tourism

Juhani Palmun alla. Palmu nimeltä Juhani. Lajien synty, synty lajien./Fu-tourist. Travelling is a performance.

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Fu-tourist (does it sound like I have a flu?)

Fu-tourist

Future of change, I wish and work for change, to change, for a change, give me some change, change a tune for a change, change clothes, change the way you walk, change the way you live, change the way you talk, change the way you sleep, change the way you have breakfast. I think about it so much it has become a mantra and I begin to play with the thought of change. The word what it means to me, what it means to anybody. It is difficult, because for me, it is a necessity and a self-evident part of life. As I see it people are afraid of changes especially those which demand us to give up something. Changes may have an ominous tone in them. Silent doom, change is absolute, change is fear, change is fearlessness, change is good and bad, profitable, there is a thought of profit in the word. To change there must be something to gain, there must be an end and a new beginning, something good. Economically it can be wise to learn to give instead of taking, but in the light of everything, what happens now in the world, it looks like things do change rapidly, one way or the other. To demand the world to change for better is a cry. Is it a too common a phrase to be taken seriously? What kind of attitudes there are in general towards changing habits, attitudes, altering ways of knowing and looking, eating, wanting and doing. It is requiring substantial volume to make dramatic changes happen. A lot of energy focusing and learning. I say dramatic because changes to make our ways of living sustainable and wiser need a total turnover. That means a lot of work, not looking for easy ways out. There aren’t any.

Fu-tourist

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Future of Change. I wish and work for change, to change, for a change, give me some change, change a tune for a change, change clothes, change the way you walk, change the way you live. I think about it so much it has become a mantra and I begin to play with the thought of change, the word, what it means to me, what it means to anybody. Is it difficult, because for me it is a necessity and a self-evident part of life. As I see it people are afraid of changes, especially those which demand us to give up something. Changes may have an ominous tone in them, a silent doom. Change is absolute, good and bad, profitable. There is a thought of profit in the word. To change there must be something to gain, there must be an end and a thought of a new beginning. Also economically it can be wise to learn to give instead of taking.

But in the light of everything

what happens now in the world, it looks like things do change rabidly one way or the another. To demand world to change for better is a cry. Is it too common a phrase to be taken seriously? What kind of attitudes there are in general towards changing habits, attitudes, altering ways of knowing, looking, needing, wanting and doing? It is requiring substantial volume to make dramatic changes happen, a lot of energy, focusing and learning. I say dramatic because changes to make our ways of living sustainable and wiser need a total turnover. That means a lot of work. Not looking for easy ways out, there aren’t any.

How to become a unicorn?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

Dear tourists, you who escape and fly to beautiful resorts and wish to enjoy fantastic exotic natural clean environment, warmth and relaxed atmosphere to do things you do not do at home, experience and see something extraordinary for this extraordinary be part of you. What is fun is a very personal feeling, a choice, a preference, interest, way to experience, a matter of what kinds of things turn us on and give us joy, pleasure and make us feel alive, what we want to show of ourselves and be like. To go far away is to feel alive and become experienced, cultured, having had the luxury, being privileged enough to have had the time and money to travel. Idea of travelling is important, choosing where one wants to go and why, as leaving is refreshing, renewing. It is part of the enjoyment of travelling that responsibilities are left behind. While travelling one can use something and discard it, there are people who clean it after you.

My proposal is to renew the idea of the everyday tourist. Consider the amount of waste you produce. Consider how you travel and where. Clean the beach before you sunbathe. Reconsider the idea of fun and experiencing. Think what is your purpose as a traveller, what is that place you go to, purpose of travelling for you, purpose of you to that place, taking the time to go as a person who can. What kinds of things you pay attention to and why?

2001 Barcelona was visited by 3,37 million tourists. How many tourists visited the city 2017?

| Henna Timanttimetsä

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/27/barcelona-cracks-down-on-tourist-numbers-with-accommodation-law “Last year the city’s 1.6 million residents were heavily outnumbered by an estimated 32 million visitors, about half of them day-trippers.”

