We had almost forgotten their massive silhouette that clogs the horizon and crushes the houses of the port. The liners are back, in Barcelona, Marseille, Miami or Fort-de-France. Again, the population of the ship – comparable to a city of 3,000 people – hurries to the gateways to swear in the city and the surrounding area. The buses embark the passengers by cargoes of forty. The health crisis began on a boat, when the Diamond Princess inaugurated, the 1 er February 2020, in the Japanese port of Yokohama, the era of repeated confinements and dramatic quarantines. We had feared, then, a decisive judgment to this vogue activity, absolute metaphor for mass tourism and its poorly virtuous practices for the planet.
It’s not. Two years later, giant liners are full, like a whole sector that finds colors with surprising speed. Airports are overwhelmed, such as campsites, museums and hotels. Because travel and tourism, whether floating or terrestrial constitute much more than an economic activity: it is an aspiration.
In a society which, as sociologist Jean Viard recalls, only works 15 % of his life against 40 % in 1900, the journey touched the essence of the human being who needs to decently decently to regain. “Despite an ever greater ecological conscience, despite a return from the holidays closer to home, the desire for elsewhere and others will not leave us,” he wrote in the year of tourism (with David Medioni , Ed. De l’Aube, 168 pages, 17 euros).
An advantage: predictability
And elsewhere, it can be in a boat similar to a city that would be reserved only for leisure with its pools, sports halls, cinemas and restaurants, even its gardens. Urbanity without the stress of work, and in each wearing new landscapes. A city that works with heavy fuel oil and which also illustrates the risk of surfrequents when it pours 2,000 consumers suddenly in the alleys of Dubrovnik or Venice.
The promoters of this activity pushed the industrialization of tourism to the maximum. Illustration of the current paradox of a considerable economic sector, but often ill-loved and criticized for its nuisances. It represents almost 10 % of the gross domestic product of France – much more if we add culture – and constitutes the main activity of many regions of the globe.
This liner tourism, however, has an advantage: its predictability. We know precisely the circuit, schedules and dates, which allows fine management of flows. A form of optimization as do large museums and cities with quota and reservation systems. The opposite of the old -fashioned trip, nourished by unforeseen, and the ransom of the democratization of leisure.