Ernie Weissman
Paige McClanahan’s The New Tourist: Waking Up to the Power and Perils of Travel (Scribner, 2024) shapes and defines both the relief and distress the modern traveler feels about tourism.
A frequent contributor to The New York Times travel section, she has worked as a journalist, historian, philosopher and consultant, providing examples, context, insight and recommendations on a topic that has become increasingly complex as tourism numbers have grown.
She is both a critic and an avid reader, and in both roles she is thorough and thoughtful. What sets “The New Tourist” apart from much that has already been written on related subjects is that she approaches her work with extraordinary humility and self-awareness. She falls into the tourist trap entirely – a hackneyed, banal presentation of local culture – and yet ends up receiving rapturous applause. Though she feels self-conscious, she sighs and points out that the tourist trap is ultimately “a place of escape and entertainment.”
And she has little patience for what she sees as a hierarchy that places her above other travelers: Annoyed by people who “insist on making a distinction between ‘traveler’ and ‘tourist,'” she warns them: “Call yourself a tourist, but never forget that you’re a tourist too.”
So who are the new tourists in her title? First, they are more sensitive and conscious of the people and places they visit, and the issues that affect both. This isn’t an entirely new concept, but with growing awareness of overtourism, growing environmental concerns, growing community backlash, and clear economic drain, it’s appropriate to codify a change that has previously only been outlined in various essays and articles. The “new” tourist avoids ignorance about the impacts of tourism, strives to be a good guest, and enjoys the benefits of travel.
For those who work in the tourism industry, many of the examples of tourism failure she lists will be familiar: the disasters of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Angkor Wat and Iceland have been recounted many times.
But I found her approach to the English city of Liverpool refreshing: she speaks to longtime residents who remember the city when it was in significant decline and who now welcome its (largely) tourist-led revival. In charting the city’s transformation, McClanahan doesn’t ignore what it lost along the way; so much so that development has caused “serious deterioration and irreparable loss of outstanding universal value,” leading to the city being stripped of its UNESCO World Heritage status.
But looking more broadly at Liverpool, she concludes that its rise from “smack city” to European Capital of Culture was largely due to a form of tourism that “enabled the city to rally its peers behind a vision for the future”.
“McClanahan devotes a lot of space to Hawaii, a country often associated in consumer media with the ills of tourism. As he did in Liverpool, he engaged with longtime residents who have seen the changes in the islands firsthand and who can humanize what is more commonly described in statistics and policy proposals. As someone who has visited Hawaii annually for over 20 years and discussed statistics and policy with tourism stakeholders, I found his insights original and enlightening.”
McClanahan’s writing style is also noteworthy: clear and journalistic, her prose occasionally leaps into spurts. She memorably describes Barcelona as “so crowded, so empty,” and when describing the Icelandic woman she is interviewing, she places the reader right in her own place: “The sky above us is wide and clear, and the wind is blowing. [Fanney] Gunnarsdottir’s braids cover her face and sometimes rob her of her voice.”
Looking back at the various historical views on tourism, from Fyodor Dostoyevsky to Mark Twain, G.K. Chesterton to EM Forster, we may conclude that Twain, who died 114 years ago, may have best captured the spirit of the “New Traveler” in his book The Innocent Wanderer, published 155 years ago. “A broad, healthy, and charitable view of men and things cannot be acquired by spending one’s whole life in one corner of the globe,” he wrote. While this may reflect the traveler’s lofty aspirations, McClanahan also quotes one of his more modest observations that reminds us of our own shortcomings as travelers. He writes that the group he is with is “a bunch of globetrotting fools who look wise and think they are discovering a lot about the world.”
In the end, what unites McClanahan, Twain, and other “new travelers” is maintaining self-awareness and empathy in a strange and unknown environment, and a full understanding that “your” journey is not just about you or for your own benefit. It doesn’t matter if McClanahan is describing a place you’ve never been; it’s relatable. She is a fellow traveler, eyes wide open, trying to figure it all out as you go.
Just like we all do.
