Can you take my picture?

No matter what we say about this voyage—this learning adventure—we are still tourists. We see the world through our own lens, buying souvenirs as proof of our recent visits. For most passengers, this is a life-changing voyage around the globe, a once in a lifetime experience, learning inside and outside of class. For others, and truly the small minority, these 100 days are nothing more than a worldwide shopping spree aboard a modern, comfortable cruise ship. But we have all our motives and intentions—our reasons for embarking this ship vary greatly. And so my goal isn’t to judge others but to take a look at modern tourism today in the 21st century.

Tourism is the largest business in the world, employing up to 10% of the world’s total workforce. Overall, 808 million people traveled across international boundaries, and this number is expected to grow to 1.6 billion by the year 2020. These numbers are down a bit since the biggest single influence on tourism in modern times struck Asia in 2004, the Tsunami, killing hundreds of thousands of people on the coasts. While France continues to be the top tourist destination and the Germans travel more and spend more than any other nationality in the world, Europe is no longer than most talked about place in the world. Indeed, tourism is expanding beyond the usual trip down to Mexico from California; modern tourism can essentially be divided into seven major categories according to Dr. Simon Hudson, a business faculty member from England. These topics include: sport and adventure tourism, ethical tourism, medical tourism, religious tourism, nostalgia tourism, film tourism, and educational tourism, like Semester at Sea.

Medical tourism is a new trend, an ever growing component of world tourism dollars. Cuba, South Africa, Hungary, Turkey, but India is the number one place in the world. Save money, take a tour of India and get your medical treatment all in one! Morally, I found it repugnant. Five star hospitals catering to rich Westerners looking for a new liver or hip while Indians die on the streets from hunger and malnutrition. For some reason, I was outraged listening to this topic in Global Studies. On one side, this presentation by Dr. Holly Carter, a sociologist, illustrated the education, learning, and expertise of the Indian populace. Doctors here pamper their guests with long stays and massages and great hospital food. Westerners find a great bargain here—packages with hotels, airfare, tour and surgery are one third to a half cheaper than surgeries in the States and cut the queues for the nationalized medical systems in Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Other folks saw the positive side of this newfound tourism—economic and infrastructure development as well as further gains in the Indian health care system. Most doctors, my English friend Tim argued, already fled to Britain, a brain drain that occurred long before medical tourism. But I can’t get past the Indian suffering, much of what we saw in the streets. If we agree that life, liberty and healthcare among other natural human rights exist, certainly the Indians should be the benefactors of well-renowned Indian medicine, but that isn’t the case. Instead Westerners seeking cheap cosmetic surgeries, “Safari with a facelift” one advertisement boasted, are pampered with long recovery times and four course exotic meals. On the streets of Chennai, polio and measles continue to inflict heavy wounds and pains.

Another new side of travel is the growth of tourist locations featured in movies and the preservation of sets created for filming. Generally called movie-induced or film-induced tourism, this recent phenomenon refers to tourist visits to a destination or attraction as a result of the destination’s feature in television, video or cinema. The huge increase is generally attributed to the growth of the entertainment industry and the increase in international travel. We visited several locations along the way, including Japan, the scene of Tom Cruise’s “Last Samurai,” Vietnam’s “The Quiet American,” and Beijing’s “Last Emperor.” New Zealand saw the largest jump in tourist numbers after Peter Jackson’s filming of the Lord of the Rings. Tourists came to see the Hobbit homes and look at the models of the White Castle and Mordor. New Zealand stumbled into their recent success, after they began dismantling the sets and Hobbit homes only to have more and more tourists asking to see the exact locations of the scenes. Now ropes and admission fees protect these national treasures. James Bond is raking in the money in the Bahamas. Each year, Stuart Cove charges tourists to have their picture taken underwater just like James Bond for with $500,000 in profit each year!

Consumerism is alive and rampant on our trip. Passengers conduct business on their tour buses—3 feet above their Vietnamese or Indian salesmen from the comfortable and safe environment of their air conditioned temperatures. Opening and closing the windows are a sales technique to finalize the sale before the bus abruptly leaves the hawkers in the dust. Some students unfairly see bargaining as a game, a win-lose battle to see who can get the lowest price. We compare prices, but in the end, it’s about the price YOU want to pay for the good, I argued. After all, I am not above buying souvenirs.

Sometimes I feel that I fall into what Dr. Jonathan Kramer calls “experience greed” and what I like to deem “backpacker bravado.” The reality is that we only have five days in each port—so little time to see people and places, and to try to understand the world. We rush around, whipped around in tourist buses trying to squeeze in as much as we can. One temple, two shrines, three battlefields—we are trying to get the best story. But this is not the point of traveling. Many students talk about the potential of sitting back—talking with locals in a tea shop or spending an hour in a local park. Another side is the ability to travel the cheapest and to mix in with locals the most. “How many countries have you traveled to?” In addition, how bohemian one can become is hotly debated among backpackers! Unfortunately, travel can sometimes turn into a competition rather than leisure or education. For me, it’s still the stories, people and memories.

