威尼斯市议会过去几十年来一直努力吸引游客,它现在可能后悔了。当地30年前开展的一项研究认为,威尼斯一日最多可接纳20750名游客——大致是2018年每天接待游客流量的四分之一。“过度旅游”让全球热门景点超负荷运转,而在此次全球旅游业和航空业重组之时,也蕴藏了解决这一难题的契机。 《经济学人·商论》2018年十二月刊
《多希望你不在》(Wish you weren’t here)
*本文发表于《经济学人·商论》2018年十二月刊,时效性内容不做更新。
Tourism
旅游业
Wish you weren’t here
多希望你不在
The number of holidaymakers is booming. Too many are visiting the same places
度假客激增,而太多人扎堆在同一处
Ever since the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797, locals have complained that Venice, its former capital, is being overrun by visitors. Having spent decades trying to attract tourists, the city council is now rethinking its approach. In May it erected pedestrian gates across the historic neighbourhood’s main entrances. When crowds get too thick, the police will close them, limiting access to locals who possess a special pass. Although this will restrict the number of visitors, the idea of ticketed entry has upset some locals. “It’s the last step to becoming Disneyland,” sighs one of the city’s urban planners. 自1797年威尼斯共和国灭亡起,其前首都威尼斯的居民就抱怨这座城市游客过多。几十年来,该市议会一直在努力吸引游客,不过现在正在反思自己的立场。5月,它在这座古城的主要出入口设置了闸门。当游人变得太过拥挤时,警察便会关闭闸门,只有持有特殊通行证的当地人才能进出。尽管此举会限制游客的数量,但这种凭票入内的做法还是引发了一部分当地人的不满。“走到这一步,就离变成迪士尼乐园不远了。”一名城市规划者叹道。
It is not only Venetians who think there are too many tourists. In Amsterdam locals are fed up with stag parties, unused to mixing alcohol and cannabis, leaving a trail of litter and vomit. In July protesters attacked tourist buses in Valencia, Palma de Mallorca and Barcelona (where one piece of graffiti read: “tourists go home, refugees welcome”). The newest word to enter the travel industry’s lexicon is “overtourism”, which was coined to describe the consequences of having too many visitors. 觉得游客太多的不止威尼斯人。在阿姆斯特丹,参加男士派对的人们不习惯混用酒精和大麻,结果留下一路的垃圾和呕吐物,当地人对此已忍无可忍。7月,巴伦西亚、马略卡岛的帕尔马、巴塞罗那的抗议者攻击了游客乘坐的大巴(在巴塞罗那,一处涂鸦写着:“游客回家,欢迎难民”)。进入旅游业辞典的一个最新名词是“过度旅游”(overtourism),表达了游客太多带来的后果。
Governments are starting to react. In March President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines banned tourists from the popular island of Boracay for six months, because too many visitors and too few sewers had made it a “cesspool”. On October 10th the Thai government restricted overnight stays on the Similan islands. And cities throughout Europe are beginning to investigate ways to crack down on overcrowding, home-sharing websites and anti-social behaviour. 各地政府已开始行动。3月,菲律宾总统杜特尔特宣布广受欢迎的长滩岛(Boracay)封岛半年,原因是岛上游客太多而排污管道太少,已成“化粪池”。10月10日,泰国政府对在斯米兰群岛过夜作出限制。欧洲各地的城市也开始研究办法来严格管制过度拥挤、民宿网站以及反社会行为。 This backlash might seem odd. The World Travel and Tourism Council, a trade body, says that tourism directly accounts for nearly 3% of the world’s GDP. The industry employs 5% of the world’s workforce. McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons that one in five new jobs are generated by tourism. 这种抵制看上去似乎有些奇怪。行业组织世界旅游理事会(World Travel and Tourism Council)表示,全球GDP有近3%是旅游业直接贡献的。全世界劳动力有5%受雇于旅游业。咨询公司麦肯锡估计,新增岗位中有五分之一是旅游业创造的。
Policymakers also like its economic effects on poorer countries. Whereas oil drilling and mining employ relatively few people, tourism employs legions. And it can help the rest of the economy to develop, since policies designed to attract tourists, such as easy visas and good policing, also lure foreign investors. 政策制定者也乐于看到旅游业为较贫穷国家带来经济效益。石油钻探和采矿雇用的人员相对较少,而旅游业从业者人数众多。而且旅游业还能推动经济体中其余部门的发展,因为旨在吸引游客的政策——如便捷的签证和良好的治安——也会吸引外国投资者。 The growing backlash against tourism has coincided with extraordinary growth in visitor numbers. According to the World Tourism Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, the number of international visitors making overnight stays grew to 1.3bn in 2017. That is twice the number in 2000, and more than four times the level in 1980. Even so, the rise in numbers is not the real problem, says Alex Dichter of McKinsey. “People in 99% of countries in the world are crying out for more, not fewer, tourists,” he explains. The problem is that these extra tourists are converging on the same places. 抵制游客的呼声变大发生在游客数量高速增长之时。联合国组织机构世界旅游组织(World Tourism Organisation)的数字显示,2017年,在旅游地过夜的国际游客数量增至13亿人,是2000年的两倍,1980年的四倍多。虽如此,真正的问题还不在于数字增长,麦肯锡的艾利克斯·迪西特(Alex Dichter)表示。“全世界99%的国家的人们都迫切想要吸引更多游客,而不是更少。”他解释说。问题在于这些多出来的游客都一窝蜂地去了相同的地方。
This has surprised many in the travel industry. The spread of the internet was meant to disperse tourists by making less well-known places easier to find. Why has the opposite happened? Analysts at Skift, a travel website, attribute it to the rise of “bucket lists”. Popularised by a film of the same name in 2007, which featured a “list of things to do before I kick the bucket”, these internet lists direct tourists to the same “must see” places. The desire for the perfect Instagram snap has a similar result. 这让旅游业的许多从业者惊讶。按理说,随着互联网的普及,人们会更容易找到那些不太出名的地方,也就会分散出行。结果为何正相反?旅游网站Skift的分析人士将原因归结于“遗愿清单”的兴起。2007年上映的同名电影提到了一份“去世前要做的事的清单”,推动了那些“此生必去之地”的清单在网络上风行,进而把游客都导向了相同的地点。想拍出完美照片上传到Instagram上的愿望也有类似的影响。
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