Travel Writing – The Double-Edged Sword
You’ve probably noticed that I don’t write about surfing (although, of course, because you’ve been onto my blog – www.thistourismweek.co.za – you’re familiar with my surf board).
But no – I do sometimes write about surfing. I’ve written about the feeling (which, as they say, only a surfer knows), about the stoke, about the surfing life – but I hope never to fall into the trap of writing about, of actually naming, the places where I’ve surfed.
There’s an important reason for this.
Although I haven’t danced with the ocean for almost a year, surfing is, for me, the most important, life-defining sport I’ve ever had the privilege to experience. It saved my life (no, really – go here to find out how) and through it I met the boy who became my foster son (and who, 18 months ago, presented the world with a boy of his own – who is now, therefore, my grandson).
These are gifts greater than anyone can hope for. And the selfish truth is – I don’t want to share the giver with anyone. THAT’S why I don’t write about the places where I surf.
I don’t want you to know about the places that are most important to me. I don’t want you there surfing with me. I don’t want you to crowd your way down to my home break, to trample all over my bit of paradise – because even if the waves there aren’t that great, they’re nice and quiet and they’re my waves, OK?
It works like this: you write about a secret place you’ve just discovered and then you sell your piece to some big surf mag (which exists really only to market expensive surf clothing – which is nuts, because all a surfer needs is a board, a wet suit and a pair of old baggies. And something warm and preferably cheap and old for afterwards).
The magazine flies off the shelves, you win some obscure writing award and the next thing you know everyone’s flying down to the secret spot you’ve just unveiled. Because sometime in the eighties (or maybe it was the 90s) surfing took off and everyone wanted to play rebel-rebel – without actually, you know, rebelling – and now EVERYONE’S marketing surfing because it looks, you know, rebellious, and so everyone wants to try it and …
You get my drift?
This evening, while I was doing a bit of tidying up before sitting down to write (read: ‘looking for inspiration’), I found a copy I’d kept of an article by the Australian travel writer Tom Neal Tacker.
In ‘Don’t Eat The Snake,’ Mr. Tacker said that “responsible tourism takes its lead from responsible travel writing. Leading from the front, travel writing is supposed to set an example for those who follow. What happens if it’s a bad example?
“…In an article that recently appeared in the weekend travel section of a respected newspaper, the author gave an account of his lunch at a restaurant located near Hanoi. He ate a snake. In increasingly vivid detail, he described the preparation of the meal with meticulous remarks about flavour, texture and the apparent male sexual energy boost derived from drinking the live snake’s bile stirred into Mekong whisky, a kind of serpent Cialis shooter.
“I question the story’s failure to address the ethical dilemmas that it clearly presents: that it is wrong to bring a live snake to a table to kill it with a razor blade and extract its bile while its heart still beats, to remove its lung, liver and other organs and finally to skin it in order to carve its flesh from its skeleton to put into a soup. That snakes are being harvested in the wild to serve a trade which harms the local environment and ultimately the people who live there.
“My respect for snakes is maintained through mutually well-defined distance; we are not close companions. However, I would not authorize via payment the torture of any animal, no matter how little regard I had for it, nor would I endorse its slaughter to provide a cocktail mixer and a bowl of soup. The reporting of its death was neither fair nor balanced.
“What is important is the journalistic nonchalance that uses a cheapened life, even a snake’s life, to milk a story out of cultural difference perceived as ersatz exoticism.”
For me this was a rare and refreshing attack by one member of the media on another. I’ve begun to think that there’s a kind of honour amongst thieves when it comes to writers, and, because I’ve personally come across so little criticism of travel writing, I’ve begun to believe that travel writers – who in many ways have the ability to make or break a destination – have come to be seen as untouchable by both themselves (which is fatal) and their supporters in tourism (who want nothing more than more and more visitors).
I’ve trawled the net and watched the papers and magazines for years – but a discussion of the role of the media in responsible tourism eludes me. Even the International Centre for Responsible Tourism seems to have very little to say on the matter.
The site carries the full text of the Cape Town Declaration (the outcome of the first International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations, 2002) – but there’s no mention of the media there.
Six years later, the 2008 International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations came up with the Kerala Declaration (after Kerala in India) – which I think rather weakly addressed the problem by saying:
“We urge the media to exercise more responsibility in the way in which they portray tourism destinations, to avoid raising false expectations and to provide balanced and fair reporting.
“We urge the media to communicate the ideas of Responsible Tourism and the enhanced visitor experiences it can provide and to promote Responsible Tourism enterprises.
“We ask that the media exercise independent critical judgment when reporting on companies and destinations and address the Responsible Tourism agenda.”
But that’s all. There’s a News page but no media page on www.icrtourism.org.