Critics of travel education and tourism say that we impose our own culture and viewpoints on every place we go. George Orwell said it best when he commented, “
In essence, after circumnavigating the world, we have never left home. We eat to McDonalds, have a latte at Starbucks, visit a few museums and learn a few foreign words only to return with some t-shirts and wood carvings from around the world. Cynics have dubbed this world the tourist bubble, our cultures insulating us from the differences and difficulties of seeing the world in a different way. And Americans are the biggest offenders, they say.

There are many different stereotypes of Americans around the world. Of course, there are the obvious generalizations about wealth and cultural insensitivity, but Americans are still an oddity in many countries. English, Aussies, Germans and French make up most of the international travelers around the world, and most of my travel companions when not with SAS.

The reality is only 20% of Americans have their passport—proving the point that most folks from the States never leave the States. Many travelers asked why they have yet to meet an American who voted for Bush around the world. Who actually voted for him, they asked. I replied, almost sarcastically, that obviously you haven’t been the Midwest or Southern States. But honestly, many people around the world look at Americans with one part curiosity and intrigue and another part hatred and disgust. There is an envy of the economic success of American-style capitalism but also a disgust of American globalization, greed and multinational corporations. Many people are in search of the foreign; the local and mundane are not as interesting as the international. Indeed, many foreign travelers I met have traveled to more States than me! Others study and read about issues, problems, and culture in the United States and the complexities of foreign policy. “After all,” one Brit told me, “this land and people exert more influence than any other people around the world in the history of the world.”

As an American and recipient of the love, care, and concern of many foreign hosts, I hope my country shows the same level of respect and helpfulness of foreign travelers. But I fear this isn’t true. The land of the free and the home of the brave is alive with racism and disgust of photo-taking buses of Asian and African guests. We make fun of people who can’t speak English fully or understand the cultural nuances of the U.S. It is one of my most upsetting observations of this voyage.

There are also despicable parts of tourism offsetting the great potentials, including sex tourism and staged authenticity. In some places of the world such as Brazil, Mauritius and Thailand, sex is for sale just like the latest fashions. Women, and often men, are diverted to this trade as a lucrative alternative to selling trinkets or cleaning the streets in the more and more crowded cities like Bangkok or Rio or Sao Paulo. Staged authenticity is almost as gruesome to local populations, with governments packaging and forcing people to become more “authentic” and ancient in the name of tourist dollars. Many examples of this trend are popping up, such as the Burmese government forcing hill tribes such as the “giraffe women” so called for the rings they placed around their necks to become more beautiful, to dress up in costumes for the benefit of tourists. Indeed, many people may come to Burma and praise the government’s concern for protecting and preserving the local culture, but this is not true. Myanmar is also guilty of the commodification of tourism, such as the packaging of Buddhism into a neat package, easy to understand for tourists. Simply check out a few temples on a brochure to say that you completed the Buddhism experience. Burn some incense, bow to Buddha, and mingle with the monks. Commodification makes cultural concepts easier to sell, such as the picture of fishing for salmon is the commodification of Alaska nowadays.

Tourism is getting more and more outrageous also. Graceland is the most second visited place in the USA, surpassed only by Disney. Surfing the religious world revival and evangelical push in the USA, wealth Christians have even developed a religious theme park in Florida. This Holy Land experience allows for devout Christians to munch on Goliath burgers and Centurion salads while pondering the life of Christ. As adventure travel becomes more and more mainstream, bunkers allow for the “terrorist experience” with grenades and bullets raining outside the safety of your bunker. Other tourists arrange for war visits or set-up a “random” mugging. Anything in the name of an engaging, memorable if not transformational experience later in life.

The new buzz word in tourist circles is bourgeois bohemians. These are the tourists that are getting older, clinging to dreams and boasts of adventure traveling, but with the comfort and safety of an amusement park. And this is where the money is to be made. Baby boomer generations with disposable income come to be pampered as they kayak down the river while stay at a luxurious lodge and munch on caviar and salmon. It is a strange mix of adventure and safety. Another group, the backpackers, is also being catered to. Previously traveling on a shoestring spontaneously with little money, backpackers call home to parents to extend their credit limits.

Travel can also be thought as the diffusion of culture. While critics claim travel can be ethnocentric and racist, travel has potential to educate and change the world. With such negative terms as cultural imperialism, cultural nationalism, there are also possibilities for cultural synchronization and hybridization. After all, culture is a fluid, changing way of seeing and understanding our world, with beliefs and behaviors that are constantly changing.
We are on a voyage, not a cruise. We are sight-thinkers, not sight seers. We are a new type of tourist—SAS—and although we come with cameras and leave with souvenirs, there is so much more to our voyage around the world. Indeed, we come for an experience—something that may not be for sale after all.