Detourism: Can The Past Year's Lessons Make Us Better Tourists?
Augustman Logo
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
E-Magazine
Most Trending
Detourism: Can The Past Year’s Lessons Teach Us To Become Better Tourists?
Most Recent
Detourism: Can The Past Year’s Lessons Teach Us To Become Better Tourists?
Most Trending
Artist Peter Doig Collaborates With Kim Jones For Dior Men’s Fall/Winter 2021-22 Collection
Most Recent
Ring In The New Year With These Stunning Minute Repeater Watches
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Most Trending
Will Music Streaming Spell The End Of Radio As We Know It?
Most Recent
2021 Blockbuster Movies: The Most Hotly-Anticipated Films To Catch On The Big Screen
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Most Trending
6 Reasons Why We Are Really Excited About The 2021 Formula 1 Season
Most Recent
8 Modern Companies That Are Using Technology To Deliver New Value To Their Customers
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Most Trending
Sip On These 5 Cocktails That Are Under 200 Calories
Most Recent
Lo Hei and Behold the Year of the Ox
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Most Trending
Detourism: Can The Past Year’s Lessons Teach Us To Become Better Tourists?
Most Recent
See Singapore Through Fresh Eyes With These Unique Tours And Experiences
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Most Trending
Razer Has Created A Futuristic Face Mask Equipped With Built-In Microphones And Lighting Effects
Most Recent
Free Workout Apps That Will Help You Smash Your 2021 Weight-Loss Goals
  • Fitness
  • Health
Most Trending
AUGUSTMAN Singapore: Free Digital Issues For The Next 3 Months
Most Recent
Uncover Mindful Living with AUGUSTMAN x LIFESTYLEASIA
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
  • sg
    • MY
    • SG
  • Search
Detourism: Can The Past Year’s Lessons Teach Us To Become Better Tourists?
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Travel
See Singapore Through Fresh Eyes With These Unique Tours And Experiences
Travel
More Air Travel Bubbles (ATB) We’d Like To See
Travel
Break The Monotony Of Pandemic Existence With A Luxurious Staycation
Augustman Logo
sg
Detourism: Can The Past Year’s Lessons Teach Us To Become Better Tourists?
Back
All  Style
  • Fashion
  • Watches
  • Grooming
Back
All  Culture
  • Design
  • Events
  • Art
  • Music
  • Film & TV
Back
All  Gear
  • Tech
  • Motoring
Back
All  Food & Drink
  • Dining
  • Drinks
Back
All  Travel
  • Travel Guides
  • Hotels & Resorts
Back
All  Wellness
  • Fitness
  • Health
Back
All  AM Select
  • Men of the Year
  • MVMT
  • A-Listers
  • Hit List
E-Magazine
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
Sort & Filter
Close Filter
Sort By
Date
Relevance
Filter By Category
All Categories
All
Style
Culture
Gear
Food & Drink
Travel
Wellness
AM Select
Apply
Filter By Location
singapore
All Countries
Travel

Detourism: Can The Past Year’s Lessons Teach Us To Become Better Tourists?

AFP Relaxnews
11 Jan 2021
Article Hero Image
Can we travel better in 2021? (Image: Eldar Nazarov/ Unsplash)
Trending Now
8 Modern Companies That Are Using Technology To Deliver New Value To Their Customers
GearRead More
Lo Hei and Behold the Year of the Ox
Food & DrinkRead More
2021 Blockbuster Movies: The Most Hotly-Anticipated Films To Catch On The Big Screen
CultureRead More
Ring In The New Year With These Stunning Minute Repeater Watches
StyleRead More
Travel inspiration, destination guides, hotel reviews and more - we've got it all. Sign up for our newsletter.

All of a sudden the skies were emptied of airplanes, trains were running nearly empty, and everyone found themselves confined to their homes.

The tourism industry essentially ground to a halt last year, and our own identity as travellers or tourists was transformed, shaken. Under house arrest, we rediscovered the nature around us and the wonders of proximity. And these long months should profoundly change how we travel in 2021 and beyond.

