The Problem With (Domestic) Tourism

I’m currently spending a one-week holiday in Ticino, the southernmost canton of Switzerland. We Swiss people call it the sundeck of Switzerland. While other parts of the country are covered in snowy mountains and apple plantations, there are palm trees, Italy-like temperatures and even rice fields down here in Ticino.

It’s no wonder that Ticino is a popular holiday destination for inhabitants of northern and central Switzerland (like myself). The fact that the Ticinesi speak Italian adds to the holiday flavour for German-speaking domestic tourists.

The Annual Tourist Invasion

In search of an exotic holiday, thousands of Swiss people head towards southern Switzerland every year. As soon as they arrive, everything goes German: The vendors at the bakery speak German, waiters and waitresses take orders in German, openair cinemas show movies in German.

If you try talking to someone in Italian, they will most likely switch to German when they detect even the slightest German accent. For a few weeks in summer, the Ticinesi and their culture seem to vanish entirely to make room for the domestic tourists.

(No) Life Without Tourism

I like to think of myself as a not-so-touristy tourist in Ticino (an illusion, of course) because my family owns a tiny house here. We pay taxes and other bills and sometimes we come here for off-season vacations (then, we even speak some Italian).

It’s only during off-season that you get to see what real life is like here:

Beyond the sunshades of the crowded lido, you see the ice-cream man waiting for customers in vain. You see construction workers fix the railway tracks in 35°C. You see people leave their homes and head for other parts of the country because in Ticino, there are no universities and no jobs.

Mallorca Isn’t Better Off. Neither Is The Environment.

The canton of Ticino is both sustained and destroyed by tourism, first and foremost by domestic tourism (because staying in Switzerland is way too expensive for tourists who are not used to Swiss prices). But what is the alternative?

Sadly, the alternative is already in action: People get on a plane and fly around half of the globe in search of a sunny holiday destination, even though their own country offers several. And they don’t do it once in ten years, they do it every year, sometimes multiple times a year.

That’s certainly not the greatest development – especially not for the environment. However, I don’t think tourism in itself is bad. I just wish we all try to be more modest when we travel and that we value the destinations we visit.