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00:00If money makes the world go round, perhaps nothing makes money go around the world, like
00:10tourism does. Because the business of tourism is essentially taking money from one place
00:17and spending it in another. And then the people where you spent it get to spend it again,
00:23usually somewhere else. The global value of tourism in 2019, the last
00:29normal year before Covid, was about 9 trillion US dollars. And if current trends continue,
00:38tourism will continue to grow and that value will go way up. Money is coming in and going
00:44out all over the world.
00:46We are in a globalisation of tourists. That's why it's very important to think about
00:51on the international level, because it's only the beginning of a phenomenon.
00:55Tourism has been growing about 3,5% to 4% a year since we've been measuring it in 1950.
01:00And if you look at it over the big path, it's been going up like this.
01:04But where exactly is all this money going?
01:21The tourism industry has become a global machine, made up of more moving parts than we can imagine,
01:41more than nearly any other industry on the planet.
01:43This is a very big part of the world's economy. Almost 10% of world GDP is from tourism and roughly
01:52the same in terms of employment. That's a lot of jobs for a lot of people all over the planet.
02:00You've got these employees. And them. The ones who make those signs. Waiters. Artists. The cooks.
02:09The tour guides. Housekeeping. And the dishwashers.
02:17There's transportation, of course. And accommodation and restaurants. Entertainment.
02:23But there's also all the sunscreen. Beachwear and accessories. Activity gear and rentals. Show tickets.
02:31Adapters. Visas. Taxis. Phone plans. Gifts and souvenirs. And the luggage. That may or may not arrive.
02:43Because around 25 million suitcases go on their own vacation each year,
02:48separated from their owner between the point of departure and the point of arrival. That's almost
02:54eight out of 1,000 suitcases. And so your insurance claim kicks in and you have to replace it all.
03:02Of course, that's if you took the insurance plan. All of this, the obvious and the less obvious,
03:10the big and small parts of the industry are a central and critical part of the world economy today.
03:16Sonia Gracci is a specialist in sustainable tourism.
03:22Tourism can be an excellent economy for a destination. Travel will always be part of people's lives.
03:28It's always been part of human existence, just in various forms. It could be an excellent example of a
03:35way that a society can really thrive. It's no surprise then that everywhere wants to be the next bucket list
03:45to be the next destination. But look, travel has always gone hand in hand with the economy.
03:52One of the triggers behind the exploration age was the need to find new routes for the silk and spice,
03:57gold and silver trades. The thing is, most people didn't have the time or the money to travel for leisure
04:05until the 20th century. That is, until paid vacation became a thing and then a basic right.
04:12This is anthropologist Saskia Coussin.
04:15The democratization and even the massification of tourism comes after the 1950s.
04:21From the middle of the 19th to the 1930s, there are the struggles for the reduction of the time of work,
04:27the access to paid taxes. And in France, there is the famous access to paid taxes in 1936.
04:35And while it may not feel like it, we have a lot more free time than we ever had before.
04:49In developed countries, we work about 1500 hours less than we did 150 years ago.
04:55In 1870, the average work year was about 3000 hours. In 2024, it's half that. And given the financial means
05:06and the time, most humans jump at the chance to go somewhere else.
05:12This is travel journalist and destination advisor, Doug Lansky.
05:16Doug Lansky You know, I was doing a junior year abroad when I was studying,
05:20and I felt like my world just opened up. I was like, I could just bounce from city to city,
05:25magically on a train, jump on a train, wake up in a new city.
05:28It was this whole world I had been oblivious to growing up in the U.S.
05:32And the world is indeed surprising. The need to discover it comes from all angles,
05:39for as many reasons as there are humans.
05:43You've got your pilgrims, you've got the kind of the foot-steppers,
05:45people retracing the stuff their grandparents did or their parents did.
05:49You have people who are just going through a bucket list of the
05:52greatest things to do is some magazine lists that they're supposed to do before they die.
05:58The desire of mobility, to change a place, is a desire that is quite natural.
06:06Here's geographer and professor Jean-Christophe Gay.
06:10The strength of mobility, to go elsewhere, is to change their daily life.
06:16So, the character of tourism.
06:20The pioneer of all that de-routinizing was British travel agent Thomas Cook,
06:26who basically invented modern tourism.
