Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines tourism as this:
Main Entry: tour·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈtu̇r-ˌi-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1811
1 : the practice of traveling for recreation
2 : the guidance or management of tourists
3 a : the promotion or encouragement of touring b : the accommodation of tourists
2 : the guidance or management of tourists
3 a : the promotion or encouragement of touring b : the accommodation of tourists
None of these definitions include a description of the atypical tourist, yet we all have a picture in our head of what one looks like. My cliche tourist would be wearing velcro sandals with socks, which now I have learned have a great practicality to them. In my short time in Europe, I destroyed about 5 beloved pairs of shoes just from normal activities. They became worn, tattered, and covered in dirt. If I were to throw a pair of socks on, it would be a lot cheaper then discarding a pair of shoes. This man would also have a fanny packed stocked with essentials; laminated map, guide book, passport, local currency, chap-stick and suntan lotion with SPF, and some sort of translation book. He would be wearing some type of loose tropical shirt to salvage him from the scorching temperatures that he’s unaccustomed to and have a gigantic camera strapped across his body, maybe even a water bottle.
Let’s call this tourist Frank. Frank hopped on a plane from Chicago. He lives just north in a small suburb called Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Lake Geneva is a small, but affluent town that is a getaway for Chicagoites. His plane lands in Venice and he clumsily gets on the orange bus line to P.Le Roma. It’s a bittersweet feeling for him. He’s confused where to go, but thankful that he’s reached his final destination: La Serenissima. Frank somehow manages to purchase a ticket and finds his hotel in the famed San Marco Square. Wife and kids follow religiously in tow taking in the sights. He’s approached by a gaggle of African men trying to sell nicknacks and miscellaneous junk. Although he’s slightly curious, he resists and finally stumbles into his Best Western. The family collapses onto the bed and nurses their exhausted bodies and recharge themselves to soak in all of the prime sightseeing locations.
My question is this, when did Frank and tourism become such a despicable thing? I spent most of my trip trying to live incognito with the locals. Traveling in such a large group, sometimes this was hard but I was able to assimilate into local culture by the end of the trip. I feared wearing flashy clothing and sticking out. When I travel, my main goal is to blend in and live the most simple and native life possible. Where did Frank go wrong? It’s much more than his obnoxious floral shirt and fanny pack. His irreversible ecological damage is far worse than a fashion faux pas. Let’s break down his journey just from the air port to San Marco and leave out air travel.
Tourism is a bit of a catch 22. Most places, especially underdeveloped nations rely on it, sometimes as a sole source of income. Venice certainly benefits from it economically, but it’s hurting the fragile infrastructure in far more ways. Now that our globe is trying to make a more valiant effort towards conservation, conscious’ are spiked with interest, but only when convenient for them. For example, if someone gives you the choice between recycling a plastic bottle, or receiving $100 for throwing it in the trash, which would you decide? For as green as I am, there would be no hesitation for the cash. Venice is suffering from the same dilemma.
15 million people pass through Venice during it’s peak travel season in the summer months (Appendix 1). Being there in the beginning of the season, it’s a sickening experience to witness. Cruise boats and day trippers clog the streets and pollute with their litter and congestion. During the nights it gets a bit more sparse, but none the less is still a concern. “Unless the environment is safeguarded, tourism is in danger of being a self-destructive process, destroying the very resources upon which it is based (Environmental Contradictions in Sustainable Tourism).” Do you think that Frank cares that his family consumed 5 litres of water at lunch? There’s no space in their conscious for the disposal of those glass bottles that it was served in. Ironically, Frank and his family dined on a water front dock with pollution floating beneath, they were just too ravenous to notice.
15 million people pass through Venice during it’s peak travel season in the summer months (Appendix 1). Being there in the beginning of the season, it’s a sickening experience to witness. Cruise boats and day trippers clog the streets and pollute with their litter and congestion. During the nights it gets a bit more sparse, but none the less is still a concern. “Unless the environment is safeguarded, tourism is in danger of being a self-destructive process, destroying the very resources upon which it is based (Environmental Contradictions in Sustainable Tourism).” Do you think that Frank cares that his family consumed 5 litres of water at lunch? There’s no space in their conscious for the disposal of those glass bottles that it was served in. Ironically, Frank and his family dined on a water front dock with pollution floating beneath, they were just too ravenous to notice.
Anthropologist Amanda Stronza penned an article titled Anthropology of Tourism: Forging New Ground for Ecotourism and Other Alternatives. In it, she makes the point that throughout history, there has been little research done that evaluates the tourist. It’s been mainly a polarized studying between the effects of tourism and the motives for it. Her basic analysis of why a tourist decides to travel is this: “The act of seeing sights ‘in person’ and then sharing the experience with others through photographs, souvenirs, and stories allows tourists to reassemble the disparate pieces of their otherwise fragmented lives. Through tourism, then, life and society can appear to be an orderly series of representations, like snapshots in a family album (Stronza 266).” She later goes on to say that “leisure travel is indeed like a pilgrimage, one that can lift people out of the ordinary structures of their everyday lives.”
These are great basic observations, but what are the results of these pilgrimages and holidays? Traditional conclusions about tourism are grim and pessimistic. I would have to say that I agree with that, especially in Venice’s case. In developing countries, tourism offers great economic opportunities for development. Yes, the host nations always runs the risk of developing a dependence on the outside world, but aren’t we all connected anyway? What’s one more guest at a dinner party. Venice is hardly developing. With such rich history dating back to 421 AD, you can hardly call Venice a developing nation. They need to focus on preservation. Venetian residents are being pushed out of their native home because the tourism industry has sucked up any career advancement opportunities and driven prices too high for the average person.