Even before the pandemic there were signs that change was needed in the travel industry. But instead of a gradual progression of growing awareness among tourists of the environmental impact of their practices after the “flygskam” movement and a progressive uptake in sustainable tourism by the industry, international tourism came to a standstill. The term “anthropause” — referring to this period of significantly reduced human activity — was coined largely in response to the unprecedented drop in travel and the resulting drop in carbon emissions.

detourism
2020 made it essentially impossible to not look our travel behaviours in the face and understand that they have a very direct effect on shaping our planet. (Image: Simon Migaj/ Unsplash)

While our awareness of our impact as tourists — sometimes catastrophic — on environments and communities, may have been growing since the concept of “overtourism” made headlines in 2018, 2020 made it essentially impossible to not look our behaviours in the face and understand that they have a very direct effect on shaping our planet. Watching the outside world from the inside, through screens in our homes, reports of dolphins swimming in less polluted waters in Italy and near Istanbul may have been a temporary reason to cheer but also a call to reckoning in ourselves.

Scientists investigating the effects of this anthropause on ecosystems emphasise that with wildlife free and humans under lockdown, the relationship between people and nature is shifting. With nature a main draw for many travelers, this year we learned that wildlife observation isn’t only associated with an exotic or faraway location or even changing one’s environment. As we stayed at home, we started really looking at the nature around us. The birdwatching boom of 2020 grew out of convenience as birds can be found nearly anywhere, even in urban areas, but it also meant that many of us started to view our own, nearby environments differently. Bringing nature into our everyday routine meant we could approach these surroundings with new eyes, a key trait for developing our new travel practices.

Leaving the skies for the birds

As for the airlines, planes remained grounded, like a symbolic vestige of our recent past. A desert parking lot in Alice Springs, Australia is the storage site of over a hundred planes requiring regular maintenance and has become a kind of curiosity in itself.

At the same time in Singapore, grounded planes were transformed into restaurants where customers could reserve the opportunity to eat a travel-style meal and experience what it’s like to fly on Singapore Airlines Airbus’s A380. And so marketing initiatives like this and the well-publicised flights to nowhere may have been designed to spark excitement about travel but, as a simulacrum of a trip, in fact, they resembled a kind of “tour” of our recent past. Postcards from another pre-Covid time, or even another world.

detourism
Last year saw planes worldwide remaining grounded. (Image: Ashim D Silva/ Unsplash)

Meanwhile a UK company specialising in “no-fly” holidays aims to respond to our evolving demands: “Wanting to avoid crowded airports, holiday closer to home, experience nature and support local businesses.”

As for hotels — what can a hotel offer us now? In the new configuration of our everyday reality, hotels tried to launch special rates and offers for those who wanted to make it their temporary home office for a while, a home office located elsewhere for the hybrid nomads who want to work with a different view and take advantage of the amenities and the surroundings. A pragmatic reinvention and one that saw the blurring of the boundaries between home (office) and holiday residence.

The journey inwards, at home

The reasons that we travel are multiple: We want a change of scenery, we want to explore something new and learn something, we want to try new foods, we want a social media brag, we want to make connections, we want to relax, we want peace, calm and quiet, we want to rediscover ourselves. With levels of burnout soaring, particularly this year with the home office screens an omnipresent feature in our lives, this remains a key aspect of travel. Travel is often largely about our relationship with ourselves.

So instead of taking a local flight that goes nowhere, what if we could take an inner journey to somewhere? The lessons of the year 2020 have paved the way for such contemplation. Early in the pandemic, philosopher and author Alain de Botton tackled for the FT the topic of how we can get some of the psychological, existential benefits of travel from an 8-minute walk or from reflecting on previous trips, how “we may already enjoy the very best that any place has to offer us simply by thinking about it.”

detourism
Travel is often largely about our relationship with ourselves. (Image: Dariusz Sankowski/ Unsplash)

While this may have been written before anyone knew just how much of 2020 would be spent in lockdowns, it may help us better understand what we seek from the travel experience when we are once again unfettered. One of the themes to watch for 2021 for Pinterest is “dreams are the new escapes” — these voyages we take at home can prepare us for a different kind of travel, based on our own dreams and not filtered images showing up in social media feeds.