Of course the only real effort I did find was on a privately owned website – two articles on Ethical Marketing for Sustainable Tourism by a marketing consultant name of Valere Tjolle (Part 1 here and Part 2 here)
If I feel the way I do about surfing, how do people whose lifestyles and cultures get turned upside down by tourism feel about the influx of tourists to the places where they live?
How does the environment react to being trod all over, climbed up, swum through, and generally used to pander to our latter-day need to discover the already discovered? (Nietzsche: “We moderns, we half-barbarians, are in the midst of our bliss only when we are most in danger.”).
So now my question to you is this: besides the fact that ‘the members of the media are friends not food’ (thanks, Nemo), how does the tourism industry believe we writers should behave? Is it cool to write glowingly about everything we see just so that you, the product owner, will get more and more bums onto your seats or bodies into your beds (whoops – that didn’t sound too kosher! ha ha!)?
Where does this leave travel writing? How should the media report on destinations? And is it OK for people like me – and Mr. Tjolle – to decide?
Please leave your comments below – and let’s get this conversation going.
I beleive that any travel writer worth their salt should try to convey their impression and experience of a product, service etc with as much objectivity as possible. It is true that the pen is mighter than the sword and how one wields this particular “double edged sword” begs the quesion; “Who regulates the content of travel articles”?
The information technology has made it possible for all and sundry to post their views (true, justified or skewed) on to blogs, websites etc that can really make or break the very industry that they are designed to service.
As a result every arbitrary ‘Joe Soap’ can become a travel writer in a sense and claim their 15 seconds of fame! Hey, if it makes for a good read and its not regulated, whose gonna squeal about it, really?
As an aspirant travel writer myself, my path is littered with obstacles…dragons round every corner, breathing fiery questions liek where to start, who to network with, what are the do’s and dont’s.
I have concluded that knowledge is power and its the only armour that will keep this double edged sword from finding the chink in my chainmail armour and sending me to a painfully dishonourable professional death.
Sharing holiday destinations, experiences, sites, sounds, cultures is what travel is all about. The private traveller who gains nothing from his sharing except for the thrill of telling an audience and showing pictures. This is honest tourism advertising that will stay sustainable. It will make like minded people want to travel to same destinations and share again. This protects the destination from exploitation.
BUT – as soon as there is reward other than sharing experiences i.e. money, that is when tourism destinations will ultimateley be over used and fade into oblivion. Unless it is well managed and constantly upgraded.
Responsible, honest travel writers are a rare breed and they will survive as will the destinations they write about.
Cream always rises to the top and if one chooses the correct media to read it will have the good information.
A good example of tourism failures/successes is Hotels. How long does a good Hotel last? In Cape Town – The Nellie! The rest arrive with aplomb and leave quietly.
Well-known travel writers walks into establishment, one of three things happens.
1. Writer is recognised: Owner spends time with writer, gives an experience very few tourists gets, writer publish wonderful review, tourists are disappointed.
2. Writer is not recognised: Travel writer is just another tourist, gets true experience, writes objective report.
3. Writer is recognised: Owner not present, staff get all nervous, drops glas of juice on writer’s lap, from there-on it snowballs, review reflects an experience no tourist had there before, restaurant’s reputation sunk.
You ask: “How should writers behave?”
The way you do with the surfing thing, Martin.
I’m not a surfer, and yet through the numerous articles you wrote about surfing, I have a little insight into the culture that drives you into the waves, even on a very cold day.
The place you do not name has nobody to sponsor your article, you write about surfing because it is something you love and know. Part of what you like about it is the silence you find behind the third wave. By not naming your spot, you are being honest with yourself. At the same time you are inspiring many to search out their own silent spot, catch their own wave; is that not part of the true surfing culture?
The operative word above is “sponsor”. Money clouds ethics; where money, free meals and accommodation is involved, it is easy to question the ethics of the writer. I often ask myself to what extend these things influence my opinion. If I did not know the owner, would I still experience his/her place in the same way?
Its a very fine line, a case in point could be Baviaanspoort: when we first discovered it, there was no one there, no traffic, exquisite, now every travel magazine and others write incessantly about the area and a great deal of its remoteness and silence and privacy, have been destroyed by the very many 4x4s, bikes etc. Do the B&Bs and other businesses in the area approve of this invasion, I wonder.
