Revenge of the Tourists with Rajan Datar
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Here's a fun tip for you, a simple one. This is Trevor's travel tip.

Like any like seven, eight hour trip or whatever, you can sleep in a chair. Buy yourself one of those. No, no, no. Buy yourself one of those like head, eye mask holder things that keeps your head up. I promise you now, I've done this multiple times. You sit in the chair, you lie back, you lock your head in. That's the key because otherwise it screws up your neck. It will be one of your best trips you've ever taken. Says the man that has never flown with a four year old. Oh,

Okay, yes. You see now, you've included... That changes everything. You've added terrorists to your equation. There's terrorists on the plane. Yes, I mean, my plan is when I have kids, I'm not going anywhere. That's my plan. Because I've seen people travel... This will be another episode. Should parents be allowed to travel? Should children be allowed on planes?

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This is my favorite time of the year. I'm one of the few people who loathes the summer. And for those people who are listening in the Southern Hemisphere, I'm obviously speaking about the summer in the North. The North summer. Because in the wintertime, you have struggled during the middle of the year. No, yeah, I...

I love this time of year because it's like, I think summer's too crazy. People are too wild. It's too hot. It's too, I'm Goldilocks. I like it just right. You know what it is for me? I'll watch white people and it's predominantly white people. We always joke about this with like my friends from the Caribbean and stuff. White people will go out as soon as the sun is at its peak.

White people go outside and they just lie there. They just, they just like, you know what I mean? They just like lie there and bake. No tops. And they just, they bake, they just bake. And then I've seen people putting on oil and I'm like, wow, it's one thing to not fear cancer. It's another thing to invite it. Like he's just going to put like cooking oil on your body. But yeah, I'm, you know, this is, this is us. The summer is over. People are finally like calming down. Reality is coming back.

And for most places in the world, this is also when they experience a reprieve in tourism. And that's what today's episode is really about, tourism. Is it time to shut it down? And as I said that sentence, cities all over the world, many cities started cheering. Yeah, shut it down, Trevor, shut it down. Yes, shut it down. We need to shut it down. People are sick of tourism.

One of the craziest examples we witnessed this summer happened in Barcelona, Barcelona, España, where tourists who decided to spend their hard earned money to go have a romantic getaway in the beautiful Catalan city were met with what you can only describe as the most vicious,

terrible, and yet funny protest ever. I don't know if you saw this. Did you see this on TikTok? I saw the videos. Can you explain? There were people sitting. So people were sitting in cafes. If you haven't seen it, you should go watch. People are sitting in little restaurants and little cafes on the side of the road. And I mean, all these protesters come.

And they're like, go back home, go back home, go back home. And I can only imagine you're sitting at this little restaurant and you're like, huh, I wonder who that's for. I wonder what that is about. You have no clue that this swarm of protesters is coming for you. And they arrived there and they pointed little water guns and started spraying everybody in the face. Of all the ways I could be protested against, someone spraying me with a tiny little water gun is the most adorable form of protest ever.

That shows we've lived in America too long. Because we're like, you know it could get a lot more intense. It won't be water guns, sweetheart. So we're like, this is so cute. You're just like, wow. I bet some American tourists were like, oh my God, there are guns that have water in them? Oh my God. Wow, what a change. What a delightful change, honey. I told you Europe was special.

Yeah, it was. So the story blew up all over the world and people were like, wait, what's going on? Why is this a big thing? And it was a big thing because, you know, the residents of Barcelona, including the city of Barcelona, have said, we're done. We're sick of tourism.

We don't want this anymore. Everybody needs to go back to where they came from. Just stop it. And they weren't the only city. I mean, Amsterdam has said that they want to restrict how many people come to their city now. They want to like lock it down. Places all over the world have basically said that this is like, we just, we're done. Like actually in London,

How do you guys feel about tourists? Because London's one of those places where people actually live in it. Yeah. But it's like, it's packed. It's literally littered with tourists. I mean, depending on who you ask, fortunately, unfortunately, I grew up in South London. No one comes there. It's a part of town they're like, you may want to avoid. Yeah.

That's funny. So it was only when I went to the center of town you'd see a lot of tourists. But it'd be weird for me to go to London and not see tourists. They're like so... They're like the extra character. It's like watching Sex and the City and they're no longer in New York. And hearing Amsterdam made me feel sad because I feel like going to Amsterdam is a rite of passage for like...

a young person in Europe will go. That's literally what they don't want. They don't, they're sick of your rites of passage. All you Europeans who want to go and rite of passage and smoke weed in the Netherlands, they're like, no. And go to the red light district just, you know, as a field trip. Like, that makes me a bit sad. No, they're just, they're just done. They're just done.

