TOURISM BECOMES AN INDUSTRY - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 23

of 100 people. The members include 150 countries, and hundreds of member affiliates,
including universities, industry groups and nongovernmental organizations. Yet at times it
can barely afford to translate its works. A 2008 study of the cruise industry, with its growing
popularity as well as its spotty record of polluting the seas, was only available in Spanish
during my visit; no English was available due to budget cuts.
Its mission is to keep statistics on the tourism phenomenon and help governments and
organizations figure out how tourism can be more of a help than a hindrance to the planet.
A representative of the UNWTO attends climate control talks, environmental conclaves
and endless tourism conventions, providing expert reports and advice.
Little of that is interesting to travel writers; you rarely see journalists from upscale glossy
magazines at the UNWTO office. Most visitors to the headquarters when I visited in June
were foreign tourism officials or academics who happily bought specialty volumes on sub-
jects like how tourism can protect local handicrafts or the interplay of tourism, religions
and culture. The visitor ledger that first day listed three professors from the University of
Surrey and one from the University of Hawaii. Risi and other experts took pains to de-
scribe how the industry is slowly moving toward accepting rules and guidelines that would
put “sustainability” or intelligent growth at the center of their policies. “The issue of num-
bers of tourists, what they do, that is the key to sustainability,” said Luigi Cabrini, the
UNWTO's expert on the subject. “We have to get away from the idea that sustainability is
just ecotourism with five people alone walking in a forest. We need models of good prac-
tices.”
“The reputation of tourism is often poor, and rightly so,” said Cabrini. “It is an ex-
tremely sensitive sector. We need ethics codes, guidelines, statistics and data that help the
industry, and to work with business, education, governments. That means also looking at
pollution; environmental degradation; corporate cultural monotony of tourist establish-
ments; international tourism that undermines local economies and dealing with the sheer
number of tourists. In the end, tourism plays an important role alleviating poverty, widen-
ing appreciation of different cultures, as informal diplomacy and exchanging wealth from
the rich to the poor nations.”
• • •
The hot June sun lit the medieval square where I was waiting near the crowded Rialto
Bridge of Venice. I was early for an appointment with Claudio Paggiarin, who is active in a
community group trying to control tourism in their city. Paggiarin and I had traded emails,
and he had agreed to meet me with two of his friends for a Saturday morning coffee. I had
forgotten to ask how I would recognize them. There was no shade at the central fountain,
our meeting spot. My husband Bill and I were both sweating. Would the Italians show up?
Then on cue, the men arrived from different directions, laughing at each other's tardiness