Tourism has shut down. And that’s bad?
There was a lovely story going around about dolphins returning to splash in the newly pristine waters of Venice, until National Geographic came along to spoil the fun. The dolphin photos, it says, were actually shot in Sardinia, an island way over on the other side of the country in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Corsica.
Oh well, it was a nice story while it lasted. It is true, however, that a tourist could look into the famous Venetian canals and see something besides sludge and muck, thanks to the absence of traffic, which in turn is due to the absence of tourists.
You could also make your way around outlandishly scenic Dubrovnik without fear of being trampled by hordes of Game of Thrones fans keen to ogle the locale of Cersei’s walk of shame. You might be able to stop by Hallstatt, an astonishingly pretty Austrian lakeside town and inspiration for the film Frozen and see an actual Austrian rather than busloads of fellow travellers on their one-hour selfie stop-by.
You’d be able to do all these things, except the coronavirus has jammed a giant spoke into the wheel of mass tourism. Shutdowns are the rule: sorry, the Parthenon is closed, the Louvre is off limits, even the Emperor of Japan can’t get into Buckingham Palace these days. It’s a sad thing, if you’re a fan of waiting in long lines with hundreds of other tourists for a glimpse of something you saw on TV.
It’s a bit odd that environmentalists have been slow to seize on cheap, easy travel with the same vigour they denounce anything to do with the fuel industry. Emissions from air travel are growing at a rapid rate, even with more efficient airliners. The United Nations says airplane emissions could triple in the next 30 years. By then, suggests one study, air travel could represent a quarter of the world’s “carbon budget.”
Perhaps it’s because, like so many others, they value their holidays, not to mention jetting back and forth to preach conservation, or gathering en masse in scenic locales for big UN summits on the importance of everyone else reducing their “footprint.” Add in the limos, taxis, hotels, a bit of sightseeing and all the rest that goes with summitry, and even the most brazen activists might blush at the temerity of it all.
Yet there it is. Satellite photos have mapped the dissipation of ugly orange blotches over northern Italy and parts of China as the seizing- up of normal life reduces the outpouring of nitrogen oxide. China’s cloud, predictably, is reappearing as new COVID-19 cases slow, quick evidence of how resistant the human species is to learning from mistakes. But Italy is still in full lockdown.
Even before the health crisis,
Italy was struggling to avoid being swallowed by tourism. Venice ordered cruise ships rerouted away from the city centre, though it may have had as much to do with a giant ship ramming into a dock as the protests of the dwindling population of residents. Rome banned people lounging around the Spanish steps, and approved a plan to place barriers around the Trevi Fountain to protect it from the crowds wedged into the compact surrounding piazza. Like so many of the world’s most popular sites, the city is a virtual ghost town today, which is crippling for the economy but a relief from the choking traffic, smog and pollution.
It’s easy to denounce the energy industry from a pleasant room in a bustling city far from the production sites, but tougher to denounce travel, which people — woke and unwoke alike — tend to enjoy. Giant floating fun parks are an easy way to cruise from spot to spot, keeping the kids entertained before disgorging a few thousand visitors on some ancient burg that can use the money. If you want to see Pompeii once it’s open again you better move quick, before the traffic destroys it.
While visionaries can imagine a world free of fossil fuels, they can’t seem to conceive of one absent of cheap and easy getaways. Like climate change, it’s a product of prosperity. Too many people with time and money to wander the globe buying T- shirts and riding buses. Though it’s an industry rife with risk — from hurricanes, natural disasters, political upheaval, terror attacks or simple human gormlessness — it’s notably poor at dealing with crises. One big snow storm and the phone lines are jammed as desperate people scramble to get through to overwhelmed travel firms, airlines absolve themselves of responsibility and insurance companies declare it’s not covered in the policy.
It would take some sort of organized effort to put a curb on it, and the world — as this virus is once again demonstrating — is not great at co- ordination. Easier to blame someone else. Once this scare is defeated it may be a while before people once again feel safe to wander around distant shores. Bad for the job market but probably a good time to see Rome without the crowds.
jammed a giant spoke into the wheel of mass tourism.