I'm excited because today we're also going to be chatting to somebody who's an expert in tourism. We're talking to Rajan Datta. He's not just somebody who's traveled extensively, but he actually, he works in this, he works for the BBC and, you know, travels the world doing journalism in and around tourism. And what I love about having this kind of job is that

you don't get to occupy only one mindset. You have to think like the people who live locally, but then you also have to think on behalf of the tourists, and then you have the cap of journalist and documentarian. And actually, actually, Rajan, maybe you can tell me, like, in your travels, 'cause I've seen some of your clips from your shows,

I know you can't say this when you're on camera, but are there times when you've traveled and seen tourists in places and thought, I'm sick of these dicks. These are a bunch of assholes who should not be traveling through any of these places. Because I know you can't say that on the BBC. And you're assuming I can say it now, are you? Well, listen, the only time I laugh at tourists, I was in Venice to do a documentary series about overtourism.

And you overhear tourists saying, without any irony, there are too many tourists here. LAUGHTER

People say that all the time, right? Yeah. And it's like as if they're different, as if they're special. There's a kind of status thing about tourists, don't you think? We look down on other tourists, but we're different. Yes. We're travellers, as Anthony Bourdain, he would say, I'm a traveller, other people are tourists. Now, I totally understand that, but are we allowed to be so smug about other people?

Are we so different? I mean, I hate to say this, Trevor, but I do think that I am slightly different and you probably are as well. Yeah, I don't. So it's funny. I don't think of myself as a tourist. I find tourists have a certain herd mentality to the way they move. If you've ever traveled to...

you know, any part of Africa and watch like a huge herd of, you know, wildebeest or, you know, like just really pack animals, even cows. Let's just go with cows. Forget fancy animals that are in the wild. They just like move in like an aimlessly sheepish, you know, it's just like...

And it's just like, where are we going? We're all going in the same direction. Everyone has their fanny packs and everyone's taking pictures of the same thing. And they're following the same predetermined path that everyone else would. And that for me is like a tourist. And do you know what epitomizes that?

The selfie. It's all about the selfie. It's all about getting the right selfie. Can I tell you a little story about Hallstatt in Austria? Oh, yeah, for sure. Now, Hallstatt is this scenic little town, a picture postcard perfect little town. It's got the mountains behind the Alps. It's got a beautiful lake, gorgeous architecture. It's got less than 800 residents, but it's got 10,000 people at its peak coming a day.

And adds up to more than a million a year. They actually at one point... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go back on that. Okay, so they have less than 800 residents and they have 10,000 people a day. Yep. And do you know why that is? It's all based on a slight myth that the town, the village, is basically... You know Arundel in Frozen? Yeah.

There's this misconception that it's based on this town, Hallstatt, in Austria. It's not. They think it's from Frozen. Lots of people think it's from Frozen. So they bring their daughters dressed up in princess dresses and stuff. It's very sweet, but the local residents are absolutely furious. And going back to the point of the selfie, they at one point tried to block off, fence off the most popular selfie spot to

to stop people going there, but then the locals complain because they couldn't see the gorgeous view. If I lived in a town of less than 800 people and one day I wake up and my town has 10,000 strangers, half of whom are dressed as Elsa, I would take the most extreme measures to counter this. Like,

I would basically become a Disney villain essentially now that I think about it. I would, I would round up the townsfolk and I would say, we need to turn this place into a nudist colony for like six months. Cause Disney doesn't do nudity. I think that's the only way you fight it, right? You just go like all of us, we're going into the streets, dicks out. I'm of the opposite view. I come in on the other side. I'm like, if you live in a town with 800 people, that's like the most boring place on the planet.

and you get 10,000 new people to see every day. A day? I mean, towns with like 800 people, they just get into like opiates and incest. Like, nothing particularly. Oh, this is Austria. This is Austria, not Cleveland. What are you talking about? I'm just like, maybe it's the Londoner. I mean, this is...

the problem? I'm such a city girl. I'm just like, more is better. No, more people's better, more traffic. It means more money. It makes your town more interesting. The problem is a lot of them are little girls in princess dresses. And as, as the mother of a little girl, that sounds like my idea of personal hell. However, they bring their parents, they bring their grandmothers. Sounds better to me. It

You're right about the money aspect. Obviously, it's a huge boon to the local economy. Apparently, only 22% of the people who live there actually work in the tourism economy. The rest of them don't. And when I spoke to the mayor, he said, yeah, it's great, except we want half of these people to come. We don't want, you know, at the very most, we don't want this many because they're walking in their back gardens sometimes to take selfies. They're walking in the graveyard. Who are those kids? Yeah.

Those are the kids I want to meet. The kids who go to graveyards to take selfies dressed as Elsa from Frozen, that's my kind of kid. Yeah, it's day trippers. You know about this. They don't like day trippers because day trippers don't stay overnight. They don't buy meals. They don't put anything into the local economy and they just pack the streets.