06:28Thomas Cook is one of the most fundamental in tourism.
06:33Because he allowed people who didn't have the economic and cultural means to move into
06:41places with high altitudes.
06:42So, he invented a way to travel.
06:46So, the organized travel.
06:47Ah yes, the packaged holiday.
06:52It was quite a ways away from the all-inclusives that are so attractive today.
06:56But the first packages did cover the organization and cost of transport and accommodation,
07:02usually to somewhere warm.
07:04The sun, sea, and sand product is particularly attractive to those people who live in a climate
07:14where sun is not normal, sand is distant, and the sea is cold.
07:19So, the offer was very critical in the 1970s.
07:23Package holidays and flights making that a lot simpler.
07:26You go there, you land on the beach, you lay there, you order some drinks,
07:30and they make it cheap and easy.
07:33Europeans started flocking to the warm climates of southern Spain, Italy, and France.
07:39North Americans made their way to the white sandy beaches and glittering blue seas of Mexico.
07:46Like here, Acapulco.
07:52Overlooking the Pacific, the city was popular with wealthy Mexicans.
07:56And by the 1950s, it had become the playground for Hollywood's jet set.
08:02And then, of course, for everyone else.
08:06But believe it or not, while Acapulco was bursting at the seams and struggling to accommodate the hordes,
08:13barely anyone had heard of this piece of paradise.
08:17Cancun.
08:20It's hard to believe.
08:21Everything here was a part of the jungle.
08:26The only settlement that we had here was Colonia Porto Juarez and Porto Juarez,
08:31where we had like 120 people living.
08:34The hotel zone, which is Cancun Island, was separated from the mainland.
08:40The city was actually built from scratch.
08:43Yes, it was just for us.
08:47All nine million of us.
08:50Yep.
08:51That's how many visitors Cancun receives every year.
08:55This is how it all got started.
08:57Acapulco, at the time, was already saturated.
09:09With more than 10,000 kilometers of coastline, Mexico had lots of options.
09:15So the question was, where?
09:17And how do you even go about pinpointing a new destination?
09:21The first step was to scout, and they started doing that almost everywhere in the world.
09:27I mean, Hawaii, different spots in the Caribbean, Jamaica, Barbados, Miami,
09:35where this kind of tourism was already moving forward to try to attract tourism.
09:41They checked temperatures and seasonal variations, the number of hotels, hurricane frequencies,
09:49and shark attack incidents.
09:51They studied sunny days, rainy days, but also the sea color, the sand color.
09:59Those were the two most important factors.
10:01Whatever else could be measured was thrown into the algorithm, and eventually a decision was made.
10:08It would be Cancun.
10:12But it would need a lot of work.
10:15Because it wasn't just about throwing up a few hotels.
10:19The island had to be widened.
10:21Jungles had to be cut down.
10:23They needed to build roads and bridges and sewers,
10:28bring in drinking water, install power and telephone lines,
10:32and, of course, an international airport.
10:36The scale of the operation was massive.
10:39When they started building the first hotels, they had to fill the island territory
10:45with sand grabbed from the bottom of the sea.
10:49And it worked.
10:50In 1974, the first hotels opened their doors, with a total of 332 rooms.
10:57The following year, more hotels, 1,000 rooms, and almost 100,000 visitors.
11:05In 1980, Cancun welcomed 460,000 tourists.
11:13Throughout the next five or ten years, the room numbers started increasing in a crazy way.
11:19From 300 to 6,000.
11:23It surpassed every expectation.
11:25The planners and developers had achieved exactly what they set out to do.
11:30A sure-fire case of, build it and they will come.
11:35But in 1988, a less welcome visitor showed up.
11:40Hurricane Gilbert tore through Cancun, leaving more than $1 billion worth of damages in its wake.
11:46Most of the hotel infrastructure was damaged, quite damaged.
11:51So, we had to reconstruct after that.
11:54Foreign investors saw an easy opportunity to get a foothold in Cancun and cash in.
12:00Here's Professor John Lennon.
12:02There has been little inward investment in anything but tourism.
12:06And if that's the only show in town, and a government that is struggling to generate jobs,
12:13and generate wealth at a local level, and they see the developer coming along, then they embrace that developer.
12:20In Cancun, these developers weren't just interested in repairing a few hotels.
