Opinion: The days of “Wish you were here” holiday gloating are dwindling. If a postcard lands in your mailbox these days, it’s more likely to feature a “sadface” emoji and a plaintive, “They wish we weren’t here!”
It can’t be long before countries’ foreign affairs departments start issuing tourist danger advisories for European countries, along with red alerts for war and high-crime zones.
Having boiled over in southern Europe, anti-tourism sentiment is now simmering in more temperate regions such as the Netherlands and Germany. In Brussels’ chocolate box-pretty Bruges, an enraged local pushed a tourist into the canal after taking offence at his clambering onto a bridge’s ornamental architecture.
Ask Parisians, even while they’re savouring the Olympic showcasing of their city, and they’ll nominate the smoking gun of tourist crimes: the selfie. Anyone wanting a decent look at the city’s art treasures is out of luck. The vast majority who throng to the Impressionists, Fauves and Cubists are not chiefly there to see the art, but to see themselves seeing the art, via a selfie stick.
They post the resultant “Me and Mona Lisa!” snap on social media and probably never look at it again. The painting barely rates a glance.
The Louvre could display biscuit-tin-lid versions of its masterpieces and it might be months before anyone noticed. Even a premium booking cannot spare the genuine spectator from being jostled unceremoniously through each exhibit in a backward-facing tide of selfie takers.
The revenue is welcome but indignation is growing. At least old-style tourists seemed to appreciate what these cities had to show them. The holiday snaps were a souvenir rather than the essence of the whole experience.
The boorishness of selfie-mania may have become the norm, but so has the resentment it fosters. When actual atrocities occur – such as the tourist in Florence who got herself filmed humping an ancient statue of Bacchus – it can put patriotic locals’ backs up permanently and militantly. Tourists are being abused, and popular destinations – including Amsterdam, which last year officially declared stag parties unwelcome – are openly discouraging visitors.
Annoyance at thuggish and even just irritating tourists is hardly new, but unprecedented visitor numbers post-lockdown have exacerbated the industry’s perverse economics.
The surge in tourist rentals and Europeans retiring to warmer and cheaper climes are making some places barely viable for locals. Incomers hike rents and house prices but often contribute little to the economy. The tourist dollar too often fails to find its way back to basic infrastructure like roading, water and rubbish management.
There are selfie-lite oases, but seldom for long. Scotland’s sparsely populated north coast has been so successful in its campaign to lure visitors that the wilderness route is now a road rage and accident hotspot. Resentful locals have even sabotaged the highway and vandalised campervans.
Ireland, too, is experiencing new tourism from Europe, appreciated for its cooler weather and low population density. But locals fear a tipping point. The tens of thousands now regularly following St Patrick’s pilgrimage up County Mayo’s Cruach Phádraig mountain have been causing erosion.
St Patrick having banished snakes, we now need a miracle to deter that other long and insidious pest, the selfie stick.
It’s time for a global survey to establish some hard facts about selfie-nomics. The cost-benefit ratio, assessing the travel time and expense per “me and Mona” post on social media, would be a revelation enough. A qualitative probe – ie, how long did one’s friends admire that selfie, and how many simply thought “Tosser!” and forgot all about it – would be absolutely devastating.