Scrubs. They don't want no scrubs. That's what it is. This is what it boils down to. You don't want scrubs. So help us understand, though, like...

Is over-tourism a new thing? Is this acutely blowing up because of COVID? Like, did everyone stack up their money and now they're traveling? Or are we just finding out about it now because of social media? It certainly started, I suspect, in the 90s. Some of the causes are, for example, cheaper travel. Low-cost airlines transformed an awful lot. The internet transformed an awful lot because suddenly the world was globalized. You knew about new places. So the...

And then the number of people who can afford to travel is also rising. Then when it comes to the pandemic, there was something after the pandemic.

called the called revenge tourism that's what they label it revenge tourism so people who've been somehow deprived by nasty people who invented this infection from traveling they're going to get their comeuppance because now you're going to travel and not just travel like once a year but travel three times a year just to make up for it because this year will be the most the highest number of travelers ever in the world the most biggest year for tourism ever is this year

And that's happening. That's a fact. Barcelona was an interesting one. You know, Roger, I don't know if you did any work around that because this was one of the stories that I feel like this year in particular, especially this summer as we look at it,

It was the story that sort of brought this conversation to the fore, not in an academic way. You know, like before, whenever people would talk about over-tourism, it would be like, you know, the Galapagos Islands have struggled for so long. For each tourist, one cubic meter of carbon monoxide and wear is inflicted. And you're like, I don't know what any of this means.

And Barcelona was the first place where the locals came out with concrete, you know, concrete ideas that they put out on social media. And I guess, you know, TikTok is the one new evolution. Tourists said, hey,

You come here, you flood our restaurants. The restaurants raise the prices, so we can't eat there anymore. The food isn't even good anymore because now they're trying to cater to how many people there are. On top of that, this was my quaint little street, and now you flood to it because it is quaint, and now you make it not quaint, but this is where I live. From the things that the locals were talking about, I won't lie, at first I was like, you guys are ungrateful, these are tourists. And then when they went through it, I was like, man, how would I feel

If I lived somewhere, how would you feel if you lived somewhere like this is your home, your home, home? People forget that. Like you, you, you go like, that's, that's why I live here is because I don't want to be where this is happening. And now it's found me. That's exactly right. You know how I describe it. I say locals feel like extras in their own movie.

They're basically pushed to the side. They can't, they can't afford to live there. So you get horrendous stories like in Ibiza about the chef who has to live in his own car just so he can work in the restaurant. Obviously local locals are priced out because of the, um, Airbnb's, you know, the short stay rentals, all that contributes. And essentially it is about ultimately about people, locals and tourists competing over the same resources.

To me, that doesn't sound like an issue of tourism. That sounds like an issue of government, of a lack of rent controls, of a lack of social housing so a chef doesn't have to live in his cab, right? And it seems to me that like tourists...

it's particularly American, Australian and British ones who are like the worst tourists, if we're honest, become this easy scapegoat where you can say it's because of you guys that I have this problem. And I'm like, well, isn't it the mayor? Isn't this something your legislature should be dealing with? Because even if the tourists vanish, I don't believe the restaurants are going to bring down their prices. I don't believe the landlords are going to bring down their rents. So you get where I'm coming from here, right?

In fact, some people hate the word overtourism because it seems to place the blame on tourists for being there too many of them. No, overtourism is, you're quite right, it's bad management.

It's greed as well. It's basically saying, look, let's get as many people as we can in. Who cares about the consequences? If it turns into a theme park like the center of Barcelona can be, so what? We're still making loads of money. But there's another thing called leakage. Have you heard of leakage? Where most of the money in some places that a tourist will spend somewhere actually doesn't stay in that destination.

Because the company quite often is a multinational corporate, could be an airline, whatever. So, you know, it's no win for the locals either at all for that reason. That's one of the, I would say that's probably one of the issues that people don't know about and don't think about is that as the world has become consolidated, the money doesn't stay in a city. So back in the day, you know, like let's think of like London or many places like it, even New York, right?

If you were traveling around a bunch, you were in a taxi and the taxi money went to people who had started taxi businesses in that city. The drivers lived in the city, the cars got serviced in the city and the company, and it wasn't even small like pockets of companies that were in the city. So the money was within the place that you spent it.

And then now if you travel somewhere, you get there, you get an Uber from the airports, you get to the place, you stay in a hotel and you stay in a chain that is owned by a global conglomerate that has now absorbed everything. And then you go out to eat and then maybe you go and buy some McDonald's or maybe, you know, your kids want to buy something that they're familiar with and they're not eating in other countries. There you go. Yeah. There's Starbucks in every country. So everybody goes and gets some Starbucks.

And then after that, people are like, oh, I need to get some, I didn't bring a top. I didn't, let's pop into Zara. And before you realize it, all the money that you've spent, let's say you've spent $100, 100 pounds, 100 euros, 100 whatever currency in that day, you've spent it.

