If I were to undertake another PhD I think I would like to study the ways in which guide books determine the views that foreign visitors have of the places and countries they visit. It would need to be a comparative study, looking at guides written for a wide variety of national groups, because it seems to me that there must be huge differences in what is suggested as worth visiting, and in the presentation of places, to different tourist constituencies.
I can think of no explanation other than guide books and the related offerings of travel companies for the fact that tourism in the Swiss village of Wengen and the surrounding Jungfrau region has a remarkable proportion of Indians. I have never experienced such a preponderance of tourists from that origin anywhere else in Europe. But then, thirty years ago when I first came to the Bernese Oberland, I was surprised to find, in Grindelwald, menus in Japanese for the first time in Europe. I have since got used to seeing large parties of Japanese tourists in many other parts of the continent - along with increasing numbers of individual Japanese travellers who are not in groups. But big Indian groups are a novelty to me.
Grindelwald, Wengen and the Jungfrau region certainly count as some of the top European destinations for tourism - and I can willingly confess that I have been drawn back to the area many times over the years. The Jungfraujoch is the highest railway station in Europe, and a journey up to it on a fine day is a memorable experience (as is the hole burnt in the wallet by the price of a ticket). But something that surprises me (observing from a comfortable room next to the railway line in Wengen) is how on days of dismal weather Japanese and Indian groups still crowd the trains. They will see little other than snow at Kleine Scheidegg where they have to change trains for the last section; they will emerge into the observation tunnel cut half way up the north wall of the Eiger to be surrounded entirely by mist; and at the very top they will doubtless find themselves in freezing cloud, with no views down to the glaciers, and little to take their minds off the altitude sickness that a proportion of them will feel. Yet I guess their guidebooks have told them that this is an absolute 'must' in all circumstances.
Wengen is perched on an alp, several hundred metres above Lauterbrunnental, and is accessible only on foot or by rail. There are no cars in the village, which is almost entirely dependent on tourism. The importance of Japanese visitors is seen in the fact that they have their own tourist information office. But is this so surprising? When tourism started in this region of Switzerland it was the British who led the way and were the predominant group right into the post-war period. There is an English church in Wengen (and another down in Interlaken at the gateway to the Jungfrau region). And why did the British come here? Because the John Murray guide told them to.
What would also be interesting in a study of guidebooks would be an analysis of places they do not cover. A few years ago I was in the Dolomites in Italy and was surprised to find that my fellow hotel guests were dominated by Americans who hardly featured elsewhere in the region. They all seemed to be following a similar itinerary and one evening I asked to look at their guidebook - by Rick Steves. It purported to cover the whole of Italy. Yet about 50 pages were devoted to five tiny villages in Liguria which Steves obviously regarded as a 'must see'. (I agree that these five - the cinque terre - are interesting, but 50 pages seemed rather a lot). The only place recommended in the Dolomites was the hotel I was staying in - apparently because the owner was very friendly and spoke good English. And Steves made no recommendations whatsoever for anywhere south of Rome. For him, and those using his guide, Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Vesuvius, Sicily, Sardinia, Apulia and so on didn't exist. (I note that his web site does now include mention of some of these - but the cinque terre still take up a remarkable amount of space.)
And Steves didn't exactly educate his readers either. One evening I commented to one of the American guests that the peacefulness of Castelrotto / Kastelreuth (the Dolomite village in the now-bilingual Alto Adige / Süd Tirol region where we were staying) was gratifying after the conflicts of the past. She looked alarmed - "Has there been a war round here recently?" she asked. It became clear that her guide book hadn't even led her to realise the language(s) used in the village, or anything of the fascinating cultural and political history of the area. To her she was in a comfortable, safe environment where Rick Steves told her exactly what to do, and where she could live in an American bubble.
Yesterday I caught the Swiss postbus down from the Trümmelbach Falls to Lauterbrunnen - to then take the train back up to Wengen. I would guess that about 90 of us jammed on to a bus designed to take around 30. Most on the bus were Indian. I asked the Swiss man next to me whether this was usual. His answer - "Yes, it's always like this. It must be something in their guidebooks."
