Changing places: Responsibility, nostalgia, and the right to complain | BiteX: War

Who has the ‘social licence’ to claim a place has changed for the worse? Does it mat­ter if that change is driv­en by tour­ist visas, employ­ment visas, or per­man­ent migration? 

Is ‘nos­tal­gia’ a val­id stake­hold­er in a des­tin­a­tion’s future? And does travel & tour­ism have a respons­ib­il­ity to val­id­ate these feel­ings, or is change simply the price of ‘pro­gress’?

Thanks to the six respond­ents for their con­sidered thoughts. Their responses are lis­ted in the order I received them. For BiteX, a few of us pon­der war. 

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Who gets to define ‘overtourism’?

Pham Phi Anh, Deputy Head of Project Development — Fundraising Unit, Anh Duong Center, Vietnam

In com­munity-based tour­ism, the most import­ant ques­tion is not how many vis­it­ors arrive, but who decides what is ‘too many’.

Through the Anh Duong Centre’s work with rur­al com­munit­ies in the Mekong Delta and south­ern Viet­nam, we have learned that ‘over-tour­ism’ is rarely defined by stat­ist­ics. It is felt in daily life.

In one Mekong Delta vil­lage where women oper­ate small homestays, fam­il­ies ini­tially wel­comed as many guests as pos­sible, and income rose quickly. But after one busy sea­son, sev­er­al women admit­ted they were exhausted. Farm­ing routines were dis­rup­ted, and time with chil­dren became lim­ited. The group agreed to cap guest num­bers; not because tour­ism was fail­ing, but because bal­ance mattered.

In anoth­er south­ern com­munity, han­di­crafts once made for house­hold use shif­ted towards designs tailored for vis­it­ors. Sales improved. Yet some eld­ers wor­ried that cul­tur­al mean­ing was thin­ning. The real ques­tion was not wheth­er adapt­a­tion was wrong, but who should decide how far adapt­a­tion goes.

Busi­nesses count occu­pancy rates. Author­it­ies count growth. Vis­it­ors see vibrancy. Res­id­ents feel the strain. 

So, who holds the social licence to say a place has changed for the worse? 

In our exper­i­ence, those who live with the con­sequences every day must carry the greatest weight. Nos­tal­gia is not simply res­ist­ance to pro­gress. It can sig­nal that iden­tity, dig­nity, or belong­ing feels fragile.

If tour­ism pro­fes­sion­als are uncom­fort­able giv­ing res­id­ents real decision-mak­ing power, then we must ask: are we pur­su­ing ‘good tour­ism’, or more tour­ism, bet­ter packaged?

‘Over­tour­ism’ is not about num­bers. It is about who gets to choose the future, and who must live with that choice long after the vis­it­ors have gone.

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Anyone has a ‘social licence’ to claim a place has changed for the worse

Richard Butler, Emeritus Professor of Tourism, University of Strathclyde, Scotland

I would argue any­one the­or­et­ic­ally has a ‘social licence’ — whatever that is — to claim a place has changed for the worse in their opin­ion. We may well feel strongly about cer­tain places and deeply regret the change that has occurred there. We do not need to live there to feel that way.

Much depends on the nature of the change. To me, most mod­ern archi­tec­ture rarely enhances exist­ing places and is often an eye­sore, so I feel I have the licence to com­ment to that effect.

Clearly, res­id­ents com­plain­ing of change may argue they have a great­er right to com­plain. If they are blame­less but neg­at­ively affected by change, good for them. But if they have sold up, cashed in, and moved out, they lose some degree of right­eous­ness for com­plain­ing that Airb­nb, or sim­il­ar, is ruin­ing where they used to live.

Much of the com­plain­ing is prob­ably related to the fre­quent feel­ing of being unable to halt or modi­fy change; if people are even noti­fied in advance.

Nos­tal­gia as such can­not be a val­id stake­hold­er. How­ever, nos­tal­gia is a vitally import­ant ele­ment in many people’s lives and should not be treated as value­less. It is a factor in our exist­ence. It brings com­fort, and even secur­ity, to those of an advanced age to be able to look back with pleas­ure and revis­it — even if only men­tally — old ven­ues. To find them changed greatly with appar­ently little thought or reas­on, bey­ond some agency’s bank bal­ance, can be very depressing.

