Stuart McDonald, of Travelfish and (since the pandemic) Couchfish, has spent a lot his travel downtime thinking about where tourism should be headed. He recently did a really thought-provoking series.

It kicks off like this: "Tuesday September 27 was World Tourism Day. You didn’t know? You’re not the only one. As my mate Ian at Travel Massive pointed out, on one website, National Chocolate Milk Day got more shares than World Tourism Day."

The Day is the creation of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), whose conception of tourism is very much development-driven. McDonald's first article correlates the organization's focus (as demonstrated by its event slogans) with international arrivals (IA), and the share of those arrivals into Asia and the Pacific (AAP).

In the 1980s, IA equalled 278.10 million, and AAP's share was 8.27 per cent. By the time we get to the 2020s, IA equalled 1.4 billion, and AAP's share was 24.43 per cent. Truly massive increases.

The UNWTO's ethos has also changed somewhat. Whereas the emphasis in the 1980s was on responsibility, peace, cooperation, and friendship, in the 1990s, "a business focus begins to rear its head", and increases in the 2000s. The 2010s start to manifest some concern about the apparently unstoppable growth of tourism, but none of the World Tourism Days has featured overtourism as a theme. A document offering strategies to deal with vistor growth in cities nowhere suggests "taking steps to arrest the overall growth in tourist numbers".


Thailand, 2003. A nicely sustainable bit of travel, as I was there for 10 weeks, living and working

His next instalment looks at "sustainable tourism", one of the major problems of which is that there's no consensus as to what that means. Then we have that holy grail, responsible tourism. There are somewhat clearer guidelines on what this means, but they are still open to a range of interpretations. At the end of the day, each traveller has to take a good hard look at him/herself: "Examine every part of your typical travel routine and ask yourself 'how can I do better?'"

In another episode, MacDonald takes another shot at flying: "There is no single mode of public transportation that has a higher carbon footprint ... than flying. If you want to minimise your footprint, any alternative mode of transport is preferable. Anything -- well except for a cruise ship of course. Really -- this is all there is to it... Reduce your flying today. Take fewer but longer trips. Do your research and offset what you do fly in a smart fashion. Do not fly domestic."



There's lots more on being a "more ethical traveller" in this comprehensive article by Carolin Lusby. In sum:

1. Select your destination with care (ie head for the less crowded places, avoid all-inclusive resorts and cruise ships, and select locally owned accommodation)
2. Weigh your options for how to get there (which generally means avoiding flying wherever possible, and steering clear of overly hectic itineraries)
3. Choose activies that support local interests (ie, eat local, get out of the tourist bubble)
4. Seek genuine and respectful interation with residents
5. After the trip, share the experience with others (promote what's good)



McDonald, like Purple Tern, is a proponent of slow travel. He suggests zooming in on Google Maps until you've isolated a single city block -- until you can "see the red plastic chairs". Then you spend an entire day just exploring that bit of the city. The point is that if you spend more time doing something, you'll benefit more from it. As he points out, though, unless you're slow travelling very close to home, there's that little matter of the far-from-slow flight to factor in... And we shouldn't forget the impact on the local population of our "longer, deeper, and slower travel", which probably takes us into less touristed areas for more extended periods: "If they stay too long, the line between some variation on tourist and some variation on expat blurs. Rising property prices, creaking infrastructure, drugs, crime, racket and pollution -- these are all standard issues when a destination gets 'too popular.' It’s not only slow travellers who contribute to this -- everyone does—but the longer one stays, the bigger one's contribution. What would Barcelona or Venice look like if every tourist who visited stayed a month?" Fair point.



Which brings me to a super-excellent article by Chris Arnade entitled How To Travel. I wonder whether some of the advice rubs up against the tenets of sustainability talked about above (is your carbon footprint worsened, for example, if you secure cheaper flights by picking routes that involve changing planes often...?), but SO much of it resonates with me -- with what we already do, and what we would like to do more of:

"I don’t travel like most people do. I don’t go to see the X wonders of the world. I don’t go for the museums. I stay away from the coolest neighborhoods in the world, which all end up being variations of the same thing.

"I travel to get an idea of how other people live. To inhabit, in a small way, their tiny slice of the world. To meet people on their terms, the best that I can. On a level that allows me to better understand how they see the universe and their place in it.

"Like reading fiction, travel is a gateway into another life. But it’s better than fiction, because the plot is written in real time, by the characters themselves, and it never ends."

On choosing a destination, he writes this:

"Traveling is my education, so I treat the question like choosing which course to take. What do I want to learn about this semester?... I believe in doing deep dives. In doing one place for as long as I can, rather than running all around trying to see everything. To become a local, or at least blend in as best I can... I try to find non-traditional tourist destinations... "

And on what you do when you get there:

"On my first full day in a new town I literally walk across it in one direction. The next day I walk across it in another direction. Then over the next few days I slowly fill in the gaps, changing and refocusing my walks on what interests me the most. I’m never sure what that will be, but it’s usually something I stumbled on during those first two walks."

Awesome advice.



Other great posts from Chris Arnade include Why I Walk and How To Walk.

And finally, and somewhat differently, Clare Coffey reminds us that we shouldn't let "the imperative not to be a tourist" -- the sine qua non of travel advice -- fool us: "You are not, in fact, a local; you are a tourist... To travel is ... an illuminating pleasure and a privilege. It is also an unstable position, possibly exploitative and always fraught with the potential for humiliation." And we shouldn't try to insulate ourselves from the risk of this discomfort, either by adopting the role of the old-fashioned, cocooned tourist, or by "embracing the anti-tourist aspiration". In both cases, "rejecting the vulnerability means rejecting the occasion of its reciprocal mode: xenia, guest friendship, love of the foreigner. Admit that you are an outsider, a stranger, and people will open themselves to you in unforeseen ways."

Which all offers food for thought for our upcoming trips.