Higher Education, Ethical Action, and Sustainable Tourism: A Hermeneutical Approach

In terms of economics and culture, tourism industry, nowadays, has obtained a unique importance. However, economic profits of tourism have produced some cultural and ecological risks. Emphasizing sustainability of tourism as an ideal condition and as a way to encounter with these risks. Sustainable tourism development involves two categories of objective and epistemological conditions. Objective conditions imply economic, social and natural features of societies which enjoy tourism attractions. Epistemological conditions refer to tourist’s attitudes and understanding in regard with legacies and cultural traditions of other countries. Such a kind of attitude and understanding affects tourist’s beliefs, attitudes and their behaviors. It is tried in this paper to study roles and three ideas of sustainable tourism as an ethical ideal , cultural understanding as epistemological condition of sustainable tourism’s fulfillment and finally universities roles in producing and disseminating required skills and knowledge for its developing by assisting Gardener’s hermeneutical theory in relation with one another . The main declaration of this paper is sustainability in tourism depend on changing of understanding and our interpretation of understanding itself.
Based on the philosophical and theoretical nature of discourse, the method of study is descriptive, analytical and inductive. Each of intended methods is applied for one area of study. The descriptive method to express thinkers whose ideas we benefits from., the analytical method to illuminate concepts and propositions which have a crucial position such as, sustainable tourism, understanding, ethical action, communication in our study and inductive method to link between sustainable tourism, communication and ethical action in one hand and to link mentioned items with universities responsibilities in another hand have been used. In recent method, after studying and selecting extracted texts from intended sources, the appropriate and related conclusion would be declared.
Discussion and The findings show universities can posses a leading role in tourism development. Their responsibilities in this area is to establish epistemological development’s context through teaching and researching to fulfill this responsibility , universities are able to provide necessary contexts to offer a clear picture from essence and understanding itself process and to teach its skills . The orthodox picture is a instrumental interpretation of understanding based on subject-object contrast and dichotomy in which the cultural traditions percept as object. The consequence of such attitude is to exploit the other which leads to destruction. The opposite side of this attitude is hermeneutical understanding. In hermeneutics theory, understanding is a kind of permission or disclosure to be percept and seen. Two main features in this theory of understanding are historicity and language. Historicity of understanding refers Man’s historicity. This human condition affects Structures of understanding and plays a role in every single understanding. For its disclosing through tradition and language, Understanding is a language-based event. Language protects tradition and it is the media to reconcile with tradition. Tradition hides itself through language and the language is the mediator of tradition’s appearance. In one hand, this interpretation of understanding refers to the connection with tradition and in another hand it fulfils the necessity of dialogue as a ethical action between people which is only possible via learning skills such as, listening , toleration , benevolence , honesty, optimism and patience. The consequence of dialogue, according to Gadamer, is the fusion of horizons, a situation in which the disclosure of the meaning of culture becomes possible.
It is tried in this paper, by assisting hermeneutical theory of understanding, to study sustainable tourism in connection with concepts such as, understanding, communication, dialogue as an ethical action. The main hypothesis of the paper is the sustainability of tourism is depending on our changing of understanding toward cultural traditions. If one doesn’t take tourism as phenomena for gaining profits or superficial visual entertainment and percepts tourists as aware actors who chase lived experiences of social people, he can expect from universities to take shoulder the responsibilities of teaching and researching. Hence two kinds of understanding have been discussed. The first looks national, native and local cultures through an instrumental vision and the latter looks it by emphasizing on communication contexts which make it possible to disclose human cultural experiences through language in a form of dialogue. What Gadamer takes as fusion of horizons becomes possible via lived experiences of tourists and target societies. In another hand, the recent perspective in its essence bears ethical action. Because every kind of human communication with an intention of understanding require a will to ethics. An honest endeavoring to understand other’s horizons depends on avoiding dogmatic prejudices, evoking the sense of respect, stimulating responsibility in tourists in relation with other culture and being humble toward cultural experiences of other societies, all are the elements of ethical action in sustainable tourism. It seems the dissemination of such attitude in regard with understanding and its categories along with other objective elements supports the sustainable tourism and decreases its destructive roles. Then it is expected from universities, in one hand to teach skills and knowledge to adolescents and in another hand to educate researchers who make possible the deep understanding of different other cultures. Universities as the professional institution of skills and knowledge’s production and distribution have a numerous potential in changing of our understanding toward world, society and cultures.