We all agree travelling is exciting. Maybe moving around is expected of us. It is fun leaving our everyday lives behind and go on an adventure, an essential part of lives of modern people and what comes to taking photographs, it is to take the city with you, where we have been, how was it to go there is part of the experience. How we think about the problems we face during and how effortless a trip must be, stressless. We can share the experience by showing our shots and talk about the trip, own it, having been there is a possession and an add-on to our lives. How does travelling change us is an interesting question as it is said travelling broadens horizons of ours and our perspectives. It is also an experience to those locals who can experience the tourists, visitors, those who come and go. The thing is what do tourists do and give other than a money flow, what is the cultural heritage there as tourism is a cultural issue, it is culture and we do it because of culture, because of the culture of travelling. Question is what motivates us? We want to know more or we just want more in comparison to others? Do we go back to our normal lives with something extra special which makes our lives better or is it a sigh as a relief that going away and leaving is possible? Maybe having done something we cannot do at home. To take a trip when mood is to get loose we may do the forbidden, go over limits of behavioural rules which we do not cross at home. It is interesting what we think about our freedoms and rights as travellers, travelling lords or the prohibitions that there are when going and do we take them into consideration, what is the respected issue when travelling. It is the traveller. Going overboard freeing body and mind completely is something connected to travelling. We become more experienced and fluent in travelling, our lives more fuller via being able to move freely, be able to decide for ourselves where we can go, enjoy ourselves, look around and wander. Do you go to see the hotspots, the sights or do you see places that are more outside that normalcy? How do we do travelling and how much effort goes into taking a trip is what we want of a trip. Do we just go on a whim and how much is left at chance? How do we choose our destinations? The more important the city the more important we feel? Grandiose, history, story of the city, what the city adds on us as we go there. To feel more elevated, part of the city, part of energy a city has is to feel alive.

This means travelling is one of the most positively felt activities for modern people. It is an organic part and an expectation that everybody does it, takes part in this excess, luxury and freedom. It used  to be something only rich people could afford and enjoy, enjoy exploration and become civilised. It is seen only as a positive thing by cities who want to lure more visitors. Mass tourism does not get much critique or when it does it is an insult against those who say the money-making industry is so important and lucrative there is nothing wrong with it. How can anybody be against such good money, how can anybody be against tourism, tourists and travelling which is a good part of modern lives, it broadens thinking and educates people. If this was the case we would have really broad minds and educated individual everywhere. Surely you know better already. Lessons here are cultural. What do we learn via travelling to strange countries? As cultural education seems to be more like glued on and the emphasis is on the experience, my question is what really changes people? To gather items such as photographs from our trips is to collect an altar to worship our egos. What is the lesson there one might ask. Sure we learn how to move. Do we learn how to see differently or do we repeat something, repeating a way to travel, how to see, how to think?

Taste of luxury for mass of tourists (Let’s make love at love museum and make love babies who love art. Oh let’s. I hope the surveillance camera is on.)

| Henna Timanttimetsä
Tourists bring luxury with them as they spend their money and experience luxury as they do traveling. This is the assumption when tourism is seen as a good thing for a nation and for tourists, them as something who wish to be educated and given experiences, events, emotions, impressions, senses, thrills and so on. To travel is to broaden one’s mind and is seen a good thing for the individual for the economy of places where people want to go. Luxury of telling what one has seen and experienced, where one has been and what one has done is big part of joy and privilege of traveling. Being able and afford to enjoy time at distant location where there are lots to see or to get drunk and have so much fun, be somebody else than what one is normally in everyday life. To promote tourism as a good thing and a money-maker is cynical, consequences are also something else than just good and fabulous. The claim that traveling is a good thing itself broadening minds and educational activity is true to a certain point, up to a point. Climbing a mountain is heavy and metaphor for conquering something bigger than oneself, beating obstacles on one’s way to the top. Such status symbols as tourism bring we all should be able to afford and when we don’t we do not belong to group of privileged. It is good to travel and one is ignorant if one does not do it. A show off and mostly nothing else but mountain of garbage.

Have you ever been, have you seen and experienced kindness of local people there, oh, you should go. All the things we should be doing as contemporary civilized people. Been there, done that is trophy culture of people who do not have anything else to boast about. In this picture idea of museums bringing in tourists somehow fits but somehow really does not. Museum for who exactly, for tourists.. give me a break.