Anti-tourism protests in Spain have taken a blow – as plans to keep out foreigners are rejected. Protesters against mass tourism in Majorca have been dealt a crushing blow as an initiative aimed at restricting the sale of homes to foreigners is rejected in parliament. A plan to restrict the sale of homes to foreigners…
Cruise ships turned away, angry locals protesting against visitors, even cities charging tourists to visit. The images and reality of the backlash against mass tourism are becoming increasingly familiar.Whatever the reasons behind such mass tourism — the ability to book independently online, improvements in infrastructure and communications such as cheaper airline travel, and pent-up demand following the COVID-19 pandemic — it is clear that the backlash against it has also surged recently.In an industry already challenged by the growing ability of people to book online and travel independently, not to mention the economic damage caused by the pandemic, the question arises as to how tour operators and other travel companies are reacting to such new challenges and the backlash. It is another big moment for the industry.“While there are challenges, such as adapting to the shift toward independent online bookings and recovering from the pandemic’s impact, we see this as a critical moment to reassess and refine our offerings,” said Duncan Greenfield-Turk, chief travel designer at London-based Global Travel Moments. “It’s about finding a balance between meeting client demand and being responsible stewards of the destinations we promote.”For Greenfield-Turk and his company, such responsibility has translated into more sustainable travel initiatives such as smaller groups touring at off-peak times and longer stays in single locations to both minimize environmental impact and reduce strain on local communities.Such a change in focus can also lead to far more authentic experiences for the traveler. Off-the-beaten-path destinations can also tick off items on many people’s bucket lists just as well while supporting the local economy, says Adeline Kuroki, owner of Colorado-based tour operator Savor & Soak Travel, which focuses on tours of Japan.“This leads to better trips for my clients, as they won’t be battling crowds, and supports the economies of smaller cities and out-of-the-way destinations that are eager to welcome inbound travelers,” Kuroki said.Italy as a test case?Arguably nowhere in the world is the challenge of mass tourism and the backlash against it bigger than in Italy, one of the world’s most visited countries where tourism is a major factor in the country’s economy. According to Statista data, tourism contributed approximately 10.5% of Italy’s gross domestic product in 2023.Hotels increasingly sell out months in advance, tickets to major attractions such as the Vatican museums and the Uffizi Art Gallery in Florence become unobtainable, and cities become overrun with crowds.While expert tour operators can offer tickets to such attractions as part of their selling point, there is also a move away from the more obvious hot spots. Indeed, focusing on lesser-known areas can also be a big opportunity.Tourist Italy, for example, launched its “Italy with a Twist” program in January precisely to offer more off-the-beaten-track locations. The Florence-based company’s Tuscany day tour, for example, includes a visit to Lucca, a city described by founder Ben Julius as “underrated” and a “hidden gem.”Since January, the company has seen a 43% increase in customers seeking activities and tours in Italy that go beyond the traditional route, Julius added. There are similar numbers for the Japanese arm of the business too. Just as there is increasing demand for the obvious, therefore, there also appears to be increasing demand for the less so. “This is a reflection of the wider ‘slow travel’ trend, which has seen a growing desire among tourists for experiences that enable them to connect with their destination’s true, authentic culture,” Julius said. “This result is highly encouraging, and we see a real opportunity to change the way people travel and experience Italy.”Featured Local SavingsPivoting to new opportunitiesOther tour operators contacted for this article tell a similar story.French operator Japan Experience, for example, said it has faced the direct consequences of local government action to attempt to defuse mass tourism such as implementing new taxes and even closing down well-known tourist streets in the country.The company’s response has been to double down on its previous efforts to widen the amount of attractions and venues it can offer visitors to Japan.“We aim to make travelers to Japan discover other destinations than the ones suffering from overtourism, even working with prefectures to highlight their appeal and drive travelers further than the overused Tokyo-Kyoto axis,” said CEO Thierry Maincent.U.K.-based Exodus Adventure Tours, which offers small group trips to the likes of the less well-trodden Loire Valley in France or wilderness trips to Finland that can steer clear of the popular Lapland region, says 92% of the accommodations it offers are locally owned, with 87% of the meals it offers also locally sourced.“By prioritizing off-the-beaten-path destinations and supporting local communities, we strive to contribute positively while acknowledging the challenges that come with travel,” the company said in a statement.It’s not always an easy balance — you wouldn’t want to stop people visiting hot spots in Italy, for example, if that was their first visit to the country, said Julius at Tourist Italy.But with the challenges of mass tourism growing harder, as well as the backlash against it becoming more strident, there are ethical considerations as well as opportunities for different offerings.“As a travel designer, I believe there’s a moral responsibility to ensure that our industry does not contribute to the degradation of the very destinations that attract travelers,” said Greenfield-Turk at Global Travel Moments. “It’s not just about making money — it’s about preserving these places for future generations. The growing awareness of overtourism has actually encouraged us to be more creative and thoughtful in designing trips that are not only enjoyable but also sustainable.”CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINERResponsible travel planners increasingly understand they need to offer more, said Kuroki at Savor & Soak Travel.“Booking clients a trip to only the most popular destinations involves less work and research for the travel planner, but I think it really does the whole profession a disservice, as it begs the question ‘What value did you add to the trip?’” she said. Nick Thomas is a writer based in Denver.
