The Parisdox

Cities built over hundreds of years aren’t meant to be understood over tens of hours. And yet, every year places around the world draw in international visitors looking to taste the real flavor of a city. The average worker in the US receives 10 paid vacation days and in Europe, 20. Even spending all those 240 to 480 hours immersing yourself in a destination, it would be difficult to fully capture its essence. But still, people flock to destinations international and domestic in the hopes of finding a city’s soul. What happens, though, when a city is too successful at drawing such people in? In becoming successful in tourism, a city risks losing itself in the throngs of people it entices.

Take the case of Paris. Paris has long built up a reputation in the collective imagination of the world as a hub of culture, romance, and art. For centuries, it has drawn increasing numbers of travelers to its streets to bask in the cultural glow of the City of Light. According to French news agency France 24, France has been the most visited country in the world since the 1980s. By attracting so many tourists, however, Paris has placed itself in an interesting position. As with other destinations the world over, many of those that visit the city come not to discover it, but rather the idea of it that has been spread across time and the globe. They come for a tourism of expectation rather than a tourism of exploration. And so, through this interplay between tourists’ expectations and the necessity, at least in some ways, of catering to them, the city ends up embracing a semi-fabricated ideal of its place around ‘tourist areas’ in order to feed visitors what they want – leaving people feeling disconnected from the rest of the city. The World Cities Culture Forum’s profile on Paris states that, “… as the real city spilled out beyond its historic core, adapting and diversifying, the Paris of the imagination became fixed. Reconnecting the two cities will be an essential part of realising the potential for Paris to thrive in future.”

This distinct rift between the perception of Paris and its reality, the new and the old, means travelers whose minds arrive packed with preconceived notions are left unopen, unwilling, or unresponsive to the real beauty of the living city around them. Instead of taking the time to get lost in their new surroundings, they seek out what they expect, what they came for. But sometimes, it takes getting lost to find out where you really are. By refusing to acknowledge the present Paris, they place the city into her own street side catacomb – looking only for a city that has passed with the ages rather than at the one currently evolving around them.

Another facet of this massive tourism industry is that the scene and feel of the city is implicitly changed by the presence of these droves of people. They come to experience the city, but the moment they step out of the plane it is inherently different due to their presence. These masses of tourists are not locals, and thus instantly detract from exactly what it is they are looking for. Another example of this phenomenon is embodied by ecotourism, which is specifically aimed at minimizing impact in the locale, conservation efforts, and preserving wild spaces, yet by being there, it is impossible not to have an impact and it is by definition no longer a wild space.

With talk of the imminent removal of the Cuban embargo, allowing U.S. citizens to legally travel to the country for the first time in 54 years, many people are insisting that now is the time to travel to the island. “As the island’s veil of mystery is slowly lifted now that the Obama administration has re-established relations with the Castro regime, American travelers with a taste for forbidden fruit can finally experience the reality of life there — before the inevitable McDonald’s opens in Havana’s first mega-mall,” writes the New York Daily News. This scramble to experience the ‘real’ Cuba before it is stormed by seekers of sun, sand, and cigars, ultimately pumping the economy full of tourism money, also mirrors the paradoxical search for authenticity. People want to experience the time capsule the island is portrayed as, to see the streets filled with colorful 1950s Cadillacs, and step back to that era, yet every dollar they spend there makes it less and less possible for someone else to do the same. Eventually, tourists will have to understand that their money is going towards helping thrust the country out of an economic rut, one it cannot be expected to remain in simply for outsiders’ enjoyment. Travelers, as is ultimately the case with all destinations, will need to embrace the natural changes places cycle through and travel not for a concept, but for new experience.

There is no easy solution to the question of ‘authenticity’ in travel. It means striking a balance between a place’s culture and its economic needs, the desire for legitimacy and the power of outsiders to effect change – a compromise that is as challenging and nuanced as the world itself.