Thursday, June 7, 2012

Quebec authorities warn student protests could harm tourism

Good!

Tourism has always been about spending a good time in someone else's misery (with apologies to Johnny Rotten).

Look at countries that get a lot of their GDP from tourism. It's obviously all about prostituting yourself to the big spenders from more affluent nations.

What does that do to the local population? What does that do to the tourism "providers"?

In countries that get a significant slice of their GDP from tourism, the local economy is ratcheted in favor of those tourists. When your local economy subsists on a five dollar a day baseline, and that cruise ship hits your port, Mrs. Smith from Newark has the power to up your daily income by a factor of hundreds.

Which leads to all sorts of toadying in front of the visitors.

Nothing dignified about that.

And when you take a few steps back and look at the big picture, well, there's nothing dignified about that either.

How much of the world's air traffic is dedicated to ferrying first world tourists to third world destinations?

How proud are you to be a part of that?

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