight against this type of tourism. I want to make know if they are all aware of the problem in order to warn their customers. The sample of the interview will be 20 different travel agencies. I will of course choose some companies which are working worldwide. Furthermore, I will make sure to visit franchised travel agencies, part from a group, and independent agencies. In order to realize these interviews I will contact the General Manager of each agency to ask if it can be done. I believed this way will be the best method to obtain broad answers. It will as well enable me to be more flexible with the numbers and the way of the questions asked.
5.1. Project time-table
6. Conclusion
It is obvious that going abroad for sex tourism is not anymore a big deal, cheaper airfares, and all the advent of the Internet provide more options for people who go abroad looking for underage sex, and “opportunistic” sex offenders who visit bars and brothels on vacation. Indeed it is clear that the demand for sex tourism is increasing while the supply side is spreading in new places and new countries.
The prosecution against those tourists remains difficult. Because of a lack of political wish on the part of governments and reluctance on the part of the tourist industry is also hampering action (CNN, 2000).
I believe that the travel and tourism industry have to do more efforts to warn and give notice to tourists that sex with children abroad is a crime. Furthermore, I believed that the best solution to stop this problem is to ban sex tourism and child prostitution, enforcing specifics laws to travel agencies. I am sure that much more needs to be done to end such activity.
As Smolenski said (2000), another problem is that most travelers believe that having sex with children and women is legal and culturally acceptable in foreign countries. That is why the travel and tourism industry needs to do efforts to change the attitudes and make sex tourism a well investigated issue.
As noticed Hughes (2003) trafficking in women and children is a global human rights crisis. This is the human struggle of our times and it has to be fight.
7. References and Bibliography
Books
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Stephen Clift (2000), Tourism and Sex: culture, commerce and coercion.
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Chris Ryan and Colin Michae (2001), Sex Tourism: marginal people and liminalities.
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INRA (1998), Europeans and their views on child sex tourism: executive summary.
Articles
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Bremmer Bryan (10/01/2003), Business week online, Facing facts about Asia’s sex trade.
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Baldwin Neal (19/01/2004), Travel weekly, The choice of travel professionals, Sex tourism fight hots up.
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International journal of contemporary hospitality management (1999), Sex tourism in South Asia.
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Tunney Donna (06/08/2001), Travel weekly, Travel’s dirty little secret.
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Hugues Donna (01/01/2003), Vital speeches of the day, The driving force of sex trafficking.
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Smolenski Carol (09/03/2000), Travel weekly, Child sex tourism.
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Rao Nina (1999), International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Sex tourism in South Asia.