You find like that money is no longer pumping up the local economy in the same way. And I wonder if that's like an insidious side of it that the locals and maybe the city officials don't even think about. Does that make sense? It's like this homogenization across cities. Like it's very rare. I go to a city and this is Lagos and you're like, this is entirely unique place in the world. And I'll never experience something like that. I'm talking about these types of tourist hubs, right?

I don't know. I just find that they all replicate each other. And that leakage just doesn't affect where the money goes. It actually affects what you experience when you get there. When I was in Shoreditch, I was like, this is like Berlin. You know, like kind of like there's like if you go to a coffee shop in certain neighborhoods. And I was like, oh, this also reminds me of downtown LA. And it's pretty much the same everywhere you go. That's quite popular. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

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Like if I was having this conversation with, I think, any of, you know, my African mothers, aunts, etc. A lot of them would also ask the question, you know, sort of to what you were saying, Rajan, is they'd be like, they'd be like, but why were they advertising? They told us we must come to Barcelona. They told us we must come. They are the ones we did not know about Barcelona before they told us. So now they are complaining. But you told us to come.

Because it's true. It's like, I don't know about Marbella. I don't know about, you know, all these other places. You advertise it. So, you know, not to victim blame, but... I would say, hang on though, just separate the marketing teams, if you like, or the big advertisers, the big commercial companies who obviously, yes, do sell the dream, sell the idea, come here, you'll have the best time of your life.

with the locals who aren't necessarily part of that marketing machine, who didn't necessarily do that. I mean, when I first went to Barcelona, for example, it was word of mouth. A friend of mine said, you've got to come here. It's really brilliant. You know, it's cool. Yeah.

then it became a product, then it became commoditized, fetishized, whatever you want to call it. It became, you know what I mean, something that everyone had to do. And back to your point, Cristiano, it was never managed properly. It's been not properly regulated, essentially. And now it's a bit too late in some places and their very local culture and the fabric of the city or the destination is being damaged, undermined.

Like I've seen this in South Africa, for instance. I've seen how in some parts of South Africa, we've done an amazing job with our tourism in locking it into like the local. So we go, here's a game reserve. Here's a safari. You're going to come, you're going to see animals. You're going to experience something you've never seen before. Like South Africa has some of the best tourism in the world. I know I'm biased, but it's true. And what some people have done really well is they've gone, this land is

belonged to people. This land is still occupied by people. And so what we're gonna make sure is when you come and do your tourism, your tour guide is earning money because he's a local. The person who lives on this land is getting, they're getting some of your like tax because they're locals. And so whenever they see you, they smile, not just because they're seeing a foreigner, they smile because they see somebody who's contributing to their quality of life. They smile because they see somebody who's leaving an indelible impression on them that goes beyond just

Right.

Rajan, I'm really curious. Is there anywhere you would say this is an example of well-managed tourism? There are. I mean, unfortunately, they also tend to be quite expensive. So Copenhagen, have you heard of what's happening in Copenhagen? They are basically offering you rewards for being a good tourist. So if you clean up and tidy up and if you, I don't know, if you don't use plastic or something, anyway, if you behave well,

you get a free coffee or maybe more. But how do they know this? Is this like a Danish guy following you around?

Like how do they monitor my good tourism behavior? It's funny because I was just there. I was just in Copenhagen doing shows. Like this was, I don't know, maybe like a month or two ago. I was there. Nobody gave me any rewards. I didn't make a mess. I think it's just started. Where's the reward? It's called Copenpay. Oh, right after I leave. Because you left. Copenpays it's called.

And they're doing something similar in Oslo as well. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned Oslo. I'm a TikTok addict. And you're geolocated wherever you go. So I'm swiping and I got a come to Oslo ad. So I'm like, it's not that smart because I'm already here. But the entire ad was about...

there are no lines. You may run into the king. The food is great. It's relatively cheap. They were like selling Oslo to me. And I'm like, oh, there are places that are like, would love the Barcelona problem. But it seems that like our tourists aren't dispersed in the right way. It's kind of, it's like lopsided. It's either they're all going to one place and they're ignoring other places at

kind of desperately want them to come and do want that injection into their local economy. I think you're absolutely right. There is an interesting other side to this, though, because part of the reason for this explosion in tourism is that there are new markets, okay, opening up. So, for example, Chinese tourists,

The numbers of them suddenly exploded about 10, 15 years ago. And they became, I think, the biggest single traveling nation. Now India are doing that because, again, you've got people who are newly kind of a little bit moneyed. They've got disposable income. They can now afford for the first time to travel. Now, if you're going all the way across to Europe...

