Totally awesome: Destinations’ urgent need to rediscover the ‘totality of awe’

A col­lect­ive sense of small­ness, con­nec­ted­ness, and awe eli­cited by the April 8 sol­ar eclipse reminded K Michael Hay­wood of the poten­tial that des­tin­a­tions have to inspire awe; from the authen­t­ic every­day that host com­munit­ies may take for gran­ted, to the loc­al effects of lar­ger forces that none of us can afford to ignore.

It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

[You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Total eclipse

In the lead-up to April 8, 2024, mil­lions of people made the jour­ney to a nar­row 120-kilo­metre wide band of land run­ning across North Amer­ica, from Mazatlán, Mex­ico to New­found­land and Lab­rador, Canada, to wit­ness and exper­i­ence one of the rarest of cos­mic events: a total sol­ar eclipse.

Eclipse chasers they may not have been, but they mar­shalled time, money, and a bit of luck to get to optim­al loc­a­tions that would yield clear views. 

For­tu­nately, all I had to do was to walk to our lake to join neigh­bours as day­light became eer­ie and morph­ed into a dusky muted twi­light; as the tem­per­at­ure dropped sev­er­al degrees; and as the birds stopped chirping.

The total­ity of the sol­ar eclipse eli­cited unique, vis­cer­al feel­ings as fel­low observ­ers gasped with delight. With the moon com­pletely obscur­ing the disk of the sun, the crown­ing glory that emerged was the eth­er­e­al beauty of the sun’s corona. 

They were fleet­ing moments of breath­tak­ing awe and amazement. Those moments eli­cited for mil­lions a sense of unity, a remind­er of our col­lect­ive exper­i­ence of being alive, part of some­thing lar­ger than our mundaneness. 

After­wards, as the moon’s shad­ow passed, I sensed sad­ness as people dis­persed, only later to be frus­trated as so many struggled, home­bound, on road­ways of immob­il­ity. 

Con­tents ^

Awe: Awful or awesome?

As a feel­ing of tran­scend­ence, awe shifts between reli­gious fer­vour and a hum­bling respect for the power and beauty of the nat­ur­al world. Even Albert Ein­stein, in Liv­ing Philo­sophies, recog­nised that dance between spir­itu­al­ity and sci­ence:

“The most beau­ti­ful exper­i­ence we can have is the mys­ter­i­ous. It is the fun­da­ment­al emo­tion that stands at the cradle of true art and true sci­ence. Who­ever does not know it and can no longer won­der, no longer mar­vel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the exper­i­ence of mys­tery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered reli­gion. A know­ledge of the exist­ence of some­thing we can­not pen­et­rate, our per­cep­tions of the pro­found­est reas­on and the most radi­ant beauty, which only in their most prim­it­ive forms are access­ible to our minds: it is this know­ledge and this emo­tion that con­sti­tute true religiosity.”

Though still linked with fear of the unknown, awe’s exceed­ingly pos­it­ive emo­tions gen­er­ate much interest in travel & tourism. 

As Dacher Kelt­ner, who wrote the book on awe, revealed, “awe is an emo­tion [that occurs] when you encounter things you don’t under­stand […] fol­lowed by a sense of won­der­ment as people seek to explain the mys­tery (or over­come the threat) of it”. 

In these instances, some­thing pro­found hap­pens. As sen­tient creatures, we seek to unpack our emo­tions as we reveal our stor­ies about awe ad infin­itum.

Hav­ing grown up in the Bahamas, I found awe by look­ing down (not up); swim­ming and diving in the majest­ic azure seas and cor­al reefs (now in need of res­tor­a­tion) that sur­round the islands; and by immers­ing myself in the atmo­spher­ics and cul­ture, expressed through calypso music and Junkanoo.

Don’t miss oth­er “Good Tour­ism” Insights by K Michael Haywood

As trav­el­lers, all of us delib­er­ately seek path­ways to mean­ing­ful exper­i­ences (not half-baked, pseudo real­it­ies) to explore the total­ity of those places that are rich and deep in cul­ture, adven­ture, activ­it­ies, and sen­sa­tions; mys­ter­i­ous, mys­ti­fy­ing, and awe-inspiring.

Such exper­i­ences are always per­son­al and exist forever in our memories. 

Mine when my uncle took me to the rolling York­shire moors to fly kites. When I wit­nessed the tur­bu­lence of the Atlantic Ocean as 30-foot waves crashed over the bow of our ocean liner on our way to the US. 

Since then, exper­i­en­cing awe in Machu Pic­chu, Peru, the red stone city of Petra, Jordan, and the gla­ci­er near Queen­stown, New Zealand. 

Every day I am in awe, as I tend my sprawl­ing garden while wild deer munch their way through flowers and shrubs. 

Con­tents ^

From marketing remarkability to exposing awe

Awe shifts atten­tion away from ourselves as we exper­i­ence things that are great­er than ourselves; exper­i­ences that change per­cep­tions of time and make us feel more com­pas­sion­ate and appre­ci­at­ive of our world. And not just the won­ders of the world, but the won­ders that sur­round and dis­tin­guish so many of our communities-as-destinations. 

