Tourism has become an integral part of our western lifestyle and exerts a major influence on the built environment, social cohesion and climate change. Whereas travel used to take days and weeks and involved a lot of hardship and very high costs, it can now be done quickly and comparatively cheaply. Almost every corner of the earth can be reached in a few hours. At least for a small part of humanity. For it is estimated that only 10-20 % of the world’s population travel regularly in their free time.
For decades, tourism has been continuously intensified and has developed into a fast-growing economic sector. It has brought prosperity even to the most remote areas and thus prevented emigration. However, tourism also stands for crowding, increasing land consumption, gross environmental encroachment, social inequality and displacement of the local population through escalating housing and living costs. While a strong focus of tourism can be seen in some places, others are being left behind. Communities are ambivalent: on the one hand they benefit from tourism, are even dependent on it, on the other hand they increasingly perceive undesirable side effects.
The exhibition “Toourism” deals with the social, planning, ecological and economic aspects of tourism. The success story of tourism is addressed as well as questions about capacity limits.
What impact does our travel, holiday and leisure behaviour have on the environment, on local economic cycles and on the social fabric? How can we rethink tourism in times of climate crisis, war, the threat of further pandemics, a shortage of skilled workers and an ongoing energy crisis and steer it in other, more sustainable directions? What role do spatial planning and architecture play in this? How much rethinking and personal responsibility is needed, but also what regulations, prohibitions and bans? Successful local and international examples of tourism that no longer exclusively follows the mandate of growth provide new approaches and contribute to the central question: How can we imagine a tourism that no longer destroys what it lives on?