Backlash against travel influencers

Even before the pandemic, many influencers were being called out for staging their Instagram shots, while destinations’ promotional departments were also trying to navigate a fine line between working with the “right influencers” who build engagement and the “freeloaders.” In September 2019, James Asquith asked in an essay in Forbes, “Have Instagram Influencers Ruined Travel For An Entire Generation?” arguing that “Images became less about the destinations, and more about pretty and edited images” and “individual egos.” The result is a disconnect between image and reality: “we see all these amazing destinations and when we as the audience make that once in a lifetime trip to them, it leads to disappointment that said destination isn’t how we have been made to believe it looks like,” he notes.

The once-in-a-lifetime trip ends up being compared to the perfect Insta shot — and nearly inevitably doesn’t measure up, leading to disappointment. Too many people to get a clear view, wrong time of day, no filter… But “the world isn’t perfect and that should be appreciated,” he points out. Look to be inspired by what’s right around you, not by the glossy Instagram shot — it’s a message that resonates even more now as the realities of lockdowns made fantasies posted by influencers glaringly irrelevant.

detourism
Look to be inspired by what’s right around you, not by the glossy Instagram shot. (Image: Daniel Jensen/ Unsplash)

Slow travel, “detourism” and staying still

So is there a way to travel better? Can we become tourists and travelers with a difference? This year’s loss of freedom of movement has prompted many travelers, like New York-based real estate agent and avid traveler Rob, 34, to do some soul-searching: “This past year has shown us how fragile that freedom [to travel internationally] can be and I think for a long time afterwards I’m not going to take it for granted and I hope that my fellow travelers won’t either…”.

So is there a way to minimise our impact, perhaps by traveling less, and still get the benefits of travel? An experience that enriches our lives, speaks to us with purpose, offers us sanctuary? In the last decade slow tourism has been advocated by various players as a way to better respect the environment and community of our travels, with several destinations even promoting themselves that way. Taking time to immerse ourselves in our surroundings, explore what is nearby, eating local, supporting local craftspeople, focusing on experiences instead of hopping on a plane to consume a beach vacation across the world as one would a fast food meal, as described by travel anthropologist Saskia Cousin.

Slow travel is about not taking a trip for granted, about noticing and, yes, going slower — though not necessarily for long periods or long distances. And as this year comes to a close there are signs that some in the industry are heeding this evolution, as it shows up in new initiatives around the world, including in Australia and India.

detourism
Can we travel better in 2021? (Image: Eldar Nazarov/ Unsplash)

Another approach that could become particularly relevant in the post-Covid world is that of “detourism”, which is closely related, and, according to French historian Sylvain Venayre, entails exploring your surroundings, often associated with being a tourist in your own area, and going with the flow, going where the day takes you and opening yourself up to chance encounters. It’s about following the path less taken rather than heading off to the top tourism destinations in the world to simply tick off a checklist; it’s about having a more personal experience, not comparing what you see on your trip to what is in your social media feed.

While 2020 saw many people around the world travel locally, taking “staycations” — because they had no choice with borders closed — it could emerge as a more conscious choice. A growing interest in sales and rentals of campervans could be one sign that such journeys are becoming increasingly attractive to a growing number of people. The lessons of 2020 regarding our relationship to nature, our surroundings, our inner travels and the reality of small, imperfect meanderings that give rise to real, lived experiences along a smaller, different, less trodden path could pave the way for us to become better tourists.

Travel
tourism
travelling
pandemic
Covid-19
AFP Relaxnews
Talk to Me About:
Travel

Up Next For You

Break The Monotony Of Pandemic Existence With A Luxurious Staycation
Juliana Chan
Travel
The Closest We Can Get To Travelling Right Now
Juliana Chan
Travel
When travel bans are lifted, we're heading to these places first
Lester Tan
Travel
Where to go when flights resume? Here are some cool travel ideas
Juliana Chan
Travel
Travel inspiration, destination guides, hotel reviews and more - we've got it all. Sign up for our newsletter.
×
Where are you?
Tell us so we can display what you want to see.
  • Malaysia
  • Singapore
Malaysia Singapore
Advertise About Privacy Policy Terms & Conditions
© 2021 Copyright Augustman