"Cities that thrive on tourism will soon die."

BarcelonaPerhaps because he lives a hundred meters from the Colosseum, always infested with tourists, the journalist and writer Marco de Eramo (Rome, 1947) has ended up dedicating an essay to him. The world's selfie (Anagrama; translated into Spanish by Xavier González Rovira) delves into "the most important industry of our time," in the author's words. "Only two centuries ago, no one could have foreseen that we would spend so much money and so much time traveling," he explains. According to Marco de Eramo, tourism was made possible thanks to two revolutions: "The first, the technological revolution in transportation. The first person to dedicate a book to the experience of traveling on a cruise was Mark Twain. The innocents abroad [The Innocents Abroad] (1867-1869) is well worthwhile." The second revolution has to do with social conquests resulting from the class struggle: "If transport made it possible to move physically, paid free time and, later, the pension system made it possible for tourism to become democratized. It is important not to forget that tourism was the result of a political struggle. If at first only the elites could afford luxuries such as Grand Tour, tourism expanded to increasingly broader layers of society, until reaching the current tourism low cost".

Marco de Eramo believes that in the current debate on tourism, the tourist is too often denigrated. "Dressed ridiculously, with flowery shirts, shorts, flip-flops and a cap, the tourist cannot be taken seriously," he comments. "However, the tourist is not the one who makes tourism possible, but its labor force." The contempt for the tourist comes from a long time ago. "The first thing that used it in literature, and with negative connotations, was Stendhal", he recalls. The author ofThe world's selfie refers to Memoirs of a tourist [Memoirs of a Tourist] (1838), in which the French writer recounts trips to places like Brittany, Normandy, Geneva, Marseille, and Bordeaux, trying to avoid banal impressions of emblematic buildings and landscapes and seeking to offer a singular and personal point of view. "Stendhal is a pioneer in the contempt for the tourist, which grew later, when lawyers, civil servants, doctors, and other liberal professionals were able to travel," he states. "The tourist gradually lost his individuality and ended up associating himself with a mass. Today, one of the tourists' dreams is to travel to a place devoid of tourists, to make hands... paradoxical."

Consequences of tourism

After following the historical evolution of tourism, Marco de Eramo focuses The world's selfie when dissecting the phenomenon today. "Tourism sells an intangible commodity, but it does so through a heavy and extremely material structure. For this to happen, it needs airports, roads, restaurants, travel agencies, restaurants, souvenir shops... If we look at what tourism directly represents in the GDP of countries like Spain, France, or Italy, It is already approaching 15%. If we included all industries that depend on tourism, this figure would be much higher. That's why, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the restriction on mobility had such dramatic consequences, economically speaking," he explains.

The environmental impact of travel "is also very high," adds D'Eramo, who highlights two recent urban transformations linked to tourism: "Families can no longer live and move to other neighborhoods. They remain single, expats and tourists." The other is "the expulsion of traffic": "The historic center becomes a pedestrian-only space where commercialization intensifies. There are cities like London and Paris that already have a entertainment district for tourists, but the rest of the area is for city people. The problem with a city isn't that tourists come, but that the city thrives on tourism." Marco de Eramo takes a deep breath and lets loose with a blunt maxim: "Cities that thrive on tourism will soon die."

The authorThe world's selfie He is particularly critical of patrimonialization. "The fetishism of the past and the fundamentalism of antiquity prevent a city from moving forward," he says. "When UNESCO certifies a site as a World Heritage Site, it signs its death warrant." An extreme example of this practice is the ticket that must be paid to access the historic center of Venice. "There are even more mind-blowing cases, such as the recent transformation of the sassi From Matera: those same cold, damp caves where people lived have been converted into luxury hotels," D'Eramo continues. "Now you can pay a fortune to sleep in a place that not long ago was seen as a national disgrace."