There exist many ways to do tourism, visiting your own country or another country, by car, by bike, plane, bus… Tourism mean go to visit someplace you don’t know. The more time goes by, the more there are tourists who are the source of income of many countries. For that, these countries try to attract more and more people by building shops, restaurants, bars, amusement parks everywhere what I can call mass tourism.
Mass tourism is everywhere, the more time goes by, the less we have real natural places left in touristic areas. For example, last august I have been to the national park Krka in Croatia, where there were very beautiful waterfalls and trees ruined by too many shops and too many people. This is obviously a sad consequence of mass tourism. Because of it, flights are very cheap and enable people to travel to another country for less than 50 euros. I’m part of these persons who travel a lot, cheap, so I can’t forbid to take advantage of the cheap prices. But if trains would be less expensive than flights, people would travel more by train and for sure pollute less. Since, as we all know, flights contribute a lot to climate change, we have to reduce it!
Besides of the environmental aspects, social medias are very important for most tourists. Some people travel to a place just in order to take some photos to post on Instagram and don’t really enjoy the place. At every place you go, there are people taking photos of themselves all the time. For example, last summer I went to the louvres museum in Paris and there was a crowd of people just taking photos of the popular Mona Lisa painting, but almost no one read the description. In other words, most tourists don’t care about the history of the place. They are just there because it’s a fancy city, to take some nice pictures to post on Instagram.
Influencers can be a source of mass tourism. When they go to a place, they post photos tagging the place without thinking about the consequence: A lot of people, mostly young people, go there to do the same as influencers and deteriorate the place. Social medias can help to promote a place but what use is this if people who go there only go there to post on social medias?
People should be more aware about the damages they are causing while they are travelling. They should also think more about the reality they are living than living it through social medias which overwhelm the entire world.
Mass tourism is everywhere, the more time goes by, the less we have real natural places left in touristic areas. For example, last august I have been to the national park Krka in Croatia, where there were very beautiful waterfalls and trees ruined by too many shops and too many people. This is obviously a sad consequence of mass tourism. Because of it, flights are very cheap and enable people to travel to another country for less than 50 euros. I’m part of these persons who travel a lot, cheap, so I can’t forbid to take advantage of the cheap prices. But if trains would be less expensive than flights, people would travel more by train and for sure pollute less. Since, as we all know, flights contribute a lot to climate change, we have to reduce it!
Besides of the environmental aspects, social medias are very important for most tourists. Some people travel to a place just in order to take some photos to post on Instagram and don’t really enjoy the place. At every place you go, there are people taking photos of themselves all the time. For example, last summer I went to the louvres museum in Paris and there was a crowd of people just taking photos of the popular Mona Lisa painting, but almost no one read the description. In other words, most tourists don’t care about the history of the place. They are just there because it’s a fancy city, to take some nice pictures to post on Instagram.
Influencers can be a source of mass tourism. When they go to a place, they post photos tagging the place without thinking about the consequence: A lot of people, mostly young people, go there to do the same as influencers and deteriorate the place. Social medias can help to promote a place but what use is this if people who go there only go there to post on social medias?
People should be more aware about the damages they are causing while they are travelling. They should also think more about the reality they are living than living it through social medias which overwhelm the entire world.
Célia Domen
Celia is a French volunteer in Praxis organisation involved in the World Tourism Day campaign.
