It’s holiday season and we’re beset by a barrage of tourist horror stories, all of which show a depressing lack of respect: defacing the Colosseum with graffiti; crashing into and damaging a 300-year-old painting in the Uffizi in search of a meme; sitting on an invaluable chair displayed in a museum and destroying it; driving down the Spanish Step in Rome and getting stuck; harassing geishas in Kyoto – the dismal list goes on and on…
All over the world authorities are enacting policies to mitigate this behaviour, from hefty fines and vigilant policing to clever advertising campaigns and tourist ‘ambassadors’. But we still need to understand why tourists are behaving so badly.
Advertising campaigns for summer holidays create an alluring picture of fun-packed days (sun, sea, water-sports) and sizzling summer nights (drinking, clubbing, partying). These hermetic visions of a tourist heaven omit one obvious factor – the local population, who are consigned to the background as they go about their usual business, working, shopping, cooking, cleaning, taking their kids to school, and so on. Even if your preferred holiday is a tourist ‘ghetto’ – an all-inclusive pleasure resort that supplies all your holiday needs – it is still being serviced by local workers, who live outside the hallowed precincts.
Many tourists embark on holidays feeling that they deserve a break. The holiday is a reward for all their hard work, an antidote to the mundane concerns of daily life. They are going to let their hair down, pursue pleasure with disinhibition, revel in being somewhere where nobody knows them and will disapprove of their behaviour.
Seduced by the promise of pleasure, they never stop to think about the fact that they are visiting a real place inhabited by ordinary people. This is often a failure of the imagination. If you live somewhere relentlessly grim, grey and urban it is hard to imagine that mundane lives are lived in paradisiacal places, which seem to be created for pleasure. But it is important to remind yourself that your pleasure palace is somebody else’s home, and they are entitled to some respect and consideration. Just remind yourself, how would you feel if tourists treated your own home in a disrespectful way?
A lack of respect for cultural heritage is one of the most shocking symptoms of bad tourist syndrome. Would the offenders behave with such contemptuous disregard in the museums and historic buildings in their native land? While undoubtedly there are vandals in every society, it does appear that cultural disrespect is much more likely to be displayed by visitors.
Again, this seems to be a failure of the imagination, or in some instances a contempt for otherness. Once the hedonistic mindset has been engaged, there is a temptation to see an entire tourist destination as a playground, where cultural norms are no longer applicable.
This tendency becomes particularly troubling when it extends to a contempt for sacred or revered places. These may well be culturally alien to visitors, who refuse to engage with their hosts’ beliefs, expectations or prohibitions, or even accept that these beliefs should be honoured, and choose to behave disrespectfully.
Undoubtedly bad tourist syndrome has been greatly exacerbated by social media. The urge to chronicle holiday exploits on social media platforms sets a ball in motion. Followers want to visit the same places and do the same things and post about them in turn. This is a way of consolidating ties within a social group, but it can also be a way of perpetuating undesirable behaviour.
The urge to ‘create memories’, to document the tourist experience and to disseminate it to other people can mean that tourists are putting considerably more effort into creating content than they are expending on looking at the world around them, understanding local customs, or interacting with the local inhabitants. Their preoccupation blinds them to the local environment, and an obsessive quest for a killer image can mean that they act inconsiderately – from trespassing to invading home-owners' privacy.
Inevitably, the quest for the perfect social media image, which is endlessly replicated, leads to a ‘bucket list’ mentality. Certain sights and locations are swamped by hordes of image-seekers, which can have a severe impact on residents.
•Find out More
Whenever you travel, accept that you are not visiting a theme park, but a place where people live and work. Try and do a little research about your destination before you set off and try and understand economic conditions, cultural norms and prohibitions from the outset. No matter how you feel about different cultures, you should at least respect what they value and hold dear and the everyday pressures they must confront.
•Ditch the Phone
Putting the phone to one side may be too big an ask for most of us, but at least make an effort to moderate phone-related activities. Accept that actually experiencing a place, and not mediating that experience through your phone, is a much more intense, unforgettable and vivid experience. Once you look up from the screen and really take in the world around you, you will find that you feel more engaged with the local inhabitants, which will add a whole new depth to your experience.
•Model Good Behaviour
If you find the urge to post irresistible, then use social media as a way to disseminate positive messages about travelling. Instead of following the herd, break free. Explore little-known byways, obscure monuments and quirky sights. Make friends with locals and post pictures of them (with their consent). Dig out great shops, market stalls and fantastic local restaurants. Demonstrate that the best tourists have an open and enquiring mind, and a respectful demeanour. It will reap unforgettable rewards.
