OK, I’ll just come out and say it: The best thing that ever happened to world tourism was the global financial crisis.
That probably comes across as terribly impolitic or obnoxiously cavalier. Is it really a good thing that a massive economic contraction has led to thousands of lost jobs and punishing reductions in foreign currency flows to countries that rely heavily on income from tourism? Well, put in those terms, of course it isn’t. But I also believe this is an unfair representation and that, ultimately, other gauges – those harder to quantify – will show that the worldwide slowdown benefited us all.
A Fair Assertion?
Now I’m not an economist and have no intention of dredging up figures that support my assertion. I happily leave that to others, just as I leave to those who disagree the search for contradicting numbers. I prefer to think about the people on the ground who fill far more space than a trivialising decimal point.
Notwithstanding my dismissal of statistics as vexingly premise-driven, I readily accept a different bias: a social one. My observations are based on more than 20 years of travel, most of them directly involving professional activity in tourism as a tour operator, guide, project manager, consultant, trainer and travel writer. Which is to say, as someone who has endeavoured always to step into the local stew, not just comment on it from a safe distance.
More significantly, almost all of my travel, dating back to my first foreign forays, has been what today might be called ‘responsible’ – experiential, sensitive to the unique qualities of a place, conscious of culture, environmentally friendly etc. As a tour operator and guide I ran bicycle tours; as a project manager and consultant I worked with civil society networks and community-based organisations; as a travel writer my focus has always been on promoting what I consider the ethical way forward in tourism.
Vulgar Travel
Although my practice and advocacy of responsible travel occurred naturally, it was also in part a rejection of mass tourism – resort tourism, sun-and-sand tourism, package tourism – the evolution of which was in response to (but certainly also further spurred by) the vulgarisation of travel.
Basically, what initially drove mass-market tour traffic was largely economics; when independent travel was very expensive, packaged options brought the price within reach of more people. These days, however, given the robustness of the budget travel trade, I believe that package tours have simply become the purview of the vulgar – people who go somewhere just to say they’ve been. Checklist travellers more inclined to complain about how much a place wasn’t like home than about how much they learned about themselves and their homes by immersing themselves in something different.
As markets adapted to these crude needs by building secure slices of ‘home’ on foreign soils, hiring ‘home’ employees as familiar faces overseas and sometimes training local labour to bridge the divide, the impact on host communities was evident, especially in the developing world. Local cultures were sidelined, core traditional values shifted as locals longed for incongruous things and, worst of all, habits incompatible with local practices and laws were adopted. Although far from being the only reason for cultural dilution (or perhaps pollution), mass tourism certainly has been a major one.
Thinking About Today
Back to today and the crushing blow to tourism dealt by the global financial crisis: Tourism all across the globe really is suffering. There are fewer travellers of all kinds – frugal to regal – which has been hard on the local labour force and markets. But one area suffering particularly hard is the mass market. And, frankly, if as a result there are fewer ill-conceived resorts, fewer coaches terrorising local beauty spots, fewer inconsiderate travellers burdening host countries, I say all the better.
To be clear: I don’t mean to suggest that travel should be denied to anyone. I don’t long for the day when exorbitant costs will be an insurmountable obstacle to special adventures by anyone but the rich or profligate. On the contrary, I know for a fact that a slower, gentler kind of travel favouring intimate and unique experiences founded on human connections is very affordable.
I also know from personal experience that as new travel priorities take root, countries reliant on tourism will buy into them. In response to changing user demands, governments will shift funds and priorities to them; with or without government, entrepreneurs will seize on the new trends; both skilled and unskilled locals will follow the new opportunities. Only this time, I’d like to think that instead of a week at a pool in a fenced-in full-service resort, travellers will see greater merit in small-scale, affordable, culturally enriching, nature-sensitive, community-based travel that demonstrates care for a destination.
World markets have been shaken, but in tourism I think the dirty laundry’s falling from the line. Let it lie where it lands. What remains – clean, colourful, ethical, equitable and even sustainable and profitable – will matter more in the long run to hosts, visitors and the planet.
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I am not sure the mass tourism is suffering so much… Here in Tuscany, the only thing you see this year are large groups led by some guy or girl with a yellow hat and flag.
Independent travelers, slow travelers, the kind of travelers who chose to travel slow and off-the-beaten-path too have essentially disappeared.
Every week large cruise ships “unload” hordes of hundreds of people in Livorno, who are stuck into a bus and taken to the “must sees” (Florence and Pisa mostly).
