A New Type of “Tourism”

Used to be that tourism was a straightforward concept.  Those people with the economic means to travel would do so, usually after some amount of planning, to ensure a good vacation experience wherever they went.

Sure, there were always the outliers, people who struggle to fit in to society no matter where they are at.  But for the most part, tourists have always been appreciative people, who embrace the opportunity to learn about new cultures and peoples.

Enter “COVID tourism” with the dirt-cheap airfares and a close, easily accessible destination such as Puerto Rico… where English is spoken, and the local currency is the U.S. dollar.

Suddenly, a new type of “tourism” has been unleashed.  The quotation marks around “tourism” are there because in all honesty, what we have seen in Puerto Rico over the last few months should never be defined as tourism.

It is as if airliners headed to the island had been converted into flying garbage trucks, emptying their cargo at our international airport.  Again… I stress that not every recent visitor from the States fits this category.  But certainly more than we have ever been used to.

In July 2020, I wrote a blog article contrasting some cultural differences between the U.S. and Puerto Rico, in light of two ongoing stateside issues: the sometimes violent confrontations over the wearing of masks, and the aftermath of the George Floyd murder.

Little did I know at the time that the mask issue was going to become a source of confrontations with some stateside people in Puerto Rico.  It began slowly, as these things tend to do… and since then has increased in frequency and severity.

Local authorities, who understandably hesitate to intervene with tourists who are presumably helping the local economy, have had little choice but to crack down on the more rowdy and unruly tourists.  In today’s age of social media video, there is plenty of evidence to go around.

I saw a YouTube video from a “supposedly local” source, defending the tourists and criticizing the protesting locals, using all sorts of skewed logic to make his points.

To this person I say this: “A people’s dignity, respect, consideration, and sense of comportment… especially when visiting “someone else’s home”… is most definitely NOT for sale.“