I picked up this book at my local library to read on a three hour flight. The first half of the book was really interesting as it discussed some origin stories of famous travel guides and some stories about famous places to visit. The second half was all over the place. There was discussion on the Red Light district in Netherlands and a environmental discourse on the reefs and icebergs of other famous places. The overarching theme of the book is the impact of "new tourists" on travel and in some places it has had a very negative impact (Hawaii, for example). It seems social media has made the impact even worse (there's one story about Justin Bieber in Iceland that was jarring). Even though we read about these effects and acknowledge them, we still desire to visit. There's no solutions presented to solve that issue or what we can do as tourists ourselves to diminish any impact.
Some highlights from the book:
Lonely Planet began in 1972 when a young couple, Tony and Maureen Wheeler, took an almost six month journey to exotic places including Asia and ended up in Australia. Their journey was rife with bad experiences (robbery, sickness, running out of gas or money). They were studious notetakers which would end up becoming a travel guide, "Across Asia on the Cheap" which they published themselves. Eventually, their books became so popular that business owners begged to be featured in their books (or in some cases, to not appear in their books due to overwhelm).
Eugene Fodor published his first guidebook in 1936 about Europe. Fodor encouraged readers to meet locals and get to know the local culture.
Frommer published "Europe on $5 a Day" in the 1950s.
Mark Ellingham created the Rough Guides because the guides at the time were too formal and restrictive. His Rough Guides would visit places less traveled with a younger slant.
Oliver Koppell wrote about how to travel cheaply around Europe which became the "Let's Go" guides.
Rick Steves wrote his "Europe Through the Back Door" guide in the late 1970s. His focus was getting off the beaten track and for those who could travel with only a backpack.
In 1996, Travelocity was created and within the first three months had over 1.2 million views.
Microsoft launched Expedia a few months later.
In the Netherlands, Geert-Jan Bruinsma founded Bookings.nl which allowed people to book hotel rooms online. In 2005, he sold the company for $133 million and it became Booking.com.
Priceline launched in April of 1998 which offered bidding of last minute seats or rooms. When the company went public a year later, founder Jay Walker became a billionaire!
Airbed and Breakfast became Airbnb in 2009.
2011, Google launched Google Flights. In 2017, Google's travel businesses were worth over $100 billion!
There's an interesting story about how the country of Iceland used social media and an online article by its First Lady to generate interest in tourism.
Overall, there are some interesting stories in this book and if you have a long journey or commute, might be worth reading through. Warning - there are some f-bombs thrown around in the text and some adult content if you're sensitive to that. Try to borrow this book from the local library.
Title: The New Tourist: Waking Up to the Power and Perils of Travel
Author: Paige McClanahan
ISBN: 978-1668011799
Pages: 287
This article may contain photos and links that take you to third-party Affiliate sites. If you purchase any item on those sites it may contribute a small monetary amount back to our website without any extra cost to you.
