Tourism Officials Must Learn That Less Is More

 

How much tourism is too much? There seem to be at least two different approaches. One is to invite tourists to your country to enjoy and respect what is on offer without changing your own traditions/values or risk damaging the environment  just to attract the mobs. The other approach is to attract the masses at any cost, regardless of the damage to those traditions and the very environment that makes your location attractive and unique in the first place.

Some popular destinations like Amsterdam and Venice are finally taking steps to limit the ravages of mass tourism. Amsterdam officials have gone so far as to ask tourists not to come there. Venice is levying heavy fines for bad tourist behaviour like littering, disrespecting monuments or – like two idiotic Australian tourists – taking power surfboards down the Grand Canal. Venice has fought a long battle to save its precious canals and ancient, fragile building foundations from the damage caused by enormous cruise ships that blot out the sun and dump thousands of tourists onto its narrow, twisting streets. Some of the beautiful, equally fragile Norwegian fiords have also been plagued with these cruise ships that can barely fit into narrow harbours. Fortunately the country is beginning to learn the value of just saying ‘No’ and is taking steps to limit that damage.

Tourism? Or Vandals sacking Rome -- again?

Other countries like Greece seem to have taken the attitude that there is no such thing as too many tourists munching over-priced souvlakis and cheese pies while slurping beers as they wander around some of the most precious monuments in the world. What should be moments of reflection in front of some of these monuments has turned into a cacophony of flip-flops slapping on the ancient marble, loud yells to have friends join them for yet another selfie in front of a statue, moans about the heat (didn’t anyone tell them about Athens in July), or comments about the lack of a loo in the Parthenon.

Athenian hotels now try to outdo themselves with roof-top bars blaring music (?) until dawn and making life unbearable not just for guests unfortunate enough to have rooms in the hotel but also for the hapless residents of the neighborhood who actually have to get up at a decent hour and go to work. But somehow those tax-paying residents don’t seem to count for much in the eyes of city officials. Perhaps the city will start offering them grants to leave the city in the summer and head to some remote part of the country. God forbid they should start telling tourists how to behave!

Yes, Greece has had a very difficult economy for the last several years and many people believe that mass tourism is the best solution for their difficulties. But these people fail to realize that this sort of tourism is rapidly destroying the very thing that makes places like Greece, with its beautiful sea, idyllic islands, and much-overlooked mountains so special.  

Take Mykonos -- essentially a rocky, barren island with very little water. When I first went there many years ago it was known as being sort of bohemian, attracting a lot of artists with modest talents and less money. Now it has been transformed into the party island of Greece, jammed with wannabe Eurotrash and over-priced bars that don’t open until midnight and produce ear-shattering noise that doesn’t stop until dawn. Inevitably the drug culture is never far behind. The harbour is filled with monster cruise ships waiting to disgorge unsuspecting passengers onto the overburdened island to wander around the narrow streets and buy authentic Made-in-China Greek trinkets and souvenirs. Smart passengers stay on board and order another gin-and-tonic in the comfort of an air conditioned bar. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to create an isolated spot like Mykonos – rather like the plague islands outside ancient Venice – and avoid infecting the rest of this beautiful country.

Not sure this what Odysseus had in mind

All these thoughts came to mind when my wife and I took a break from Greece and spent a delightful week in the Alsace region of France. The natural beauty – with hundreds (maybe thousands) of vineyards stretching from the lush green valley up to the foothills of the Vosges mountains – is stunning. These vines produce several delicious wines such as Riesling  and Gewürztraminer. Picturesque villages with rich history dot the area. Yes, the area is filled with tourists in August but because of the infrastructure and general attitude toward tourism in general it was not unbearable.

Beautiful Alsace

 The superb public transport system means you don’t really need a car. My wife likes nothing better than scouring local bus schedules and she quickly found frequent, inexpensive buses from Colmar to the beautiful surrounding villages. The city of Colmar also offers a free small bus service within the city limits. Restaurants and bars were full, but unlike Greece, they were not allowed to infringe on the local lifestyle. They closed at reasonable times (midnight or at the latest 1:30 am) and the noise was moderate. The overall attitude seemed to be ‘Come and enjoy what we have but don’t expect us to destroy our lifestyle or environment just to cater to bad behaviour. Take us as we are or don’t come.’ 

