Travel is more than just visiting places
I'm back from Chile and still sort of jetlagged
Hiiiii!
I think I am still working on resting up after my big trip. Two weeks away is normal but it also involved 24 hours of travel on each end, a considerable time change of 4 hours then 3 at the end (haha oof) and I was “on” for 7 or 8 days leading a group. I had so much fun and will do it again and everything was as good as it could have been, with not even so much as a hiccup! I am patting myself on the back for hiring excellent contractors, having a great group of travellers, and for being organized. I am glad to be home to get back to a routine though and start planning for 2024.
First things first, Afar delivered this week with an interesting sustainable tourism article about the island of Príncipe. Where, you ask? It’s a small island off of the coast of central West Africa, just south of the equator. Don’t you worry, I had to look it up too. We can learn something new every day! Someone with a lot of money has invested in the island and created a sustainable tourism company that is trying to be a steward of the land and give back to locals. It sounds like good things are happening and residents have ownership and stake in the projects and the future, I hope it all turns out well for them. What are your thoughts and did you know that such companies existed?
I have been reading a lot about ChatGPT and I’m not impressed, particularly, the article where the NYT reporter had a conversation at length with it the chatbot claimed it was in love with the writer (okay). I also don’t like the idea of it being used to write or create art or whatever else it can be used to write. Why outsource things that people enjoy creating to non-sentient beings? This article from CN Traveler describes the epic failure of ChatGPT when she tried to use it to plan a vacation for her young family. The Chatbot chose the Faroe Islands, a destination I’ve been to! I ran a half marathon there in 2017. It is a bit of a trek to get to the islands from North America as it involves flying to Copenhagen first, which is what I did, but it is not impossible. I spent 4 days in Copenhagen first, and I’m here to answer your questions about both if you’re curious. I did enjoy that her conclusion was that people can’t be replaced yet in this realm of expertise. Take that, creepy chatbots!
Afar has also claimed that the pandemic and remote work have eliminated the shoulder season in some destinations - no surprise there in regard to remote work. Why not do your work from somewhere else if you have that freedom? That said, there are good and bad parts to this trend toward no low season. Tourism dollars are good, stretching the tourist season out longer so it’s not all focused on a 3-month period like summer is good. The environment has a bit more time to recover that way. However, locals at a destination never get a break. I like to remind you that locals are an important part of the tourism puzzle that must always be considered! This point has been especially hard for ski destinations where the labor force already has a shortage. Workers are burning out faster.
Consuming!
Watched (mostly on flights):
Roadrunner - The documentary about Anthony Bourdain. I finally watched it. I used to love his shows and I think I’ve read everything he’s written. It made me sad he never got help and felt so alone.
Ticket to Paradise - light and fluffy but cute and predictable, it features George Clooney and Julia Roberts and Bali. I watched this on hour 5 of my flight from Lima to Los Angeles. I laughed more than once.
Amy - An Amy Winehouse documentary I thought this was well done if not a little bit slow.
Apatrides - I am going to copy and paste the description of this straight from the National Film Board of Canada…This one made me sad
“In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army on the basis of anti-black racism. Fast-forward to 2013: the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929, rendering more than 200,000 people stateless. Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary follows the grassroots campaign of a young attorney named Rosa Iris, as she challenges electoral corruption and fights to protect the right to citizenship for all people.
Blargh I just was so annoyed with the case in this documentary, the attorney was trying to help her cousin in particulate, who was separated from his elementary-age children and sent back to Haiti and the Domincan officials claimed his paperwork was falsified and would not let him come back to stay in the DR.
Transatlantic - I loved this. I blew through it over the weekend. Based on the true story of Varian Fry and Mary Jayne Gold helping people escape the Nazis in 1941 via the Pyrenees. Some parts are a bit predictable but I would watch it again.
What do residents think about mega-sporting events"?
I came across the article linked above in the freebie section of the journal and saved it weeks ago. I have always loved watching the Olympics and I was disappointed when Chicago made a bid for them years ago and didn’t win, I’d imagined volunteering or working for them somehow. In this study, the researchers surveyed locals in the region of Tyrol, in Austria about a Winter Olympics bid for the 2026 games.
The survey asked residents to rank or choose certain factors about hosting the games and building the necessary infrastructure to support them as well as what to do with that infrastructure after the games. Themes emerged as dominant preferences. Most residents wanted an environmentally friendly Olympic games and buildings. They wanted the Olympic Village housing turned into public housing after the games and they wanted the major structures (stadiums, etc) repurposed into public buildings after the games. These were all ranked as so important that residents did not want the Olympic games in their city without those promises.
This study was interesting in how it had residents rank their absolutes and also as a stepping stone for cities gauging interest from residents in hosting mega sporting events like an Olympics or a FIFA World Cup event. They do bring tourists and money but they bring challenges as well and if none of the structures are repurposed for resident enjoyment, it doesn’t bode well for interest in future events. My biggest takeaway from this, and a direct quote from the conclusion, is that “Studies are currently somewhat limited to the question of whether residents support or reject an event instead of asking how the event should be designed to get residents’ support”. How a community benefits from tourism and keeping the negative impacts minimal are critical factors to consider in tourism planning and destination marketing.
Read
Where the Crawdads Sing - I kept hearing good things about this one but not enough to make me seek it out. Then a friend loaned it to me so I had no excuse. I enjoyed it! If you were on the fence, I’d say go for it, it was an interesting story and a bit of a roller coaster
The Friend - This was a fairly fast read, I can’t say I liked or disliked it. I don’t have any real feelings one way or another about it. A woman inherits a Great Dane after the death of her ex-husband or ex-something. I really can’t remember because I was kind of bored, oops. Also, I am pretty sure the only character with a name in the book is the dog, Apollo. I also felt like the main, unnamed character seemed like a slimy and repulsive character and he had numerous ex-wives and lovers, WHY? I was annoyed with the characters.
Currently Reading The Tokyo Romance - I follow an Instagram account that gathers and posts the funniest or most harsh 1-star reviews of books on Good Reads. My recent favorite was a review of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass that stated “this is self-important and tedious”. That is how I feel about this book so far and I hope it takes a turn because right now it is a tedious snoozefest. I hope that I have a better report at the end of the month. I am not stubborn about many things but I am stubborn about quitting books, to my detriment. Especially since I have so many unread books on my shelf.
That’s it for this edition, see you at the end of the month, thanks for reading!
Sonya