THERE IS HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
During the General Strike in the UK in 1926, Idris Davies (1905 -1953) the former miner (at the age of 14 he worked in the Mardy Colliery until an accident forced him to leave the pit) began to write. He refereed to this period as “the long and lonely self-tuition game” - a feeling shared by many of us around the world today. In 1938 he published a collection of poems under the title of Gwalia Deserata (The Wasteland of Wales) that included ‘The Bells of Rhymeny’ whose opening lines are:
Oh what will you give me? Say the sad bells of Rhymney.
Is there hope for the future? Cry the brown bells of Merthyr.
Highly prescient as I am sure you agree and made more so because Jacob Dylan (Bob Dylan’s son) has just released a documentary and associated album called ‘Echo in the Canyon’ about the life and lives of the creative community that made Laurel Canyon their home in the late 1960s (see previous blogs). One of the songs in this collection is ‘The Bells of Rhimney(sic)’ which has been covered over the years by many, including Sonny Boy Terry in 1957, The Byrds, Cher, Judy Collins, John Denver, Tommy Macken, Jimi Hendrix, The Alarm, Bob Dylan and, most famously, Pete Seeger (who visited Idris Davies’ mother in Wales to pay homage to the poet).
Davies’ work was not fully appreciated until T S Eliot (author of The Wasteland) at Faber and Faber published ‘Gwalia Deserata’ calling it “the best poetic document I know about a particular epoch in a particular place”.
Hope for the future is fast emerging from those countries around the world where there has been a strong, determined, well-informed and focused leadership throughout the pandemic. New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland and Croatia are all standouts of countries moving towards the significant opening up of their tourism industry. From these pioneers we are all able to learn lessons.
Best practice guidance on post-COVID19 recovery for tourism businesses are now available from Failte Ireland, Visit Denmark, Visit Wales, My Switzerland and others whilst individual hotel groups are setting the pace, notably GB Thermae Hotels in Abano-Montegrotto, Italy (www.gbhotelsabano.it) and Sava Hotels and Resorts, Slovenia (www.sava-hotels-resorts.com)
Domestic tourism will be the salvation for most countries in 2020, irrespective of how quickly countries are able to re-open borders and establish travel corridors or bubbles. As a result, there are some fine examples of Governments providing incentives for their citizens to spend time and money on ‘staycations - from Jacinda Adhern’s call for New Zealander’s to use this awesome opportunity to explore their own history and amending the education curricula accordingly to Slovenia’s gesture of giving every adult (1.7m people) a 200 Euro voucher to spend on a stay in tourist accommodation in their own country.
Big issues still remain to be tackled in every destination ranging from managing tourist flows and local capacities; the equitable distribution of support measures and managing the new geographies of travel; the development of appropriate leaders and retention of talent and skills; and, the potential to design happier, greener, safer, better experiences for tourists and the host communities.
We must now be immersed in a wave of social and design experiments to find new ways of travel and living. The fragility of our past ways of working have been exposed.
COVID has simply accelerated trends that were already evident. Interestingly ‘travel’ and travail’ have a common origin as does ‘hospital and hospitlality’. The word error comes from a Middle English word meaning ‘to wander’ or to go astray (ipso facto ‘ a mistake’) and as Homer says “Nothing is harder on the mortal man than wandering”.
It was Henry Miller however who said, “Our destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things!”.
This has to be the mantra for the tourism industry and it puts a whole new meaning to the title of my new book ‘Wish You Were Here’.
