Beyond tourism

Over the past decade, numerous places in every corner of the planet have experienced profound transformations related to the impact of tourism: pollution and land consumption brought on by unnecessary construction of infrastructure for tourists, the expulsion of residents and local businesses, the hollowing out and desertification of city centers. Whether in art cities, natural paradises, hilltop villages or small archaeological sites, mass tourism triggers a process that alters the urban and natural ecosystems, consuming and often erasing the features that underlie the attractiveness of tourist destinations. Is tourism really a ‘resource’, ‘Italy’s oil’? Is it possible to imagine a sustainable tourism for places, people, and all other forms of life, one that does not damage vacation destinations and the planet? The author describes the development of tourism from travel for the few to mass tourism, highlighting the contradictions of an increasingly important industry with often devastating consequences, and how we must rethink tourism from a new perspective, in a perspective of ‘popular ecology’, shedding light on the interconnections hidden by capitalism.