Do we alway want more tourists?

Costa Rica has long had a reputation as a model of eco tourism. They had gone for high paying tourists instead of mass market bargain chasers and, in doing so, had managed to build up their tourist dollars and create protected conservation areas without having to build vast sprawling resorts. Other countries that had taken the opposite approach watched ruefully at the Costa Rican tourism scene gently developed.

But no longer. The country seems to have changed tack, opening its coast line to rampant and often unplanned development.
This article shows the sort of damage that tourism can do when greed is involved, and where quick profits are pursued over long term sustainability. The Spanish Costas have suffered a similar fate - the only sort of tourism that their wrecked, overbuilt shores can support is low-end and bargain, bringing only a trickle of income to the local economy and leaving little room for conservation. Countries that are just beginning their journey into tourism have many similar examples from which to learn (areas such as Goa, Thailand and the Med), so it's a massive shame to see history repeating itself. It couldn't be further from the whole philosophy of 'slow travel', which we think offers the most poetic alternative to this madness.

More on B&Bs Under Fire

This is going to run and run: Fire Regs and the world of B&B. I hope it is more helpful than tedious.

The latest story is of a B&B in Suffolk that has now had four visits from the Fire Officer, each one costing hundreds of pounds in alterations, such as re-hanging a door or blocking up an entrance.

Meanwhile, the B&B in the South West that kicked this story off is now threatened with closure unless it installs £000s of computer-based kit - during the height of the season. She may have to close.

It is entirely possible that Fire Officers all over the UK are out of control and the whole system needs to be revised. (Many of them, upon retirement, set up installation services, strangely enough, and become Fire consultants.) They are almost certainly being 'disproportionate' in their application of regulations to small B&Bs. I have heard of one who forced a B&B to close on the spot - at huge cost in lost business - in order to fit a couple of fire doors.

Any further thoughts out there? What would you do in my position? Of, more to the point, what would you do if you were a B&B owner threatened with closure after you ahve done a respectable Fire Risk Assessment and consider your house to be utterly safe?

The end of cheap flights?

posted by Toby Sawday

News would have it that the US airline industry, the world's largest, is struggling to stay afloat as the new price of oil adds $30 billion to their total annual fuel bill. Airline closures are predicted and industry analysts forecast major economic ripples across a country that relies heavily on air travel to connect its disparate towns and sprawling economy.

Are these the first signs of the unravelling of the aviation industry as we know it? What starts in America will, no doubt, spread across the pond and we can expect to see climbing prices for flights and, perhaps, a shift in travel and tourism patterns.

There had always been a whiff of madness about the sort of short-haul, pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap tourism that had been driven by low-cost flights. It was so dependent on a source of energy that was being devoured like never before by the emerging middle classes in Indian, China et al, but which had also reached its peak of production.

Tourism that is 'light' on energy use is more insulated from spikes in energy prices or changes in exchange rates. So, fostering a healthy domestic tourism scene that doesn't rely on air travel not only avoids the carbon emissions associated with long-haul voyages, but goes some way to avoiding the risk attached to relying on a single energy source whose price is so fickle.

We made a decision in recent months not to promote any more long haul destinations, but to focus instead on European places to stay. And we plan to work hard to promote those places to which you can travel by train. We made this decision for environmental reasons, but it now looks to have been a prudent decision for other reasons too. Let's just hope the dreary British summer doesn't drive people onto planes in spite of the new prices.