Top day of the week was not Friday, Saturday or Sunday when I grew up - that was Tuesday. Why you may ask, well that was when the weekly "Donald Duck" magazine was released. Officially it was Wednesday, but that's another story as my father then was the purchasing manager in a supermarket - and all weekly magazines arrived him the evening before to be ready for the customers the next morning.
This was one Tuesday afternoon; my father came home with the weekly dose of magazines together with food and more daily stuff in his supermarket plastic bag (non recyclable in those days). Me on his lap, well and ready for some new Disney stories. There are some, which still stick to ones mind, and one of these are the story about Donald going on a holiday tour to Europe. He purchased a package tour from a local tour operator, and from that moment nothing was the same again.
Well all had the planned holiday, apart from Donald. Through all of Europe's grand attractions he where always some seconds too late for the tour bus and his group. It happened in Paris, Pisa as Rome - and he hardly saw the scheduled monuments, busy running after his package tour bus.
It was not there and then I decided that I would later become a travel professional, but I knew when Donald's journey was over, that this was a way I never would travel. I have kept my promise to myself all my life, never have I travelled on a package tour - never do I plan to do so either. Yes I have been manager for some charter tour operations, but then my focus was always to develop these as far from "assembly line tourism" as possible.
Learned the tricks of the trade - as if you have 47 passengers in a bus with 52 seats, you don't count the people but the empty seats to see if someone is missing. Even had my "Donald D." who once got lost (- but happily turned up the next morning only with a hang over…).
Still I get an extremely uncomfortable feeling when I see groups walking around monuments with a shouting tour leader or guide in front. All of them with blank eyes and name badges - like sheep's on their way to the sacrifice alter of mass tourism.
Make me wonder what the catch is - is it that the offer looked like a cheap tour, or the need of a group feeling in a new country? Sure, all of these people marching around like small kamikaze armies on way to their Pearl Harbour - they must have a normal life at home. Go shopping at the closest supermarket, goes to a cinema and have a work in normal surroundings? I do hope so - they just give me that Tuesday afternoon travel blues feeling, as what will they ever brings with them home? Stories about Bob, Tom and Jerry - or something from the country they actually did visit?
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