The Economy

I think the 2010s are going to be remembered as the decade of "peak tourism." The extravagance of travel over the past 10 years - ultra low-cost carriers, the Instagram-ization of vacations - resembled boom time abandon, and this whole state of affairs was primed for a black swan event that would make it all go bust. Even after COVID restrictions lift (which may not be for a few more years, at which point many businesses that cater to tourists will have gone bankrupt), people won't have the expendable income for jetting off around the world. By the 2030s, fossil fuels for transportation will probably be rationed too, which will put the nail in the coffin of tourism infrastructure as we know it. 

Of course, this is all a piece in the cosmic plan of forcing humanity to slow down. In the absence of mass tourism, we might discover that the places where we actually live are rich in detail and discovery.

@coyote

Of course, this is all a piece in the cosmic plan of forcing humanity to slow down. In the absence of mass tourism, we might discover that the places where we actually live are rich in detail and discovery.

Love this and so agree!

I understand those with the financial resources being able to expand their horizons with the treasures and beauties of this great big variety of a beautiful world.

On the flip side, constantly doing and going off and away over and over can mask the pains and fears of not getting away from almost everything in their lives. Constant flight.

And in another world with opportunities i might have loved such a life, But without them i still found incredible value and richness in seeing the beauty of what i had in the here and now of the natural world of my local areas.

And the infinite mysteries of spiritual and alchemical transformation that was so available and made more easily possible by seeking beauty in the mysteries of my own inner worlds or those in the imaginings of traveling in dreams among the energies of the stars.

I couldn't have dreamed up any more unique opportunities or treasures in the whole world than those I discovered by a focus within. 

@Coyote

I agree also but I confess that I love world travel and have been to many wonderful places. There are still a few more I'd like to get to in person before I have to shuffle off the mortal coil. I can say that my husband (and daughter) and I do our best to travel respectfully and tread lightly as much as we can. And without global travel, our daughter would have spent her childhood in an orphanage in Cambodia.

I can say that over the last 10-15 years I have seen what I would characterize as over-tourism. By that I mean that places that I had visited in the past had become so overrun with tourists that they become unpleasant. For example, NYC - my hometown, was always a big tourist spot, but by the time I left in 2001 it was getting bad, and when I have gone back to visit for one reason or another, I find a city that's soul has been gutted, filled with people who don't live there but come to gawk at the bones of a dead city while they tell themselves it's "almost as good as Disney World."  I have also seen Paris, London, Sydney, San Francisco, with so many tourists you can't even move around.  We took our daughter to Paris and Barcelona in 2013. I couldn't wait to get out of either city - the palace at Versailles was packed like the subway at rush hour, 5 hour wait to go up the Eiffel Tower, the beaches in Barcelona blanket-to-blanket and filthy.  Aix-en-Provence was packed like Cape Cod in August. It wasn't until we went to smaller cities (Nimes, Port Hyere, San Remo) that I enjoyed my time there.

I acknowledge this is definitely a position of privilege and I also say that travel can open one's eyes to other ways of living and being, so I'd hate to see it disappear altogether. That being said, if big chunks of the tourism industry vanished (*ahem* giant cruise ships - floating petri dishes that destroy the oceans *ahem* giant theme parks that claim to be eco friendly but are not), I would not shed a tear.

We have no plans to take a vacation off the continent for the next couple of years. You're right - there's lots to see right here that I never have. There are parts of Mexico and Canada I would be honored to visit as well.

So after all this, I have a question for you: What about business travel?

I was talking to my [conservative] BFF - one of the biggest things we have in common is that for 20 years our husbands have traveled for business 3 weeks out of every four, occasionally consecutively. We raised our kids kind of on our own. It's taken some work to readjust to having our husbands around, but we have and we'd prefer them to not travel for business anymore, but that's not going to happen - both will have to travel eventually to keep their jobs (more accurately to stay in their careers and neither is considering a career change at this late point in life, we're all approaching 60 and it wouldn't work out due to ageism). While I wouldn't shed a tear if my husband didn't travel for business again, in fact I'd be happy for it, I don't think it will be possible. I think I just outlined where our privilege ends - my hubby can't retire for another 10 years or so, otherwise we'll be living in our car in the desert.

Lastly: What about immigration?

How can we help refugees (or if the tables get turned and we end up as refugees) - whether due to climate change, war, etc., if travel goes completely by way of the dinosaur? The Regime is still trying to deport Dreamers and has suspended several kinds or working visas (meaning those workers are subject to deportation if they show up to work).