You can't really blame them for wanting to go to see Venice and Paris, the Eiffel Tower, and then maybe Florence, maybe London. You know, the usual suspects. You know, I can't blame them. But now I think, oh, so now the Chinese and Indian got some money and we're like, don't come here.

come anymore. That makes me think it's the type of tourists, not the actual tourism. If we're saying it's just like people from the Far East now have a high disposable income, we're like, oh, close the barriers. There's too many of you. I actually think therein lies one of our solutions. We should actually say that these places should shut down their tourism

to all Europeans and to all people from Western countries, because you've done it now. You've had your time. You've seen the thing, okay?

Now it is Africa's chance to come and see what was built with their resources. And it is India's turn to come and see what was built with their labor. And it is China's turn to come and see what people use their technologies for. Because like, you know, it's one thing to be colonized. It's another thing to be colonized and then go and see and be like, oh, look at that. You're like, it wasn't so bad. Look what they did with our gold. Oh, look at that church.

Ah, my great-grandfather was enslaved, but look at the craftsmanship. Ah, ah, ah, what a beautiful, beautiful thing. There is a silver lining to every cloud, eh?

Can I ask you, each of you, where do you think it does actually work? It's respectful to the locals. It's a really distinctive, interesting experience. And it feels like the balance is right. Okay. So where do I think they've got it right? I think Tokyo, I

might be one of the best because the city is designed in such a way, it's designed to contain a large amount of people. But even then, they've really managed to find a way to keep Japan being Japan in those parts and still have like a ton of tourists at the same time. Yeah. So if you'd asked me this question five years ago, I would have said without a doubt, Accra.

Um, it's kind of, it's like, I think it's the home of the global black diaspora. You can see the historic with the door of no return. You've got great hotels, lovely people. Um, the food is amazing, but you know, that this is, this is, can you, before you carry on, can I, can I just pause? Sorry. I,

I thought it was an earthquake, but it was a Nigerian complimenting. I know, I know. Wow. I'm going to get cancelled by my people and my family. That was a, for a moment I was just like, is there another Accra that I don't know about? I would say Accra, like one of the most wonderful places on earth. However, because of the

president and lots of initiatives. There's a thing called Dirty December, which is every Christmas, people from across the diaspora land on Accra. And what it's done for the locals is meant braiding your hair is super expensive. Food is super expensive. They're being pushed further out. My perspective is somewhere that does it really well is Sydney.

And it just is like, it never seems that busy. However, I think it's because it's so far that like there is like there's kind of like a cap to the number of people who are going to make that journey. Also, I've got to say, if you make an effort and you go there and you talk to the local people, you talk to the right place, you do a little bit of research beforehand, you will find amazing things in every single destination in the world.

Because a lot of it is about people and how you approach people and how you prepare for your trip. You shouldn't look at a trip or holiday as a transaction, as a consumer transaction. It's got to be more than that, if you like. Don't just go there for the quick thrill. Go there in a sense, almost in a kind of Buddhist sense, with the whole sense of feeling comfortable.

That you're lucky to be there. It's gratitude. You're a guest in their country, in their culture. And I know it does annoy me sometimes when people think, well, I just go there and I'm expecting some amazing thing to happen to me. Passively. You've got to make it work. You've got to be proactive. Rajan, I love that idea.

as like a very noble and virtuous thing to go into traveling with. I think the difficulty for me and I just speak as a millennial is that often,

often how I pick a place, I'm such a basic bitch, is social media. It's because there's like a travel influencer or a friend I followed and it's like a really nice hotel and the pool is good and they go to another restaurant and they take a picture of the food and I'm like, the food looks good. So I'm going into it expecting to be titillated because I have a hard life. I've got kids. I work really hard. Give me pleasure. Like, I don't want gratitude. I want just like pleasure and to feel a bit tipsy. Like, I think

because lives are so hard and most people are traveling to escape and they want to feel really good and...

social media and that kind of really clashes with this idea of this kind of very Buddhist and virtuous gratitude. I want to respect your country because it's like we do go to take, unfortunately, and I'm speaking for myself here. No, the one exception I would tend to make for that rule that I just, well, that kind of attitude I just gave was if you have a young family. I don't. Do you ever have some kids? No.

I don't blame you if you've got a young family for going to an all-inclusive hotel in Marbella, wherever you want to go, and just stay in that hotel. Don't go out. The kids are happy. They're playing in their swimming clubs and whatever they do. And you can actually relax. I get that. I get that. I've been there. So, yes, this is possibly for somebody who's got a little bit more time, because time is a big thing here, to take this attitude and to be like this. So where do you think the responsibility lies then? Do you think...

You know, when you hear stories, like let's say in Bali, for instance. Yeah. You know, Bali's become one of the most popular destinations for remote workers now, which is a new type of tourism where people aren't just popping in for a day. People aren't staying for a week. They're sort of living there, but only...

only for the periods of time that they need to live there. So you see people becoming these, what do they call them? Digital nomads, right? That's what they call people now since the pandemic. And so now people go, "Hey, I live in Bali for six months of the year. I do my regular job. I earn my income from my own country. And I'm basically living like a king in Bali because I earn in a foreign currency."

