Elizabeth Becker, author of Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, joins Without A Path to talk about the industry’s impact around the world, from lessons to follow in Bordeaux, France to overcrowded destinations like Venice that could learn a thing or two from the French. She also discusses environmental concerns that come out of the tourism industry, namely the large carbon footprint left by the cruise industry culprits, such as Royal Caribbean International. Finally, we discuss how the travel writer fits into all of this and what the average traveler can do to ensure they’re traveling responsibly.
Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism is now available in paperback.
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REVIEWS OF OVERBOOKED
100 Places to Visit Before They Die by Joshua Hammer, The New York Times
“As Elizabeth Becker observes in “Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism,” her meticulously reported and often disturbing exposé of the travel industry, the world has gotten smaller — but not often for the better. A former…”
Elizabeth Becker’s ‘Overbooked’ reveals the impact of big business of tourism by Mark Vincent, The Plain Dealer
“Her intelligently written and fascinating book shows that while the lure of travel may be timelessly human, the modern tourist industry is ever changing, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better.”
New Book Will Open Your Eyes About Travel by Jonathan Tourtellot, National Geographic
“Author Elizabeth Becker has found a giant gap in journalistic coverage and stepped squarely into the middle of it. Even though it’s under our noses, beneath our feet, even in our happier dreams, rarely has the investigative story she recounts in her new book previously received the coverage it deserves: The rampant growth of travel and tourism.”
More reviews of Overbooked at ElizabethBecker.com.
RECENT NEWS ON TOURISM INDUSTRY
Cruise industry ‘failing’ environment and public health, report claims by Gavin Haines, The Telegraph
“The authors of a critical report that analyses the impact of cruise ships on public health and the environment have launched a withering attack on the industry and the organisation that regulates it.”
Venice Is Fed Up With Cruise Ships And Angry Protesters Are Blocking Them by Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes
“Venice is being crushed by mass tourism, according to Count Andrea Carandini, president of the Italian Environment Fund, the main non-profit organization in charge of the protection, safeguarding and management of the country’s artistic and natural heritage. ‘Venice now has a third of the inhabitants that it did in the 18th century,’ he said. ‘Yet it receives 22 million tourists a year. It is unsustainable. If things continue like this, the city will die.'”