Since 1989, Lancaster-based Koble Systems has been partnering with growing businesses to bring together their inventory, financials, sales, and other operations into one system so they can gain insight into their business, increase process effectiveness and make data-driven decisions for the future. They focus on making business growth easier by putting ERP software to work.WHAT IS AN ERP?
An ERP (enterprise resource planning) system is like having an administrative assistant who can be everywhere in your business at once.Fundamentally a business data management tool, an ERP integrates your back-end business processes – financials, inventory management, project planning and more – into one system with a common database. An ERP also updates the operational information across those processes in real-time, giving you a single source of truth.A good ERP removes the need for duplicate entry across different systems, reduces opportunities for human error, and overall gives you the ability to see what is going on across your business and to make informed decisions about the present and future of your organization.WHEN IS IT TIME FOR AN ERP?As you grow your business, the daily operations become more complex. An ERP is designed to pick up where more entry-level systems (such as pen and paper or QuickBooks) start getting in the way. When your team is getting bogged down with duplicate entry, your financial reports seem to be getting less accurate or comprehensive, or you’re spending too many hours trying to figure out exactly what inventory you have and where it is (or all of the above), it is probably time to level up to an ERP.
WHY KOBLE?With robust inventory tooling and a comprehensive financial platform built as the heart of the tool, Koble can help you bring your business processes together seamlessly, saving you time and money. As an on-premises solution, our system gives you the freedom to do business your way, without having to rely on the internet connection to get things done.And as you grow, Koble can grow with you – its flexibility allows you to tailor ERP services to meet your current needs and scale up, when necessary, without the hassle of a systems overhaul.A PARTNERSHIP YOU CAN RELY ONFrom implementation to regular check-ins throughout the partnership, Koble is committed to offering an exceptional client experience. We know things aren’t easy for small businesses, and we’re eager to come alongside your business to help you navigate the hurdles ahead with a unified system and clear insight into your operations.
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Pastor VaNessa Young has added author to her list of accomplishments.Young will host a book signing event for the release of her first book, “A Shepherd’s Love,” from 1 to 3 p.m. Sept. 21 at the Amy. H. Levin Conference Center, 1165 North Ridge Road in Sheffield Township.Young, who preaches at Point of Grace Ministries in Elyria with her husband, Darrell, said the event will highlight her book, which focuses on how to identify where you belong in the church and also will feature testimonials from individuals.“I realized that many times, people are wanting to love people in their language, and then you have misunderstandings,” she said.There will be refreshments at the event, and people will hear about upcoming projects from the church and information on plans for Young’s school New Generations School of Prophets.Young said the inspiration for the book came from identifying that people sometimes can find themselves in a community or church and end up finding difficulties, which can include not relating to the pastor beyond Sunday messages.“A Shepherd’s Love” not only helps individuals identify how to find their love language within their church community. It’s also meant to bridge the gap between pastors and the congregation.“I wrote that because I felt the need to tell people that you might be at the crossroads of deciding,” she said. “The (coronavirus) pandemic really showed us that church has become an option to some people, but I want to remind people that it’s there for a reason and community is important.”With shepherds as the draw, Young said it can be defined as a leader who not only leads and tends to the flock but also lays down a foundation for individuals by being a support.The book can help readers understand that pastors are human, as well.Pastors can relate to people on a human level when it comes to feelings and emotions, Young said.“It’s understanding that it’s a blessing, it’s a God-ordained assignment and this is not something to take light of,” she said. “It’s being a guide, not being their judge, and never being their God.”According to Young, shepherds listen and create a safe environment for their “sheep,” while realizing each person is different with various ways of showing love.Churches can act as communities, and finding the best fit is important to avoid staying in a place where you feel you don’t belong, she said.“I really want people to understand that not only is it a choice, but if you have faith, then you need to find a place where other people believe like you,” Young said.“A Shepherd’s Love” also comes with an interactive workbook for readers to ask questions.Young said she plans to release two additional books as part of a series.The event is free and open to the public.