Imagine my surprise when I looked at Martin’s blog (Martin and I have never met or corresponded.) after I was guided to it via Google Alert. When I wrote the story ‘Don’t Eat The Snake’ about a year ago, I never expected that anyone would read it, much less someone employed in the writing business, particularly the travel writing business. Yes, I pointed a firmly targeted finger in an obvious direction: it bothers me when I read press releases masquerading as feature stories that applaud destinations without ascribing them a reality check. For instance, Kuta Beach in Bali gets regular media applause, charming Bali, lovely Bali, cheap and cheerful Bali but not a single newspaper or magazine story I’ve read warns unsuspecting swimmers about the effluent that pollutes Bali’s waters due to a lack of basic sewerage infrastructure, leaky septic tanks and simply too many tourists willing to swim in the proverbial because they’ve been advised by countless so-called travel writers who don’t want to mention the obvious. Yes, we writers don’t get paid when significant advertisers (airlines, cruise lines, tour companies and major hoteliers) are offended. Yes, editors are timid when it comes to offending potentially lazy journalists, including other editors themselves. Don’t rock a leaky boat basically. As far as criticising colleagues goes, I’ve found a similarity of conscience among travel writers to doctors and lawyers. What the public doesn’t know won’t hurt them… much, so let’s keep it under our hats shall we? Unfortunately few professionals are brave enough to write truth in travel. It is editorial after all, not objective reportage, so the liberty is there to be taken advantage of when expression of subjective truth is required. A travel writer is supposed to be an expert whose opinion is valued or even esteemed. My estimation is that in these days of combined editorial and advertising departments in publishing houses, the lack of true separation of ‘church and state’ affects outcomes deleteriously. Pap and gossip fills pages, travel pap combines with photographic gloss. It’s harder than ever for a wide-eyed reader to glean truth between the lines. Bad travel writing, dishonest travel writing, advertorial travel writing–however we describe it, will continue to fill pages for as long as the publishers and senior editors accept it, that being for as long as it keeps the advertisers happy and the complaining letters to a minimum. Readers, if you want to change the status quo, don’t accept it. If you read something you’re not happy about, write a letter to the editor outlining your complaint. Enough letters will make an impression finally. Calling for higher standards may scare the hell out of certain advertisers and it may also encourage them to improve their products and the effects they have on the environment. Writers will be forced to follow a higher standard, to lead from a recognised code of conduct and hopefully to cease wall-papering over the facts to produce a brochure posing as a travel story.
That said, a major travel editor I offered ‘Don’t Eat The Snake’ to declined the story as she deemed it possibly too hard on my fellow travel writers. I’ve never sent another story to her, somewhat to my disadvantage actually as it’s a national newspaper. I took a pay cut and got it published finally somewhere else. It certainly hasn’t paid me much money but it certainly has made me feel good seeing that it has been read.
Thank you.
Tom Neal Tacker
Martin
First off. Keep us updated as to how much hate mail this generates.
Questions: Do you actually have a definition of the concept: Responsible Tourism. Sure you know my one product that is supposed to be exactly that. Here is a quick point in time!!! I have no real idea what responsible tourism ACTUALLY is. Could it be that, if we have a definition we could be developing in the right direction??
I see it as the typical govt. program that gets rolled out. Take BEE – or BBBEE – with the seven pillars, there is still no hard and fast definition. I see it as much the same.
I should also like to know what the Responsible Tourism Agenda is and what it is about.
How about me asking all you journalists a question. Get us a definition of responsible tourism from as many journalists as possible as that would be a starting point for me.
Yes we know some things: Look after nature in all you do, help the poor through what you do, be fair to all you work with.
The comments of the first four replies has been interesting and has yielded four opinions.
I think you will find that many ( i was going to say all ) responsible tourism products would have no budget that would impress any journalist or marketer.
I do not believe that we can force business people to ‘act responsibly’ as business people – per definition – are people driven by the desire to make money – and lots of it. You might agree that it all comes down to EDUCATION, ROLE MODELS and in bred love for creation.
How to achieve that, better yet, how to achieve that before all the snakes had been eaten and their bile drunk as cocktails, all the historic archaeological caves destroyed by business people (who destroy and disregard rules and boundaries just because they need to make the bottom line for their investors or future investors who all want to own a part of the best coastline to build their monstrous houses that they inhabit for a few weeks a year etc. etc.)is a question I cannot even begin to fathom.
All I can offer is a measurement, with permission, that all Rotarians try to live by.
It goes like this:
The Four-way test of the things we THINK, SAY and DO:
1. Is it the TRUTH
2. Is it FAIR to all CONCERNED
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER
FRIENDSHIPS
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to ALL CONCERNED
Well, see, if you can answer ‘yes’ to each of these ( even considering the snake as one of the ALL CONCERNED ) you usually cannot go wrong.
Am I suggesting we make at least 20% of all people Rotarians in the world?? Not yet, but would that help!!!!!
Thanks
Trados
I have to agree with Martin re the cruelty of killing the snake, drinking it while the heart is still beating and enjoying every moment of it!
I find this the most horrific experience to say the least! I am not a snake lover but in the end of the day – you have to respect all lives – animals, fish, human beings, reptiles, and all insects!
One should only kill if necessary and it should be done in the proper way – instant death – no suffering!
I would like one day to do the same to all the STUPID INCONSIDERATE LOW LIFE humans that do make themselves guilty of such a crime. I would like to make them suffer in the same way for them to realise and understand the pain and suffering they do to animals.