Thoughts?

I often enjoy looking at the Venice webcam and seeing how peaceful the place looks

https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/italia/veneto/venezia/piazza-san-marco.html

visitor numbers in Venice were getting crazy, the place was overrun with tourists and walking tours, so much that it was becoming unpleasant to visit. The city had so many tourists that they started charging an entrance fee for day visitors. ($12 a day)

this is how busy the Piazza San Marco usually looks:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180214130926/https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/italia/veneto/venezia/piazza-san-marco.html

I wonder if it will all return?

in 2018 tourism accounted for 10% of EU GDP

for the USA it's around 3% of GDP

Around 110-120 million Chinese used to travel annually, I wonder if they will now that China has a strict forced 14 day quarantine on re-entry?

Even a 1% drop in GDP would be significant and this is just for tourism!

I wonder how other countries that heavily depend on tourism will cope?

@coyote

My mother's side of the family are all in Germany. I've been blessed to see some of the USA, Mexico, Caribbean and much of Europe.

When I was a child my mother and my brother and I (my dad stayed home for the first 13 years since he was self employed) spent 3 weeks every summer with my grandparents or Aunt at their homes and I was and am still very close to my cousins and 2 remaining Aunts in Germany. I consider myself blessed to have had these experiences and love of family, and also a world view that many of my friends in school or even adult ones here never had. I noticed that many folks I knew in the US had narrow minded and incorrect views of many countries in Europe. Some of them lacked empathy for other nations and thought the USA was the best and only country worth anything in the world. I had very different views since I got to practically expand my knowledge and appreciation for all types of people.

I won't be able to travel to see my family in Germany this year, and maybe not until late next year or the year after. That saddens me since we're close and it's been 3 years already - we've never gone more than 4. I was supposed to travel there in September of this year, and see my Aunt Mickey, who sadly passed away from covid-19 this April. 

I look at the next trip as a really big deal and will hold out hope we can make it happen again. I'm sure there are many folks in my position and many that have never even made it on a plane to a vacation spot so I am definitely in gratitude.

❤️ ? 

@triciact

I am truly deeply saddened for you.  Our travels are to my home in Alaska and most of my pioneering rooted family there. 

I love and am close to not only my own siblibgs but my cousins, last remaining aunt and all the the children, and grandchildren.  Each visit centered me in my familial tribe and enriched and empowered all of the beautiful energies of a rich and diverse land that I call home. 

Now, knowing we cannot go up in 2022 when we would otherwise have gone makes me deeply sad. I am still in isolation at home since March 2nd only traveling to get pickup groceries delivered to my car with zero contact or exposure. Today my indigenous delivery lady and I had time to chat from the open hatchback to my drivers seat.

It was such a sign, symbol and blessing as we talked about the virus and our lives now. She has bern working through all of this while I had the senior citizen provided for by social security and Medicare to take care of my health at home and she did not yet have that luxury. We were both grateful for receiving our individual blessings in a state where positive testing is now adding almost 200 a day to our numbers. She shared that our Fred Meyer's had never tested positive among any of the essential workers.  I told her I think of all of them every single day and have so much gratitude for their challenging nonstop work to help the rest of us 

As far as future travel for our family it is extremely unfortunately that Oregon  the Oregon Trail pioneering state of my husbands family and all of our own children and grandchildren is one of only 2 states that was never able to financially procure Universal Drivers licenses.

They serve as passage on and for all air travel in the U.S. of course.  Alaska came into the union later than all but Hawai'I and planes cross Canadian air so passports or that Universal driver's license are required.  Sadly,  raising kids and sending them all to college, we trapped ourselves into thinking there was no extra money in the budget for passports much less international travel. It was a blessing just to be able to bring all of them north several times to meet all of our extended family that we love dearly. 

We can only  hold the light for either federal assistance with a further exception of our licenses to the majority rule or a loan of some kind.  But even now our  incredibly aged State Computer System has serious serious issues.

They actually need old time original coders to even update the mess we are already in with unfufilledand  Oregon  Unemployment processing much less attempt to totally change drivers license for an entire state. Oregon had to request exceptions twice over time as we never made the deadlines.

Our state decided a number of years ago on  funding our innovative "Oregon Health Plan" or our form of "medicare" for all. Ecen them major computer system issues, lawsuits etc.etc.etc.

Without it our ailing Oregonians caught between not earning enough to pay for Health Insurance went without health care of any kind for years and years even decades.

Without Health Care, those battling major illnesses would have lost everything they own to pay health care bills for cancer or other serious health conditions care or those battling this virus and in order to them try to get Medicaid.