The world does not stand still. But change should surely always be designed with the aim of a more appro­pri­ate, safer, clean­er, equit­able, friendly, and wel­com­ing set­ting for res­id­ents and vis­it­ors, rather than simply for the sake of change or to make a little more money.

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The social licence question is about who gets to decide

Ewan Cluckie, Chief Growth Officer, Tripseed, Thailand

Loc­al res­id­ents. Full stop. They are the ones who live with the con­sequences: Rising real estate costs, crowded infra­struc­ture, cul­tur­al erosion, and envir­on­ment­al degradation.

I do not think it mat­ters wheth­er those pres­sures come from tour­ists, expats, or per­man­ent migrants. Loc­al res­id­ents did­n’t opt in. The rest of us chose to be there.

I say ‘us’ deliberately. 

As a Brit­ish expat run­ning a travel & tour­ism busi­ness in Thai­l­and, I have a ves­ted interest. My instinct is to say I have zero social licence to com­plain about the chan­ging char­ac­ter of the place I moved to. That would be hypo­crit­ic­al. I’m part of the change.

But it is more nuanced. My wife is Thai. My chil­dren were born here, go to school here, and this is the only home they’ve ever known. They are gen­er­a­tion­ally loc­al through their moth­er. While I may not have earned that social licence, I would argue any par­ent has the right to want the best for their fam­ily and community.

Does it mat­ter wheth­er the change is driv­en by tour­ist visas, employ­ment visas, or per­man­ent migration?

The mech­an­ism does not mat­ter much to the fam­ily whose land­lord just tripled their rent, or the com­munity whose sac­red site became a photo back­drop. The impact is the impact. Visas are just paperwork.

What mat­ters more is wheth­er loc­als have genu­ine agency in shap­ing what hap­pens to their home. Too often, decisions about travel & tour­ism devel­op­ment, zon­ing, visa policy, and for­eign invest­ment get made over the heads of the com­munit­ies affected. So, the social licence ques­tion isn’t about who gets to com­plain. It is about who gets to decide. 

Are we build­ing busi­nesses that give loc­al com­munit­ies more power over their tra­ject­ory, or less? Are we listen­ing to what res­id­ents want, or pro­ject­ing what we think is good for them?

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Britain would do well to rebuild a ‘sense of connection through a shared past’

Jim Butcher, Reader, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK; Tourism’s Horizon: Travel for the Millions

Nos­tal­gia some­times gets a bad name, includ­ing, in the past, from me. 

I asso­ci­ated nos­tal­gia with being ‘old-fash­ioned’, ‘stand­ing in the way of pro­gress’, or ‘liv­ing off past glor­ies’. Not for me.

I feel dif­fer­ently about it these days. That could be to do with age or, I would like to think, the wis­dom that comes with it.

But I am a bit con­flic­ted over the notion that the travel & tour­ism industry may have a respons­ib­il­ity to val­id­ate my nos­tal­gia. No doubt it will, in all sorts of cre­at­ive ways, as busi­nesses see opportunities.

The romantic in me asso­ci­ates the past with a less com­mer­cial­ised world. Nos­tal­gia for me evokes the inno­cence of child­hood. Child­hood was freer then than now. Fam­ily hol­i­days were spent in rel­at­ives’ houses, play­ing on the beach, and run­ning around in forests. Com­mer­cial exper­i­ences have partly replaced ‘free-range’ child­hoods, to the det­ri­ment of child­hood itself in my opinion.

Then there is nos­tal­gia on a grander scale; nos­tal­gia asso­ci­ated with one’s coun­try. Robert Hewison’s cri­tique of Bri­tain’s nos­tal­gia industry, The Her­it­age Industry: Bri­tain in a Cli­mate of Decline (1987), argued that the nation was liv­ing off its past, unable or unwill­ing to face up to the real­ity of decline and forge a new future trajectory.

I gen­er­ally agreed.

But at the same time, I think that gov­ern­ments, loc­al and nation­al, should strive to con­serve our past and make it evid­ent and avail­able to cit­izens and to tour­ists alike.

Nos­tal­gia today is often a part of seek­ing a con­nec­tion to our coun­try and our nation­al com­munity. That seems miss­ing today. Rebuild­ing that sense of con­nec­tion through a shared past is a pre­requis­ite for a bright­er future.

