Quotes about tourism (33 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“One can only really travel if one lets oneself go and takes what every place brings without trying to turn it into a healthy private pattern of one's own and I suppose that is the difference between travel and tourism.”

Freya Stark (1893–1993) British explorer and writer

Cited in Molly Izzard, A Marvellous Eye, Cornucopia Issue 2. From Wikipedia: Freya Stark. Retrieved 2009-08-25

Travel

“Tourism is an economic activity that leverages on the beauty that our Creator willed to us. It will also encourage development of the far reaches of our country. And it would complement efforts to protect the environment.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

Beauty , Effort , Country

“Coral reefs are farmers. They provide food, income and food security for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Coral reefs are security guards. The structures that they build protect our shorelines from storm surge and waves, and the biological systems that they house filter the water and make it safer for us to work and play. Coral reefs are chemists. The molecules that we're discovering on coral reefs are increasingly important in the search for new antibiotics and new cancer drugs. And coral reefs are artists. The structures that they build are some of the most beautiful things on planet Earth. And this beauty is the foundation of the tourism industry in many countries with few or little other natural resources.”

Kristen Marhaver American marine biologist

Source: How we're growing baby corals to rebuild reefs https://www.ted.com/talks/kristen_marhaver_how_we_re_growing_baby_corals_to_rebuild_reefs (October 2015)

Housing , Search , Food , Country

“Tourism, human circulation considered as consumption … is fundamentally nothing more than the leisure of going to see what has become banal.”

Guy Debord (1931–1994) French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker and founding member of the Situationist International (SI)

Source: Society of the Spectacle (1967), Ch. 7, sct. 168.

“Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin.”

Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989) English novelist

Source: What Am I Doing Here?

“But the conventional narrative is lumpy, a story that glosses what passes for quiescence to focus on "events": the appearance of Lewis and Clark and [Father Jean Pierre] DeSmut, the removal of the native Salish people, the arrival of the railroads, irrigation and logging and town-building, booms in sheep, busts in apples. Settlement, local politics, participation in the nation's wars, schemes to make money. And now the resources are tourism and real estate based on scenery and an amenity lifestyle in a mountain paradise. These seem to be what we think of as history.”

Dan Flores (1948) American historian

The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (2003)

Money , War , People , History

“We want free movement of labour, but not social tourism. There, we must not be naive.”

Göran Persson (1949) Swedish politician, Swedish Social Democratic Party, thirty-second Prime minister of Sweden

Said in an interview with Sveriges Radio - Ekot about the EU enlargement (November 11, 2003).

“Tourism is sin, and travel on foot virtue.”

Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director

Minnesota declaration (1999)

Travel

“That's the attraction of the conference circuit: it's a way of converting work into play, combining professionalism with tourism, and all at someone else's expense. Write a paper and see the world! I'm Jane Austen – fly me!”

David Lodge (1935) writer

Part IV, ch. 1, p. 231.
Small World (1984)

World , Way , Flying

“One problem is the destruction of the habitat, and the second is this constant catching of elephants for training, for tourism or logging. And this training that we are doing is the most brutal, primitive and stupid in the whole world.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

On captive elephants, as quoted in "Indian minister's elephant alert" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/780015.stm, BBC (6 June 2000)
1991-2000

Stupidity , World , Problem , Training

“Pub culture does not suit our country and hence we should try to control it. We should not sell our tourism on pub culture.”

Shripad Yasso Naik (1952) Indian politician

On pub culture in Goa, as quoted in " Pub culture needs to be controlled: Tourism minister http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RfmbkAe4cjK98SuqoAshSM/Pub-culture-needs-to-be-controlled-Tourism-minister.html", Live Mint (13 July 2014)

Country

“These are our six priority areas. But I should add the Environment and Tourism.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2009, Speech: The Socio-Economic Peace Program of Senator Francis Escudero

“At one time, tips were given only for things you logically would want to have done efficiently and promptly, and they served to supplement a lower payscale for certain classes of employment. This was understood, accepted. It was tourism, back in the century of my birth, cluing in the underdeveloped countries to the fact that all tourists are marks, that set the precedent, which then spread to all countries, even back to the tourists’ own, of the benefits which might be gained by those who wear uniforms and render the undesired and the unrequested with a smile. This is the army that conquered the world. After their quiet revolution in the twentieth century, we all became tourists the minute we set foot outside our front doors, second-class citizens, to be ruthlessly exploited by the smiling legions who had taken over, slyly, completely.”

Roger Zelazny Isle of the Dead

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 2 (p. 45)

World , Smile , Birth , Time

“One thing is sure: the Sagrada Familia is the first Catholic temple whose bacon was ever saved by Shinto tourism. Not even Gaudi, who believed in miracles, could have forseen that.”