Josh O’Connor fans are celebrating after reports swirling around named him as the star in Kelly Reichardt’s upcoming heist movie, The Mastermind. The 34-year-old actor has been a trending topic on social media since starring across Zendaya and Mike Faist in Luca Guadagnino’s summer blockbuster Challengers. The tennis drama grossed $94,219,408 worldwide and was highly-rated…
Met Office forecasters have warned that thousands of Britons face a long 36 hours of weather havoc, with heavy rain set to cause widespread flooding and lightning strikes to damage buildings. A thunderstorm warning issued on Thursday that initially covered an eight-hour window on Friday has now been extended to three days, with the weekend…
Locked in an embrace, allowing herself a moment to “feel good,” a woman asks herself, “what if life is just a collection of essentially unrelated experiences? Why does one thing have to follow meaningfully from another?” It’s a trademark moment of yearning in “Intermezzo,” best-selling Irish novelist Sally Rooney’s fourth book. Anticipation for the novel is high and not just because we all need a sophisticated break from reality.Readers immediately connected with the fresh candor of Rooney’s debut novel. “Conversations with Friends” offered the fantasy of romantic escape grounded in a cynical landscape. “Normal People” took this to the next level with a coming-of-age romance charged by class conflict. “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” a somewhat meta perspective on labor and love, interlaced with email correspondence, revealed a more complicated tableau. Rooney excels at creating an authentic experience of striving within a frenetic, ever changing world. With her sociopolitical and emotional intelligence, Rooney raises the question: is there ethical heterosexuality under late capitalism and imminent climate collapse? She has captured the ennui of our moment. Gripped with anxiety over any number of pressing issues, why is that romance continues to dominate our lives?In “Intermezzo,” that same all-encompassing focus remains true, but Rooney’s scope has expanded. She’s moved from the tight familiarity and steady pacing of her earlier novels to a larger narrative scale as her characters age and their worlds grow more complex, with bigger casts and slower pacing. Estrangement, as much as desire, is the overwhelming human condition in the book. Her characters lack mobility. The reader feels it as well.At the heart of “Intermezzo” is a pair of brothers. Although both mourn the loss of their 65-year-old father, theirs is no shared grief. Suave Peter Koubek is 32 years old and works as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan, his socially awkward 22-year-old brother, sits at a personal and professional crossroad. Once considered a “chess genius,” since college and his father’s illness, he’s fallen in his professional rankings and is scraping by with freelance work in a shared flat with roommates. While polished Peter exudes a certain “social brilliance” by contrast, in truth, Peter’s personal life is a mess.Emotionally, Peter remains devoted to Sylvia, a literature professor and his former longtime girlfriend whose chronic pain keeps their relationship entirely platonic. The demise of that physical relationship creates space for Peter’s heady entanglement with a housing-unstable 23-year-old student and sometimes cam girl named Naomi. Saintly Sylvia is his formal companion at Peter’s father’s funeral, but, after weeks of silence, he retreats to Naomi’s supple embrace. Collectively, he enjoys their “brains and beauty,” but a love triangle like this is also a time bomb. It’s a matter of time before complications ensue. And they do.Meanwhile, lonely Ivan finds himself utterly besotted with Margaret, a 36-year-old arts center coordinator in a remote Irish town who is separated from her alcoholic husband. Both are ecstatic with their fresh, dynamic connection, but Margaret is careful to conceal their May-December romance from her friends and family who feel that she abandoned her marriage too quickly. She’s afraid to couple up again — and with someone so green and unsettled. Peter, projecting his own insecurities about age and sex, throws cold water onto Ivan’s budding romance. After that, Ivan blocks him — from his phone and from his life.This very contemporary act speaks to the novel’s overarching elements. On the one hand, “Intermezzo” is a knotted, romantic melodrama that offers extensive insight into the rattled neuroses and intimate desires of its characters along with a substantial array of steamy love scenes. On the other hand, it’s a layered book about the displacement of grief and the noise of modern life. In both respects, Rooney skillfully keeps her finger on the pulse of characters. She seamlessly integrates technology into the lives of her characters, nailing home the fact that despite all the connectivity in the world, we don’t — and perhaps can’t — fully hear one another.So the book carries on beyond this fraternal rupture. The brothers brood and spar with one another while pursuing their lovers, minds and hearts rambling. In this moody, vibes-driven novel satisfaction is hard to find, but everyone has an excess of opinions and feelings. At this stage of her career, Rooney negotiates a more expansive emotional palate, fraught with family jealousy and misgivings that can never be repaired — no matter how exuberant the sex is. And there’s a lot of it. Readers who come for her physical honesty will be pleased. But I was struck by a certain sticky compulsion around goodness, prettiness, and physical beauty. It is also worth noting that physicality takes on a jarring meaning in this book where one character has no sexual life and the main sensation she experiences is pain. Though it’s entirely plausible that grief has flattened her desire, her selflessness goes unquestioned by the man who claims to love her.“Intermezzo” is studded with shimmering moments of pastoral stillness that offer an alternative to life on an urban career track or a conventional path to domestic bliss, but there’s an overwhelming air of resigned doom in this novel. Circling back to Ivan’s talent for chess, despite Rooney’s efforts to avoid making obvious comparisons to living life as a pawn in a game, one wonders if the world is indeed rigged to curb autonomy. The ballasts of friendship and travel that brought the magic of possibility into her previous books is missing from “Intermezzo.” For a compulsively readable book that even states, “We don’t want any more melodrama,” it can be a challenge to transcend that condition. Though Rooney is one of our most earnest and passionate contemporary writers, one hopes that this saga framed by lust and grief is an interlude between great acts.INTERMEZZOBy Sally RooneyFarrar, Straus & Giroux, 464 pages, $29Lauren LeBlanc is a board member of the National Book Critics Circle.
