Mass Tourism: The Tourist’s Dream or The Host’s Nightmare? Part Two
Part 2 – The Social and Environmental Side of Mass Tourism
Firstly a footnote to the Part 1 of these articles…..The average spend by tourists to Greece includes those tourists travelling independently, mass tourists of course spend considerably less as they have already paid their accommodation costs in their country of origin, all-inclusive tourists tend to spend nothing at all because they have paid for all their food and drinks in their country of origin.
Continuing the discussion we start with
The Social (and Political) Implications of Mass Tourism
No one has the right to prevent an emerging nation, or developing country from improving its status in the World, any more than anyone has the right to deny residents of colder countries their annual two weeks in the sun!
In many countries today there has been a move from the country areas to cities as people go in search of a ‘better life’. Tourism certainly provides an additional means of earning foreign income for the country concerned, but as we have seen in part one, if it happens to be a foreign mass tourism country that is calling the shots, the financial outcome may not be all that it could be. The hospitality industry is notoriously badly paid in many countries with long hours and low pay, and as fashions change it could well be that a country can suddenly find itself without tourists, or without sufficient income from tourism to support its infrastructure.
Tourism can therefore, take people away from ‘traditional pursuits’, leaving a country without the knowledge in the future to return or develop those pursuits and traditional industries.
In Greece for example many young people go to university to study ‘Tourism’, (cynics would say that it is the tourists who should have a degree in tourism), but recent world events have cause a downturn in tourism in Greece and elsewhere, and even the so-called ‘crisis’ in Greece has affected the industry badly, whereas, Crete, Greece, for instance, has a thriving agricultural industry which is terribly under-utilised, and while agriculture may not be that ‘exciting’, it could provide a continuous source of income as people still need to eat even if they do not go on holidays. In fact back in the 1970′s Crete had a thriving cut flower industry selling carnations to Holland, but the lure of easy money in the tourist industry led to this industry being ignored!
As it happens out of all these tourism graduates, none seems to have realised that the Greek tourist industry is not in the state it could be, and that reliance on traditional markets should be changed, and that there is a ready market for independent and specialist tourism.
And none seems sufficiently imaginative to even suggest that the seasonal tourism that is prevalent in Greece is not the best way to go. The seasonality of the product means that for six months of the year, tourism workers (about 600,000 of them), are basically unemployed, so that during the off season they draw on the social security payments that have been made to the government during the summer, money that with a year round industry would remain in government coffers to relieve the current stress in the economy.
While on the subject of employment figures in Greece, it is worth noting that many who work in the industry are not Greek and are not even residents of Greece. Many of the non-residents, by agreement with employers, work without social security payments being paid. This ready pool of cheaper labour means that Greeks, and Greek residents, are often unable to find work as they need to have the social payments made!
On a political note, politically oppressive governments can of course take advantage of the mass tourism system by diverting foreign cash into their own pockets rather than those of the government. Conversely a foreign mass tourism company can equally well hold a government to ransom to force social change, but as they are more interested in making a profit, they are more likely to be trying to force prices down or gain a financial advantage.
For many tourists, cultural exchange is the main purpose of tourism, to visit different countries, to sample foreign cuisines and cultures, unfortunately with many mass tourism destinations now going all out for the all-inclusive holiday, this rarely happens to the extent it should, as many all-inclusive visitors, rarely leave their hotel complex and any cultural exchange is often sanitised to suit their country of origin.
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The Environmental Side of Mass Tourism.
Ever wondered what happens to your sewage when you are on holiday?
This is not such a silly question as it seems because if we are talking environment we must look at a total picture and not just the carbon emissions from tourist flights.
Already in many parts of the world mass tourism has been banned, by popular accord, to protect delicate environments, but many developing (and developed), countries dispose of rubbish using methods which have been outlawed for many years in other countries. Of course the only way to get around this is to raise the awareness of tourists to these problems.
Developing a mass tourism industry on ‘virgin ground’ results in the destruction of the environment and the development of infrastructure to support possibly millions of extra bums on lavatory seats each year causes considerable financial stress on the economy of the host country for many years to come. It would be naive to think that a foreign mass tourism company would be generous enough to cough up cash for such infrastructure, or if they have done they certainly do not seem to have publicised the fact, and none appear to advertise themselves as environmentally friendly.
We have some fine examples of environmental unfriendliness here in Greece with the rise of the all inclusive hotels.
As experienced visitors to Greece will know, the traditional accommodation is the family run apartment block, usually built close to a village, in some cases these can be quite large, but in general they are built imaginatively using local materials such as stone (and even reinforced concrete!) and generally they blend in well with the landscape using the fall of the land to disguise their very existence.
Compare this to the newer all inclusive hotels which are built on virgin sites with the resultant destruction of wildlife habitats, the end result is often a blot on the landscape that either looks like they should be in Tuscany, or with entrance ways that look like the Mission Control Houston or an ‘amusement park’.
