| If a new charter of the rights of
people (in the First World, or North, or whatever you like to call the part
where people to not on the whole starve) were to be drawn up, there is no doubt
that the right to be a tourist, to go to a Spanish beach or to visit places
endorsed as being of cultural or scenic interest, would be prominent among its
clauses. The mythology of tourism is that of the idyll--of outdoor pleasures,
eating, drinking and love-making with neither hangover nor remorse. But whereas
the ancient poets knew that idylls were an art form, modern tourists are
persuaded to believe that they can be bought for the price of a plane ticket and
a hotel room. So it is not surprising that so many tourists look bewildered,
dazed, even at times despondent. They are exchanging the comforts of home, where a particular way of living has been laboriously and lovingly created, for the uncertainty of existence in a foreign place, the soullessness of hotels, the wear and tear of constant travel. To be translated suddenly into an unfamiliar environment is an alienating experience, if not an unpleasant trauma. Another reason why tourists in reality do not look as happy as the smiliing figures in the brochures is that the activities open to them, far from liberating, are both limited and unbalanced. Lying on a beach and visiting museums may be fine in their different ways, but to do either continuously for days on end must constitute a kind of hell. The strongest arguments against tourism, however, are based on the damage it does to the countries which are toured against rather than those which tour. The most striking examples are in the "Third World". Cultures which have survived centuries of armed assault have not been able to resist this more insidious form of colonization: the dollar is mightier than the sword. Physical environment and culture may suffer, but the apologists for tourism argue that great economic benefits are produced. This is not the case. At least in Third World countries, most of the foreign money brought in goes straight out again, via the foreign-owned companies which exploit tourism. The jobs created by tourism are for the most part menial and low-paid. In the long term, above all, the effect of reliance on tourism must be to reduce a country to a servile, parasitical condition, selling its past and its image to richer, more dynamic people who are in control of their destiny, and in the end, that of the country they are visiting. |