Robert Hughes (1938–2012) Australian critic, historian, writer

Page 526
Barcelona (1992)

“Barack Obama has been a grave disappointment to many of us, particularly with the increase in the number of drone strikes. His Administration is now strangling any country that would dare to stand up to the might of imperial America. Ireland should be an example of a small country that stands up against this international bullying. It has already got Bradley Manning, a person I salute, from inside the army. We need more of these people to tell the truth. Meanwhile Mr. Obama is off on this vulgar deathbed tourism. The one time I agreed with Mrs. Winnie Mandela was when she condemned Jacob Zuma for having his photograph taken with the poor unfortunate Nelson Mandela who was a complete zombie in the photograph and did not have a clue who it was who was molesting him by touching his hand and this horrid stuff. Let us, please, have a little [interrupted] I am asking him to appeal to the Government to offer sanctuary to Mr. Snowden. Even though this is a small country in economic difficulty, we should affirm to the world that we stand for openness, accountability, truth, honesty, decency and integrity, all of which Mr. Snowden represents.”

David Norris (1944) Irish scholar, independent Senator, and gay and civil rights activist

2 July 2013 http://www.kildarestreet.com/sendebates/?id=2013-07-02a.8&s=speaker%3A210#g52

People , Truth , World , Disappointment

“In all cases that have been investigated, the only time a state government gives permission for nilgai and wild boar shooting is when it is requested by vips, hotel and tourism people or friends of politicians.”

Maneka Gandhi (1956) Indian politician and activist

Criticising Punjab state for giving hunting licences to VIPs, as quoted in "VIP Hunters Get Licence To Kill In Punjab" http://archive.tehelka.com/story_main17.asp?filename=ts042206VIP_hunters.asp, Tehelka (22 April 2006)
2001-2010

People , Time

“These (prostitution, pedophilia, and child abuse) are of concern to us and it is important that while we advertise tourism, we should also educate our people in keeping a close vigil on what is happening as the side effect of tourism.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

Senate speech, 30 May 2003 (excerpts)

People , Education

“At the moment, money from Gombe tourism goes into one pot for Tanzania National Parks and it has to pay for the whole infrastructure of everything. But through our TACARE [community development] programme, we’ve benefited local people hugely.
The thing is about tourism and research is that they can both focus attention on the place and help to preserve it. It’s tourism involvement with the mountain gorillas that saved them.
During the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s, people on both sides were being told, “Don’t touch the gorillas”, as it was the second biggest foreign exchange earner after tea in the country. So both sides hoped to win and continue exploiting gorillas.
So the government can see the value of tourism, but the danger is they over-exploit it. They say, “We’re getting all this money for [gorilla-tracking groups of] six people, now we’ll let it be 12”, and they get more money for tours, so they make it 20. That’s the danger; that they end up killing what people have come to see.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Wanderlust interview (2009)

Money , People , Hope , Mountain

“To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child of his own. He teases it. He punishes it. He sends it up like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a sleeping monkey's tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna's smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory.
He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.
The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument. From the age of three he has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of story-telling. He has magic in him, this man within the painted mark and swirling skirts.
But these days he has become unviable. Unfeasible. Condemned goods. His children deride him. They long to be everything that he is not. He has watched them grow up to become clerks and bus conductors. Class IV non-gazetted officers. With unions of their own.
But he himself, left dangling somewhere between heaven and earth, cannot do what they do. He cannot slide down the aisles of buses, counting change and selling tickets. He cannot answer bells that summon him. He cannot stoop behind trays of tea and Marie biscuits.
In despair he turns to tourism. He enters the market. He hawks the only thing he owns. The stories that his body can tell.
He becomes a Regional Flavour.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

page 230-231.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love , Men , God , War

“Manitoba… Not sure what to do about them. Restock the province with megafauna and encourage tourism, I think. How quickly can we breed back the saber-toothed cats?”

James Nicoll (1961) Canadian fiction reviewer

[deq4re$ki7$1@reader2.panix.com, 2005]
2000s

Cats , Thinking

“Good tourism will follow good hotels - and what could be better for our country?”

Sol Kerzner (1935) South African businessman

Sunday Times interview (1980s)

Country

“Traditional Chinese characters carry both cultural significance and artistic values and promoting these characters has nothing to do with any political stance. It's very important for us not to sacrifice the characters for tourism.”

Ma Ying-jeou (1950) Taiwanese politician, president of the Republic of China

Ma Ying-jeou (2014) cited in: " No plans to promote use of simplified characters: Ma http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2014/01/02/2003580339" in Taipei Times, 2 January 2014.
Statement made during a calligraphy activity in Grand Hotel in Taipei, 1 January 2014.
Other topics

“People must ask themselves why this earthquake occurred in this area and not in others…. These areas were notorious because of this type of modern tourism, which has become known as "sex tourism"…. Don't they deserve punishment from Allah?!”

