Let's Debate - Travel and Tourism
What is the difference between a traveller and a tourist?
Many writers have recently discussed the difference between tourists and travellers. Look at the list below of some of the things people do when they visit other countries.
| TRAVELLERS | TOURISTS |
(a) Learn some of the language of the country so that they can speak it to people if they meet.
(b) Travel in a coach full of people from their own country.
(c) Eat in their hotel food cooked by chefs who know what their hotel guests are used to.
(d) Travel on trains and buses used by local people.
(e) See the famous sights which everyone who goes to that country looks at.
(f) Eat the local food with local people.
(g) Go to places few visitors have seen, even when difficult or uncomfortable.
(h) Meet, talk to, share experiences with local people.
What’s the sense of this mass exchange of populations if the nations of the world remain basically ignorant of each other?
Many tourist organisations are directly responsible for this. They protect their clients from too much contact with the local population. The modern tourist leads an easy life. He lives at international hotels, where he eats his international food and sips his international drink while he watches the natives from a distance.
Conducted tours to places of interest are carefully selected. The tourist is allowed to see only what the organisers want him to see and no more. A strict schedule makes it impossible for the tourist to wander off on his own; and anyway, language is always a barrier, so he is only too happy to be protected in this way.
The sad thing about this situation is that it leads to the idea of national stereotypes. We don't see the people of other nations as they really are, but as we have been brought up to believe they are.
You can test this for yourself. Take five nationalities, say, French, German, English, American and Italian.
Now in your mind, match them with these five adjectives: musical, amorous, cold, pedantic, naive.
These adjectives actually act as barriers. When you set out on your travels, the only characteristics you notice are those which confirm your preconceptions.
You come away with the highly unoriginal and inaccurate impression that, say, ‘Anglo-Saxons are hypocrites’ or that ‘Latin people shout a lot’.