The future of travel

The well-known saying « Leave only footprints-take only photographs » sounds narve. The presence of tourists in foreign country always has an impact not only via waste disposal and pollution of the environment but also through the destruction of local traditions and traditional ways of life.

Travel means discovery, challenge, and new experiences. But a journey of discovery is only successful if it does not destroy what it discovers. Travellers need to educate themselves to minimize their impact on the local environment, infrastructure, people and culture. An ethics of travel should be connected not only with the economic impact of travel, but also with how visitors impact the cultures of their host countries. While travel is a way to promote peace, mutual understanding, and friendship between the peoples of different cultures, it also causes economic inequalities and cultural and environmental degradation.

Much of travel today is about consumption-the consumption of foreign places, cultures, and people.

The colourful locals are often objects of curiosity and visual consumption, part of an exotic land to be admired and photographed. The interactions between the visitor and the local people often do not go beyond the exchanges of seller-buyer and provider-consumer.

We do not just visit cities, mountains, museums, and beaches. We visit the people. They have a right to privacy and to a way of life that is not shaped by outside forces such as international tourism. The best way to learn to respect the locals is to meet and get to know them. If is in the interactions and encounters between the host and the visitor that an ethics of travel begins. Where friendship and understanding develop, the traditional relationships of seller-buyer and provider-consumer are transformed. More than consuming places and people, travel is an opportunity to break out of our patterns of familiarity and gain insights into the cultures that make up the diversity and complexity of the human race.

Although travellers certainly have rights in foreign countries, they have obligations as well. If they appreciate and respect the cultural, economic, and social integrity of the travel destination, they will help it by choosing a low-impact and non-intrusive ways of travel-to give preference to small, locally-owned operations that are sensitive to the ecosystem and local culture. It also important to interact with the local people in their authentic cultural context and ignore the stereotypes of tourist brochures and the glossy travel press. The  industry will continue to grow. Distant locations and people will continue to be exploited as travel destinations. We all leave footprints in the places we travel to, but we can learn to minimize them and reduce their impact.