As summer holidays come to an end, 50 Best has compiled its list of the World’s 50 Best Hotels in 2023.
19.09.2023 - 00:25 / bbc.com
This summer, every day seems to bring another headline of tourists around the world behaving badly.
Last week, it was two drunk Americans sneaking into a closed section of the Eiffel Tower and sleeping off their bender high above Paris. The previous week, a French woman was arrested for carving a heart and her initials into Italy's iconic Leaning Tower of Pisa. A Canadian teen defaced a 1,200-year-old Japanese temple last month, just after a Bristol-based man etched two names into Rome's Colosseum and told authorities he was unaware of the arena's age. And who could forget the German tourist who crashed a performance inside a sacred Bali temple and stripped naked – after having previously run out on the bill at several local hotels?
It feels like the whole world has forgotten how to act in other people's homes. But while this may seem like the summer of bad tourists, it could just represent a rather uncomfortable truth: as long as people have travelled, we've misbehaved.
From Pompeii to the Egyptian pyramids, some of the world's most famous man-made wonders are scarred with millennia-old graffiti etched into their walls by ancient sightseers. It's no secret that many of the world's "greatest" travellers – like Christopher Columbus and Hernan Cortes – were among its worst. And according to Lauren A Siegel, a tourism and events lecturer at the University of Greenwich in London, as recently as the 18th and 19th Centuries, it was common for British nobles taking the Grand Tour of Europe to belittle and disregard the people and places they were visiting.
What's different about this summer is we're increasingly hearing about bad travellers – and ultimately, this could be a good thing. With each new report of cringeworthy, tone-deaf or just plain disrespectful behaviour, our collective outrage seems to be rising, leading to what could just be a moment of reckoning for bad tourists.
In an age of heightened awareness about privilege and how we treat others from different cultures, this increased focus on entitled and boorish travellers may seem like a natural progression from other recent social movements. But experts suggest a combination of factors are driving bad behaviour abroad, and the newfound attention we're giving it.
According to Siegel, unlike in years past, many travellers today are competing for social media likes and views. "People are reverting to more extreme actions for their Instagram or TikTok feeds," she noted. Ironically, social media accounts like the massively popular Passenger Shaming are also being used to call out insensitive and disrespectful behaviour.
David Beirman, an adjunct fellow at the University of Technology Sydney, noted that nearly 1.5 billion people travelled
As summer holidays come to an end, 50 Best has compiled its list of the World’s 50 Best Hotels in 2023.
For generations, designers have adopted towns, villages, and other enclaves as second homes and visited them again and again, imprinting a touch of their own sensibility on their chosen place—and importing something of its essence into their own work. It’s the kind of symbiosis that Coco Chanel and Le Corbusier, who summered in neighboring homes, enjoyed with the Cote d’Azur’s Rouquebrune Cap-Martine, or Yves Saint Laurent with Marrakech and Tangier. More recently, Christian Louboutin popularized the Portuguese village of Melides, eventually opening Vermelho Hotel there earlier this year. Here, five designers on the places they go, and why they continue to be pulled back.
The Caribbean island of Barbados is preparing for an onslaught.
A cyberattack has breached the computer system at MGM Resorts, forcing the company to shut down operations at a dozen of the most iconic casino hotels in Las Vegas—including the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and the Cosmopolitan—as well as another half-dozen MGM properties around the United States. The attack has left hotel guests locked out of their rooms and unable to use their digital key cards to charge goods and services.
Ultra-cheap flights could be banned in Europe if a forthcoming proposal is approved by the EU: Officials in France want to set a price minimum on airfares across Europe to help reduce carbon emissions.
Overlooking the English Channel is a small resort town bedecked with freestone facades and half-timbered houses. English is heard everywhere, from the Art Deco Westminster hotel to the lighthouse, which, on the occasion of the late Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee, was lit up with Her Majesty's favourite colours. The bells of city hall chime in an echo of Big Ben, and it was just announced that the town's airport will soon be rechristened after Queen Elizabeth II.
This summer, Aperol Spritz has been flowing from the counters of the most enchanting venues in New York City, from the rooftop of the Independent Art Fair in Tribeca to the flamingo-themed new bakery on my Brooklyn block. In Singapore, you can take an Aperol Spritz bar crawl, and in Paris, it's now a fixture at most cafes next to the local pastis and kir.
A Swiss International Air Lines plane arrived at its destination without a single checked bag onboard.
The first written evidence of beer being brewed and consumed dates back as far as 4,000BC, with the ancient Sumerians believed to have developed the earliest known methods for creating the alcoholic drink. Its history and connection to human civilisation runs deep, and a number of today’s beers have their own remarkable heritage.
Balmy temperatures, fewer crowds and lower prices: Now is the perfect time to take a trip to Greece.
Despite its famously sepia-toned skies, England remains a perennially popular destination.
Peering out of my suite at Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik, a 19th-century hotel with views of the walled Old Town and the shimmering Adriatic just beyond, it was hard to imagine being thrilled to leave.