12:26Their vision was bigger, much bigger.
12:29What they were after was mass tourism.
12:32Mass tourism, a phrase.
12:35Huge numbers of visitors in the same place, at the same time.
12:39Or, huge numbers of visitors at the same time, in the same place.
12:44We know how to do tourism.
12:46We're going to bring it in and do it for you.
12:48A little bit like Exxon and BP went into the Middle East and said,
12:51hey, we'll take care of all this drilling stuff for you.
12:53You can just sit back and relax.
12:54And they had just the model for it. The all-inclusive resort.
13:00A vacation designed to eliminate the worry of money and organization.
13:04Making travel even more accessible and more affordable to even more people.
13:09It makes it very easy for people who really just want to do a fly and flop.
13:13Or let their kids play in the pool.
13:15You have everything.
13:16And you can sign your drinks and food to the room.
13:18You don't even have to do that most of the time.
13:19It's included with your little bracelet that you get.
13:22It sounds ideal.
13:24Pick a place and a budget and then put the planning right down to the smallest detail
13:29into the capable hands of someone else.
13:32It's a hassle-free experience for the consumer.
13:35And so, the model is very attractive.
13:37And it can quickly dominate the market.
13:41As in any market economy, where you see potential for growth as an international company,
13:47you will absorb competitors and you will build your asset base to drive further sales and further profit.
13:54But that profit isn't local.
13:57Often, only about 20 cents on every dollar spent here stays here.
14:03This has long been called yo-yo money.
14:05The money comes in and then it gets yo-yoed right back out again.
14:07And depending on who owns the hotel or the resort or the restaurant or the store and where they are based,
14:16it can sometimes be even less than 20 percent.
14:21In some of these cases, in an all-inclusive, the money spent not only doesn't stay, it never even arrives.
14:27It goes right to the mothership parent company, never even arrives in the destination.
14:31The proper term here is tourism leakage.
14:37Tourism leakage, an industry expression, an economic disappearing act.
14:47And it happens a whole lot when a multinational company provides your hotel, your flight, your car,
14:53your insurance.
14:55It works like this.
14:56You're, say, here, at home, and you book online with a company that's all the way over there.
15:06They take a cut, which obviously doesn't pay for any part of your trip.
15:11They send that money to a corporation, let's say here,
15:17who owns land and hotels here, which is where you've been longing to take that trip.
15:22So the big, powerful corporation here sends the minimal amount necessary to keep things rolling
15:31there, to pay locals to do things at the local price. But it ends there. By the time you arrive,
15:38you've prepaid everything in all of these other places to all of these other people. There is nothing
15:44left or very little for the local community who are ultimately responsible for your stay, your satisfaction,
15:52enjoyment and lasting memories.
15:56So from the moment you leave home to the moment you return, everything is looked after. It's about
16:02containing your expenditure and simplifying all those difficult choices you might have to make
16:08as a visitor. The fact that you could walk around these sites yourself and put money into the local
16:14economy, that would never enter your mind because you've already purchased and you have already
16:21budgeted for this trip. This economic drain has a greater impact on countries where there's a high
16:28dependence on foreign investments and imports, and where there are few jobs outside of the tourism industry.
16:35But what a lot of these places don't realize is it's happening everywhere, in the big cities,
16:42in almost every destination. All these big companies like the Sheritons and the Marriott's,
16:46the Hilton's, the Accor Hotels, they're like, hey, we're going to come in and put these things up for you.
16:51These big, shiny five-star hotels that are going to attract really wealthy tourists. And then also,
16:56if you're buying a Rolex or you're buying a Swatch or you're going to The Gap or to H&M,
17:01a lot of that, that stuff's not locally produced there. And in destinations suffering
17:07from over-tourism, it becomes an even bigger problem.
17:11The question of the economic advantage for destinations is, again, the type of control
17:19that we have. We are really in extractivism with a model that is implemented and no relationship
17:26with the local society. There's practically no salary or salary with very little remunerable activities,
17:33like the ménage, etc.
17:37In other words, while we might think that tourism provides an abundance of jobs and opportunities,
17:43very few of those jobs are executive or management positions.
17:49And in the all-inclusive model, the effects are also felt in the wider community.
17:55Tourists, they stop visiting the city centre, they stop eating outside, they stop shopping outside.
