We’ve had Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Agriculture and now we have Big Tourism, except we keep calling it “mass tourism” as if it’s something just happening to us rather than something planned, controlled and promoted by… ??? I mean we know the culprits behind the other “Bigs”. But who is leading Big Tourism? Anybody know?This has been happening for a while, about 25 years by my reckoning, coinciding with the birth of AirBnB and Cheap Flights by RyanAir and their ilk. The woes of oversaturated cities like Venice and Barcelona are well-known by now, but now “mass tourism” is everywhere. And seemingly all of a sudden. But if you’ve been paying attention, you will know that this started well before the Covid pandemic, though the pandemic itself actually fuelled Big Tourism to double down and go into overdrive once Covid travel restrictions began to be lifted.

Tourism is easy money. Next to no investment compared to other industries, you just use what is already there, add a few flashy bits, create a global ad campaign and voilà – one more “hidden gem” is suddenly overrun by “newly released” travellers in search of an “authentic” experience. The Covid pandemic has been a blessing to Big Tourism. Sure they took a hit for a year or so, but now they are prospering more than ever and, riding on the coattails of Big Govt saying there’s no more Covid, well, it must be like a dream come true for these guys.

But as with all short-term gain schemes, Big Tourism only cares about quick profits, not about the places they are milking for all their worth. While they can. It’s pure greed.

Since I started my tapas tours in Sevilla in 2009 everything has changed. Back then there were just three of us offering food tours in the city – me, Roger and Sam – and it was a fun way of introducing visitors to the riches of our tapas culture while making a nice living. By 2015 things had changed considerably. AirBnb had a serious foothold in most cities, and city experiences were being exploited to the max. Suddenly there were franchise and corporate food tour companies taking over, or attempting to, offering 6-8 tours a day with groups of up to 10-12 people with their stable of “expert” guides. I’ve never seen these companies as my “competition” as I don’t do what they are doing, and people come to me for something more personal. BUT I do take umbrage when I see them just copying my tours, showing up in my cosy bars with a massive group and ruining the ambiance for everyone. I mean, if I dragged around a dozen people every day on a tapas tour (which is NOT how we tapeo here) I’d be a rich woman by now. So I know why they are doing it, but again it’s short-sighted greed in action. It also irks that they charge the same as I do for a small group private experience.

Meanwhile I had been living on the corner on Mateos Gago and Rodrigo Caro in Barrio Santa Cruz for over 18 years after moving to Sevilla in 1993. Back then locals joked about it being “guirilandia” due to the number of foreigners living there. But in fact, we actually lived there. We were neighbours. At first the changes were slow and put down to gentrification. But suddenly there was AirBnB and within no time the neighbours (myself included) were forced out. I think now 80% of apartments in Santa Cruz are now tourist apartments, and those are just the legal registered ones.

Forced to move I found a place in a little cul-de-sac called Cedaceros at the end of Calle Pérez Galdós. And although I knew further up the street Pérez Galdós was infamous for their illegal all-night bars I didn’t think it would extend to my little corner. Well, it did, and I didn’t sleep for five years.

Now happily ensconced in Calle San Eloy since 2017 I can see the encroachment of Big Tourism in this barrio too but remain hopeful that we won’t be overtaken here too badly or too soon. Here we still have neighbours, local bars and shops, though I can see already that the small independent shops and bars are being pushed out, especially after Covid lockdown.

What’s it going to take? Before people here start to realise that we are living in a city – heck an entire country – that has sold its soul to Big Tourism?

And more importantly, what can WE do about it? We are being fed the whole “sustainable”, “smart” and “slow” tourism tropes without any actual information about how this is being achieved. It’s more like a  “wouldn’t this be a nice idea?” option without anything backing it up. Meanwhile, people are hopping on cheap flights to everywhere, pretending the Covid pandemic is over, oblivious to what is actually happening in the countries they visit (droughts, wildfires, food shortages etc) just because they feel entitled to A BIT OF SUN. Someone on Twitter actually posted the day after the evacuation of Rhodes that they had just landed there for a few days of fun and “things didn’t look so bad”.

We are being told that thousands of jobs are being created by this latest tourist boom, but they are mostly low-end, low-paid, no-future jobs to sustain the corporate hotels, restaurants, airlines and travel agencies who are the real beneficiaries, many of which are not even based in the countries they are bleeding dry of their culture and heritage.

For the record I believe travel is an amazing thing. It opens us up to new experiences, opens our minds to new cultures and people and ideas, it’s all good. Until it becomes out of control mass tourism (that is actually being controlled by corporate Big Tourism), which is where we find ourselves now. The question now is… now what?