Tourism’s Hori­zon: Travel for the Mil­lions is a val­ued “GT” Partner.

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Nostalgia is validation of place

Saverio Francesco Bertolucci, Business Development Specialist, VDB Luxury Properties, Spain

Nos­tal­gia does not neces­sar­ily imply loss, or that a des­tin­a­tion has lost its soul.

His­tory, archi­tec­ture, and land­scapes are unique fea­tures for any des­tin­a­tion. Those key char­ac­ter­ist­ics are dir­ectly linked with memor­ies and stor­ies, which con­sequently become assets for a territory.

Tra­di­tions keep the roots alive and enhance the travel & tour­ism appeal, mak­ing each place unique. When tour­ists appre­ci­ate a par­tic­u­lar com­bin­a­tion of traits and tra­di­tions, they pay trib­ute to the des­tin­a­tion by shar­ing exper­i­ences, enjoy­ing loc­al life, and cre­at­ing new memor­ies and stories.

I def­in­itely con­sider nos­tal­gia to be a val­id­a­tion of place. Every tour­ist has their own sub­ject­ive per­cep­tions. So do loc­als. On this mat­ter, pro­gress is when tra­di­tions are kept alive and appre­ci­ated and shared by dif­fer­ent eth­ni­cit­ies and vis­it­or groups.

Nos­tal­gia is dir­ectly con­nec­ted to vis­it­or loy­alty, lead­ing to a cli­en­tele will­ing to keep exper­i­en­cing itin­er­ar­ies, events, and land­scapes again and again. It is an asset, a means to show­case a des­tin­a­tion; not neces­sar­ily an indic­a­tion that a place has lost its soul.

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The social licence belongs to the resident who stands to lose

Doreen Nyamweya, Tourism Officer, Nyamira County, Kenya

When it comes to claim­ing a place has changed for the worse, the social licence usu­ally belongs to those with the deep­est emo­tion­al equity: the multi-gen­er­a­tion­al loc­al. How­ever, decid­ing who gets to com­plain is often a scramble over who has the highest level of per­son­al investment.

The multi-gen­er­a­tion­al loc­al remem­bers the small details, like the traffic flow, or how the air smelled before the shift. The res­id­ent who moved in a dec­ade ago will com­plain about new arrivals, for­get­ting they were once ‘dis­ruptors’ them­selves. How­ever, I would argue the eco­nom­ic­ally dis­placed hold the most val­id licence because their claim is backed by a tan­gible loss, rather than just nostalgia. 

In the realm of social licence, the type of visa or migra­tion status mat­ters immensely. 

Wheth­er the move is tem­por­ary or per­man­ent, loc­als are entitled to com­plain when it feels trans­ac­tion­al; when ‘dis­ruptors’ make a min­im­al pos­it­ive impact on the community’s social fab­ric. How­ever, tem­por­ary moves caused by tour­ism cre­ate tran­si­ent traps as loc­als serve people who are not stay­ing, betray­ing those who are. 

In Bar­celona, for example, brunch spots for tour­ists replaced tra­di­tion­al gro­cery stores. The city lost its authen­ti­city, and tour­ists com­plained it felt like a theme park, hav­ing dis­placed the very people who made it a place they wanted to visit.

To an extent, ‘worse’ is subjective. 

For prop­erty own­ers, an influx in demand due to visas is bet­ter because it raises asset val­ues. On the oth­er hand, for a renter or a lov­er of quiet streets, the same influx is a dis­aster. They must live with the con­sequences long after the ‘dis­ruptors’ have moved on. There­fore, the social licence is less about who you are, and more about what you stand to lose. 

This val­id­ates ‘nos­tal­gia’ as a stake­hold­er for a destination’s future. The travel & tour­ism industry has a respons­ib­il­ity to val­id­ate these feel­ings, as they rep­res­ent cul­tur­al con­tinu­ity; a stand­point we all ought to take. Oth­er­wise, we risk place­less­ness in our destinations.

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“GT” Insight Bite_X (‘_X’ is up to you)

The “Good Tour­ism” Blog offers a great oppor­tun­ity to any travel & tour­ism stake­hold­er who wishes to express them­self in writ­ing for the bene­fit of “GT’s” open-minded readers. 

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War: What is it good for? How’s it affecting you?

