I trust you won’t be offended by this question but are you, or have you ever been, a tourist? I’m guessing the answer is yes and the reason you just might be offended is the growing belief that tourism is now something to be vaguely ashamed of.
That might seem strange given that it’s not so long ago that we would boast to anyone prepared to listen about ‘discovering’ the most wonderful little seaside town somewhere in Spain or Greece or how we were planning to return yet again to our favourite resort on Majorca.
But somewhere along the line over the past year or two the very word “tourism’ has acquired a rather different connotation. What was once seen as a fortnight of guilt-free pleasure for millions of holidaymakers and a degree of prosperity for those who benefitted from our spending is now fast becoming the sin that dare not speak its name. And some tourists are being greeted not by welcoming locals but protesters telling them to go home.
Do you have any sympathy for those protesters and, if you are a “tourist” do you share a sense of guilt?
The charge sheet against modern tourism is a long one. The most widely publicised over the past year or so is that there are simply too many tourists and when they descend on that charming little Mediterranean town or beach resort or mountain village that had so beguiled them a few years ago they end up destroying the very aspects that drew them there in the first place.
The experts have a phrase for it: “cultural commodification”. It means reducing what had once been a rich cultural heritage or environment to mere fodder to feed the demands of the tourist. The authenticity of local cultures is often compromised, replaced by a homogenised version that appeals to international tourists but no longer has any genuine cultural value
With the benefit of hindsight it's easy to see how it can happen. In the early stages of a tourist boom the local residents welcome the extra prosperity we foreign visitors bring. The restaurants and hotels flourish. Jobs are created. Local residents may be able to rent out their spare rooms. That once sleepy little village or small town is transformed in all sorts of welcome ways. And many that are not so welcome.
The streets may be clogged with traffic, the beaches and parks littered with rubbish. The young men (and women) who were welcomed for the cash they brought are less welcome when they stay up all night carousing in the once quiet streets, getting into fights, vomiting in the gutters.
But even if they are well behaved they can change the character of their destination simply because there are so many of them. House prices can soar when speculators (or indeed locals) see the chance of making big profits from renting out rooms. Traditional practices, customs, and ways of life can be transformed to meet the expectations of the visitors rather than those who may have lived there all their lives.
Obviously tourism can bring many economic benefits to a town or even a country but it can also create dependency. Many destinations rely so heavily on tourism as their primary economic activity that they become dangerously vulnerable to any drop in tourist numbers. This dependency can stifle the development of other sectors, leading to a lack of economic diversification.
The effect on the local beauty spot can be disastrous. That glorious spectacle in a relatively isolated spot – a wonderful waterfall or mountain view – becomes a tourist “must see”. What might once have been a magical experience becomes a frustrating afternoon of getting stuck in a traffic jam and, when you finally get there, having to join a massive queue with everyone jostling to occupy the same spot for a precious few minutes. And as for any famous coral reef which might once attracted a handful of committed divers, all the evidence suggests many are now suffering to the point of extinction.
As we all know - many of us from personal experience - Majorca is one of our favourite holiday spots. But for how much longer? Many local people – mostly youngsters – have had enough. And they’re beginning to show it. Water pistols at dawn!
The figures are pretty scary. This will be the third year in a row when the number of visitors to Majorca sets a record. In 2022 there were 17 million. This year it will be 20 million. That’s about 22 times the population of Majorca.
It’s much the same story for famous historical destinations like Venice, Barcelona, and Machu Picchu. Crowded streets, never-ending queues, and overburdened public services: they all detract from the quality of life for the people who live there. Some of the most famous tourist venues are trying to limit the numbers. Venice is charging visitors a daily entrance fee of £4.20 and has taken measures to ban cruise ships. Amsterdam is planning something similar and has decreed there will be no more new hotels and no more than 20 million hotel overnight stays by tourists per year. Other cities including Athens, Lisbon and Barcelona are planning different measures.
But will they have the desired effect? That’s a difficult question to answer – if only because we all have different views as to what the “desired effect” should be.
The massively wealthy tourist operators or shipping lines with cruise liners the size of small cities will take one view. The relatively poor parents who were born and bred in the quiet back streets of what was once a pleasant area and is now a tourism hotspot will take another.
Mass tourism may be facing a crisis but it’s worth remembering that tourism in one form or another has been around a long time. The travel writer Lucy Lethbridge points out that the great 19th century philosopher John Ruskin warned in the 1800s that the Alps were being overrun by tourists”. “In the 1820s, it was” she writes “a wild place, travellers would take their life in their hands to get across, but by the 1850s it had become a fledgling winter sports destination.”
Lethbridge points out that the British have been travelling abroad for leisure since the days of the Grand Tour when “Georgian and Victorian gentlemen embarked on cultural romps through western Europe as a rite of passage but… It was not until Thomas Cook developed the package tour in the 1870s — taking small groups to France, Germany and Italy — that the idea of the ‘holiday’ was brought to the masses. It inevitably aroused snobbery among the leisure classes towards fellow ‘Brits abroad’ that endures to this day.”
In the 1930s, she writes, a new law gave the British the right to paid time off, and after the Second World War the idea of the “do-nothing” holiday really caught on. Before then, “to not use your leisure time to good purpose would have been morally repugnant to someone like Thomas Cook.”
What we did not have then, of course, was cheap air travel. Lethbridge calls it the “EasyJet revolution which opened up Europe to all manner of stag dos and mini-breaks. In 1955 a one-way ticket from New York to London with Trans World Airlines cost £222, or £2,561 in today’s money. Now the same trip costs about £390. Accommodation is often more flexible and affordable because of Airbnb.”
But nor were we aware of the crisis that is affecting every person on the planet today. Climate change. The carbon footprint of tourism is vast and growing every year. According to a study published in Nature Climate Change, tourism contributes about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This includes not only air travel but also the energy consumed by hotels, resorts, and other tourist facilities.
So what is your reaction to all of this as you peruse the brochures in search of the perfect holiday package or, indeed, start packing your bags for your annual fortnight in Majorca that you booked months ago? Is there even a twinge of guilt nagging away at you or are you more inclined to say: “Dammit we’re entitled to a decent holiday once a year… and anyway the kids are expecting it!”
But what about next year? As we learn more about the effects of mass foreign tourism might you be tempted to think of holidays at home instead?
Let us know what you think.
