Last June, flights from European destinations were no longer admitted to Schiphol airport because there were too many passengers in the terminals. A friend of a friend of mine, who is a festival organizer and who, for the first time in two years of forced inactivity that caused him bankruptcy, had planned a big concert that was sold out on that day, had to cancel his resurrection at the last minute because the international top artists which he had managed to book could not reach the Netherlands. Of course, we do not doubt for a moment that all these hundreds of thousands of passengers who obstruct the airport terminals during this holiday period all have very valid reasons that give great urgency and necessity to their movements. Staff shortage, that’s the problem.
One of the reasons I work in Italy is that Italy is an avant-garde country. Ever since the Renaissance, it has been clear that many things happen first in Italy before they happen elsewhere. But we haven’t seen airports that have to close because of the uncontrollable influx of wandering crowds, even in the vanguard country of Italy. It’s what politicians dream of, though. Mario Draghi, then prime minister, has pledged before the end of the pandemic that his policies will aim to significantly increase tourist flows compared to the pre-virus period. His tourism minister, Massimo Garavaglia, has stated on several occasions that his ambition is to increase the share of the tourism sector in Italy’s gross national product, which currently stands at 13 percent, to 20 percent. Genoa Mayor Marco Bucci celebrates the arrival of every new low-cost carrier to Cristoforo Colombo International Airport as a personal success and as the promise of a bright future for his proud city.
But the lack of staff, Italy knows that all too well. The political ambitions to further develop tourism are being thwarted by at least 300,000 unfilled vacancies in the tourism sector. The reason is not that there are no unemployed in Italy. But if even job seekers are apparently uninterested in careers as waitresses, lifeguards, waiters, chambermaids or animators on a cruise ship, we might interpret that as confirmation of our suspicion that the employment opportunities generated by tourism and presented tirelessly by politicians if the main prize of a tourism boosting policy consists almost entirely of poorly paid, unskilled seasonal work without any career prospects.
A cultural problem
Garavaglia inadvertently confirmed this when he formulated his view on the staff shortage. “We are dealing with a cultural problem,” he said. “Children who do not finish high school are treated like lepers.” The official Italian government position appears to be that the education level of young people should be adapted to the demands of the tourism sector. The problem is not that there is not enough suitable work for the highly educated, but that there are too many ungrateful highly educated who feel too good to serve red-burnt foreigners in flip-flops. We have to do something about that.
the massive brain drain that has plagued Italy for decades should not surprise us.
The avant-garde country of Italy envisions a future that contains elements that are terrifyingly recognizable in the center of Amsterdam, as well as in Barcelona, Prague and other cities. The alleged economic benefits of tourism are relative. It drives private profits, especially for a small number of large, often foreign-owned companies, at the expense of public investment and creates jobs, but bad jobs, while the potential of the highly skilled is being exploited less and less, if only because Due to mass tourism, Amsterdam has become an increasingly less attractive location for companies that create good jobs.
Amsterdam has become an increasingly less attractive location due to mass tourism
On the other hand, there are the obvious disadvantages, of which the social disruption of the inner cities is the most important. Due to nuisance, the disappearance of amenities and rising house prices, the original inhabitants move away, and over time are relegated to a servile class, which comes from the periphery to the center to serve foreigners. Politicians promoting tourism will increasingly perceive the original inhabitants of their lucrative amusement parks as a nuisance and try to hasten their departure, as is happening in Venice. But it doesn’t even take politicians to encourage these developments. The laws of the free market sufficiently guarantee that the scenario of a rapid transformation into a tourist monoculture will take place irrevocably.
Operators and investors
On the other hand, it takes politicians to intervene unfashionably in the free market and keep these developments under control. But for that to happen, the first step is to realize that tourism is not an innocent phenomenon and that far-reaching, daring, proactive policies are needed to keep its consequences bearable.
Unfortunately, this is urgent for two reasons. First, there is a point where development becomes irreversible, as Venice teaches us. Certain neighborhoods of Amsterdam have already passed that point. The second problem is democracy. Once Amsterdammers have been replaced by managers and investors, you will never again get a majority for measures intended to curb tourism.
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Tourists are always the others. We seek the enrichment and do not feel guilty of the damaging impact of the masses who seek the same as we do. Even the most beautiful things in life are damaged by massiveness. A person who wants to know my culture and taste my dishes is my friend, but millions of people like him become a threat. In today’s globalized world, hospitality has lost its innocence and so has curiosity. The time has come when we are unfortunately forced to approach tourism in a mature way, instead of looking forward to holidays as children.
This is an adaptation of a lecture that Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer gave at the symposium ‘The future of tourism’ in the Royal Palace on Dam Square on 14 June.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 6, 2022
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