Tourism Today

The effects of tourism since the 1960s have been incredible. Just a few examples:

The Mediterranean shores have a resident population of 130 million, but this swells to 230 million each summer because of the tourists. This is nothing. The United Nations projects that visitors to the region could number 760 million by the year 2025. In Spain, France, Italy, and most of Greece, there is no undeveloped coastline left, and the Mediterranean is the dirtiest sea in the whole world.

In the Alps, the cable cars have climbed ever higher. More and more peaks have been conquered. It is now an old Swiss joke that the government will have to build new mountains because they have wired up all the old ones. There are 15,000 cable car systems and 40,000 kilometres of ski-runs.

American national parks have been operating permit systems for years. But even this is not enough for the most popular sites. By 1981, there was an eight- year waiting list to go rafting down the Grand Canyon’s Colourado River, so now there is a lottery once a year to select the lucky travellers.

In Notre Dame de Paris, 108 visitors enter each minute during opening hours. Thirty-five buses, having put down their passengers, wait outside, their fumes eating away at the stonework of the cathedral.

Poor Venice with its unique, exquisite beauty. On one hot, historic day in 1987, the crowds were so great that the city had to be closed to all visitors.

In Barbados and Hawaii, each tourist uses ten times as much water and electricity as a local inhabitant. Whilst feeling that this is unfair, the locals acknowledge the importance of tourism to their economy overall.

The prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux in France were being slowly ruined by the breath and bacteria from 200,000 visitors a year. The caves have now been closed to the public and a replica has been built. This is much praised for its likeness to the original.