Yusuf Qaradawi (1926) Egyptian imam

Tsunami Reactions (9) - Sheik Al-Qaradhawi: Disaster a Punishment for Sex Tourism http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/470.htm January 2005.
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

People , Sex

“We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides -- pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book. "No one sees the barn," he said finally. A long silence followed. "Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn." He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced by others. We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies." There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism."”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said.”
White Noise (1984)

People , Books , Cars , Color

“Anyone who wants to come here to have sex with a woman, feel free. But we can’t let this place become known as a gay tourism paradise. Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

In Brasília, on 25 April 2019. Fury as far-right president Bolsonaro says Brazil should not become ‘gay tourism paradise’ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/brazil-bolsonaro-gay-tourism-lgbt-sex-interview-comments-a8887226.html. The Independent (26 April 2019).

Family , Country , Sex , World

“Be it on tourism, farming, higher education or jobs, we are determined to overcome the threats and seek out and seize upon the opportunities which may come with leaving the EU.”

Leanne Wood (1971) Welsh Plaid Cymru politician

Plaid manifesto pledge to protect Wales from 'tidal wave' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-39923713 BBC News (16 May 2017)
2017

Education

“As such, we have signed an agreement to stimulate, to favour, to fuck…to help this type of tourism.”

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (1960) Former Prime Minister of Spain

A slip of the tongue for Zapatero at a joint press conference with Dmitri Medvedev, saying 'follar', to fuck, instead of 'apoyar', to help.
As President, 2008
Source: 20 Minutos: El lapsus de Zapatero: "Un acuerdo para estimular, para favorecer, 'para follar'..." http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/454254/0/lapsus/zapatero/follar/

Help

“I think we should be snorkeling and swimming on reefs. Because I think people only develop a passion for protecting things if they know what is at risk. I would hardly be one to say that we shouldn’t go near them. That said, its important to manage tourism properly. If you have a lot of people going onto reefs, stepping on reefs, collecting things from reefs, breaking corals off, or throwing anchors on top of reefs, that’s not good. It’s important to properly manage the numbers of people and their behavior when they’re in water. It’s also important to make sure that the hotels that support that tourism have good water treatment for the sewage that they release, and that they aren’t also feeding this large population of visitors critically important reef fish. That is ecologically sound tourism. But you can’t just let it develop willy-nilly. It has to be managed carefully. Otherwise, you end up with lots of people and not much reef.”

Nancy Knowlton (1949) American biologist

Source: Nancy Knowlton https://web.archive.org/web/20081008104046/http://www.smithsonianmag.com:80/specialsections/ocean-hall/atm-qa-200809.html (September 2008)

Support , People , Water , Thinking

“We should not look down upon ourselves. By domestic tourism we are saying this is the opportunity to enjoy as couples and as family where we can eat without cooking for ourselves or cleaning the house for a day or two.”

Mai Chisamba (1952)

"ZTA Ropes in Mai Chisamba as Tourism Ambassador" https://www.chronicle.co.zw/zta-ropes-in-mai-chisamba-as-tourism-ambassador, Chronicle (September 29, 2021)

Family , Housing , Cooking

“I was studying tourism at college and wanted to travel the world as a tour guide – that was my dream! But actually sometimes modeling feels quite similar, because I travel so much – probably even more than tour guiding.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen Talks Style, Diversity And What It Means To Be China’s First Supermodel" in Marie Claire https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/fashion-news/liu-wen-interview-china-s-first-supermodel-talks-style-diversity-and-her-mango-campaign-15375 (3 March 2016)

Study , World , Dreams , Feeling

“Our bilateral cooperation with China has played a significant role in the transformation of our key development sectors, including infrastructure, agriculture, health, education, ICT, trade, mining, transport, as well as tourism.”

Édouard Ngirente (1973) Prime Minister of the Republic of Rwanda, 2017-

Source: Édouard Ngirente (2021) cited in: " Prime Minister Ngirente: China-Africa ties crucial for development https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/prime-minister-ngirente-china-africa-ties-crucial-development" in The New Times, 16 November 2021.

Health , Education

“We seek greater integration of markets, trade, connectivity, private investments and tourism. Cape Verde wishes to position itself as an air and digital hub in Africa and integrate regional value chains in trade and industry.”

Ulisses Correia e Silva (1962) Cape Verdean politician

Source: Ulisses Correia e Silva (2021) cited in " Cape Verde Prime Minister presents first resident Nigerian ambassador to ECOWAS Commission https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/11/cape-verde-prime-minister-presents-first-resident-nigerian-ambassador-to-ecowas-commission/" on Vanguard, 21 November 2021.

“Tourism is an ugly business, it’s not fit work for human beings. It’s hosting parasites.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 5, “Home At Last” (p. 239)

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