This disembodied head sits on a small patch of grass next to the quirky but charming CitizenM hotel at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport (AMS).
Behind it: the Schiphol Mortuary.
I was walking to the hotel behind a couple who also stopped to take a photo. And then overheard the man say to the woman: “Well, dear. If I die tonight at the end of this trip you can leave me here and get a refund on the return part of the ticket.”
Not sure if that’s the way it works, but I thought the statement was alarming, romantic and creatively frugal all at the same time.
And maybe even a good travel tip?
Perhaps because it’s the Halloween season. Or maybe it’s the fact that my early morning flight required an even earlier and very dark walk past the disembodied head. But I was really glad that my view out of my tiny hotel room was onto the busy airport street and not out to the … mortuary.
Other airports no doubt have mortuaries as well. And we’ll ask the Stuck at The Airport life and death team to do a roundup. (Let us know if you’ve seen any).
But in the meantime, should we make the Schiphol Mortuary the Airport Amenity of the Week?
My story this week for CNBC is about overtourism, which is taking a toll on some of our favorites cities and some of the world’s most beautiful places. Take a read and let me know what you think about the remedies being put in place.
Several recent events, incidents and widely shared
images have brought the issue of “overtourism,” and its economic, environmental
and human consequences front and center.
For three days in April, ten popular tourist sites in
the Faroe Islands were
closed for maintenance but open to volunteers who came to create
new walking paths, construct viewpoints, erect signs and rebuild ancient
cairns.
At the end of May, the Louvre museum, the home of Leonardo
Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa painting and a must-do for any visitor to Paris, closed
for one day after a walkout by workers who complained
about overcrowding.
In Venice, where there’s a movement to ban cruise
ships from disgorging thousands of tourists into an already over-visited city, the
MSC
Opera cruise ship rammed into a dock and a tourist
riverboat on June 2, injuring 5 people.
The image broadcaster and adventurer Ben Fogle tweeted
of a
long line of climbers hoping to reach the summit may
bring a limit to the number of hikers allowed on the mountain. Some have suggested
a lottery; comedian Conan O’Brien joked about a Disney-style Everest Fastpass.
Good news, I just got my Fast Pass for Mount Everest.
Around the world, tourism
bureaus and governments are taking steps to combat the wear and tear overtourism
is creating.
And not all these actions
are brand new.
“In the 1980s, the
government of Bhutan implemented sustainable tourism policies by following a tourism
model of high value, low impact,” said Erika Richter, spokeswoman for the
American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA).
Instead of capping
visitors at a certain number, as in the Galapagos, Bhutan charges visitors a daily fee of $200 during low season and $250 during high season.
“While
the daily fee for visiting Bhutan may sound expensive, it covers most costs
in-country including accommodations, food, guide, driver and entrance into
festivals, making it quite reasonable,” said Beth Whitman, owner of WanderTours, “It also deters hordes of backpackers and
budget travelers, which is exactly the government’s intention after witnessing
the effects of tourism in nearby Nepal and India.”
In Peru, visitors need a
timed ticket to visit Machu Picchu. Overcrowding recently
moved officials to begin selling timed tickets for Barcelona’s
Park Güell.
Other cities have rolled out campaigns to cap and control tourism
as well. Some try to tackle not only the influx of tourists, but their manners.
In Amsterdam, a city
of less than one millions residents which hosts more than 19 million tourists a
year, the tourism bureau is trying to direct visitors to out-of-the-center
neighborhoods and to other Dutch destinations.
The city’s “Enjoy & Respect” campaign reminds visitors, especially young people between ages
18 and 34, that while Amsterdam is an “open, creative, innovative and tolerant
city where the limits of what is allowed are wide,” public urination, littering,
singing loudly and other bad behavior is
not allowed in the city and will incur big fines.
In addition to voting
in entry fees for tourists, the city of Venice has adopted a Detourism campaign which encourages visitors to go beyond the usual tourist
sights. A daily tourist report alerts, with tips on behavior from the #EnjoyRespectVenezia
campaign, alerts locals and visitors alike to how congested the streets, canals
and attractions may be.
