UK expert to study slum tourism in India

According to him, slum tourism is not a new phenomenon: "What takes place today on a global scale was a fairly common leisure practice for Victorians, known as 'slumming'.

According to him, slum tourism is not a new phenomenon: "What takes place today on a global scale was a fairly common leisure practice for Victorians, known as 'slumming'.

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"'Slummers' visited the slums of east London, already in organised tours, often guided by police or professionals in the developing charity sector".

He added: "These sites of squalor have long enticed popular imagination. Many people experienced poverty not in literal tours, but in literary ways, for example in the writing of Charles Dickens.

Today this convergence of literal and literary slumming continues. The recent fascination with films like District 9, City of God and Slumdog Millionaire shows that these desires are still with us", he said.