Since the beginning of the twentieth century, Palestine has seen complicated changes in its political circumstances, most notably the creation of Israel in 1948 and the 1967 war, where Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. These events have created catastrophic political, economic and social facts which deeply affected the life of the Palestinian people. In this context, tourism became a political tool in the supremacy and domination of the Israeli establishment over land, and people, and an instrument for preventing the Palestinians from enjoying the benefits and the fruits of cultural and human interaction on which tourism thrives. Israel controls all access to Palestine (land and sea borders), most of the Palestinian water resources and all movements of people and goods from, to and within Palestine. This article assesses the role that tourism may play in promoting peace by presenting the Palestinian Initiative for Responsible Tourism - code of conduct - and its contribution to peace. In addition, issues of sustainability and the triple bottom line will be evaluated which could go a long way towards healing some of the divisions in the Palestinian/Israeli society.
Attending to the emergent debates on tourism and (in)justice, this study critically examines the role of the Walled Off Hotel, Banksy's tourism-artistic intervention in Palestine, in constructing justice. Utilising the evidence from 15 in-depth empathetic interviews, it explores the ways in which local residents make sense of the Hotel and how they frame and experience (in)justices. While demonstrating how these interpretations are entangled with the broader geographic, social and political context, the paper discusses how different forms of justice circulate in this particular context. The new knowledge generated contributes to our further understanding of achieving justice-through-tourism as an affirmative praxis, while addressing the broader humanitarian, earthly, or otherwise existential crisis.
Purpose – This study aims to investigate the tourism stakeholders’ opinions about developing smart tourism(ST) in the West Bank, Palestine. This research fulfils intriguing gaps in the literature on stakeholders’perceptions and views on developing ST in the West Bank, Palestine.Design/methodology/approach – The research study employed a qualitative methodology using semi-structured interviews with nineteen respondents. All data collected were in April and May 2022.Findings – The findings show that the understanding of ST-related stakeholders in the West Bank is mainlylinked to information communication and technology, digitalisation, and online use of technology within thetourism industry. Moreover, the results show the high potential of developing the ST industry in the WestBank. However, this study revealed that challenges could affect the West Bank’s development at differentlevels, such as managerial, technological, awareness, public sector restrictions, infrastructural, financial andpolitical challenges.Research limitations/implications – This research has some shortcomings. The first restriction of thisstudy was the political restrictions and the checkpoints, which limited the reach of some of the participants whoreside in Jerusalem or other cities outside of the West Bank, which delayed the time of the interviews orconverted it to be done through a digital platform. Secondly, the sample of this study was small in tourismstakeholders in the West Bank.Originality/value – To the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first on ST from the stakeholders’perspectives. Therefore, this study has set the first step in closing the existing gap in the literature.