To encourage visitors
to go beyond crowded Reykjavik, Iceland’s tourism bureau created the “the A to Ö of Iceland” campaign, challenging visitors to head
for other parts of the country.
Tourists are also directed to the Icelandic
Pledge, which asks visitors to respect the landscape. Among the
vows: “When nature calls, I won’t answer the call on nature,” and “I will take photos
to die for, without dying for them.”
Elsewhere,
highly Instgrammable destinations, such as Jackson Hole, Wyoming are welcoming
visitors, but asking them not to geotag their photos.
“The geotagging campaign is not meant to exclude or discourage visitors
from enjoying photos and Instagram posts,” said Kate Sollitt, Executive
Director of the Jackson Hole Travel & Tourism
Board, “We are simply asking them to think before geotagging certain remote,
pristine areas that may be difficult to get to or are being overrun.”
The role of
tourists and travel advisors
Guarding against
overtourism isn’t just the responsibility of governments and tourism agencies,
says ASTA’s Erika Richert, “Although governments’ involvement may hold the most
power, there’s also a place for tourists and travel advisors to do their part
in responsible tourism.”
The challenge is
finding the tipping point between checking off the must-see destinations on
many people’s wish lists and adding to overtourism.
In
addition to urging travelers to choose small cruises that are less overwhelming
to a community, the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST) suggests
travelers avoid already overcrowded in favor of less-visited destinations offering
similar scenery and experiences
“You can’t suddenly say one day that tourism is closed,” says Jessica
Hall Upchurch, Vice Chair and Sustainability Ambassador for the Virtuoso network of luxury travel advisors, “What you can do is be transparent
about it and offer solutions. Because at their core, people want to do the
right thing.”
It’s Souvenir Sunday, a day to take a look at some of the fun, locally-themed and inexpensive items you can buy when you’re stuck at the airport.
This week’s treats come from one of my favorites: Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
If you find a great souvenir at an airport, please snap a photo and send it along. It may be featured on a future edition of Souvenir Sunday here on StuckatTheAirport.com.
September, when all the college kids and summer tourists clear out, might be a good time to go.
And if you do, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has what may be a fun – free – travel gadget for you.
For travelers going to Amsterdam in September, KLM has created a “Care Tag,” which it describes as a smart audio luggage tag with a built-in offline GPS module and a speaker that automatically provides verbal tips (recorded by KLM crew members) on how to travel in the city.
KLM says the tips include alerts on busy intersections with a lot of cyclists, where and how to lock your bike, and when you should watch out for pickpockets, where to taste local food for free, where to see great street art, or where to rent a bike or boat.
How do you get a tag? KLM says passengers traveling to Amsterdam in September will be able to order their tag on line for free. The first batch of Care Tags will speak English, but Care Tags that speak Chinese, Portuguese, German and Russian will be available later this year.
I’m checking to see if just a speaker on the tags or if you can plug in a set of headphones.
And, while the Lost and Found pup was cute – but not real – KLM reps say the Care Tag is real thing.
Put the canal boat rides, flower markets, cheeses shops, (maybe some “coffee shops”) and tours of the recently-reopened Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House on your list.
But for a taste of Amsterdam’s more offbeat side, give some of these museums I profiled for Mashable.com a try as well.
Sex and drugs are covered in the Sexmuseum and in its kissing-cousin, the Erotic Museum, in the Red Light District, while there’s also a museum exploring the history of hash, marijuana and hemp.
Feline fans will adore the Cat Cabinet (Katten Cabinet) – a museum filled with artwork devoted to cats – while the Museum of Bags and Purses tells the story of pouches, pockets, clutches, suitcases and bags through the ages.
Micropia is a museum that tells the story of microbes and bacteria in a way that will have you rushing home to replace your toothbrush and kitchen sponges, while the Dutch Funeral Museum and the Museum Vrolik (a medical museum filled with anatomical anomalies) may leave you a bit shaken, but happy to be alive.
