Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Asheville and Hamilton Island off the coast of Australia thrive on tourists, and tourism officials are always trying to keep tabs on what draws people. That’s why the story excerpted below caught my attention.
It seems that, unfortunately, global climate change is having an odd impact: it’s pushing people to the far corners of the earth to see natural wonders — before they disappear.
People are rushing to see the polar ice caps before they melt. People have swamped a small town in Canada to see polar bears before they’re all dead. People are literally diving in to see the threatened coral of the Great Barrier Reef.
Our world is changing. Even the tourists know it. It’s time we did something about it.
Story here:
MADRID (AFP) — Tracking endangered wildlife in politically troubled, impoverished Zimbabwe might not seem the ideal holiday spot but it’s in hot demand in the travel industry’s latest niche market — “tourism of doom”.
The term was coined by sector specialists for the growing number of travellers flocking to far-flung corners of the planet to see endangered natural wonders before they disappear.
Ken Shapiro, the editor of TravelAge West, a magazine for travel agents, said the destinations can be melting glaciers, shrinking tropical rain forests or other places these travellers believe will be destroyed in a generation due to climate change, overbuilding or other threats to the environment.
“People are travelling to places because they really are convinced that it is going to change and they want to see it before that change happens,” he told AFP, saying the trend was first spotted about two years ago.
“We see that a lot now, it has actually become much more mainstream.”
Shapiro said travel agents report that clients are increasingly requesting trips to see the melting glaciers of the Antarctic, the threatened coral of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef or Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro before it loses its ice cap.
I worked in Antarctica from ’93 until 2005, back and fourth from home in Asheville to the ice.
We used to get tourist there too. Usually the jaded "been there, done that" type who walked around South Pole or McMurdo Station. Most had the look and attitude of "…uh, is this it?!"
Pity. Most couldn’t get it or see it if it was hitting them in the face.
Much the same with the tourist that visit Asheville. They see the house, they stay at the hotel, they may even venture downtown. But do they see the crushing poverty, the lack of much more beyond of a service industry and the trash, especially all the cigarette butts that litter every stoplight and stop sign in town.