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.