ESL Discussion

  The  tourist  trade is  booming. With all  this  coming  and  going , you'd  expect  greater  understanding  to  develope between the nations of the world. Not a bit of it! Superb systems of communication by  air , sea and land  make it  possible  for us  to visit each  other's  countries  at  a moderate  cost. What was  once  the 'grand tour' ,reserved for only the very rich , is now within everybody's  grasp. The package tour and chartered fights are not to be sneered at. Modern  travellers enjoy a level of comfort which the lords and ladies on grand tours in the old days couldn't have dreamed of. But what's the  sense of this mass exchange of populations if the nations of the world remain basically ignorant of each other?

Many tourist organisations are directly responsible for this state of affairs. They  deliberately  set out to protect their clients from too much contact with the local population. The modern tourist leads a cosseted ,  sheltered life. He lives  at international  hotels , where he eats his international  food and sips his international drink while he gazes at the natives from distance. Conducted tours to places of interest are carefully  censored . The  tourist is allowed  to see  only what the organisers want him to see and no more. A strict schedule makes it impossible for the tourist to wander off on his own; and  anyway , language is always the barrier , so he is only too happy to be protected in this way. At its very worst , this  leads to a new hideous kind of colonisation. The summer quarters of the inhabitants of the cite universitaire : are  temporarily restablished on the island of Corfu. Blackpool is recreated at Torremolinos where the traveller goes not to eat paella , but fish and chips.

The sad  thing about this situation is that it leads to the persistence of national stereotypes. We don't  see the people of other nations as they really  are , but as we have been brought up to believe they are. You can  test this for yourself. Take five nationalities  , say, French, Greman , English, American, and Italian. Now in your mind , match them with these five adjectives: musical , amorous ,cold pedantic , naive. Far from  providing us with any insight into the national characteristics of the peoples just  mentioned , these adjectives actually act as barriers. So  when you set out on your travels , the only characteristics you notice are those which confirm your preconceptions. You come away with the highly unoriginal and inaccurate impression that , say , Anglo- saxons are hypocrites' or that 'Latin peoples shout a lot.' You only hav to make a few foreign friends  to understand  how absurd and harmful national stereotypes are. But how can you make foreign friends when the tourist trade does its best to prevent you?

Carried to an extreme , stereotypes can be  positively  dangerous . Wild generalisations stir up racial hatred and blind us to the basic fact - how trite it sounds!- that all people are human . We are all similar to each other and the same time all unique.