Fair tourism…

From fishing village to tourist city, who benefits? 

My last tours were fun and not to difficult to guide. The groups were very different, but with similar spirit. They had in common that they were positive minded, flexible and on vacation to have a good time and not to worry too much. Believe me, that isn’t always obvious (remember my story about tour guiding on Cuba). I now guided 3 tours this year during which I had a good time and about which I feel save to say that the groups enjoyed their tour as well.

After my story about backpackers and some complains that they often don’t spend enough money, it makes me wonder if the tourist that I guided were ‘good tourist’?

To answer this question, we first have to find out what a ‘good tourist’ is.

Hay, there we have a problem, when is a tourist a good tourist? When she (or he of course, but I will now stick to she) is a kind person and only observes and preservers her surrounding, like the good backpackers?

To me my last groups contained great tourists for to work and travel with. For example during my last two tours we had to deal with a lost cell phone, lost money, a broken bus, broken boat, a hurricane warning (Paula) and the tale of hurricane Mathew. The rains caused by Mathew were in some places the heaviest they had experienced in 50 years. We were very lucky that the only trouble they caused to us were roads blocked (or even wasted away) by landslides, but right on time open again. During the first tour I had to decide if I followed the idea of the agency to stay in San Cristobal, or to take a change to see if the road to Panajachel maybe tomorrow would be open again? I had confidence in the group that they would dare to take the change and that I would be able to solve the consequences if we could not pass by the landslides. It all worked out J

With the last two groups I also felt confident to take the boat from Caye Caulker directly to Mexico instead of going by bus and boat like the agencies had booked. It saved the group a bus ride, walking with their luggage and at least 2 hours of travel time. There was a risk of course, because if something would have gone wrong (like when the boat during the second tour almost not left to Mexico…) it would be the responsibility of me and the group. Is this a reason for not trying to give some extra service? Unfortunately for lots of tour leaders and agencies the answer seems to be yes.

The first objectives in tourism seem to be more and more in following order:

-          Earn money (fair enough);

-          Cover risks (mostly fair enough);

-          Take as less responsibilities as possible (sometimes understandable, sometimes chicken…);

-          Serve the costumer (should this one not be on the second place..?)

Yep, the bigger the tour agencies/operators get the fewer responsibilities they seem to be willing to take. I even heard that some tour operators now don’t allow their tour leaders to book rafting trips in a very popular rafting area. As a result their costumers book these trips themselves often with cheaper and less reliable agencies than the one the tour leader use to work with. So IF the decision of the operator was to protect their costumers, then the result is the opposite. The same can be said for flying over the Nasca-lines. I agree that many local agencies use (too) old planes, but some agencies do have new planes as well and instead of trying to work with these agencies, the tour operator prefers to protect their image. Do you really think that most tourists who go to Nasca suddenly don’t want to fly over the lines anymore..? And if the operator really cares about its costumers, they would start using two bus drivers on the long rides. I’m not sure how this goes now, but I am pretty sure that most tour operators/agencies still just use one driver and hope that the tour leader keeps him awake, if needed…

I seems I’m drifting away from my first statement, but not really. The decisions of big tour operators to play more and more on save will mean that in the near future more and more tours will become similar and visiting the common tourist areas. This could mean more tourist spread over less locations. Remember this.

Going back to what is a good tourist I want to use the results of some research that’s done by an organization from the USA. They were afraid that people from the USA were known in the rest of the world as ‘bad tourists’. It turned out that they were wrong. Tourists from the USA are actually very welcome. Unfortunately for them this is mostly not because of their kindness, but because of their easy way of spending money when they are on vacation.

Yep I hate to say this, but if you would do an election around the world the, best tourist overall will probably be the one who spends the most money.

If you think it over it is actually very logic, because what other use do tourists nowadays have to the places they visit? In the early days travelers were people who brought news and interesting stories, entertainment to the locals. Now radio, television and internet took this all over, so the only real use there is left, is when tourists spend their money…

So at short notice a tourist is now more useful to its surrounding than a backpacker, because she helps the local economy. But let’s take a closer look.

