TMM1982

I suspect they have different motivations Adam. Just a crazy wild guess though.

Adam1222

Uh, ok? How does Lucky's motivation make his assertion that he is contributing to arrival of human rights in Maldives any truer?

TMM1982

He only wrote that to stem off all the criticism he was receiving from people like you. He doesn't actually believe it.

GUWonder

If she were a judge on a case dealing with the Maldives, justice may require her recusal. And I say this as a fan of a variety of her positions.

84fiero

It's sometimes debatable whether visiting a given country as a tourist will help or not, when it comes to a country with serious human rights problems or other concerns. I like to think that travel and connecting with others can have a positive impact, which doesn't mean it always will have that effect.

However I think Lucky's explanation for supporting travel to the Maldives and other countries of concern, whether he truly believes it or not, is rather naïve at best. The luxury travel bubble that he stays within in the Maldives (and other places) seems like it has extremely limited opportunity for interaction that will make positive changes. Maybe I'm wrong, but even if a hotel service employee is local, ordering a drink and greeting the bellhop are pretty limited and superficial interactions. And in locales where the service employees are third-country nationals, the argument of "changing hearts and minds" within that host country goes out the window.

The other thing I look at, when considering a tourist visit, is whether my cash would mostly help out the actual local citizens or mostly flow to the repressive government. I don't know about the Maldives in that regard, but I'd certainly make that a careful consideration as well. I don't recall whether OMAAT mentioned that aspect in the recent post.

Adam1222

Thank you for sharing this inside information.

Regardless of whether her representation of the former Maldivian President might affect some hypothetical case (surely not every case involving the country), that does not change the soundness of her argument. Lucky is equally -- if not more -- conflicted, as he is defending his own behavior. But as others have pointed out, it's pretty out there to suggest that Lucky's interactions with the Hyatt staff and seeing the country to and from his villa are actually leading to change in the Maldives, and yes, morality is involved when you're laying in bed with your same-sex partner, blogging about how awesome the hotel is, when 1 mile away the natives of the country can be killed for doing the same thing.

GUWonder

OMAAT defending itself is rather representative of defending self-interest. I'm sure there is a rather legitimate purpose in that pursuit of self-interest.

1 mile away from his hotel there, "the 'natives'" -- a patronizing, perhaps even insulting reference -- are being killed for doing what OMAAT was doing there?

Check a map to see what is within a mile of the OMAAT-reviewed hotel.

JetAway

Is there some reason this thread keeps coming back to civil rights arguments? Maybe FT should start a Civil Rights in Travel forum where these issues can be more fully--and appropriately--discussed?

kokonutz

I don't see civil rights being discussed. I see issues of travel morality and cultural insensitivity being discussed. Issues that are directly linked to OMaaT posts. @:-)

Adam1222

Yes- the reason is because a blogger posted about civil rights yesterday and this is a thread for discussing his blog.

I'm sorry you find that inappropriate.

oliver2002

Loved this sentence:

Market growth is measured by number of yankee hotel chain properties being built

HadesNL

I am getting a bit sick of the word Troll, i just watched LOTR and H movies.

In a recent post: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...ra-wellington/

Lucky lets his aviation expertise show on the new SQ/singapore-canbera-wellington, citing reasons why the new route is a bit strange. Fortunately commenters from downunder have given valid and firm counter-arguments predicting the route could be a succes. Immeadiatly a fanboy starts lashing out with the words: trolling, if you don't like it then get..... Seriously?! Is there no room for constructive arguments outside the blogospehere from people who might even use this new flight and might be wiser about it.

GUWonder

Not there. Those quoted OMAAT words were talking about some expectations of market growth, not about actual market growth.

The Chinese market has sort of weakened last year and into this year, and I doubt that OMAAT is unaware of that.

FallenPlat

I once worked with a woman in Paris who was boycotting Spain so long as it was controlled by Franco and his fascist henchmen. I thought she was nuts.

Ah, the sins of youth. A couple of years later, I visited myself. On my second day in Madrid I got caught up in a "demonstration" and beaten with rubber truncheons by the fascist anti-riot police.

So maybe there is such a thing as divine retribution?

More seriously, there's no question that tourist dollars help keep regimes afloat. Ok, fine, at least for me. But there's also no question that going to some of those places can be personally risky. (See above.)

Persepolis, anyone?

(Daniel's May 2, 2014 report here of his trip to Persepolis is well worth reading; he travels with a NZ passport.)

bthotugigem05

Probably a lot of Pakistanis who would never travel to the US for the same reasons. Stuff like this is a personal decision.