Comments on: The Tourist Stereotype and Why You Should Give a Crap

By: David Urmann

David Urmann — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:25:31 +0000

Great post. As the founder of Touristlink.com I gave this debate a lot of thought before choosing our brand. Tourist or Traveller we hope both will join our community but perhaps the name might turn off a few people who would otherwise enjoy our website and what it has to offer (I hope not). I spend most of my time living in Asia and I have noticed that locals here are not making this same distinction.

By: Kate

Kate — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:33:12 +0000

Interesting and well thought out post. I’m not sure if I think that the travel industry is simply trying to sell us dumbed down experiences because they think we are not interested in learning anything new, I mean consumers show what they want by how they spend their money and in the majority of cases traveling is going to involve some form of consumerism. By it’s nature, it just is.

Shouldn’t the responsibility be on the traveler? I mean, if you are going to buy dumb downed experiences, then why should you expect anything more? And who says one of those vanilla trips to the Grand Canyon isn’t going to result in an amazing life changing experience for someone.

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:15:19 +0000

Interesting piece, I enjoyed reading it despite not having seen any part of the G Adventures campaign to date; but I’m sure it’ll bring new meaning if I do come across some of their advertising.

By: aaron

aaron — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:31:10 +0000

It’s always best to fit in where ever you are. Standing out can bring all the wrong attention in unfamiliar places.

By: Brock - Backpack With Brock

Brock - Backpack With Brock — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 15:06:45 +0000

You’re right, doing tourist-y things shouldn’t give anyone a negative stereotype. It’s easy to get hung up on not wanting to do tourist-type stuff, but if you go to far, you can miss some gems!

By: The Traveler vs. Tourist Debate and Why I Don’t Give a Crap » A Dangerous Business Travel Blog

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:52:30 +0000

[...] a nice rebuttal to this post, check out “The Tourist Stereotype and Why You Should Give a Crap” at [...]

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:46:36 +0000

Thanks for the nice note. You needn’t apologize, Amanda, for being critical of advertising — that’s what I’d expect from a media savvy audience. And you shouldn’t care whether you’ve ruffled feathers, I believe that’s our job as independent journalists and bloggers! While I might work a G Adventures, I’m still a blogger. If anything, we view the kind of engagement that the debate provides as evidence that we’re on the right (or wrong) track. That kind of engagement—be if positive or negative—provides absolutely valuable insight into what we do. In this case, I think it’s great that it can intersect with a wider debate (one in which the blogosphere is invested).

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 04:50:41 +0000

This is so great, Daniel, and I sincerely mean that. It’s well-written and well-researched, and you make some very valid points. Also, I think this is the first direct rebuttal I’ve ever gotten to one of my posts! I love it. We need more of this in travel blogging.

I sincerely hope nobody at G Adventures is looking at that post of mine as some sort of attack or slight aimed at them, however. I only used the “I am not a tourist” slogan/campaign to jump start my own discussion about the traveler vs. tourist debate, which has raged on for decades – even into academic literature about tourism, believe it or not! While the slogan still does rub me the wrong way, I do understand why you chose it (I mean, hell, I clicked on the links just to figure out what it was about, too). And I do fully support that G Adventures is trying to change the face of small group travel. The company’s focus on sustainable tourism (and not just the environmental side of it) is fantastic, and I am totally behind you on that.

As for those “narrow stereotypes” about tourists, they actually extend all over the place, though it is definitely interesting to look at them in terms of being perpetuated by the travel industry. They’re often also enforced by locals who aren’t at all familiar with the tourism industry or the traveler vs. tourist debate. Did you know that in many Asian and African languages (and especially in villages that don’t see a huge amount of tourists), there’s really no word for “tourist”? The word associated with “tourist” for most of them is the same word that means “white person.” … Try dissecting that one!

Thanks for this post! I’ll be sure to link it from my own.