In an email to “Good Tour­is­m’s” cher­ished guest author mail­ing list in which I soli­cited responses to the primary top­ic of this com­pil­a­tion, I also asked:

How is war in the Middle East affect­ing your oper­a­tions (work / busi­ness / research / teach­ing / study­ing / gov­ern­ing / NGO’ing)?

In ask­ing that I also shared that I had not heard from friends in Iran since the war star­ted. I still haven’t. Pri­or to the war, dur­ing the civil upris­ings and bru­tal crack­downs there, inter­net con­nectiv­ity was intermittent.

In the last email I received, on Feb­ru­ary 24, one wrote:

“I have a good life here. A good job, good friends. In my free time, I do yoga and go out into nature.

“But I don’t have the peace of mind that I should have. I always worry about war, infla­tion, rising prices, the devalu­ation of the cur­rency, the weak pass­port, and the high costs, even for trav­el­ing to Tur­key, which is a neigh­bor­ing coun­try to Iran. There is man­dat­ory dress code, reli­gious extrem­ism, and so many oth­er issues …”

In response, Pham Phi Anh and Saverio Francesco Ber­to­lu­cci kindly shared their thoughts.

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Tourism in the shadow of conflict: Protecting the ‘social licence’

Pham Phi Anh, Deputy Head of Project Development — Fundraising Unit, Anh Duong Center, Vietnam

How does war in the Middle East affect non-gov­ern­ment­al organ­isa­tion (NGO) oper­a­tions and travel & tour­ism research?

It serves as a grim val­id­at­or of the ‘fra­gil­ity’ of belong­ing. When glob­al instabil­ity rises, the ‘social licence’ of a des­tin­a­tion becomes even more contested.

For those of us in the NGO and research sec­tors, con­flict forces a shift in operations:

1. From growth to resi­li­ence: We stop ask­ing ‘how do we bring more people?’ and start ask­ing ‘how do we pro­tect what is left?’.
2. The surge of nos­tal­gia: In times of war or eco­nom­ic devalu­ation — as seen in your friend’s account from Iran—nos­tal­gia becomes a primary stake­hold­er. It is no longer just a feel­ing; it is a defens­ive mech­an­ism for a com­munity that feels its future is being traded for ‘pro­gress’ or des­troyed by forces bey­ond its control.
3. The val­id­a­tion of feel­ings: Travel & tour­ism has a mor­al respons­ib­il­ity to val­id­ate the com­munity’s fear and nos­tal­gia. If ‘pro­gress’ means rising prices, a deval­ued cur­rency, and a loss of peace, then the com­munity has every right to claim the place has changed for the worse.

Our research shows that ‘good tour­ism’ can­not exist without ‘peace of mind’.

When we lose the abil­ity to halt or modi­fy change — wheth­er that change is driv­en by migra­tion or the pres­sures of war — the ‘social licence’ expires.

As prac­ti­tion­ers, our job is to ensure that even in the shad­ow of con­flict, the loc­al res­id­ent remains the archi­tect of their own story, not a vic­tim of ‘pro­gress’.

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War brings change, challenge, and opportunity

Saverio Francesco Bertolucci, Business Development Specialist, VDB Luxury Properties, Spain

Every war brings sys­tem­ic changes, with their con­sequent chal­lenges and opportunities.

The stable situ­ation in Europe and most Medi­ter­ranean coun­tries provides a vant­age point that can shape travel & tour­ism and real estate businesses.

In Bar­celona, demand for tem­por­ary rent­als from the Gulf Region—a mar­ket strongly lim­ited by the muni­cip­al­ity’s decisions—is at its highest level due to the con­flict.

This demand is expec­ted to even­tu­ally sta­bil­ise as the war de-escal­ates. How­ever, it show­cases the cru­cial world­wide repu­ta­tion the city has in a moment of turmoil.

At the same time, it con­sol­id­ates the strength of the mar­ket des­pite the Catalan gov­ern­ment’s lim­it­a­tions, which are not play­ing out as expec­ted.

For us as a boutique ser­vice agency able to merge real estate offers with hos­pit­al­ity ser­vices, it is fun­da­ment­al to keep our focus on the lux­ury seg­ment, mar­ket those clusters, and prop­erly man­age this influx.

There is an import­ant, newly wealthy audi­ence who wants to try a new, safe des­tin­a­tion to tem­por­ar­ily live in, and we need to be there.

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