And then the locals in Bali say, "Hey, we like some of this, but you know, like now housing is slowly starting to creep on us and the locals can't afford to live anywhere near to where they work or where they live their lives." And then some of the people even complaining about like the tourist part of it, they go, "All our temples have turned into attractions. You know, it's like we live in Disneyland. This is where I actually pray. Like I actually, actually pray. And you're coming in here being like, 'Oh, can you take another one? My chin looks fat in that one.'"

Do you think we should be pushing tourists to be more conscientious or should the locals or these countries be saying, hey, this is what you are allowed or not allowed to do when you come to our country and this is how it should or shouldn't be?

Well, I think there are two sides to this. The first one is what you said. Yes, quite. We have personal responsibility. But the other side of it is definitely, you know, the locals should be saying, and the government, local government there should be saying, these are the rules. I mean, Amsterdam is eventually doing that now. So don't come here, you Brits on stag nights and do what you do. Don't come here. You know, that's it. I think there's other things that local authorities can do, like stopping cars from coming in to city centres, suburbs.

reduce parking, use much more public transport so that people have to come in through with buses or trains, which is healthier for the ecosystem and everything like that. So there are methods doing, and the ultimate one is if it's actually worse for locals to live there, there's something wrong. Yeah.

It's a really complicated one because I don't know who the quote-unquote asshole actually is. Yeah, there's just this inherent tension in traveling that you really can't avoid because wherever you're going to is somebody's home and homes have rules. You know, there's some homes that's like, take your shoes off at the door. And you're like, but I don't want to take off my shoes. But they're like, no, take your shoes off at the door. And it's this delicate dance and I don't think we've got it right because I think the issue is that most people...

The tourists have the upper hand because they have the capital. For the most part, if you can travel, it's because you have disposable income. Sure, there are people they save up for a long...

but most people are pretty affluent. They've got a lot of money and they want to throw it around. You know, I'm myself like, I'm like, I want to buy this bag in Paris, even though there's a store down the road in LA. But you're like, no, I want this. I want the experience of like a Parisian sales associate who's going to be rude to me. However, I bought this bag at the,

the original store, right? So tourists, we come with a certain entitlement attitude and amount of money. And I don't see most tourists bending and being like, oh, we're going to modify ourselves to the local rules because that's not what you go away for, is it?

Maybe, okay, maybe I have a pitch because, you know, Christiana had this on one of our previous episodes. It was like, we have these fun episodes, If I Ruled the World, and it's really just like thought experiments. And Christiana's one was, which was unanimously voted on, which never happened. Everyone agreed with her. And the idea was everyone should have to travel. It's mandatory. Your governments sponsor it all around the world. It's like free. You have to go somewhere. And the reason behind it was if you don't travel,

you will always have a limited view of the world. And it's like, you know, then how do we find that balance? Because on the one hand, we're saying to people, hey, travel, don't be ignorant. Go and see another way of living. And then when you get there, those people are like, go back to where you came from. Leave us alone. We don't see our way of living. It's like, so how do we balance that? I would say, try and be a conscious traveler.

act like somebody you would act like in your own personal space with your friends and your neighborhood. But I would actually argue what you're saying might actually be the problem. I would argue the problem in Amsterdam is the fact that the English tourists who come there are acting English. And I mean this truly. I think people are going to places

being themselves. We were taught the opposite thing. And that is, when you go to somebody's house, you do whatever they're doing. Like I grew up in a Christian family, but whenever I'd go visit my friend's house and they were Muslim or they were Hindu or they were Buddhist or whatever it was, my mom would say to me,

when they pray you put your head down and you pray with them and i was like but mom we hate buddhists and she'd be like but you're in their house and they're praying and she'd go like this is not the time for that you respect their culture and if they pray like this you pray and when they burn incense you also going to burn incense with them and i was like but mom we are we are in an existential war against these people the lord has commanded us i was very religious when i was young i was like i was like we're gonna

I was like, we're going to ride the chariots of Jericho and burn everybody else who's not Christian. But my mom...

despite being as religious as I was at this time, my mother would say to me, "No, when you go there, you are in somebody else's house. Your job is to adapt as quickly as possible." And so I wonder if the solution is the other way around, is to say to people, maybe it's like you do driving tests. Maybe you should have to do tourist tests before you travel. So you go, "I'm traveling to Japan.