Big Boulders of Rocks and hard places!

@stu

Wonderful major points Stu. Economies all over the world taking hits and tourism is often the biggest part for many.

So nice when you pop in!

@laura-f

Travel isn't going away completely. But tourism as a glitzy, fetishized industry is definitely heading towards the dustbin. Regarding refugees, as long as there is geopolitical or climatic stress in one part of the world, people will find a way to move (especially as climate change bears down). Leisurely travel will also always be with us (there were tourists in the ancient Mediterranean world), but it will be much slower and less prevalent than what we've known.

I guess the fate of business travel depends on the company and how it manages the inexorable global decline in prosperity that will be unfolding over the next few decades (i.e., the death of capitalism). I imagine many companies will try to cut costs by curtailing business travel for employees. This will have the cumulative effect of shutting down many trade shows and conferences, which feeds back into whether companies decide to send their employees on business trips (it's a positive feedback loop).  

Your love of international travel resonates with me on a level. When I was growing up, I used to fantasize about all of the exotic locations in the world I would eventually see. Then in 2011 I went to France, in 2012 I studied abroad in China, and in 2013 I travelled in Italy with my family. All of that overseas travel was followed by my own health and spiritual crises from 2014-2017, and when i emerged from that period, I no longer really had an interest in long-distance travel. Having been initiated by my own series of crises, I guess I understood the world crisis better, and I realized that if I wanted to create a gentler world, ho-hum tourism would be one thing I had to give up. In fact, just this past Christmas, my family was reminiscing about our travels in Europe and started talking about doing another similar trip (South of France? Greece? Spain?) but I couldn't get enthusiastic. It just didn't seem appropriate to expend so many resources on leisurely pursuits while so many chaotic global trends were coming to a head. Your decision to try to visit more spots in the world is a personal decision, but it's worth remembering that all of our choices are cumulative. We're all going to have to let go of cherished aspects of our beautiful modern lives if we want to create a more beautiful world for both ourselves and our descendants. 

@triciact

I wasn't thinking about transcontinental families when I originally posted about tourism. Your sadness is legitimate. But as I mentioned to Laura, I think all forms of travel will be curtailed going into the future, whether because of government caps on personal fuel expenditures, people simply not having enough money, or other unknown factors. In the long term, though, this state of affair will bring about less atomized families and more locally-rooted culture, which is what we need if we are to survive as a species.

@stu

No, tourism won't all return. There will be periods when it becomes more active, and inevitably the commentators will declare (in victory or despair) "the tourists are back!" But any new pulses in tourism will be transient. Our accelerating economic and biospheric crises will make sure of that. 

Countries and communities that depend heavily upon tourism will adapt and come up with alternative forms of economic activity, and many regions will be enriched by this economic reinvention. Of course, some tourist sites, like Venice, Miami, and the port of Dubrovnik, will be underwater soon enough (I was born in the 1990s, and I will see this submergence in my lifetime).

@michele-b

Thank you so much Michele - your information about the Oregon area and all the drivers license and difficulties getting to and from that region was an eye opener. I hope and pray that the next administration starts real reform for all of us in the US involving healthcare. It should have always been a human right and we should have insisted our politicians made it a priority from the start.

You always are so empathetic and a beacon of light here. HUGS to you! ❤️ 

My husband and I were going to take our first trip to Italy this fall. He especially wants to visit Florence. I hope one day we will be able to go. 

I read today where the EU is considering banning travel from the US because of our high COVID infection rate. As they say, now the shoe is on the other foot.

I’m hoping to be able to travel to Honduras next year but who knows? I am a team member/team leader of humanitarian medical brigades that provide care at a family clinic in a remote region of Honduras through our small foundation. One of the most difficult things for me about this whole ordeal has been our inability to get there and help our patients and friends. And so many other groups of helpers, small and large, worldwide, are not able to get to where they are desperately needed. It’s frustrating and sad.

I don’t know really how I ended up here, on this intriguing and wonderful site with all of you good people, but I’m very glad I did.

@coyote

Thanks for your thoughts.

Whether we do international travel at all will mostly depend on economic and health factors, and the places I want to see are mostly in the Southern hemisphere and not known as "touristy". For example, I really want to get to Paraguay and Argentina (I mean, technically we could drive but it would take a month and would be dangerous going through unstable countries, even if I am fluent in Spanish). I also want to get to New Zealand. The only Northern hemisphere spots I feel compelled to see in person are Scandinavia and Japan (Tokyo not so much - I'd prefer to go extreme north or extreme south in Japan, depending on season).

