Good models for post-pandemic travel
COVID stopped the clock on mass tourism. But even a pandemic timeout can’t keep us grounded for long.
In recent columns I’ve chronicled the rise and fall of tourism — and the coming recovery. Travel doubled in two decades, from 700 million trips in 2000 to 1.4 billion in 2019 — until COVID.
Pent-up tourism will soon pick up where it left off: two billion trips are projected within a decade.
As people get vaccinated and voyage abroad again, how can we inoculate ourselves against the travel rebound?
Boutique tourism breaks up mass tourism into market segments that might seem more manageable, albeit unaffordable. And while spreading people out reduces the overcrowding, it doesn’t diminish the wear and tear on the planet.
If future travel is to achieve greater sustainability, we need more sanity. That means a symbiosis that benefits the visitors as well as the visited and the venues.
My argument is that we cannot just have more of the same, more massive than before. To avoid exploiting the planet and its people, we must think about ecology and sociology.
There is no single solution, but consider these case studies:
Bali has been targeted for both tourism and terrorism: I covered a bombing that devastated this island after 9/11, but Bali bounced back faster than most places.
The Balinese resisted assimilation because they long ago figured out how to combine cultural and commercial tourism to become selfsustaining. They use the profits for preservation of both the cultural and environmental. Hindu worshippers maintain their temples and traditional dancers perform onstage nightly. There’s nothing wrong with performative culture if it’s a life-saving preservative.
Bhutan is a Tibetan Buddhist country bordering on China that has figured out how to profit from foreigners without selling out. It is learning from the mistakes of neighbouring Nepal, which lets in unlimited backpackers who spend limited funds on camping trips that only take a toll on the land.
The Bhutanese chose a different model, deliberately rationing the number of tourists allowed in. This Himalayan Kingdom charges a minimum fee of $250 (U.S.) a day, per person. I’ve done it — admittedly on the Star’s tab — but I’d do it again on my own dime. Tourists are always looking for the path of least resistance and lowest cost, so the fee acts as a barrier for bargain hunters. That keeps numbers down while maximizing the revenues.
The idea of pricing boutique tourism beyond the reach of mass tourism is controversial, but possibly essential. If not, two developments in the democratization of tourism will destroy travel — the rise of cheap airfares, and the growth of all-inclusive cruises.
Remember that a typical intercontinental flight produces two tonnes of carbon dioxide per passenger each way — roughly the output of driving your car for a full year. A mid-size cruise ship, carrying 3,000 passengers, uses 150 tonnes of fuel a day — equivalent to what 1 million cars give off in particulates.
Venice is battening down the hatches to defend itself against an invasion of 30 million visitors a year. Government authorities have decided to ban massive cruise ships from navigating past St. Mark’s Square, and imposed an entrance fee to help pay for upkeep of the World Heritage Site.
The most overrun venues must protect themselves by using price signals to meter the number of tourists. Many national parks now require reservations, while museums and palaces across Europe have pioneered time slots and price hikes to regulate the crowd flow and cash flow.
The challenge is to divert tourists away from the main sites — encouraging them to skip overcrowded Florence and see underappreciated Siena instead, or bypass Barcelona’s congestion to enjoy Madrid’s attractions.
If you’re reading this final column in my look at travel, you don’t want to be grounded.
But if you’re a beach bum or snowbird who jets to the Caribbean for winter jaunts, you may have your head in the sand — is it truly a voyage of human discovery to hole yourself up in a gated resort for a week without immersing yourself in the culture?
We like to think of tourism as a human interaction, but it’s an economic transaction.
Tourists need to pace themselves and pick their spots. So, too, countries must pick their tourists — limiting the numbers and maximizing the big spenders.
Relying on pricing to restrict people sounds elitist, but the experience of Bhutan versus Nepal is a cautionary tale. If tourism remains a free-for-all, everyone will pay the price, no one will profit, and few places will be preserved.
If we can find a way to restrain mass tourism and redirect it — to different destinations, at different times, and in less damaging ways — we might conserve the pleasures of travel for another day. But if we let it grow unrestricted, we will degrade the planet and its people.
When that day arrives, the tourist hordes will only detract from the sights. They will have travelled vast distances to see foreign cultures, only to be surrounded by their fellow travellers from home.
Until then, safe travels.