18:01All the services was concentrated within the hotel. That was not very positive for the local economy.
18:13And in a vicious loop, as a destination becomes more dependent on tourism,
18:18jobs in other sectors tend to become scarcer.
18:21In 1980, Richard Butler proposed a theory called the tourism life cycle.
18:38What's being described here is often referred to as the fifth stage, the stagnation stage,
18:44where a destination is almost entirely reliant on tourism, has exceeded its carrying capacity,
18:51and is experiencing social, economic, and environmental problems.
18:56And it's happening more often, in more places than we might think.
19:00From Dubrovnik to Phuket, Machu Picchu to the Isle of Skye, Mount Everest to Venice.
19:08Yet all these places are allowing tourism to take a bigger and bigger part of the economy.
19:16Here in Venice, it's 75% of the economy. It's a huge number.
19:21Over its 1600-year history, Venice, with its 126 islands and 472 bridges,
19:29has maintained its reputation and image as one of the most iconic and important cities in the world.
19:35But today, Venice is drowning, metaphorically and literally, in tourists.
19:43And the quantity of real locals actually living on the main island,
19:47the place where the whole world apparently wants to be for that photo op, is at an all-time low.
19:52We were surrounded by locals, by residents, and they dropped like flies.
19:58One after the other, they moved to the mainland or to other places.
20:01In the 1970s, there was something like 150,000 residents, giving the world's most beautiful
20:08city its appeal and its liveliness. Now, less than 50,000. And every day, their city is taken over
20:17by more than 77,000 tourists. Most of them are day-trippers. Many of them cruise passengers,
20:26which is essentially a giant floating all-inclusive. Venice is just a stopover on a multi-city voyage.
20:35The cruise model is all about containing expenditure on board the boat as much as possible.
20:42And if you're going to leave the boat for an excursion, say, to a significant museum or a
20:49significant beach resort, that will be pre-bought at a relatively bargained down price.
20:56And a big cut for the cruise company, of course.
20:59This is really the heart of town. But in this moment, I saw five of six Venetians. That's it.
21:11All the rest, it's all tourists. They don't know where they're going, many of them.
21:16I see everybody on the phone, so they're probably on the GPS, which doesn't work here.
21:21So I see 95% of tourism. It's extremely important to have locals. If not, what do you visit?
21:31You visit the city or you visit a theme park?
21:38It's one thing to be in a crowded place. Sports events, outdoor concerts, the lineup to get our
21:44hands on the latest iPhone, the morning commute. But there's a big difference between temporary
21:50overcrowding and all-out over-tourism.
21:55The trop de tourisme, it's not just the number of people in the street. It's the fact that
21:59the commerces, in fact, will all change. So the inhabitants don't have any commerces
22:04that address to them. It's not the same thing. So the surfrequentation, it's when there's
22:08a peak of frequentation. It can be a bit uncomfortable for these people, but the rest of the time,
22:13it's manageable. When we talk about sur-tourisme, it's when the population
22:18can't absorb it anymore. They can't absorb it anymore. They can't absorb it anymore.
22:25All around me, apart the big chains, I don't see any local shop anymore.
22:30Here on the corner, there's Burger King, which is a fantastic chain of restaurants.
22:35Up to 10 years ago, we had one of the best restaurants of Venice, and it closed.
22:42A lot of these places that got a lot of tourism, they got a lot of tourism for a reason. They're
22:47amazing places. I mean, Dubrovnik is a gorgeous town. Barcelona is a beautiful city. Venice is
22:53absolutely stunning. There's a reason that people want to go to these places, but they're loving it
22:58to death. Too many tourists is just sort of suffocating the very places that they've come to see.
23:03It's true. We are loving the world to death. And it doesn't look as though that's about to change.
23:15With roughly 1,000 people packing up and leaving every year, Venice could soon be empty of Venetians.
23:21It seems unbelievable, but it's a very real possibility. Unless something changes, and soon.
23:31Because like so many other parts of the world, foreign investors see Venice as a playground.
23:41Sometimes I feel like a stranger in Venice, because I am the only Venetian on the street.
23:47And the sensation is not very nice.
23:56Venice right now, it's a toy. It's a game for businessmen of every part of the world.
24:07I think the businessmen want to push the Venetians outside Venice, because
24:15we are in the middle of the business.