Richard Osman has shed light on why airports sell books that are “bigger” than those found in regular shops. In a recent episode of The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, Richard and Marina Hyde explored the topic of “airport editions” of books, which are often larger in size. Richard, known for presenting Pointless and authoring the…
Karnataka Tourism Shines at IFTM Top Resa Paris, Strengthening Ties with Global Travel Trade – Travel Industry Today – EIN Presswire
Robert Calvert: Through His Work by Tim ForsterIndependently Published
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Robert Calvert was one of those artists with a touch of genius who didn’t receive the recognition he deserved while alive. His work has remained underrepresented since his untimely death in 1988, aged just 43. With Robert Calvert: Through His Work, author Tim Forster does his bit to redress the balance.
This book is not a biography as such, although we certainly glean an understanding of Calvert’s character and life within its pages. Rather, Forster guides us through his work as a musician, poet and playwright, against the backdrop of an academic analysis of the political and social upheavals of the period from the late 60s – late 80s during which the subject was active. As he puts it, the intention is to ‘…contextualise his art practice in a historically specific convergence of political, social and economic forces and to show the relevance of his art to contemporary society.’ In the process, the writer paints a picture of a man of great intelligence, prescience and integrity with a startlingly creative imagination to match.
Of course, much attention is paid to Calvert’s most recognised work as a vocalist with Hawkwind (and spin-off Hawklords), particularly in association with founder Dave Brock and with the creative input of Barney Bubbles. In many ways, he rendered the ‘space rock’ label rather inadequate as he used the band as a vehicle to explore various themes relating as much to earthbound matters as extraterrestrial, many of these concepts recurring throughout his solo work and writing. His moral compass was active from an early age as demonstrated by his refusal at the age of 17 to return with his parents to his native South Africa which, at the time, was firmly in the grip of the apartheid regime. His move to the counterculture hotbed of Ladbroke Grove in 1970 helped shape his attitudes and societal awareness, and his stances against war, imperialism, racism, capitalism and neoliberalism (amongst others) are evident throughout. However, should this all sound a little heavy, you only have to listen to the splendidly silly and Pythonesque hit Quark, Strangeness and Charm, to appreciate that Calvert possessed a fully functional sense of humour.
This is a book full of fascinating insights, especially for those who have had a passing interest in Calvert’s work without being aware of its full extent. The album Freq features interviews with striking miners, illustrating his support for the downtrodden workers (despite his intentions at times being misunderstood). His fascination with temporality, ‘the relationship/s of past, present and future,’ is studied in depth, and it becomes clear that he had a remarkable ability to foresee future events enabled by his fascination with current trends. As Calvert put it, ‘I always try to write about things that haven’t happened quite yet, but I’m quite sure will happen.’ Forster cites his regular references to androids in their capacity as worker and companion/lover in relation to current developments in AI as an example of his prescience. We also learn of the artist’s books of poetry, several plays, including the short Mirror Mirror available on YouTube, and his theatrical approach to gigs including his ‘Biggles of Arabia’ stage persona; ‘Mine’s an acting job really. I have to embody what the music’s about, which is, I suppose, heroic fantasy really.’ There is also plenty more humour on display, including the tale of 8,000 copies of Cricket Star by Robert Calvert and the First XI being dumped along with plans to distribute them outside grounds when the West Indies tour was cancelled.
Through His Work acts both as a scholastic study of Calvert’s art and a very readable guide for those eager to discover more about the man’s work and motivations. The book takes the form of a number of chapters which examine different aspects of his beliefs and his output; Ethics, Temporality, Politics, Collaborations, Theatre etc. This, as acknowledged by the author, inevitably leads to a degree of repetition simply because there are a number of common threads which run throughout Calvert’s career, but the same would also apply if a more linear approach were taken. More importantly, each chapter is informed by Forster’s forensic analysis of the subject matter (the extensive bibliography clearly illustrates the research involved) and brought to life by his insightful commentary. Small but perfectly formed, complete with a number of striking photographs, this is a book which does its subject justice and achieves its objective of presenting Robert Calvert as much more than just a singer in a rock band.
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All words by Robin Boardman. More writing from Robin on Louder Than War can be found at his author’s archive.
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