One wishes that Greek tourism officials would learn the lesson that less is often more. Do they really appreciate the beautiful and fragile ecosystem of their own country? Or do they think that chasing the last Euro from mass tourism is worth the destruction? Can they can develop the courage and, yes, the self-respect to discourage the worst of mass tourism that only drives away those people who really want to enjoy the culture and natural beauty of Greece? Overall tourist numbers may decline but the quality of the tourist experience – as well as the spending – will sharply increase without damaging the social or environmental fabric of the country.

 

'Been in Kabul recently?'

Now that we are all more or less housebound newspapers, TV and social media are filled with useful hints about how to pass the time. Some hints are more useful than others. As much as I enjoy creative arts I doubt very much that I’m going to spend much time learning things like origami. The Financial Times staff came up with a suitably high-brow list of books we ‘should’ take this opportunity to read. One of them included the collected works of Dostoevsky. Are they serious? Wading through Crime and Punishment in this environment is a sure recipe for domestic mayhem. 

Sorry, Fyodor. Not the right time to become more depressed.

I scan our bookshelves and see titles I had every intention of reading – one day. As much as I admire the study of philosophy I’m afraid Emanuel Kant’s tome A Critique of Pure Reason will remain undisturbed on the shelf while I turn to my Kindle for authors like Alan Furst or the late and very lamented Philip Kerr with his wonderful character Bernie Gunther.

Let us for a moment look at the bright side of this situation. The hideous Eurovision song contest with its kitsch costumes and noise masquerading as music has been cancelled. Then the cruise ships have been kept in port. Wonderful news to anyone living in places like Venice or Santorini in Greece which have been assaulted and abused by these massive floating petri dishes. 

Time to re-think the whole business of massive cruise liners

And now many of these same cruise line companies are screaming to take part in massive U.S. government handouts to individuals and industries hit by the Corona virus. Slight problem here. Most of these cruise liners are registered abroad, pay very little if any American taxes, and avoid stringent American maritime and employment regulations. But, and it’s a very big But, this is an election year. And the state of Florida, where many of these vessels pick up passengers, is a key battleground state. We will see just how far Trump’s loudly touted Make American Great program will bend to accommodate this non-American industry to win votes in Florida.

It would take a lot more than home quarantine to make me turn to day-time TV which surely qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment. The good news is that streaming services like Netflix and Amazon video have decent films. We are also fortunate to have available a streaming service called Walter Presents (Walter Iuzzolino founded the service and selects the content) that shows foreign drama and comedy – some of it very high quality. One of our favourites is Deutschland 83 and Deutschland 86.

In a perfect world this enforced home stay would also present the perfect opportunity to do some of those long-delayed DIY chores. This might work if I had a clue how to use half the tools in my very handy tool box. I’m afraid if I attempted any serious plumbing or electrical work I would either flood the entire building or cut the power to large parts of the city.

Then there are games like Scrabble. Very enjoyable, even though my wife wins the vast majority of times. We’re trying to arrange a sort of online, video scrabble game with a friend who lives in France and faces even more draconian stay-at-home rules than we do.

We are blessed in our neighbourhood by having several extremely good and enterprising ethnic food shops and cafes. While the cafes and restaurants are closed they all offer take-away service. One very handy convenience store is run by an Afghani family that works at least 18 hours a day. When I sympathized with one of the boys on the current situation he answered with a wry grin. ‘Been in Kabul recently?’ Yes, well. That rather puts our situation in some perspective.

Regardless of official statements that there is no shortage of supplies much of the population seems seized by panic buying. Supermarket shelves are stripped bare moments after being restocked as people load up on a month’s supply of toilet paper, paper towels, frozen food, pasta, fruit, etc. etc. Most markets have instituted policies limiting the amount of any one item customers can buy. 

Not a lot left after panic buying

In an effort to help the elderly and infirm who can’t fight through the rampaging hordes the markets have also devoted the first hour of operation to those elderly and infirm. I took advantage of this and showed up at one market at 6:45 am and had a very nice time with the other oldsters who showed great patience, good humour and care for the most infirm who were gently led to the front of the queue. Sadly, the same cannot be said for some the young people who groused loudly when told they had to wait and then shoved their way to the front. Supermarkets are generally closed on Sunday mornings but at least one of them is opening its doors then for the incredibly stressed and overworked staff of the National Health Service who have been struggling around the clock to deal with this outbreak. These are the real heroes of the situation and should give us pause before we complain too much about our own incarceration.