24:22We are necessarily like extras, like extras in a movie. I think in a while they will
24:28start to pay people to show up from a window and to close it or to hang the stuff outside.
24:36Venice is already a Disneyland.
24:38Venice is no newcomer to the tourism game. Since the end of the 18th century,
24:47foreigners have been at the heart of the Venetian economy. The problem is not tourism. At least,
24:53it's not the only problem. The problem is the combination of over-tourism and tourism leakage.
25:02We are not against the tourists. We like the tourists and everybody work with the tourists,
25:13but it's too much. The politicians must find the solutions to bring back the people to Venice.
25:22There are proposed solutions, like tourist taxes and daily visitor caps. But those are simply
25:32band-aid measures to try to manage a much larger problem. To truly decrease an over-dependence on
25:39tourism, an economy needs to diversify. Diversification. Noun. It's Economics 101, really.
25:49Go to a money manager and you say, please manage my wealth. As a rule of thumb,
25:55they're probably going to diversify over, I don't know, between five and 20 different
26:00categories of market. Here, it's like they're putting all their eggs in one basket with tourism.
26:04And in my mind, that's insane. I mean, it's just too risky for anything, for your own money,
26:11or for the economy of an entire destination to be doing that. They need to be diversifying.
26:15Which is exactly what they did here, on the infamous Côte d'Azur.
26:24With 300 days of sun a year, picturesque villages and dazzling views,
26:29the Côte d'Azur has been attracting tourists since the 18th century.
26:35But today, sunbathers, shoppers and surfers aren't the only ones being lured here.
26:40SofÃa Antipolis, that's this place here, is France's answer to Silicon Valley.
27:0224 square kilometers of high-tech research and development, universities and startups,
27:10all nestled in the pine forests just a short distance from the beaches,
27:14the shops, the film festivals and the casinos. Building an entirely new sector here in a touristic
27:22haven created an ideal blend of economies.
27:25There was a man named Pierre Lafitte, who was from the University of Paris School,
27:32so an engineering school, and he said why wouldn't we implement an engineering school
27:36in the first country, Antipolis? Then, the proximity to the international airport,
27:41the attractiveness of France, the companies, little by little,
27:44were installed. One attracted the other. IBM came, Nissan, Toyota. We have
27:50large brands like Air France, France Telecom, Orange, Ramadeus.
28:00This huge innovation hub takes advantage of the touristic appeal of this paradise.
28:06For Canadian giant Bombardier, one of the 2500 companies who have built offices here,
28:12it's making it possible to attract top talent from around the world.
28:16That BRP was installed here, it facilitated the acquisition of talent
28:22which was already in the region. Our presence in Europe was the catalyst for
28:28to go look for it. Then, when we were on the Côte d'Azur, everyone likes the sun.
28:35To attract a very high-level man, we have to offer exceptional conditions of life.
28:43And really, who wouldn't want to work here? It's like working on vacation. Or vacationing at work.
29:03Year after year, the Côte d'Azur attracts more than 12 million tourists and countless day-trippers.
29:09But tourism is no longer the only dominant economy.
29:13The most obvious and the most successful economic diversifications are those that
29:43create new growth opportunities related to the ones already in place.
29:49Which, for this Quebec couple, means living and working in a dream destination.
29:53Salut Fran!
29:55Salut!
29:56Ça va bien, toi?
29:57Ce qui est vraiment cool ici, c'est vraiment une vie de quartier intéressante.
30:01Tu sais, il y a les petits bistrots à côté et tout.
30:03Antibes, c'était comme juste assez grand pour avoir de la variété de choses qu'on voulait
30:09dans notre quotidien, comme épicerie, épicerie fine.
30:11C'est une ville qui est à échelle humaine. On marche à peu près partout. On a toujours rêvé
30:17de venir s'installer ici quelques temps. On a des facilités avec des gens. On est capable de s'intégrer.
30:23Donc, on se dit, ben, la porte est ouvert.
30:28Economic diversification doesn't only create a stronger economy. It can also save an economy in times of trouble.
30:36Même en période de COVID, même en période de crise économique, on crée plus de 1000 emplois par an supplémentaire.
30:43Et il y a 40 000 salariés aujourd'hui qui travaillent sur la technopole de Sophie Antipolis.