Ryan Air and the other low cost airlines bring thousands of people. The come for a quick 2 or 3 days trip, and leave.
We have really suffered this year. And most of the guests we have had, although very nice, were not very interested in either getting to know us or the local community. they just wanted an inexpensive place.
So, sorry, I disagree.
Hi Gloria,
Many thanks for your comments, all entirely valid.
The thing about making generalizations (as I did) is that there are always many many examples of the contrary. I too know of plenty and tried not to dismiss them.
(I should note that almost all of the examples I know, and your first-hand experiences of them – the dreaded yellow hat and flag! – are confined to destinations where tourism is already very well developed… and expensive. In these destinations, where cost still usually trumps conscience, the most common way in is still the cheapest way in. That it is also the mass-tourism and Ryan-Air way in is very unfortunate, as is your downturn in business.)
But my primary point – and one that I stand by, your comments notwithstanding – is that the pummeling of the markets, which has hit *all* areas of tourism, is going to be good in the long run.
Yes, the general reductions in the number of flights and the consequent increases in costs will push more people into the hands of package tour operators. Yes, thinner wallets will mean holidays are shorter and less slow. But the numbers of package tour operators is falling due to the the reduced numbers of travelers and I posit that most of the tour operators who don’t survive are the ones we wouldn’t want want around anyway.
Similarly, from my communication with other friends in the industry in Europe, the fall in the numbers of travelers (which, incidentally, probably helps make it seem like there are more yellow-hat tours, whereas, there are probably just as many or fewer, but they’re now more visible) is actually a fall in the number of certain kinds of travelers. The obvious tourists (like the Americans and Japanese) may be staying away, but domestic travelers and nearby neighbors aren’t. However, these latter travelers blend in better and usually have local contacts that keep them out of the tourist mainstream. These are the kinds of travelers we like and, in the long run, when flush times return, the kinds who will be more inclined to spend their money the right way.
I remain a long-term optimist, despite the tenor of the times.
Hi Ethan! I really hope you are right! I am sorry obviously for those tour operators who will be run out of business by the crisis. My only concern is that, as it always happens in the globalized world, only the big will remain standing. The little one like us, will have to struggle, and possibly find another job.
We’ll see how it goes.
Somebody also pointed out to me yesterday, that maybe it’s a matter of perspective. I brought this discussion to the Slow Travel Forum and there somebody told me that maybe
The big problem, I think, is that Italians (and actually, from what I’ve experienced, Europeans in general) really do want more of a friendly relationship with visitors than many travelers are interested in (Americans and Germans in particular, and yes I know that’s over-generalizing), particularly when traveling in groups.”
So it’s also possible that our attitude towards travellers and travel influences our idea of what is good. Who knows?
If you want to read the discussion:
http://www.athomeintuscany.org/2009/07/15/luxury-travel-and-local-communities/
Hi Gloria,
I’ve been to your boards and those at Slow Travel and I will reply there as well, but I wanted to react here to a couple of your points above.
First, like you, I deplore an market where the balance of power favors the big, who not only have too much say in how an industry is run, but do so at the expense of the little players who give it its real character. That so many of the little guys are hurting is terrible, but the barbs in my opinion piece above were aimed squarely at the big kids who can’t see the writing on the wall and will, one day, either have to change with the times or fail fighting against them. My fervent hope is that the times are changing in favor of far-sighted people like you.
Second, one of the values of the kinds of open dialogue you foster, as well as the coming together of so many small players in increasingly powerful networks like whl.travel and Fringe Travel, is that we’re not isolated small players losing ground to the biggies. We’re forceful and nimble ensembles of local leaders who, united, are helping to shift the market at both the global and local levels. And, of course, we’re shifting it in a way that serves the interests of the small players involved, the communities touched and the environments affected — a real contrast to the way the mass-market moves.
Third, I totally agree that perception in the travel industry will color how we interpret success. But isn’t that the nature of the industry? We’re in it because we love a place and want to share it with visitors in a way that imparts to them the magic of the place. If we portray it poorly, we fail. That we judge our degree of success as a function of the return of the kinds of people we want to see is totally logical. But that those kinds of people aren’t around in sufficient number today doesn’t mean we’re failing. It just means that the travel climate and our sense of what we believe is ‘good’ haven’t yet come together.
But we’re all working to change that.
I have just left another comment on this topic on the Slow Travel forum at http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/862600685/m/242102662?r=971107643#971107643