Tourism Has a Dangerous Obsession With "Paradise." Here's How to Fix It.

“Paradise” is a marketing construction

To fully exploit this insight, the industry (which it was now becoming) needed to base its marketing around a conceptualized world where there were no problems and where tourists could easily suspend the reality of their lives. The obvious idea was that of “paradise.”

At the root of many tourism concepts lies the notion of paradise. The classic photo of the deserted white sandy beach, gently lapping waves and solitary palm tree is a representation of paradise. A world before people. A world where animals come to life and talk with children (Disney) and everyone is singing and happy is partly a manifestation of paradise — humans in harmony with the natural world.

Thailand built its entire tourism brand by adopting Shangri La, a fictional and harmonious place, assumed to be an earthly paradise in the Orient described by British author James Hilton in his book Lost Horizonas its identity. All those images of gentle Thai people, with calm inner selves and Zen-like attributes, is based on this.

There are several problems associated with the tourism industry’s addiction to representations of paradise. The first, of course, is that it’s a lie.

The places we call “paradise” have some serious problems.

Thailand, especially those places associated with tourism, has enormous problems with health, education, environmental destruction, drug use, and some shocking realities like child sex tourism and prostitution.

Behind that beach with its white sands live very poor local communities which, in some cases, are no longer allowed to visit the beaches that are reserved for wealthy foreigners. Overfishing may have denuded the water of its fish, or global warming killed its reefs.

Those animals you see talking with kids at theme parks? Some face extinction in the wild at the hands of man. There has never been a time when man is less in harmony with the natural world.

Of course, no marketer in their right mind who is trying to promote paradise would acknowledge any of these issues. Having created the edifice that is paradise it becomes impossible to tell the truth about tourism destinations.

This causes two further problems, one ethical and one commercial. The first is that the tourism industry (which in some cases causes many of the issues — like prostitution and child sex tourism in Thailand) that cannot acknowledge the issues also cannot mobilize their customers or any support to help solve them. Paradise becomes a giant road block in the face of which the truth, or any positive change, cannot be discussed.

The second is that tourists increasingly know they are not being told the whole truth (or lied to). Some don’t mind, and are happy to suspend reality as they head to paradise, but more and more find the deception uncomfortable.

We can do better.

Those that do choose to book and ignore these issues find it much harder to do so when they arrive in the destination and see locals fenced off from the beaches; talk to the maid cleaning their room about their lives; or try to answer questions from their kids who have been taught about conservation at school when they see tigers chained up for selfies or monkeys performing tricks for tourists.

With time, new types of tourism have emerged based not on “getting away from it all,” but on holidays to learn, try something new, discover new cultures, adventure, even volunteer to tackle social and environmental issues.

In developing and marketing these tours the tourism industry find it more possible, even helpful, to acknowledge local issues and to encourage tourists to think about the difference their holiday can make.

This type of tourism, called responsible tourism, is now growing faster than mass tourism and its outdated fabrication of paradise. While “getting away from it all” will always have some appeal the new marketing trends are around authenticity, experiences and responsibility.

It’s time some parts of our industry woke up from their utopian lies and faced new market trends and their responsibilities.

The author, Justin Francis, is the CEO of Responsible Travel.