05 July 2019 - Tourism in the age of Instagram: Can you still travel responsibly?
We’re in the age of the overtourist. You can avoid being one of them.
Hannah Sampson (The Washington Post, 17/06/2019)
Now is the summer of our tourism discontent.
There have been protests against cruise ships in Venice after a crash this month. Workers mounted a strike over crowding at the Louvre. New taxes targeting visitors in New Zealand go into effect soon. Even the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are limiting some tours.
The world was traversed by 1.4 billion international tourist arrivals last year, a number that is only expected to rise as global economic improvement smacks into low airfare, cheap accommodations, a growing fleet of cruise ships and a connected culture that demands photos of it all.
Destination trouble: Can overtourism be stopped in its tracks?
Joe Minihane (CNN, 02/07/2019)
We first hear about these places when we're kids. Famous destinations full of wondrous architecture, spectacular scenery or ancient mysteries that fire our imaginations and fill us with yearning.
We dream, we grow, we save up all our money and one day we finally get to visit -- only to discover that everyone else is visiting at the same time.
Overtourism is fast becoming one of the most hotly debated issues in the modern age of travel. Thanks to cheaper air fares, rising incomes and social media's ability to laser focus attention on specific destinations, more travelers than ever before are descending on places that can no longer cope with their own popularity.
In the past few years, the number of destinations raising the alarm over this has steadily increased.
Instagram travel bragging is killing the family vacation
Meagan Francis (NBC News, 03/07/2019)
Recently, while comparing notes on busy summer schedules with an acquaintance, she sighed. “I’m really hoping to get away this summer, but I don’t know if we can pull it off,” she said. Then, wistfully: “I get so jealous seeing everyone’s travel photos. It’s been so long since our family has been on vacation.”
I was puzzled. The previous month I’d seen photos on this same acquaintance’s Instagram feed of a road trip to visit family in a neighboring state, and just days earlier a weekend excursion to tour museums and a zoo a few hours away.
Then I realized that road trips and weekend outings were not what she meant by “getting away” on a “vacation.” No, she meant Vacation with a capital V — somewhere exotic or tropical or at least too far to drive to.
The Tyranny of Other People’s Vacation Photos
Henry Alford (The New York Times, 12/08/2016)
Chief among my favorite Facebook memories is the time that a high-powered journalist of my acquaintance breezily informed us all that he was at the Grill Room of the Four Seasons with Ted Danson, tucking into some sea urchin. To which one friend responded, “That’s funny, because I’m at the Midtown tunnel with Rhea Perlman, eating shawarma.”
While some frequent users of social media are merely fabulous, others savvily buff their fabulousness to a dazzling gleam, becoming fahvolous. At no point in the year is this more evident than in August and early September, when Facebook and Instagram swell with the plump, juicy, sun-ripened harvest of summer: vacation photos.
What prompts the excessive posting of these pictures?