slum tourism essay

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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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More From Forbes

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 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.

Charlie Hobbs

Maya Silver

CNT Editors

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.

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?

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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.

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Encyclopedia of Tourism pp 1–2 Cite as

Slum Tourism

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Slum tourism is a rapidly developing type of international tourism that may be found in a variety of places across the world. It has been roundly chastised as voyeuristic, yet it has been justified as a potential source of poverty assistance (Frenzel 2019 ). This practice targets disadvantaged inhabitants by unlocking opportunities for economic improvement and participation in decision-making. Economic enhancement appears to occur as slum tourism activities provide residents with opportunities to sell offerings through the development of small businesses in the slums, encouraging them to engage actively in economic activities, and ultimately leading to increased personal income (Mekawy 2012 ).

In terms of residents' decision-making participation, it is argued that this encourages their meaningful involvement in the design, execution, and assessment of tours, accounting for the challenges they face in their daily lives. This inclusion allows residents to participate in decision-making...

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Frenzel, F. 2019. Slum tourism. In The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of urban and regional studies , ed. A. Orum. London: Wiley.

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Mekawy, M. 2012. Responsible slum tourism: Egyptian experience. Annals of Tourism Research 39: 2092–2113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2012.07.006 .

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Mitchell, J., and C. Ashley. 2010. Tourism and poverty reduction: Pathways to prosperity . London: Earthscan.

Nisbett, M. 2017. Empowering the empowered? Slum tourism and the depoliticization of poverty. GeoForum 85: 37–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.07.007 .

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. 2020. COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: Regional socio-economic implications and policy priorities . Paris: OECD.

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Mekawy, M.A. (2022). Slum Tourism. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_696-2

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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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Pyatnitskaya Street (June 1, 1988 - Aug. 30, 1991) / 2020

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1972: Chugunny Bridge

View of Pyatnitskaya Street from Chugunny Bridge (June 11, 1972) / 2020

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View of Pyatnitskaya Street (Feb. 1994) / 2020

1963: Monument to the Conquerors of Space

Monument to the Conquerors of Space during construction (1963) / 2020

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Main entrance to VDNKh (March 15, 1956) / 2020

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View of the Kremlin from Sofiyskaya Embankment (1878-1883) / 2020

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The enormous hotel was built in the 1960s and dismantled in 2006. Zaryadye Park was built on the site.

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Pashkov House (1897-1898) / 2020

In 1831, a museum was opened in Nikolay Rumyantsev's mansion on the Angliyskaya (English) Embankment in St. Petersburg. In 1861, the museum was transferred to Moscow. It was installed in the Pashkov House and merged with the Moscow Public Museum.

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View of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and Church of Praise to the Blessed Virgin Mary in Bashmaki from the Bersenevskaya Embankment (1880s) / 2020

The original cathedral, left of photo, was demolished in 1931 as part of the plan for reconstructing Moscow under Stalin. The present cathedral had been rebuilt by 1999. The Church of Praise to the Blessed Virgin Mary has not been rebuilt.

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Panoramic view of Bolshoy Krymsky Bridge during construction (1933) / 2020

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Entrance to Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure (1955) / 2020

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House of the Merchant Igumnov in Moscow (1893) / 2020

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Upper Trading Rows (1890-1900) / 2020

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Teatralnaya Square during the Coronation of Nicholas II (May 1896) / 2020

About the photo: The Coronation of Emperor Nicholas II Aleksandrovich and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna took place on Tuesday, May 14 (May 26 in the current calendar), 1896, in the Moscow Kremlin’s Cathedral of the Dormition.

1980s: Church of St. John the Warrior

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