Perils and possibilities of the modern vacation
The beginning of Ramadan later this week broadly coincides with another important event taking place throughout the northern hemisphere.
Young students at schools from London to Riyadh are about to bid farewell to another academic year. For many parents, this heralds the beginning of their own vacation window, time for the whole family to get away together. But what this long awaited vacation consists of varies greatly, depending on country, region, culture and religion. The modern vacation is also now markedly different from what it was just a few years ago.
The very question of whether or not a vacation is taken is not simple, for one obvious reason: Money. For many families around the world, the question is not where to go on vacation or what to do there, but rather is one financially possible? One painful side effect of having children no matter where you are in the world is the so-called “parent tax,” where any business related to tourism increases its prices during the long school break. The schools go back, prices come back down.
And of course the imminent start of Ramadan means many Saudis will already have taken their summer break and will either be back in the Kingdom now or will be returning very shortly. For those Saudis who have taken their pre-Ramadan break in Europe or North America, they will fortunately have avoided the unpalatable inflation of the summer months, especially late July and August. The fact that Saudis travel so much comes as a surprise to some.
One of the many ways Saudi Arabia is sadly misrepresented in the West concerns the supposed insularity of the stereotypical Saudi. There is a definite sense among many outside the Kingdom that Saudis are inward looking and indisposed to foreign adventure. This is almost the exact opposite of reality. Let’s ignore for one moment the tens of thousands of aspiring Saudi students resident in Europe and the US working their way toward attaining their degrees. For tourism reasons alone, approximately five million Saudis will typically travel outside the Kingdom during any one summer (accepting that the fall of Ramadan this year may change this slightly). And many are far more adventurous than the average European. British tourists, for example, visit nearby Spain more than any other destination — several decades after British tourists discovered the Costa Blanca, Spanish sun still beats British rain. Saudis on the other hand are, for example, famously fond of distant Malaysia.
What is true is the extent to which the modern vacation has changed for everyone. One reason for this is the impact of technology: Scientists used to tell us that technology would help us work less and increase leisure time, but the reverse has happened. With the advent of BlackBerries and iPhones, businessmen and women are now accessible 24/7 anywhere in the world. You may be enjoying a shopping spree in London thousands of miles away from the office, but your personal assistant will still be calling up with some supposedly urgent message. One peril of the modern vacation is, therefore, that the vacation does not really take place. You are just working in a different time zone, maybe in a different climate, wearing different clothes.
For those of us lucky enough to get away this summer, we need to make conscious decisions to put work to one side and recharge our batteries. One way of doing this is to immerse yourself in some wholly different endeavor. If we sit on a beach trying to read a book our minds wander and thoughts inevitably turn to work back home. What some senior business figures in Europe are now doing is combining a long summer vacation with charity work. This could be anything from helping to build a ruined wall around a church in southern France to advising an inner-city homeless shelter on its finances. It depends what you want to do and where your skill-set lies.
Another option that is growing in popularity is to break the summer vacation up into a series of mini-holidays. There is no need to become bored sitting in isolation somewhere when you can combine spending time on the beach with touring a new city or walking in the mountains. Obviously, you do not want to try too hard for the perfect vacation all the time — you cannot by definition have a once in a lifetime experience every summer!
The realities of politics and economics can open and close doors too. Just 25 years ago Russians could not travel abroad because of government restrictions. They have since made up for lost time by spreading out far and wide. I regularly visit Monaco and am often mistaken for a Russian because there are so many of them there — it is not for nothing that the strip of coastline between St. Tropez and Monaco is known as the “Russian Riviera”! Because of such seismic political shifts, the tourist map of the world is unrecognizable from a generation ago.
Similarly, booking a holiday to a debt stricken country such as Greece is not without risk. Will your flight be affected by strikes at the airport? Will there be riots on the street? I have spoken to tourists who holidayed in Greece recently who were stranded by the civil meltdown.
Lastly, there is of course an inherent loss to any domestic economy when a citizen travels abroad. Some countries are and will always be net-exporters of tourists. Japan is the classic example of an economically wealthy country that tourists rarely visit, but whose own tourists can be found almost everywhere. Socially and culturally too, popular destinations can be overwhelmed by influxes of tourists. It is no good telling locals from once pretty Spanish fishing villages that are now home to multiple skyscraper tourist hotels that they are better off. If tourism is not managed properly, there is an inevitable risk of loss of local culture and identity.
The modern vacation is not as simple as it sounds.
— John Burman, Ph.D., is managing director of an investment advisory firm based in London.
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