30:49The COVID-19 lockdowns cost the global tourism industry trillions of dollars.
30:55And millions of jobs were either lost or put on hold.
30:59It was an economic crisis driven by a medical emergency.
31:05And in an effort to control infection, borders closed and airlines were grounded.
31:11What that meant in terms of arrivals is we went from 1.5 billion in 2019 down to about 400 million in 2020.
31:22About 428 million in 21.
31:26While the Côte d'Azur suffered as well, the region continued to thrive.
31:33Unlike many other places in the world.
31:35Visitor numbers fell by nearly 60% in Cancun.
31:40And similar losses were felt in other tourist-dependent destinations.
31:44Having a devastating effect on local economies everywhere.
31:48In many developing economies where tourism is quite important,
31:54there was no safety net.
31:56If you lost your job, you didn't earn enough money, you maybe didn't eat.
32:01So that really exposed those economies' dependence on tourism and the fragility of that industry to this kind of impact.
32:11But the pandemic also gave rise to new ideas.
32:16Like the digital nomad visa.
32:18An invitation to come work in your dream location while at the same time boosting the local economy.
32:24I think one of the biggest new phenomenons I've seen after the pandemic is the rise of the digital nomad.
32:31We all learned that we could work from home.
32:33Then some people took their laptops to their summer cabin or they went on a short trip and they're like,
32:38hey, I can work from there.
32:39Then they took a longer trip, like I could go to Spain for a month or I can go to Bali for a month.
32:43Now they're thinking, I can work from anywhere all the time.
32:48Previously, applying for foreign working visas could be a complicated, lengthy and costly process.
32:55And were often difficult to justify.
32:58Before that was just the digital nomad.
33:00Those kind of late 20s, early 30s who were doing video editing and web design and podcasting and Instagramming.
33:07Now it's potentially everybody.
33:10And potentially everywhere.
33:12Here's a list of the countries offering those digital nomad visas.
33:17And that list is bound to get longer as the world redefines itself.
33:21But for those not about to pull their kids out of school or forward their mail to the other side of the world,
33:27there's also the idea of traveling differently and still contributing to local economies.
33:33I think the best thing that we could do for tourism is really this concept of higher yield.
33:39High yield tourism.
33:42It's an expression.
33:44Stay longer.
33:45Spend more money.
33:50People are much more adept at traveling long distances for a shorter period of time.
33:56And what we actually want is the opposite.
33:59We want people to take longer trips to a destination.
34:02So if they are going somewhere that they stay for a number of weeks and they don't hop around.
34:08This concept of trying to get people in the door is really the wrong way to go.
34:13We want people to come to spend money in the destination, to get to know people in the destination, to experience things in the destination.
34:21These quick trips are actually what is probably the most detrimental.
34:25It makes a whole lot of sense.
34:29Who wants foreigners popping in for a day or two, straining infrastructures and generating garbage without really investing locally?
34:37Think about it.
34:38How much do you suppose it costs to clean up the 5.8 million tons of waste that we're generating as global tourists each year?
34:47And who's paying for it?
34:51Staying in one place longer allows you to develop a dynamic in which everyone wins,
34:56to play a role in the balance of the place, to consume in a more controlled way.
35:01High-yield tourism.
35:04Leakage.
35:05Economic diversification.
35:08Not exactly what comes to mind when packing our bags to finally take the vacation we've postponed three times.
35:15Judy Kefergona has been advocating for fairer, more sustainable tourism for over 20 years.
35:22It's unfortunate that most tourists are not aware. They have not been informed.
35:28They don't know what to do, what questions to ask.
35:32They are thinking that what they're doing is the best.
35:36Whether it's in Kenya or anywhere else, it seems that there's the same unawareness everywhere on the planet.
35:44And it raises a troubling question.
35:47Do we still have the right, as tourists, to remain indifferent to the impact of our desires?
35:54Maybe it's time to open our eyes, look at it from a new perspective.
35:59A lot of tourists are not aware, especially when you buy just the package and you don't buy the value behind the package.
36:11What does this package offer in terms of value for place, value for people, value for the environment?
36:17Not just for my value, because I am paying for it.
36:20And people are indeed ready to pay.
36:25But we have high expectations when it comes to travel.
