Editorial -- Tourism & travel
Young, beautiful, and rich
As this week’s lead story indicates, tourism in Alaska is doing fairly well. More than a million tourists come to Alaska every year. In our page one articles this month, various officials and managers point out that all Alaskans reap benefits from this process.
Can this be believed? From the perspective of politicians and bureaucrats things are in fact going well. Hotel rooms are being built by the thousands (but almost all are comfortable cocoons that end up making us more isolated). Tourists are coming and going by the planeload, and so is money.
The great preponderance of our resources is going into roads and other facilities that make cookie-cutter travel possible.
Someone has got to come out and say: Something is going wrong here. What we offer travelers is, for the most part, inconsequential, repetitive, and dull. True, there is plenty of dog mushing, river rafting, and sea life cruises. And many of these businesses are owned by local, independent businessmen. But what is their purpose, and what is their effect?
We are living in tepid times. Life in society is not inspiring, transformative, or deep. As Alaskans, we have an opportunity to present our fellow human beings (and ourselves) with more meaningful choices. We can aspire to a greater vision of Alaska and of tourism in Alaska.
Imagine if, instead of watching HBO on our hotel television, we were speaking with an old sourdough, who gave advice about a little known destination or hostel. And imagine if those destinations or hostels actually existed.
We all are in need of being recognized for who we actually are. We need help in finding what is true and best in us. We need someone to take us by the arm and lead us to places and situations where we can become more than we are. Is this too much to ask from the tourism industry?
It is a steep order. But the brazen and contemptuous attitude of government and corporate officials who know how to and want to promote only one kind of tourism development is unacceptable. Do we want to care for visitors, or take advantage of them? We looked at an example of this brazen attitude in last month’s issue: the last sight our visitors in the airport departure hall see before they step out for the first time into Alaska air is a glittering new yellow Hummer. This is the truth of the message we are greeting our visitors with.
Alaska is a young, beautiful, and rich land. We have many admirers, and for the time being we can get by on our looks and our bountiful resources. But Alaska is not a just playland, and should not be made into one.
Packaged tours and packaged lives diminish our ability to judge what is real. Not everyone is young, beautiful, and rich. Some of us are old, ugly, and poor. Our current blessings are extraordinary, but we won’t always be so fortunate. Let’s pay more attention to what is silent, inner, and true: our unexplored territories, unheard voices, and the great land which lies at our backdoor.