Tourists usually come in big amounts and ideally to the tour agencies these amounts keep on growing. Let’s now make a black and white comprehension between a few good backpackers and a lot of rich (we have just established that more money makes better tourists) good tourists, leaving the cultural impact aside. I blame television more for that than travelers anyway. What is their impact?

Written from Playa del Carmen, which was less than 30 years ago still a quite fishermen village. Some backpackers might have found it, but it were mostly the big cruise ships who started to bring people on shore. Then some European tourists came, more hotels and restaurants were build and now Playa is a big tourist town, still growing vast…

Imagine that a good tourist is on vacation, usually not for more than three weeks. The whole year she has worked hard to earn money and time and all she wants now is relaxing can you blame her? She had a quick look through some magazines and saw many great places all equipped with the luxury she has at home, or even more. She picks out a 5-star resort along the white beach of Playa del Carmen. It has a big swimming pool and several golf courses.

The backpackers will stay in Playa, but don’t bring in enough money to support the many employers who came to Playa to serve the tourists.

We can’t blame the tourist for leaving and also not the backpacker for not spending as much as the tourist. No in this case the tour operators had a responsibility to well inform their tourists, which doesn’t always happen.

Why not? Well, first of all I think that some people shouldn’t travel to 2th or 3th world countries, because they luxury they want can’t be guarantied in these countries. Most tour operators promise their (future) costumers too much luxury. But what if some of them will be honest, tourists will rather believe the ones that lie and book their holiday with them…

If all the tour operators would be honest they would have to admit that Playa has probably reached its max on the amount of tourists it can receive and still pretend to look like a village. What happens when some rich tourists leave?

Negative publicity can cause for Playa to be a less popular tourist location, with all its consequences…

Another negative effect of tourism is that it attract ‘gold diggers’. When the village of Playa del Carmen started to grow initially it was good for the village, because it gave a different source of income beside the fishing. But then more and more tourists came, the village grew too fast and even people from around left their fields, businesses, villages or even home towns to find a job in this new growing market. Villagers had to leave their houses (I spoke with some) to make place for tourist attractions. The village grew quickly into a big tourist town depending on money from (rich) tourists. Playa del Carmen is also part of the Maya Route, which is apparently the best sold tourist tour this year.

But what if this amount of people is too big to be supported by the natural resources of Playa? The tourists will use most of the natural resources and then leave to places where there is still enough so they don’t have to worry during their well deserved vacation. This is not an unlikely situation and would be a disaster for most people in Playa, the town is now far too big to live from fishing only…

I believe that it is time that everyone involved in tourism takes responsibility for their impact in other countries starting with the tour operators.

Tour operators should take more responsibilities again for the product they sell and the people who buy their products. They should stop promising too much and inform the tourists as good as possible about the real local situation. De tourists on my Cuba tour were also not well informed about what to expect. This made it more difficult for our local guide and me to explain them well about the local situation…

Local hotels, but especially agencies, taxi’s and restaurants need to start treating travelers like guests again instead of ‘walking wallets’.

And of course tourists have their responsibilities as well, first of all they should listen (this doesn’t always happen…) and/or inform themselves well about the places they visit as to be able to disturb their surrounding as less as possible. Besides that they have to be open minded, flexible and enjoy their vacation as much as possible, they deserve it.

We all deserve a fair vacation once in a while ;-)

To be continued…

Saludos,

Martijn

P.S. This I just read on Wikipedia:

In the 2005 census, the city had a population of about 100,383 people and it is rapidly growing in population. It is the third largest city in Quintana Roo, after Cancún and Chetumal.

En el año 1995 su población era de 1.000 habitantes, en el 2003 ya contaba con una población de 49.000 habitantes, debido principalmente a la inmigración de personas de distintas partes de la república en busca del trabajo que demanda la industria turística.