Cash, time, or freedom: Travel & tourism is expensive

November 28, 2023

Then as now, tourism is expensive. Photo Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.
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If one can put romantic notions of ‘the good old days’ aside, then one must acknow­ledge that travel was then, and is now, an elit­ist pur­suit for those with the lux­ur­ies of cash, time, and/or free­dom. Tour­ism is expensive.

Our industry has to change, accord­ing to Duncan M Simpson. But how?

Mr Simpson shares this “Good Tour­ism” Insight at the invit­a­tion of Tourism’s Hori­zon: Travel for the Mil­lions, a “GT” Part­ner. (You too can write a “GT” Insight.)

A little freedom

I worked at the youth hostel in Cam­bridge, in 1976. A job for the sum­mer, I said, while I enjoyed a little free­dom, before going back to my chosen career.

At Cam­bridge most vis­it­ors arrived on foot, hav­ing used a train to get there. Bicycles were pop­u­lar, some­times com­bined with trains. Very few used private cars. The Inter­rail tick­et, offer­ing unlim­ited travel and the free­dom of Europe by train, had begun in 1972.

Most vis­it­ors came from Europe, cross­ing the North Sea by ferry from Scand­inavia, Ger­many, and the Low Coun­tries, as the ‘Bene­lux’ states of Bel­gi­um, Lux­em­bourg, and the Neth­er­lands were then called.

Difficult, expensive, and slow

Oth­ers came from what had been the Brit­ish Domin­ions (Canada, South Africa, Aus­tralia and New Zea­l­and). They were among the few reach­ing Bri­tain by plane. Air travel remained bey­ond the pock­ets of most, except on charter flights or pack­age hol­i­days. Travel, and that kind of free­dom, was dif­fi­cult, expens­ive, and slow.

Most arrived at the hostel unbooked, hop­ing they would find a space for the night. If they were unlucky, and they often were at the height of that long, hot sum­mer, they went to a nearby bed and break­fast, or turned their bicycles towards the next hostel, 15 miles (~24 km) up the road.

If book­ings had been made, they were usu­ally done by post, an involved and drawn out pro­cess, often made without pay­ment, and held on trust until 6pm. If the reser­va­tion was not claimed by that time, it was released to any­one else look­ing for a bed.

The pro­cess depended on over­whelm­ing demand, of which there seemed no end. The queue at check-in some­times stretched down the street.

Tele­phones were fixed, tethered by cables to the world out­side. Guests lined up to use the payphone in the hall. You could hear one side of any con­ver­sa­tion. Late at night, Amer­ic­ans waited with hand­fuls of change to feed that phone. Early morn­ings were for Aus­trali­ans and New Zealanders.

Slow, raw, and untidy

Our work­ing hours were long, everything done by hand, from wash­ing up and sweep­ing floors, to bal­an­cing money at the end of the day, by adding up columns of hand-writ­ten fig­ures, and count­ing notes, and coins in a drawer.

There was no elec­tron­ic till. No cred­it cards. No computers. 

No inter­net. Travel advice was gained talk­ing with oth­ers, from con­ver­sa­tions around the recep­tion desk or over din­ing room tables. Guide books were essen­tial. Arthur From­mer­’s Europe on 5 dol­lars a day? sup­ple­men­ted youth hostel handbooks.

There were no mobile phones. No instant con­nec­tions to home.

The world, and the way we moved, was haphaz­ard. It was slow, raw, and often untidy.

Vis­it­ors were few­er and, I’d like to think, more wel­come than they are today. Private cars were few­er, the streets emp­ti­er, the lights dim­mer. Everything moved more slowly.

There were none of the crowds of travel today. 

I’d like to think travel was more sus­tain­able, green­er, kinder, and offered more free­dom than today; free­dom like nev­er before nor since. 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” posts tagged ‘mass tour­ism’

Different now? Not really.

I’m kid­ding myself. That’s nostalgia. 

Tour­ism was already build­ing into the force it is today. It wasn’t really that dif­fer­ent. Sure the num­bers tak­ing part have grown vastly big­ger. We have cheap flights and many more places where we can stay than were avail­able then.

Cam­bridge is busier than it ever was then, and way more people vis­it today. 

They arrive, still, by train. They arrive by car. They come from a wider array of nations but they vis­it the same attrac­tions, like Kings Col­lege. They go punt­ing on the river or sit in the sun for a photo on Laundress Green. 

Few­er arrive by bike but otherwise …?

… Tour­ism really hasn’t changed. And though more of us take part, in one import­ant aspect it is still very much the same: It is still an expens­ive busi­ness. It is still the pur­suit of the rich, in time and money.

Something needs to change

Tour­ism still smacks of exclus­iv­ity though we rarely notice. It seems so democratic. 

Today’s travels, espe­cially in the out­doors, require ser­i­ous invest­ment in lug­gage, in cloth­ing, and even more in hik­ing and cyc­ling gear. The cost of equip­ment pushes activ­it­ies bey­ond the reach of many.

As more people head to the same des­tin­a­tions, they prob­ably get more expens­ive. The cost of accom­mod­a­tion in youth hos­tels was about the same wherever you went in the 1970s but that’s not the case any­more. The price goes up for pop­u­lar destinations.

We need more sus­tain­able tour­ism but it is still an exclus­ive busi­ness. Over­tour­ism, as it is called, is caus­ing prob­lems too. Some­thing needs to change.

But when people talk about too many tour­ists and when we sug­gest there should be few­er, I won­der who’s volun­teer­ing to be the first to stop trav­el­ling. I worry that redu­cing num­bers will just mean travel becomes more exclus­ive than it ever was.

Some­thing needs to change. Tour­ism might need to get bet­ter but whatever that change might be, I don’t want to make travel more exclusive.

Con­tents ^

What do you think? 

What do you think? Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” InsightThe “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism, because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s busi­ness.

“GT” is where free thought travels.

About the author

Duncan M Simpson
Duncan M Simpson

Duncan M Simpson trained as a journ­al­ist, but after that sum­mer in a youth hostel, he car­ried on work­ing for the Youth Hos­tels Asso­ci­ation (YHA) of Eng­land and Wales. After a career in hostel oper­a­tions, mar­ket­ing, and PR, he retired as YHA’s Head of Cor­por­ate Affairs in 2013. 

Since then, Mr Simpson has focused on the his­tory of youth hos­tels at Simply Hos­tels, a web­site and blog, and three inde­pend­ently pub­lished books, includ­ing Open to All: How youth hos­tels changed the world.

As of this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Duncan was in the pro­cess of launch­ing Light travels on Substack. Mr Simpson con­trib­uted this “GT” Insight at the invit­a­tion of Tourism’s Hori­zon: Travel for the Mil­lions, a “GT” Partner.

Featured image (top of post)

“Those cars, that quiet street. You won’t find it like that today! The youth hostel in Cam­bridge about the time I worked there.” 

Photo cour­tesy of the YHA archive at the Cad­bury Research Lib­rary, Uni­ver­sity of Birm­ing­ham. “GT” added “THEN = NOW?”

Now = then?

Now, as then, tourism is an expensive business. Google street view screen capture.
Now, as then, travel & tour­ism is expens­ive. Google street view screen cap­ture (Octo­ber 2018). “GT” added “NOW = THEN?”

Con­tents ^

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