The Cultural and Political Ecology of Rural Tourism Development

Since the last three decades most countries in the Third World have adopted tourism as a tool for economic development. However, underneath this shift are several problems. One of these is that many places have found detrimental aspects of social and cultural change coinciding with the growth of their tourist trade. While there has been some studies on social and cultural changes in highly visited tourist areas, less popular and infrequently visited tourist destinations such as Ghana has often been ignored. This paper contributes to the pioneering efforts in understanding cultural, social, and ecological changes associated with tourism development in non-popular destinations using a political ecological approach. It evaluates how rural communities have changed over time; and the political, economic, and social constraints that influence these changes with empirical case studies from two local communities. 2