And then they go, before you come to Japan, here's a little test you have to perform. If you are in a restaurant and your friend tells you something funny, do you A, laugh? Do you B, laugh and then say something back? Do you C, nod your head silently and ignore it? Or do you D, not go to a restaurant with a friend? You should travel everywhere alone because it's rude to be with other people in a restaurant because it makes more noise. And then if you pick D or C, the Japanese are like, okay, you can come in because we don't want people

laughing in restaurants. We don't want people being loud in restaurants. So please, you know what I mean? Maybe that's the solution. We test people before they go to countries and the country, you have to assimilate to what the country wants before you're allowed to be a tourist there.

Do you know what? There is a country a little bit like that, which is Bhutan. Oh, Trevor loves Bhutan. I've been to Bhutan. Tell me, isn't there an element there of respecting local traditions? Yeah, so you see, Bhutan is one of the more interesting examples in the world because Bhutan is a country that exists in...

in one of the most precarious positions, right? You have a country that witnessed like every country around it sort of get taken over by a larger power. And Bhutan exists in the space where it's like, we want to remain Bhutan. They've said, look, we understand that there are many benefits to tourism. We understand that there are many benefits to globalization and expanding. But they said, but also we understand

that this tap that you open of tourism is very difficult to close once it's open. And so what we're gonna do is we're slowly gonna open the tap and start with a drop, go to a drizzle and then see where we go from there before this thing just turns into a fire hose. And so it means you have a country that's like trapped in time

Which, ironically, makes it the darling of many people who go there, you know, especially white people. White people love that shit. Let me tell you something now. White people are like, oh, my God, I wish everywhere was like this. But what also happens in that scenario is that the reason those Westerners, by the way, partly love Bhutan is because it's exclusive, right?

It's like they're special. They're different as well to go there. They can afford those, you know, the quite expensive taxes to go there. Not many other people go there. And in their defense, I'm not even saying they're assholes. The thing that they're appreciating is the very same thing that many Bhutanese people wish to move on from. The people of Bhutan are like, yeah, but I wish there was a mall. So I think there's like a, you know, there's a tough balance there in like,

How do you lock it down? Because I think it's a lot harder for a place like Bhutan, you know, to recover from what happens in Barcelona. Barcelona is, you know, they're Barcelona. It's what, 12% of their GDP? You know, so Barcelona can fight against tourism and be like, ah, we'll figure this thing out. But if a place like Bhutan lets everybody in, their GDP can quickly become all tourism. And then they may be like addicted to the, you know, to the drug that they've taken a sip of.

We'll be right back.

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You know, there's something special about coffee, especially when it's from Starbucks. It's more than just a beverage because it helps me connect. Whether I'm catching up with friends or just taking a breather with Christiana, what do I love most? Well, it's the passion and the craft that they put into every cup. You can taste the care in every sip, and trust me, that matters.

For me, it's those connections over coffee that lead to some of the most interesting conversations, sparking some of the best ideas. It's a great day for coffee. It's a great day for Starbucks. After this. Maybe this is another question.

Do people have the right to be tourists? Because sometimes we make it seem like a right, you know? And I know, I know it's a risky thing to say because, well, A, I know I can afford to go anywhere. So I know it's risky, but should everybody have the right to travel? So even when we say, oh, but it's so hard for people to go to Antarctica. Then it's like, yeah,

Should everybody have the right? I believe in the right to travel. I believe we're global citizens. This is where I've become a bit woo and crazy. Oh, goodness. Here we go. I really do believe in that thing about I wish every citizen of the world had the opportunity and was funded by their government to go somewhere else. Because it just also means you look at home differently. Yes, but I'm saying should you have the right to go everywhere? Yeah. But my view is that like why...

I'm a product of colonization, right? And I'm just like, so now we're saying... The worst kind of travel. The worst kind of travel. The worst kind of travel. That was the original over-tourism where they really took it too far. I think stop.

Starting with Barcelona was crazy because I'm like, look, a lot of people speak Spanish that shouldn't be speaking Spanish. And it's because of a certain type of over-tourism and overstaying your welcome. But my view, honestly, is that I think traveling is a right. In a world where we are so close up and borders have become so fraught and people are at war with each other for different reasons, I do think that there is...

even like a spiritual pursuit of travel. Like I think it makes the spirit better. And I think that should be anything that makes humans better should be a right, in my opinion. I mean, I think the issue is that there's this fine line between the right to roam, if you like, the right to travel freely, as we all should be able to. But compared to a right to a holiday or a right to go somewhere. Is that the same as the right to shelter? The right to water? The right to

you know, whatever. It's not on the same scale, is it? It's different. No, I think, yeah, it's kind of like, you know, Maslow's hierarchy. It's somewhere like, it's very highbrow and up on the top. But I honestly think travel has been the thing that has made my life so much better. And I do think it makes other people's lives

Even if it's like you go to another country and you're like, my home is the best place on earth. I'm never leaving again. I think that's a valuable thing to experience. I think for most people and most travelers, it's an issue of literally, I can get to Paris. I can get to Venice. I can in Barcelona. I can see the things I want to see. And they will just go there in herds, as Trevor was saying earlier. It's mass tourism. Don't forget people in Barcelona, thousands are being, and all these places, are being disgorged

from cruise liners coming into the city, all going to see Ramblas or Sagrada Familia or whatever it is. They will go to the places that's the most obvious. So it's the Anthony Bourdain trendy cool types who want to see the other bits. They may set a fashion, which in 10, 20 years may lead to more people going to somewhere. But I think on the whole...