I can think of no explanation other than guide books and the related offerings of travel companies for the fact that tourism in the Swiss village of Wengen and the surrounding Jungfrau region has a remarkable proportion of Indians. I have never experienced such a preponderance of tourists from that origin anywhere else in Europe. But then, thirty years ago when I first came to the Bernese Oberland, I was surprised to find, in Grindelwald, menus in Japanese for the first time in Europe. I have since got used to seeing large parties of Japanese tourists in many other parts of the continent - along with increasing numbers of individual Japanese travellers who are not in groups. But big Indian groups are a novelty to me.
Grindelwald, Wengen and the Jungfrau region certainly count as some of the top European destinations for tourism - and I can willingly confess that I have been drawn back to the area many times over the years. The Jungfraujoch is the highest railway station in Europe, and a journey up to it on a fine day is a memorable experience (as is the hole burnt in the wallet by the price of a ticket). But something that surprises me (observing from a comfortable room next to the railway line in Wengen) is how on days of dismal weather Japanese and Indian groups still crowd the trains. They will see little other than snow at Kleine Scheidegg where they have to change trains for the last section; they will emerge into the observation tunnel cut half way up the north wall of the Eiger to be surrounded entirely by mist; and at the very top they will doubtless find themselves in freezing cloud, with no views down to the glaciers, and little to take their minds off the altitude sickness that a proportion of them will feel. Yet I guess their guidebooks have told them that this is an absolute 'must' in all circumstances.
Wengen is perched on an alp, several hundred metres above Lauterbrunnental, and is accessible only on foot or by rail. There are no cars in the village, which is almost entirely dependent on tourism. The importance of Japanese visitors is seen in the fact that they have their own tourist information office. But is this so surprising? When tourism started in this region of Switzerland it was the British who led the way and were the predominant group right into the post-war period. There is an English church in Wengen (and another down in Interlaken at the gateway to the Jungfrau region). And why did the British come here? Because the John Murray guide told them to.
What would also be interesting in a study of guidebooks would be an analysis of places they do not cover. A few years ago I was in the Dolomites in Italy and was surprised to find that my fellow hotel guests were dominated by Americans who hardly featured elsewhere in the region. They all seemed to be following a similar itinerary and one evening I asked to look at their guidebook - by Rick Steves. It purported to cover the whole of Italy. Yet about 50 pages were devoted to five tiny villages in Liguria which Steves obviously regarded as a 'must see'. (I agree that these five - the cinque terre - are interesting, but 50 pages seemed rather a lot). The only place recommended in the Dolomites was the hotel I was staying in - apparently because the owner was very friendly and spoke good English. And Steves made no recommendations whatsoever for anywhere south of Rome. For him, and those using his guide, Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Vesuvius, Sicily, Sardinia, Apulia and so on didn't exist. (I note that his web site does now include mention of some of these - but the cinque terre still take up a remarkable amount of space.)
And Steves didn't exactly educate his readers either. One evening I commented to one of the American guests that the peacefulness of Castelrotto / Kastelreuth (the Dolomite village in the now-bilingual Alto Adige / Süd Tirol region where we were staying) was gratifying after the conflicts of the past. She looked alarmed - "Has there been a war round here recently?" she asked. It became clear that her guide book hadn't even led her to realise the language(s) used in the village, or anything of the fascinating cultural and political history of the area. To her she was in a comfortable, safe environment where Rick Steves told her exactly what to do, and where she could live in an American bubble.
Yesterday I caught the Swiss postbus down from the Trümmelbach Falls to Lauterbrunnen - to then take the train back up to Wengen. I would guess that about 90 of us jammed on to a bus designed to take around 30. Most on the bus were Indian. I asked the Swiss man next to me whether this was usual. His answer - "Yes, it's always like this. It must be something in their guidebooks."
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