Northstar

14 | www.travelweekly-asia.com TOUR OPERATORS The discussion was moderated by Travel Weekly USA editor in chief, Arnie Weissmann. Here are edited extracts of those discussions responding to a WTTC white paper commissioned on a topic of increasing concern: Overtourism. At the World Travel and Tourism Council's Global Summit this year, a panel of travel industry executives discussed one of the most vexing problems they face: local resentment of and resistance to overcrowding caused by the growing number of visitors to the world's most popular destinations. Compiled By Ian Jarrett Overtourism: A tour operator, a travel agent and a cruise operator offer views from the top TOURIST ATTRACTIONS ARE OVERCROWDED — WHAT NOW? Adam Goldstein, vice chairman, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd We all have to play a part in collectively leading destinations to the right strategic planning, the right objectives. The cruise industry goes to about 1,000 places. The vast majority want more tourists from us, not less. Matthew Upchurch, chief executive, Virtuoso A lot of our luxury clients wouldn't be caught dead in Venice in the summer. They don't want that experience. Luxury travellers, while they may only be five percent of arrivals, have an outsized economic impact and are also opinion leaders in their communities. I think there is a place for these opinion leaders who go to new places and go farther afield to identify new areas from a marketing perspective. Darrell Wade, executive chairman, Intrepid Travel The solution to overtourism is getting people out of the centres. If Italy and Venice are the problem, there's 10,000 places to go in Italy that aren't Venice, places where you can do a short walk for a few days in some fantastic countryside and spread the love and benefits. Tourism is supposed to be a shared-value experience, a mutual benefit. It's good for the host community and it's good for the traveller. You've got to keep those two things in balance rather than just going to the same old iconic sites that tend to get worn out and then aren't good for the local community or the traveller. I think normal human behaviour is that you want to be egalitarian and want democratisation. So sometimes you do struggle when you specialise in luxury, because you end up having these interesting conversations about whether travel should only be for the wealthy or not. But there is the larger question of how to get more out of tourism assets. In Mexico, there's the populist issue: Why should a bunch of rich people get special access? But if I can bring 100 clients a day to a site like Chichen Itza, and they pay US$1,000 each to do a sunrise or a sunset thing when there are no crowds there, what is the impact of that? Arnie Weissmann, Travel Weekly USA editor in chief. You can extract more value with low impact. But some of those issues do come with potential populist backlash. Ultimately, each city or country needs to decide. It's not up to us as visitors to decide for them. But how can you criticise a country like Bhutan or Botswana, saying, "They're elitists because they've raised the cost for tourists?" They have chosen low impact, high-yield tourism. "The solution to overtourism is getting people out of the centres." Our trips are usually one, two or three weeks and you've usually got a couple of "must-dos" of that particular region or country. You can't sell a trip to India without going to the Taj Mahal. But we'll carry about 400,000 clients this year, and the data tells us the vast majority believe it's the places they didn't know that they enjoyed more than the Taj Mahals of the world. Over time, a quality tour operator or travel agent who presents those opportunities to clients builds a brand on going to new places. And we get an enormous level of repeat business, not because we go to the Taj Mahal but to all of those other places that people have never heard of, where they had real, fresh, authentic experiences that meant something. "The vast majority of conversations are about how you can bring more ships here." The vast majority of conversations are about how you can bring more ships here or how you can bring more ships here at a certain time of year. In those places, we can try to contribute. We can hope that best practices, intelligent thinking, good suggestions and figuring out ways to increase capacity without exacerbating the problem will lead to some type of optimal combination of economic benefit, resident and tourist satisfaction. Not every place will get it right, and no place will get it right all the time. "A lot of our luxury clients wouldn't be caught dead in Venice in the summer."

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