36:28We want the trip of a lifetime. Every time.
36:32By 2030, spending on tourism, hospitality and recreation in Africa is projected to reach over $262 billion.
36:42Tourism in Africa is a great contributor to the GDP.
36:48I think more than 50% of African countries generate between 8 and 10%.
36:55In fact, for many African countries, it's the golden goose that lays the golden egg.
37:03But like all eggs, in Africa or elsewhere, they break easily.
37:10Even on the vast African continent, the industry relies heavily on imported products.
37:16And the market is dominated by all-inclusive safari models or all-inclusive hotels.
37:22All in the hands of foreign investors.
37:24And remember, mass tourism is only profitable if it attracts the masses.
37:33For example, a country like Kenya is considered a mass tourism destination.
37:40And they travel in groups most of the time. It is packaged group travel.
37:45Which, as we now know, often means a loss of local income.
37:51And while the bi-local, fair-trade, sustainable and ethical model has become a trend in many sectors,
37:58it still seems to be a bit lacking in tourism.
38:02I don't think that the general public necessarily has an understanding of a lot of the impacts related to tourism.
38:12To the extent, say, that they would about pesticides in food or child labour, you know, amongst clothing lines, for example.
38:21And so, when people are making a choice about where they want to travel, I think a lot of it comes down to cost and ease and accessibility.
38:35And so, perhaps, you know, the best choices are not made.
38:40Which begs the question, if we're not making informed decisions, should we all have the right to travel everywhere, anywhere, anytime, just because we feel that we deserve to?
38:51How about some rules and regulations?
38:53Where does the line between personal responsibility and industry governance begin and end?
39:00Does the fault lie with us, the tourists?
39:02No, I think this falls on the industry.
39:04I think travellers want to do the right thing.
39:06We want to be good.
39:08We just don't know how.
39:10So, I think the burden falls on the destination to have good management.
39:15Zeta Cobb, founder of the Shorefast Foundation, certainly sees it that way.
39:21It matters who owns what, because owners determine the business model.
39:26And the business models determine the fate of a place.
39:31Now, this place probably isn't on your bucket list.
39:35In fact, there's a good chance that you've never even heard of it.
39:39I've never gotten this close.
39:42To see them, like, oh my gosh.
39:49Fogo Island is very much off the beaten track.
39:53It's located more than 4,000 kilometres from Cancun, off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, in the cold of northern Canada.
40:02For hundreds of years, the backbone of society here was based on one thing.
40:08Cod fishing.
40:09But the collapse of that cod fishing industry in 1992 decimated the island's economy.
40:15Islanders left in droves looking for work elsewhere.
40:18Zeta was one of them and went on to become a very successful business person.
40:23But after retirement, she returned home with an ambitious project and the financial means to implement it.
40:29Building a luxury hotel in one of the most hostile and remote regions in the world.
40:36We needed to create something that was a big enough energy force.
40:40The inn is like a kind of a heartbeat for the economy that can make other things possible.
40:47And so while most places around the world now need to diversify away from tourism, the people of Fogo Island are doing the opposite.
40:57Diversifying through tourism.
41:00First when I started here, probably 90% of the traffic was local.
41:06There was no such things as tourists.
41:08Like there was very few people came to Fogo Island just to look at Fogo Island.
41:13And then when the Fogo Island Inn started up, people like just curious people showed up and then it just started.
41:20Like this snowball effect.
41:22The people that are on here now, if they're locals, I'd say 20% is the maximum.
41:26Wherever possible, tourism is managed locally.
41:30Most of the furniture is made by former boat builders.
41:33Quilts and rugs by the women of the island.
41:36There are boat tours and cultural workshops and a fishing co-op.
41:40All under the registered charity, the Shorefast Foundation.
41:45The Inn directly employs nearly 200 locals and indirectly generates revenue from one-third of the island's households.
41:56It's a model that really could be applied to so many other parts of the world.
42:05It's based around four, five questions.
42:09What do we have in this place?
42:11What do we know?
42:12Surely we know something.
42:14What do we love?
42:16What do we miss?
42:18And what can we do about it?
42:21Tourism can be a force for good.
42:25When we talk about things in tourism like sustainable livelihoods,
42:29the fact that tourism has the ability to provide an economy that can support the local economy,
42:39can promote entrepreneurship.