Since about 2004, we have been purchasing the "carbon offsets" that airlines or some orgs offer, on our longest air itineraries. I have no idea if they help at all, but I figure no harm so worth a try.

We also plan to return to NoLa, for JazzFest, if and when it is safe to do so, maybe in 2022, before it goes underwater. We'd consider driving, but it's far enough that I'm not sure it's less fuel consumption than the short flights.

I really wish the US had kept more of its railroads intact. I love train travel, it's one of the things I love about traveling in Europe, and it would be much better for the environment.  In fact, the parts of Canada I would love to see involve some rail travel, so I would not feel any guilt about that.

And the furthest from home I have ever been is Angkor Wat. In 2000. Before it too became overdeveloped and overrun. It was so special, almost mystical. I am grateful I got to see it at all. I have no intentions of ever returning though. That was the trip on which we also got our daughter in Phnom Penh, and the whole trip was so educational for us in so many ways, it helped us bridge the cultural gap between our euro-descended selves and our Khmer daughter.

I can see why you lack enthusiasm for travel now, it makes sense. There is always a chance that if things improve for you medically, you may feel slightly different. I salute your commitment to protecting the planet in any case.

@triciact

@michele-b

Thank you so much Michele - your information about the Oregon area and all the drivers license and difficulties getting to and from that region was an eye opener. I hope and pray that the next administration starts real reform for all of us in the US involving healthcare. It should have always been a human right and we should have insisted our politicians made it a priority from the start.

You always are so empathetic and a beacon of light here. HUGS to you! ❤️ 

Thank you for those prayers. So very true!  Bless you for that last part. Very very dear of you!

Love to you!

?

@lowtide  Welcome lowtide. I'm glad you found us too.  Florence is the prettiest part of Italy, in my opinion. You'll see it one day soon.

@laura-f

Do it. Washington State welcomes you.

Aw thanks, @Bluebelle !

@laura-f Your post resonated with me on several levels. My husband also works a job that has historically involved a lot of travel. His company shut down travel and in-person meetings early on in the pandemic; they have been very proactive and employee-focused (even giving employees one Friday each month as a free "mental health re-set" day off, through the pandemic and likely moving forward), and have sent out word that unnecessary business travel is halted for the foreseeable future and then reserved for only the most critical cases. My husband thinks this will lead to a reevaluation of what is "necessary," when his company - and others like it - see how much money they save on travel and gatherings, and see how much more productive people are working from home.

We also travel to experience places and history, not sightseeing. Crowded places make us crazy. We have always believed in showing our kids other places and people, the connections in the world that make us all more alike than different, and experiencing the history and culture of a place. I hope that doesn't go away altogether, because one way we can expand our understanding and sense of connection in the world is BEING in the world. But I also agree that giant cruise ships and theme parks are NOT the kind of travel that needs to survive this ;)

I truly feel all of this upheaval will lead to changes for the better; I don't see people giving up their trip to Sandals in the Bahamas or Wisconsin Dells any time soon, though, given all that I see around me. People are booking trips and making plans like they are desperate and can't stand one more day in their home.

@triciact  Anyone getting any future predictions on the Fall/Winter with regards to Covid and the economy? Anything specific and recent regarding Oct, Nov, Dec? I feel like most of the predictions that people have right now are political/election specific which is interesting but I haven't seen much about the coming Second Wave of coronavirus and the economy for the last quarter or 2020.... Any thoughts?

Posted by: @lucieshelly

Anyone getting any future predictions on the Fall/Winter with regards to Covid and the economy? Anything specific and recent regarding Oct, Nov, Dec? I feel like most of the predictions that people have right now are political/election specific which is interesting but I haven't seen much about the coming Second Wave of coronavirus and the economy for the last quarter or 2020. Any thoughts?

My visions have shown the economy or health and well being of the Collective will stay down until at least 2025. But if you look at our timeline visions closely, you will see some visions of rallying in 2021 and 2022. Some investors think that the health of the economy will resume with a working vaccine.  I don't agree with that assumption although there will be short term upswings in the markets until the next blow-back happens.  

Given how the Administration manipulates the markets by borrowing money from the future taxpayers, there could also be other short term fluctuations, like pumping an exhausted person with cocaine. 

At this point,  it is best now to reduce debt. 

I am not an investor. Just an intuitive newbie who is trying to filter through my own feelings about the coming 6 months and what to expect. Not for any material gain but for my own feelings of security and preparedness.