"Everyday I'm hustlin'"
It is unavoidable. It is inescapable. But does the ever persistent presence of tourism mean the death of travel? Amidst the enormous sums of money that come flooding in to Barcelona (or any city), carried in the pockets of tourists from all over the world, there arises a quandary of how to best spend it, and this is the foremost question of any tourist: how to spend their money. For whether they have arrived via plane, train or automobile, while visiting Barcelona, it is unlikely that these tourists have any real ties to the city; therefore they rely on other people, natives and locals, for information, with which they carry the expectation of achieving authentic experience.
Information is the first key to tourism. Tourists lack the information that they feel is necessary in order to decide properly how to best spend their money, so the first investment of a tourist is one of obtaining information. This initial investment of information can come in the form of a map, a hotel recommendation online, directions from the city centre to a cheap hostel, a 2-hour walking tour of the city, or recommendations of good bars and clubs to spend an evening out. All of this is information and can usually be obtained for free; but, it is not the goal of tourism is to provide information, free or otherwise, it is to convert that information into experience, one that makes money. Tourists lack information, and need it as much as they lack it. Tourists are so devoid of and dependent on information that they are willing to pay exorbitant prices for a cocktail of information and experience; so, simply put, if you know your shit, you can make money, someone is always willing to pay you for it. Though tourism is rampant and affects every travelling person, a critical difference between tourist and traveller lies in their reluctance or willingness to pay for information.
But information is a one step business, so tourism thrives best when it is tied into a service/experience, i.e. something to do. (“Hey come take a walking tour, it contains all the places you can go for free, but I’ll tell you loads of information about them for 5 euros.”) This exemplifies the easy transformation of information converted into a service, but even this is poor tourism. Knowing the city well and can giving an informative walking tour for five euros is a good starting point, but starting up a tour company, giving free tours , and along the way, mentioning the Prague Pub Crawl, the Prague Ghost tour, the Barcelona biking tour, the Barcelona wine tasting experience (all of which are not free, but “really worth the cost. You’ll have so much fun! A great experience!”). When tourists find information, then they can always pay for that information, packaged in a service (there is always someone willing to accept your money).
A service/experience can be anything there is a market for. People like ghost stories. People like famous sights. People like drinking. It is the aim of tourism to incorporate the badly needed information into an enjoyable, profitable service, producing an end product experience that is worth the cost. ‘You could go to this bar, and this bar and then this club, but we’ll take you there (and give you free shots and drinks along the way) for 15 euros.’ A tourist needs information to gain experience, but the market of tourism packages that information into a service; therefore, obtaining that information (by means of a service/experience) will cost you. One can achieve both information and service separately, but there is a tendency (and it’s just a lot easier) to pay for both at one spot. It is less work. Remember my third (non-Hemingway) maxim for travel: to travel is to work. Tourism, simply put, charges money to take the work out of travel.
During my extended stay in Barcelona, I have been working amidst tourism, promoting and working as a guide for a bar crawl. My job entails four hours of handing out flyers promoting the crawl and then guiding each night’s crawlers from bar to bar, making sure no one gets lost, and being a fun person to party with. It is the latter part of the job that I quite enjoy. The constant partying 6 nights a week has turned me semi-nocturnal, but meeting people from all over the world and just talking to them is something I find very rewarding. These people on the crawl are just looking for a night out, (paid for the service/experience, taking the work of the night) and I gladly take on the duty of ensuring it is worth their precious tourist euros.
But there is a part to this job that I find a bit tedious. Before the bar crawl kicks off, I spend four hours handing out flyers, and it is handing out flyers and getting people on the crawl where I make my money. To get people on the crawl, you have to sell yourself. You have to be fun, funny and full of energy ... alcohol helps. You have to make the passing tourists to want to party with you. You are a better representation of the crawl than the silly flyer you hand out, so more often than not (with the people that actually end up coming on the crawl) you talk about yourself rather than the crawl. You talk about where you’re from, what you’re studying in college and how the fuck you ended up handing out flyers for a bar crawl in Barcelona. There is a skill to promoting the crawl, and some nights, it can make you a decent spot of cash. For each person I get on the crawl, I get five euros (and a 10 euro bonus if you get 10), so when it’s a good night, you can lump up some cash, but really it is just a job to break even. So far, my numbers are 4, 10, 2, 2, 4, and 10. Not bad, considering my hostel costs 15 a night and food for a week is even less.
The main problem with this job is that the bar crawl is blatant tourism. When I flyer, I stand out on La Rambla and talk only to tourists. If a group of people are speaking Spanish (even if they are dressed to go out to a club) I don’t bother them, it’s a waste of both of our time. This reality of solely targeting only tourists means that I myself have become an extension of the hegemony of tourism that I despise. Whether or not I am a tourist or traveller is irrelevant, for I depend upon the business of tourism for my supper. There are dozens of bar crawls in Barcelona, and they are all basically selling the same thing, but I hawk I Heart BCN nightly, not because it’s the best of all crawls, but because I happened to make friends with the people running it and now they pay me.
I believe in what I’m selling to some extent (it’s a cheap night out with new people), so I don’t exactly have a conscience crisis in pedalling my crawl to passersby; but, I feel don't exactly like what I'm selling. I'm selling generated experience, not authentic. I stand on La Rambla amdist the busy shops and stalls and hawk my crawl all night to passing tourists. The majority of them walk on by, but some stop, and some hand over their money. I think about other places I have been, Lisbon specifically. There you will walk down a street and be harassed by drug dealers. The majority of people walk on by, but some stop, and some hand over their money. I don’t feel like I’m duping or stealing from anyone, but I feel like I'm dealing drugs. The crawl is an experience that people want, but they need to pay someone for it. I have the experience that they want, and they have to go through me to get it, and I will make a bit of cash too. I can consider myself a traveller, but I work in tourism, and right now, the money behind tourism is helping me out. This connection to tourism I disdain, and it is the basic practice of all tourism that I find parallel with drug dealing. The paying for information and experience that is unobtainable. (They want to party with new people in Barcelona, but they pay to get it) What people lack (prevented by society (the authentic experience) they will pay to get. (‘Yeah, I’ve got a tour going on right now, you should come!’).
At its heart, how it functions, in theory and in practice, tourism is drug-dealing. Tourists are the steady customers and travellers grow their own, but both are addicts to the same high of experience, you can call it travel. But, to be fair, tourism is not the only aspect of society that functions in this manner, fucking everything does. And, in all honesty, there are more reprehensible aspects of society (I mean profiting off of information and service in general, not drug dealing). These information-service economies are just a reality of the world we live in and manifestations of the paramount role that finance plays and the importance that our society gives it. I would like it if everyone could travel the world and not have to pay for experience, but I’m not an idealist and I accept the world's realities. Learning/earning experience is hard, so many institute money to facilitate this process, but at a financial cost and to the detriment of the experience as an ideal. A fair trade, I guess, or why would everyone keep perpetuating this process? The world functions to the smallest extent on what people know, but it works more largely upon what people don’t know. And when someone wants to know something (it can be a tour, a high, a down payment on a car) they will pay someone with information for it. So then they get it at an inflated cost to themselves and a twenty slides down the grimy pocket of a toothless man standing on the street, the cycle of tourism is complete and the world keeps turning. I guess you just have to go through life and separate the drug dealers from the thieves and you’ll be alright ... LW
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