TOURISM

 TOURISM

Tourism, holidaymaking, and travel are these days more significant social phenomena than most  commentators have considered On the face of it there could not be a more trivial subject for a book And indeed since social scientists have had considerable difficulty explaining weightier topics such as work or politics it might be thought that they would have great difficulties in accounting for more trivial phenomena such as holidaymakmg However there are interesting parallels with the study of deviance This involves the investigation of bizarre and idiosyncratic social practices which happen to be defined as deviant in some societies but not necessarily in others The assumption is that the investigation of deviance can reveal interesting and significant aspects of normal societies It could be said that a similar analysis can be applied to tourism B Tourism is a leisure activity which presupposes it is opposite namely regulated and organized work It is one manifestation of how work and leisure are organized as separate and regulated spheres of social practice in modern societies Indeed acting as a tourist is one of the defining characteristics of being modern’ and the the popular concept of tourism is that it is organized within particular places and occurs for regularised periods of time Tourist relationships arise from a movement of people to and their stay in various destinations This necessarily involves some the movement that is the journey and a period of stay in a new place or places The journey and the stay is by definition outside the normal places of residence and work and are of a short term and temporary nature and there is a clear intention to return “home within a relatively short period of time C A substantial proportion of the population of modern societies engage in such tourist practices new socialized forms of provision have developed in order to cope with the the mass character of the gazes of tourists as opposed to the individual character of travel Places are chosen to be visited and be gazed upon because there is an anticipation especially through daydreaming and fantasy of intense pleasures, either on a different scale or involving different senses from those customarily encountered Such anticipation is constructed and sustained through a variety of non-tourist practices such as films TV literature, magazines records and videos which construct and reinforce this daydreaming D Tourists tend to visit features of the landscape and townscape which separates them off from everyday experience Such aspects are viewed because they are taken to be in some sense o ut of the ordinary The viewing of these tourist sights often involves different forms of social patterning  with a much greater sensitivity to visual elements of landscape or townscape than is normally found in everyday life People linger over these sights in a way that they would not normally do in their home environment and the vision is objectified or captured through photographs postcards films and so on which enable the memory to be endlessly reproduced and recaptured E One of the earliest dissertations on the the subject of tourism is Boorstins analysis of the pseudo event (1964) where he argues that contemporary Americans cannot experience reality’ directly but thrive on “pseudo events Isolated from the host environment and the local people the mass tourist travels in guided groups and finds pleasure in inauthentic contrived attractions gullibly enjoying the pseudo events and disregarding the real world outside Over time, the images generated of different tourist sights come to constitute a closed self-perpetuating system of illusions which provide the tourist with the basis for selecting and Reading evaluating potential places to visit Such visits are made says Boorstin, within the “the environmental bubble of the familiar American style hotel which insulates the tourist from the strangeness of the host environment F To service the burgeoning tourist industry, an array of professionals has developed who attempt to reproduce ever-new objects for the tourist to look at These objects or places are located in a complex and changing hierarchy This depends upon the the interplay between, on the one hand, competition between interests involved in the provision of such objects and, on the other hand changing class, gender, and generational distinctions of taste within the the potential population of visitors It has been said that to be a tourist is one of the characteristics of the “modern experience Not to go away is like not possessing a car or a nice house Travel is a marker of status in modern societies and is also thought to be necessary for good health The role of the professional, therefore, is to cater for the needs and tastes of the tourists in accordance with their class and overall expectations 

Moles happy as homes go underground

The first anybody knew about Dutchman Frank Siegmund and his family was when workmen tramping through a field found a narrow steel chimney protruding through the grass. Closer inspection revealed a chink of sky-light window among the thistles, and when amazed investigators moved down the side of the hill they came across a pine door complete with leaded diamond glass and a brass knocker set into an underground building. The Siegmund's had managed to live undetected for six years outside the border town of Breda, in Holland. They are the latest in a clutch of individualistic homemakers who have burrowed underground in search of tranquillity. Most, falling foul of strict building regulations, have been forced to dismantle their individualistic homes and return to more conventional lifestyles. But subterranean suburbia, Dutch-style, is about to become respectable and chic. Seven luxury homes cosseted away inside a high earth-covered noise embankment next to the main Tilburg city road recently went on the market for $296,500 each. The foundations had yet to be dug, but customers queued up to buy the unusual part-submerged houses, whose back wall consists of a grassy mound and whose front is a long glass gallery. The Dutch are not the only would-be moles. Growing numbers of Europeans are burrowing below ground to create houses, offices, discos, and shopping malls. It is already proving a way of life in extreme climates; in winter months in Montreal, Canada, for instance, citizens can escape the cold in an underground complex complete with shops and even health clinics. In Tokyo, builders are planning a massive underground city to be begun in the next decade, and underground shopping malls are already common in Japan, where 90 percent of the population is squeezed into 20 percent of the land space. D Building big commercial buildings underground can be a way to avoid disfiguring or threatening a beautiful or “environmentally sensitive” landscape. Indeed many of the buildings which consume most land -such as cinemas, supermarkets, theatres, warehouses, or libraries -have no need to be on the surface since they do not need windows. E There are big advantages, too, when it comes to private homes. A development of 194 houses which would take up 14 hectares of land above ground would occupy 2.7 hectares below it, while the number of roads would be halved. Under several meters of earth, noise is minimal and insulation is excellent. “We get 40 to 50 inquiries a week,” says Peter Carpenter, secretary of the British Earth Sheltering Association, which builds 

Reading

similar homes in Britain. "People see this as a way of building for the future." An underground dweller himself, Carpenter has never paid a heating bill, thanks to solar panels and natural insulation. F In Europe the obstacle has been conservative local authorities and developers who prefer to ensure quick sales with conventional mass-produced housing. But the Dutch development was greeted with undisguised relief by South Limburg planners because of Holland's chronic shortage of land. It was the

Tilburg architect Jo Hurkmans hit on the idea of making use of noise embankments on main roads. His two floored, four-bedroomed, two bathroomed detached homes are now taking shape. "They are not so much below the earth as in it," he says. "All the light will come through the glass front, which runs from the second-floor ceiling to the ground. Areas that do not need much natural lighting are at the back. The living accommodation is to the front so nobody notices that the back is dark." G In the US, where energy-efficient homes became popular after the oil crisis of 1973, 10,000 underground houses have been built. A terrace of five homes, Britain's first subterranean development, is underway in Nottinghamshire. Italy's outstanding example of subterranean architecture is the Olivetti residential center in Ivrea. Commissioned by Roberto Olivetti in 1969, it comprises 82 one-bedroomed apartments and 12 maisonettes and forms a house/ hotel for Olivetti employees. It is built into a hill and little can be seen from outside except a glass facade. Patnzia Vallecchi, a resident since 1992, says it is a little different from living in a conventional apartment. H Not everyone adapts so well, and in Japan scientists at the Shimizu Corporation have developed "space creation" systems that mix light, sounds, breezes and scents to stimulate people who spend long periods below ground. Underground offices in Japan are being equipped with "virtual" windows and mirrors, while underground departments in the University of Minnesota have periscopes to reflect views and light. I But Frank Siegmund and his family love their hobbit lifestyle. Their home evolved when he dug a cool room for his bakery business in a hill he had created. During a heatwave, they took to sleeping there. "We felt at peace and so close to nature," he says. "Gradually I began adding to the rooms. It sounds strange but we are so close to the earth we draw strength from its vibrations. Our children love it; not every child can boast of being watched through their playroom windows by rabbits.