Am I to blame?

Am I part of the problem? After spending most of the last month travelling both in Canada and the UK, I can start to understand why many countries in Europe are turning against tourism. Is tourism of any kind sustainable, let alone the mass tourism of cruise ships, bus tours, and wall to wall all inclusive package stays at hotels.

I have always strived to travel responsibly both in minimizing my environmental impact as well as being aware of my Western privilege and trying to respect and not overwhelm the cultures I am visiting. I have fallen in love with long distance walking but even that leaves an impact and very quickly, the idea of hiking the Camino has moved from a pilgrimage to more of a bucket list adventure for many. The spiritual idea of a pilgrimage is becoming another market niche of mass tourism.

And yet, something of real value remains to the discerning tourist if one is to seek it out. As Mark Twain has remarked: travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness and many of our people need it sorely….”  In our divided world travel still offers this benefit. Three decades after visiting Dachau remains a reminder to me to never forget what evil we are capable of as human beings.

Perhaps it easy to blame the tourism industry for the problem, but ultimately it is “us” who really have the choice to accept what the package is. Hiking the Great Glen way in the Highlands of Scotland I often encountered less than a dozen people a day while walking on the trail and yet when I stayed in the towns along the way I became just another person seeking accommodation and food. Towns that were not on the tourism allowed me to slip into pubs and stores that the locals used, and I could rest and be for a moment part of that town’s culture.

Yet in other towns, where trails began or ended the town’s High Street retail now catered to visitors. In others, the town was on the organized bus tour route such as the small town of Fort Augustus, which would receive up to ten coach buses a time for short stays of less than a few hours. The town’s population would double many times a day while buses descended on this small town, whose picturesque locks, and the proximity to Loch Ness was enough to make it a tourist destination. At the end of the day, I wonder what remained of the cultural uniqueness of this town? For the residents I am sure this activity created employment during the tourist season but for residents, I wondered where did the locals shop?

And maybe that is where tourism tips into something undesirable. If Venetians can no longer live in Venice, maybe we have lost the thread.