A Time of Magic

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Mass tourism is a surprisingly recent development and really only got going with the arrival of cheap package tours in the 1960s. Before that, the common man just hadn’t got the cash to go anywhere more exotic than Blackpool.

All that changed rapidly of course with the arrival of charter flights and the consequent dramatic drop in the prices for foreign holidays. The first place to really benefit in a big way was, of course, southern Spain which at that time was quite a series of fairly poor agricultural communities; not anymore, of course.

In many ways it didn’t really matter what the place you went to was so long as it was sunny and the majority of the early package holidays simply promoted sun, sand and sea as the attraction. With that, there wasn’t much of a need for guidebooks and indeed it was into the 1980s before the main guidebook series really got into their stride.

Today, of course, just about every location in the world has several guidebooks covering it but even as late as 1978 the range was incredibly limited. At that time by far the best for America was the Lets’ Go series, produced by and aimed at the student market because that was the only group that had the time to go on an extended holiday to America at the time. Even in 1980 a trip to America from Europe was definitely in the category of “once in a lifetime” yet nowadays it’s commonplace.

But surely the Internet is better? Not really. The majority of websites that write about a particular place do it in a very sketchy manner compared to the coverage that you’ll get of the same place in a good guidebook. I was very surprised for instance to find that there was no site with decent coverage of Cordoba when writing the article for that for Whole Earth Guide.

That used to be a really simple question to answer but isn’t always quite so simple any more.

For instance, you might think that seeing as I’m typing this from France that I’m working in France. Obvious, isn’t it?

Well, no, it isn’t. For one thing, this website is registered in America so arguably I’m working in America. On the other hand, the website is hosted in Germany so arguably I’m working in Germany. But then again, I’m writing it for a British company.

So which of the four options is the “right” one?

Clearly the domain registration is neither here nor there. Neither is the hosting location although that would be a factor were we physically in China for example.

The last two aspects are far from clear though. I might be in France at the moment so they’d argue that I should be paying tax here for instance yet I’m doing the work for a British company who, arguably, are employing me in the UK.

So what was a nice simple question for our forebearers is far from a simple one to answer these days, at least for me.

Clearly everyone knows that Paris is a major tourist attraction in France but why do Australians always go to Avignon?

It isn’t the obvious reason of it being the centre of a major chunk of historic monuments from the Palace des Papes to the Pont d’Avignon. It’s because a photo of the Pont d’Avignon is used in every Australian school as being representative of France.

Sometimes other countries choose artifacts that are not what those from elsewhere would consider as being truly representative of a country.

Of course for us from this side of the world it’s Ayers Rock and the Sydney Opera House that represent Australia. No, it ain’t Uluru for us and I suspect that it never will be for anyone but the aborigines.