42:42Make no mistake though, the goal here is not mass tourism.
42:48I think at its very best, tourism is a dance with the devil.
42:54If it's your only industry, you will have your granny selling trinkets on the corner in no time at all.
43:00And the second thing is the scale has to be appropriate to the place.
43:05Starting at somewhere around $2,000 per night, with a three-night minimum stay, one might think that the price alone keeps that scale in check.
43:15But the inn was designed to be much more than just a luxury hotel.
43:22It's a part of a broader initiative that is aimed at the well-being of this economy and this culture and this social context for both people who live here all the time and people who are visiting.
43:35We could have built more rooms, a lot more rooms, created an inn that had a lower price point so that more people could afford it.
43:42That would have not been a good match for this place because we're only so many people.
43:47I think the economy has become such a complicated tangle of things that most people, most individual people have kind of given up trying to understand it.
43:59So we thought, how can we create, in the moment of purchase, information that could help someone shape a decision?
44:06It is indeed the little things that make this whole thing unique, giving value to the touristic experience.
44:19An example?
44:21Imitating the food packaging model, every business under the Surefast operation carries an economic nutrition label that breaks down all of the operating costs involved.
44:32It details exactly how much of that money stays on the island, how much goes to the rest of Newfoundland, how much goes to the rest of Canada, and how much goes out in the world.
44:45Today, people come from all over the world to check out this unique island, and the business model is gaining international attention.
44:55It's not about what we did, I think it's about how we did it.
45:00Working with the inherent assets of a place, the people of a place, building models that are wherever we can, we have to create local ownership and local agency because that's the path to dignity, is agency.
45:15And I think that the essence of hospitality needs to be a sense of invitation.
45:21Now, no one is suggesting Newfoundland is the next Cancun, and Fogo Island is not for everyone.
45:28But this way of thinking should probably be adopted by many other destinations.
45:34And that's the type of tourism I think that, or the way tourism should be developed, is looking at ways to engage the local community and ask them, what type of tourism do you want?
45:46It's a good question, and one that rests on the industry and governmental shoulders of a destination.
45:53Because clearly, there are solutions.
45:55Diversifying like Côte d'Azur, or building community engaged models like Fogo Island.
46:01And perhaps we also need to ask ourselves, what type of tourists do we want to be?
46:07I think that brings us to a very interesting question, which is the tourist and the traveller.
46:12The tourist is the person who just escapes one place to another, and they want everything to be organised.
46:22The traveller is an explorer. The traveller is flexible in their itinerary.
46:29And I think more and more destinations need travellers, because they leave more spend in their destination.
46:36But as more and more destinations bring in foreign investors, excluding local voices and businesses, is it possible to be a responsible traveller?
46:48And perhaps it's simply too late for some places. By all accounts, Cancun is most probably gearing up for the last stage of Richard Butler's tourism model.
47:12Decline or rejuvenate?
47:15We always think that bigger is better, and we never really think about the quality of life for locals.
47:22We're always doing everything to keep attracting tourism.
47:27It's also worrying because of environmental issues.
47:31Urban sprawl, it's going in all directions.
47:34I think Cancun is overpooked because we have surpassed for capacity, and I don't see the end of it.
47:41I would say Cancun is sort of like the grand old dam of modern tourism that's trying to cling on to their all-inclusives in the way they originally set themselves up to be.
47:53It's not easy to reinvent yourself.
47:55And so perhaps, after all, it is on us, the travellers, the curious, the explorers, to do our part.
48:03What I'd say to this is the path to heaven is paved with good intentions.
48:08The trick is to contain expenditure at a local level, getting tourists to shop local, to stay local, to use local transportation.
48:19This is the way we can start to build a more sustainable model of tourism.
48:24One thing is clear. We're not about to stop travelling. Tourism is a powerful economic driver, when done right. It brings us together. It gives us the power of tourism.
48:43It gives us joy and awe. And it creates the cultural and social exchanges that allow us to grow, that made us want to travel in the first place.
49:02But it's probably time to rethink how we travel, with a thought for the destinations we're going to. Because the chances are, if those places are benefiting, the richer, more authentic and unique experience the tourist gets.
49:18Doesn't that sound good? Happy travels.
49:32Happyặt spots home.
49:37We are now.
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