With the Venetians being forced out, this leaves the fate of Venetian culture in the hands of very few. Another anthropologist, Urry, coined the term “the tourist gaze.” It’s basic principal is that the tourists travel to a place with a preconceived notion of what to expect and how the locals should act, dress, and behave. Going hand and hand with this, the locals play into it and solicit stereotypical goods and souvenirs. While sometimes this is a good thing, I look at it as being a negative one.
Traveling with such a large group of unexperienced world travelers (I include myself as well,) some were sucked into this trap. They purchased endless amounts of goods that were to me, clearly made in China. If someone were to travel to New Jersey to visit, I would show them the real New Jersey; the shore, great and fresh produce - not Newark airport’s souvenir shop. Things that are authentically native to New Jersey. I wouldn’t take them to a bodega and feed them packaged chips. It is this sort of thing that I wish tourists had a more keen eye or. With the 15 million tourists each July, Venice is loosing it’s authenticity. I had to nearly go on a wild goose chase to find what I think is the only leather-smith left in Venice. Trades are being outsourced for cheaper qualities. This was a problem in the United States with modernization but what happens when the Chinese decide to inflate labor costs? It’s a scary chain of events that we’re in for.
With the fate of Venice looming in the tourist’s grimy and infected hands, I hope that they will soon realize what they’re doing. They need to recognize that the fastest dollar is not always the most beneficial. Although that may be an unfortunate truth that only myself and a few others realize, everyone will soon enough.
Playing into the “growth” and expansion of Venice, I recall having a conversation while I was in Venice with Marina that it was a proposed idea to dig an underground tunnel that connects Marco Polo to Venice and Lido. Amsterdam is looking to alleviate their traffic clogged streets by creating a series of underground tunnels for cars and shops that correspond to their lagoon system above. Their lagoons are controlled by locks and it would be easy for them to dig and put the tunnels in place beneath their marshy and similar terrain. Although this may be a great engineering feat, I think that it is despicable. Has our world grown so large that there’s no more space to grow upwards? Our only option left is to plunge into the depths of hell.
I was not able to find any documents about the underground Venetian tunnel but dredging is a large concern. On a visit to Torcello, I was able to see a close example of what Venice was like years ago. It was marshy, natural, and what the Adriatic ecosystem should look like. Even Torcello was being over run by silt. You can only mechanically intervene so far until mother nature takes back control (Appendix 2). Dredging is one of the main attributing factors for the rising sea level. The city is sinking and if more dredging is planned for the expansion of the port, that will surely be a nail in the coffin.
As to any argument, there are two sides. In Venice’s situation, they have to seriously sit down and weigh out the pro’s and con’s to their predicament. They are in grave danger for what’s in store. This was most evident to me on our final night in Venice. The same holes that are responsible for discarding rain water were flooding the city. It makes a great photo but the actuality and reality of what really is happening is nothing short of horrific. Weather conditions and floods are worsening in the winter, but in the dead of summer, tides are increasing as well.
In conclusion, there are plenty of things to love and cherish about Venezia. It’s a beautiful, historic, and powerful city that has been in existence with all it’s might for ages. However, this new millennium has put it onto the endangered species list. Many changes need to take place in order to preserve and salvage the damage that has been done otherwise, it will become extinct.
Works Cited
"BBC NEWS | Europe | Venice Is Hit by Serious Flooding." BBC NEWS | News Front Page. 1 Dec. 2008. Web. 29 June 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7758204.stm>.
Duff, Mark. "BBC NEWS | Europe | Venice Launches Tourist Website." BBC NEWS | News Front Page. Web. 30 June 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7863349.stm>.
"Environmental Contradictions in Sustainable Tourism." Environmental Contradictions in Sustainable Tourism (1994). J Store. Web. 29 June 2010. <http://www.jstor.org.library.ramapo.edu:2048/stable/3059924?&Search=yes&term=tourism&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dtourism%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=2&ttl=27997&returnArticleService=showArticle>.
"Environmental Groups Fears Venice Dredging." Dredging News Online. 09 Sept. 2009. Web. 30 June 2010. <http://www.sandandgravel.com/news/article.asp?v1=12072>.
Stronza, Amanda. "Antrhopology of Tourism: Forging New Ground for Ecotourism and Other Alternatives." Annual Reviews (2001). J Store. Web. 30 June 2010. <http://www.jstor.org.library.ramapo.edu:2048/stable/3069217?seq=1&Search=yes&term=tourism&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dtourism%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=7&ttl=27997&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle>.
"Tourism - Bar Chart." Direzione Sistema Statistico Regionale - HomePage. Web. 30 June 2010. <http://statistica.regione.veneto.it/ENG/jsp/barre.jsp>.
Waterfield, Bruno. "New Underground City Planned for Amsterdam - Telegraph." Telegraph.co.uk: News, Business, Sport, the Daily Telegraph Newspaper, Sunday Telegraph - Telegraph. 9 Feb. 2008. Web. 30 June 2010. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1578139/New-underground-city-planned-for-Amsterdam.html>.
Willey, David. "BBC NEWS | Europe | Venice Tourism Squeezes out Residents." BBC NEWS | News Front Page. Web. 30 June 2010. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6297727.stm>.
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