If only, in pro­mot­ing their remarkab­il­ity, des­tin­a­tions would be more attent­ive to dis­cov­er­ing and expos­ing the dormancy of the awe that therein lies; the awe that tran­scends our know­ledge struc­ture. If only des­tin­a­tions’ thinkers, movers, and doers would choose to fully appre­ci­ate and apply the new sci­ence of awe to mag­ni­fy the pride, pas­sion, and con­cern we have for our places and our planet. 

We can be doing a far bet­ter job at under­stand­ing awe’s nuances, accom­mod­at­ing its vast­ness and total­ity, not just to impress and drive people’s emo­tions and senses, but to com­pre­hend the essence of its power.

Whatever places we vis­it, wherever we take our vaca­tions, the oppor­tun­ity to enhance the qual­ity of our lives improves when des­tin­a­tions util­ise awe to make our lives bet­ter; recog­nise the power of place­mak­ing pro­cesses that draw inspir­a­tion from man­dat­ing hap­pi­ness (as has been done in Bhutan); pro­cesses that can exceed the prom­ise of good times and rela­tion­al forms of tour­ism (pro­moted by all des­tin­a­tions and tour­ism-related com­pan­ies), espe­cially when authen­ti­city persists. 

Don’t miss oth­er “GT” con­tent tagged ‘Mar­ket­ing’ &/or ‘Man­age­ment’

Though medi­ated through the applic­a­tion of psy­cho­graph­ics, the awe in authen­ti­city is not a feel­ing or out­come that can eas­ily be staged or manip­u­lated, sug­gest­ing that cul­tur­al rep­res­ent­a­tions, his­tor­ic pre­ser­va­tions, or vir­tu­al real­ity excur­sions to the moon, for example, can be dif­fi­cult to real­ise. An excep­tion is Space Explorers – the Infin­ite because it exem­pli­fied, for me, what awe reveals:

• Vast­ness – bey­ond the nor­mal range of experience.
• Enlight­en­ment – appre­ci­ation for what is being seen, per­ceived, and achieved.
• Chal­lenge – to what we know or per­ceive to be true.
• Pres­ence – of beauty, abil­ity, vir­tue, the sub­lime and supra­nat­ur­al causality.
• Physiolo­gic­al effects – mind/body sen­sa­tions; feel­ing out-of-mind or out-of-body.
• Psy­cho­lo­gic­al effects – humil­ity, well-being, life sat­is­fac­tion, spir­itu­al­ity, connectedness.
• Anxi­ety and fear. 

Con­tents ^

Adrenaline 

Anxi­ety and fear. 

Travel that takes us bey­ond the every­day can be unnerv­ing and wor­ri­some, espe­cially when places, people, or pos­i­tions are per­ceived to be unfa­mil­i­ar, unsafe, or unsavoury. 

Awe height­ens our vigil­ance, cau­tion, and abil­ity to detect threats. It mobil­ises the mind and body to respond appro­pri­ately to per­ceived danger. I am reminded by how for­tu­nate my best friends were when they out­wit­ted the tsunami that dev­ast­ated Phuket in 2004. 

With extreme hur­ricanes, massive wild­fires, and flood­ing due to cli­mate change, the dark side of awe is becom­ing more pre­val­ent. Nev­er has there been a time when the sur­viv­al of so many com­munit­ies-as-des­tin­a­tions is com­ing under threat. 

With pre­dict­ab­il­ity on the decline, we’re in need of more than cata­strophe mod­el­lers, par­tic­u­larly as dis­placed per­sons are forced to migrate.

Fur­ther envir­on­ment­al holo­causts loom large. 

Unfor­tu­nately, the spir­it and voices of nature that speak to us through the mys­tery of awe con­vey dis­par­ate mes­sages: Pos­it­iv­ity and neg­at­iv­ity; won­der and worry; fun and fear; FOMO (fear of miss­ing out) and FOLLY (fear of los­ing life and live­li­hoods, yes). 

Con­tents ^

Action

All of this seems perplexing. 

We star­ted out by recog­nising how awe unites, but now find ourselves asking: 

• Are our com­munit­ies being guided by what matters?
• Are they being chal­lenged to take the right path to totality?
• Are they com­mit­ted to tak­ing action? 

I am yet to be convinced.

Con­tents ^

What do you think? 

Share your own thoughts in a com­ment below on how travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers might lever­age awe. (SIGN IN or REGISTER first. After sign­ing in you will need to refresh this page to see the com­ments section.)

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Con­tents ^

About the author

K Michael Hay­wood is Pro­fess­or Emer­it­us, School of Hos­pit­al­ity, Food and Tour­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

“As a former pro­fess­or and con­sult­ant to the hos­pit­al­ity and tour­ism indus­tries, I now host the Des­tin­a­tions-in-Action blog on substack from my Tour­ism Studio.”

Michael has also writ­ten for The “GT” Travel Blog.

Con­tents ^

Featured image (top of post)

Mil­lions flock to the best loc­a­tions to be awed by the total eclipse of the sun. Image by Sima Ghaf­far­z­a­deh (CC0) via Pixabay. GT cropped it and added “Awe …”

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