The One And Only

Ego tourism. What an excellent expression. Why didn't I think of it? But I didn't and have to hand it to John Swarbrook of Sheffield Hallam University for apparently having coined it.

From a "c" to a "g", you have the transformation of eco to ego, and there is a large slice of green-based ego in the eco tourism agenda - it is a slice as vast as the polar ice-caps or some remote rain forest, neither of which, following Mr Swarbrook's analysis, should be playing host to the ego/eco tourist.

This all comes from the BBC and a piece by Tom Heap, the presenter of "Costing the Earth". What makes his article doubly interesting is that he holds up tourism centres of high density (in this instance Benidorm) as being eco-sensible. For Benidorm, one can also read local resorts here. Density there is and also evironmentally conscious practices by hotels and local authorities. The argument in favour of density is that the worst excesses of tourism eco damage are mitigated by proximity, i.e. people can walk everywhere, produce can be sourced locally. QED, sustainable tourism, rather than the preserve of an elitist and eco-egotistic minority who would seem to believe that tramping through Rwandan jungle is in some way environmentally right-on, is more the preserve of the package tourist packed tight into a small area - such as Can Picafort. If someone can cite an example of greater density of tourist humanity in terms of hotels than Can Pic, I would be delighted to hear about it. In Mallorca at any rate, Can Picafort is the tourist-sardine centre. One begins to also consider all that building in Puerto Pollensa in a rather different energy-saving light. You can bet your eco-dollar that many of the new apartments rising from the highly-concentrated land of the resort will be of a holiday let variety, thus increasing the numbers of tourists. Yet the compact nature of Puerto Pollensa does, so goes Mr Heap's thesis, create a condition for sustainable tourism.

I have previously drawn attention to the fact that the über-tour operator, TUI, in line with a more environmentally aware and controlled German culture, both social and business, has made demands on local hoteliers to make their establishments ever more sustainable. Struggle though I do to believe that anything more than a smattering of tourists base their holiday choice on the recycling system at a particular hotel, there are, presumably, some who do; some who can be eco-egotists without the hassle of arranging anti-malaria jabs for a couple of weeks yomping in some frightful, disease-ridden tropic of 100% humidity. They can be as eco-friendly in Port Alcúdia as they can in Port Moresby. More so in fact, or so it would seem. And as if to emphasise the fact, not only does Alcúdia town hall boast the town's eco-tourism credentials, so also do some hotels hereabouts have an eco-tourism plaque by the main doors.

The density argument has some logic, but were the tourist authorities to ever pursue that logic to its extreme, the tourist centres would become ghettoes from which, preferably, there would be no escape. They would in fact become more like concentration camps. Taking coach loads of tourists into the more fragile environment of, for instance, the Tramuntana mountains, would be off the excursion list. No, no, Mr and Mrs Tourist, you stay here by the pool and take a stroll to the nearby bar. That's your lot. And now I think of it, those all-inclusives which some already treat as ghettoes which they never leave ... environmentally perfect. There again, let's not get too carried away. There is always the flight to take into account. Oh, and as a final thought - an ego tourist is presumably also, by definition, an ego tripper. Every one a winner.


QUIZ
The video to Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Two Tribes" was the work of Godley and Creme, once of 10cc who of course did "I'm Not In Love". And how do you get from 10cc to Led Zeppelin? Yesterday's title - Level 42. Today's title - who was responsible for this bit of egotism?

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