You know, we may laugh at them, but they are doing a good thing because they're doing what's called dispersal. They're spreading people out and taking them to new areas. They're the minority. Like the hipsters, backpackers. Backpackers, by the way, I'm a big fan of. There's this whole saying in the new thing is value, not volume.

A lot of the money that backpackers spend goes into the local economy because they use the smaller shops. They don't buy and spend, stay in big hotels. Yeah, they use like the laundry around the corner. Exactly. They go to a local hostel. Absolutely. And they travel by public transport quite a lot as well, which is also healthier for the local environment. So, yeah, it's a quandary about, you know, how you traffic this, how you try and guide people to certain places. Okay, I have a pitch. I have a pitch.

And Rajan, I want to see if you like this because you are learned and you are fair, unlike myself. What about this for a pitch? Why don't we make it a lottery system worldwide and not everybody can go to the country they want to go to? It's like ranked choice voting. So you're going to put all the countries you want to go to.

It's going to put you into a system and then it'll be like, yep, you have been given access to Japan. Oh, actually, no, you, sorry, you haven't been successful for Japan. You can visit Rwanda or nope, you didn't get Rwanda. You can't see the gorillas. You're going to get access to, you know what I mean? Like Mauritius, the Maldives, because then it'll alleviate everything.

Everyone going to the same place at the same time. And you go, everyone in the world has to have travel visas, but it's a lottery system. And we basically like spread the people out randomly. And like, you know what I mean? Yeah. What about that? 80% of people go to only 10% of the world's destinations. So that's, that would change that for start off. The other thing is there are, there are a few of us, and that probably includes us three who are traveling way more than your average person.

person in the world. Don't forget, don't forget half the world at least has never been outside their country. Here's two things to that. One,

I asked once on a flight, I was really annoyed, and I asked the flight attendant, very nicely though, I said to them, I was like, hey, don't you think it's time that we retire the safety briefing? I think people know how to fasten seatbelts now. And I think everybody knows how the masks work. We don't need this thing. And she said something to me that was fascinating, which was true. She said, actually, you'll be shocked to find that most people who are traveling, especially on international flights,

have not flown before or are flying for the first time. Like, you'll be shocked at how many of those people are actually experiencing this thing, you know, in a novel way. But the second thing, this is just a fun fact as an aside, the 10-20% rule applies to everything. I don't know if you know this. So, the same way you go, like, travel, let's say 10% of the people or 20% of the people are responsible for, like, 70-80% of the travel.

It's the same for ice cream. It's the same for candy. It's the same for clothing. No, I'm being serious. It's exactly the same. 20%, 80% of the ice cream in the world is purchased by 20% of the people. 80% of the fashion in the world is purchased by 20% of the people. It's a really weird rule, but like people overbuy, they over, like you will be shocked. If you like anything,

and you buy a lot of it, you are part of the reason the industry still exists. Everyone else just samples it. And so I guess tourism is the same. Now this makes me side with the people in Barcelona who were doing the booing because it's just like, these are people that travel everywhere and make everywhere bad. So maybe you should like...

spray them with water pistols. It's like, oh, now it's like, oh, it's the privileged elite, right? It's not somebody that that's the first time ever they've got on a plane or been able to visit Barcelona. This is probably someone that's been to Madrid, who's been to London, who's been to Hong Kong, who's been to Tokyo. This is what they do. So yeah, let's

Let's spray them with water. Also, your way, Trevor, actually is a lot fairer in the sense that as well is that because otherwise what we're going to have is basically people are going to be outpriced. In other words, only the very rich will be able to go to certain places. And this avoids that issue. I totally agree with you in that sense. Yeah.

It's a great idea. I like this idea. We just start a world lottery. And you know what? I think my idea would work. And you know, ironically, what will be the downfall is there's going to be one country that doesn't want to participate because they're going to get greedy and they won't be part of the lottery. And they'll get more people because they won't be part of it. And then other countries will back out and then we'll be back to Barcelona being overcrowded. And Trevor, this is the difference between the South African and Nigerian because my mind went to, no, you bribe to...

win the place that you won on the lottery. I was like, that's going to be the problem. People bribing so they get Butan instead of Rwanda. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Well, Rajan, thank you so much, man. I really, really appreciate you. Absolutely a pleasure. Lovely talking to you both. Thank you, Rajan.

What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jody Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now?