American national parks have been running permit systems for years. However, even this is not enough for the more popular sites. By 1981, there was an eight-year waiting list to go rafting down the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River, so now there is a lottery once a year to select the lucky travellers.
In Notre Dame in 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.
Then there was the fate befalling poor Venice with its unique, exquisite beauty. On one hot day, historic day in 1987, the crowds were so great that the city had to be closed to 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 in Lascaux in France were being slowly ruined by the breath and bacteria from 200,000 tourists 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.
The Future of Tourism
Will there be more replicas like in Lascaux? There already are. Heritage theme parks (mini Disneylands) are springing up everywhere. Many of the great cities of Europe, such as Prague, Rome and Warsaw, are finding that their historic centres are fast becoming theme parks – tourist ghettos filled with clicking cameras and whirring camcorders, abandoned by all local residents except for souvenir sellers.
Until recently, we all believed that travel broadened the mind, but now many believe the exact opposite: ‘Modern travel narrows the mind’.