The Travel Industry Is Normalizing Crimes Against Humanity

WMT London 2024 2

October 30, 2024

A UHRP Insights column by Dr. Henryk Szadziewski, Director of Research, Uyghur Human Rights Project

In [Kashgar] Old City, the government demolished lots of houses. They said it was good for the local people living there. They told us we would have modern conveniences elsewhere in new buildings. They wanted to tear it all down at first, but there was a backlash and so some of it stopped. However, my neighborhood was demolished. What was kept was renovated and exploited for tourism. They even built a fake city wall for the tourists, who must pay to get in. Now, there are security cameras everywhere. One of the companies offering tours is owned by a big official and based in Beijing. They basically took what they wanted. The Old City was a real community. Now it’s empty and the people who used to live there are in concentration camps.

Between 2019 and 2020, for a paper on the role of tourism in the securitization of the Uyghur Region, I interviewed several Uyghurs, former tour guides in their homeland and now in exile. The above quote came from a tour guide with more than twenty years of experience and a former resident of Kashgar.

Five years later, between November 5 and 7, 2024, the Bureau of Culture and Tourism of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, “a constituent department of the People’s Government of the Autonomous Region,” an entity the United Nations declares is complicit in actions amounting to crimes against humanity, will exhibit “the most magical charm of Xinjiang” at World Travel Market (WTM) London. An event WTM describes as “the most influential travel and tourism event globally.”

This is not the first time that Chinese state bodies and travel companies have leveraged travel fairs and shows in Europe to obfuscate ongoing crimes against humanity in the Uyghur Region. Organizers of events, such as WTM London, cannot claim to be ignorant of the crimes against humanity perpetrated in the Uyghur Region and therefore appear to be willing to risk being complicit. We have a duty to challenge them to justify their decisions against their values and industry standards.

The list of exhibitors at WTM London also includes the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of The People’s Republic of China, as well as China-based travel companies that offer tours to the Uyghur Region, such as China Highlights International Travel Service and China Adventure Travel.

The London event follows the International & French Travel Market (IFTM) Show held between September 23 and 25, 2024. At the IFTM Show, the pavilion of the Paris office of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) had a dedicated booth for the Uyghur Region showcasing “rich cultural heritage and unique landscapes.” Also present at the event, and sharing a stand with CNTA, was Horizon Travel, offering tours to the Uyghur Region.

In one regard, the IFTM show lives up to its claim that “We cultivate a culture of inclusion at all our events,” however, it seems that inclusion in this case comprises officials representing a government engaged in the ongoing repression of Uyghurs.

The issues surrounding Chinese state representation and tours to the Uyghur Region were no different at the Internationale Tourismus-Börse Berlin (ITB) Berlin trade fair held between March 5 and 7, 2024. Once again, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China attended, as well as China Highlights International Travel Service and China Adventure Travel.

The leveraging of travel fairs and shows joins other tourism related efforts by the Chinese state to whitewash repression of the Uyghur people, especially in international spaces and relations. UHRP’s Ben Carrdus reported on US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo’s meetings with China’s Minister for Culture and Tourism, Hu Heping, in 2023 and 2024. Carrdus explained the inconvenient fact that Hu Heping also served as Deputy Director of the Party’s central Propaganda Department and at the time of reporting had presided over three heavily propagandized tourism events in the Uyghur Region.1“Serves as” from a previous version has been changed to “served as.” The current Minister of Culture and Tourism is Sun Yeli.

Moreover, China has taken journalists and diplomats on choreographed tours of the Uyghur Region to demonstrate the alleged success of its policies. The aim is to have outsiders amplify its propaganda because the credibility of the Party’s own platforms is compromised. The tactic isn’t new, just take a look at Han Suyin’s unfortunate Lhasa, the Open City: A Journey to Tibet published towards the end of the Cultural Revolution. In the book, Han Suyin lauded Mao’s “liberation” of Tibetans while isolated from her gaze Red Guards committed destruction and murder. These days, the Party has new tools and urgency, so it turns to vloggers and other influencers to do the work.

Whether the propaganda is working, or the travel industry is unaware or doesn’t care, travel event organizers and travel companies from the United States, Europe, and Turkey are promoting travel to the Uyghur Region. These actors should conduct thorough due diligence checks before offering tours and working with state tourism entities. The Framework Convention on Tourism Ethics and Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights offer clear ethical business standards.

So why should you care? Besides the indignity of China exporting the normalization of crimes against humanity to a city near you, the issue brings up the ethics of travel to a region experiencing severe state repression. What is the role of travel in such situations?

If it is to bear witness, then what can be learned from mosques, neighborhoods, and bazaars you have never seen rebuilt and exploited for tourism? If it is to not isolate Uyghurs, then what genuine interactions can you have with a people under extensive surveillance, imprisoned, and whose identity has been repurposed for the state? If it is to merely pique your curiosity, then how can you be sure that the money you spend does not go to the government committing these crimes?

As a consumer, you have a choice. A choice to take a stand against profiteering from suffering. I am not asking you to stop visiting the Uyghur Region, I am asking you to make an ethical decision about travel to the Uyghur Region. In other words, ask yourself the question, who am I empowering or harming by my presence?   

What we can all do is to urge the travel industry, as well as state tourism officials from our own countries, to ask themselves the same questions and to seek guarantees that tours and experiences to the Uyghur Region are free from harm.