Along with this ‘Here’s a nice view, let’s spoil it with an enormous hotel’ mentality there seems to be a total lack of imagination when it comes to landscaping after the project is completed. Very often on Crete, Greece, the landscaping consists of planting imported species of palm tree, (often these carry red palm weevil which decimates the native palm), rather than the rather nice native species that grows there, and then we have the planting of grass which required thousand of litres a year of water over and above the normal rainfall, to maintain, and the greatest sin of all, the quick fix to bare ground which is so common on Crete, Greece, the planting of Hottentot Fig, already declared a noxious weed in many places it runs out of control and smother native plants, it also quite high maintenance as it needs to be cut back regularly and unless disposed of properly will take root wherever it is dumped.
Rats also find the seeds particularly tasty and therefore spread the plant. It is also believed by some that the fleshy leaves provide a handy water supply for rats thereby increasing the rat population.
And bear in mind that at present it appears the Greek government is subsidising the construction of these architectural nightmares and thence the planting of invasive species lending credibility to the destruction of the Cretan landscape and indigenous plant life.
Many of these new hotels also have private pools and use vast quantities of water in ‘moats’ and canals surrounding the buildings, nothing can be more galling to local residents of the Hersonissos area (for instance) of Crete, who sometimes go for days without running water, not because there is’nt any water, but because there is not the capacity to pump enough during the summer months, to see this waste of such precious resource!
To be fair at least one mass tourism operator does pretend that it is environmentally aware and that it does admit a social responsibility, the amount of money spent is often pitiful compared to the profits they make, and as far as their environmental policy is concerned, the standards they set out to meet are set by themselves not by any independent body. Saving water and electricity by not washing towels so often is more about inproving profits that safe guarding the environment, just the same as using fuel efficient aircraft!
In addition to these obvious attacks on the environment, there are others which are not ‘seen’. For example, the ‘cleaning’ of beaches before the tourist season is undertaken by contractors who routinely, under Town Hall instructions, remove areas of wildflowers and other coastal plants which help to prevent coastal erosion, just because there is a bit of litter, which could easily be removed by hand, amongst the plants. Litter, plants, and sand from the beach are then routinely ‘tipped’. Coming back briefly to the tourists themselves being made environmentally aware, some of the rubbish commonly left behind are the ubiquitous disposable nappy which they bury in the sand, used sanitary items and even condoms!
Another ‘unseen’ form of environment pollution is light pollution. On Crete, Greece, and in many other countries of course, the night sky, which so many in northern Europe cannot see because of clouds and dust in the air, is a spectacular site and even The Pleiades which have not been properly visible in the UK for years, are a common site. The recent craze for building vast hotels lit up like Disneyland at night has made the night sky impossible to see, so no longer can one lay on the beach at night and survey the universe in all its glory!
One wonders whether visitors from northern Europe are actually afraid of the dark.
With situations like this it is best to let the reader make their own conclusions, but in this brief summing up it is not unreasonable to say that while tourism overall is a good thing providing foreign income and involving as it does cultural and social exchange. As for mass tourism the outcome may not be so good, with tourism operators needing to operate at a profit the host country can find itself being controlled from abroad, but this forcing down of prices does reflect on the price paid by the consumer who can benefit to a certain extent from the ‘buying power’ of the operator.
Development of a mass tourism industry can cause environmental damage to the host country, one wonders what would happen if someone tried to build a 500 room hotel in the National Park on North Island, New Zealand! But if development is done sensitively the damage need not be major.
There is one final point where mass tourism may not be quite so good for the consumer and that involves the often horrific ‘charter flight’. Some prices for flights were mentioned at the beginning of part one, and using these we can do some simpler figures for the cost of flying per kilometre.
A pretty average price for a return trip to Crete, Greece, from London, a round trip of 3,400km can be had for about €180, a trip to NZ on a scheduled flight from London to Auckland, a round trip of 37,000km can be had for about €700. It is not difficult to see that the charter flights run by the mass tourism operator costs just on 5 eurocents per kilometre, while the scheduled flight costs just on 2 eurocents per km.
On the mass tourism flight you get very limited luggage, uncomfortable narrow seats with as many jammed on the aircraft as possible, usually no in flight catering or service unless you want to pay for it (usually at grossly inflated prices), and no entertainment.
Compare this to the scheduled flight to NZ, where you get a comfortable seat, several meals, free drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, and free entertainment in the form of about 40 movies and a plethora of music channels. And at a cost nearly 60% less than the mass tourism charter flight.
Bearing in mind that these tour aircraft are run by the tour operators so any profit they make does not come to Greece, whose side is the mass tourism operator on??
The author has travelled widely around the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. He decided in 1993 that organised tourism was not for him when he arrived in Teneriffe on a ‘package tour’ at 2am and was refused entry to the hotel by the hotel owner because the tour company had not paid him for two years.
He became a ‘Grecophile’ in 1969 after visiting Greece for the first time, and moved to Greece to live permanently in 2004 since when he has been involved with tourists in various capacities.
Source: ArticlesBase.com