To think that all holidays are essentially false curated experiences and that antipathy to people who go to Benidorm etc is just snobbery?

[Fuma]

The UK middle classes have long shown disdain for British people who go to mass tourism resorts like Benidorm and Magaluf, waxing lyrical about their own more "authentic" travel experience. But these travel experiences are still relatively brief, selective and involve at best fleeting glimpses of meaningful cultural exchange.

Indeed in many cases the experience that the middle class Northern hemisphere traveller has comes at great expense to the comfort, security and well being of the citizens whose country they visit - beaches protected by armed guards, luxury hotel staff living hundreds of miles away from their families with no running water and so on. Unlike the tourist in Spain who will generally be catered to by people on EU mandated wage scales and living with much the same amenities and protections as the people who visit their country.

So given that we all go on holiday to have a break from real life and experience existence in a temporary state of stasis, is it really so much worse for someone to choose to spend this time in a mock English pub if that's what they want to do?

If looking on in horror whilst people spend their two weeks getting sunburnt, surfaced and snagged by randoms is snobby, well then I am snobby. Massively so.

Middle class people also get sun burnt and drunk

I agree Op.
I also think you take the sort of person you are on holiday. The lout on a cultural road trip round France is still going to get hammered and want to watch the football in the bar. The middle class bloke in Benidorm would hire a car and look for a village to have a lovely lunch.
I didn’t rate P&O cruises ( shirtless, tattooed, drinkers men and eomenen) but enjoyed the bits that worked for me.
It’s just that you are allowed to be rude to people on holiday in a way you wouldn’t in other situation.

I want to experience a bit of the local culture when I travel to get a different perspective.

I have done the authentic full immersion holiday and it does have its challenges as you realise your cultural certainties are just one way of doing things, it’s not necessarily that relaxing. DH is North African and his family live on a small farm in rural Algeria. A couple of weeks there living with his family is very different from any holiday.

I do think it is a bit of a shame to travel all the way to another country and not try to understand and experience a bit of the local culture. However, I do agree that no holiday will be a totally immersive experience unless you are living with local people, eating what they eat, wearing what they wear etc.

What a strange OP I don't know anyone, other than travel journalists, who wax lyrical about their own more "authentic" travel experience.

These days I like renting a house or apartment in France, drinking lots of rosé wine and eating my own body weight in croissants, but I have also travelled to India years ago and loved it, I don't claim to be an expert in Indian culture though, even though people are very proud to tell you about it, and it would certainly be a wasted opportunity to come back having learned nothing new

I know lots of people who love going on holidays to places like Vietman or Costa Rica, and enjoy mixing with people from different countries and cultures. They do it because they like it, not to get one over on lesser mortals.

Is it snobby though?

An all inclusive holiday would be something I'd hate, whether a cheap deal in Spain or somewhere 5* on a Thai beach. I would think both are quite boring because they aren't what I'd enjoy. Other people like that and good for them, but it's not my cup of tea and I still think they sound dull.

Of course it would be rude to dismiss someones holiday or be rude to them because I wouldn't enjoy it.

And so @Vulpine? I'm snobby about the choice of activity, not the location or the class of person undertaking it. And I think it's a crying shame what has happened to some (once very nice) resorts, although I'd not blame the individual tourists for it.

Why on earth would you care how other people choose to spend their holiday? A vacation is about a break from the norm, being in a place you enjoy.

I wish somebody on holiday would rock up to my house. I have a magic pumpkin patch at the end of my garden, I’d love to show off

@SDTGIsAnEvilWolefGenius no, I'm just pointing out that Kelsoooo's experience is false curation also, albeit false curation of a different kind.

@AGermFreeAdolescent - exactly. The people congratulating themselves for living in a nice multicultural area because it has polish sausage shops throw their hands up in despair at the thought of Brits in Spain buying Marmite.

The UK middle classes have long shown disdain for British people who go to mass tourism resorts like Benidorm and Magaluf, waxing lyrical about their own more "authentic" travel experience

Do you hang out exclusively with Guardian columnists? Because I'm pretty middle class, and I don't know anyone who a) thinks like that, or b) goes on holiday to a third world all-inclusive beach resort with armed guards (and where the fuck are these resorts with armed guards? I have literally never seen that advertised in a holiday brochure).

Most middle class people I know do holiday in Europe, FWIW. Just not in resorts with reputations for rowdy drunks, regardless of nationality.

I’ll be honest.. what I want on holiday is nice weather, a beach, a pool, nice food, and a week off from cooking / cleaning / driving etc. What some people do on holiday sounds exhausting to me, and not at all relaxing. But I still love hearing about it, and I’m happy they’re happy iyswim.

You wrote that in such an incredibly pretentious way.

In what way is it pretentious? Because there was some punctuation, a lack of "should of" etc. and a couple of words you wouldn't find in Closer or Heat magazines?

That said, I'm not sure I really agree. I have been to certain countries repeatedly, sometimes for extended stays of several weeks or months, made friends there, learnt the language to a high level including slang and colloquialisms, learnt about the culture and history (both everyday customs and high art), and lived with nationals from that country.

I have been abroad as a volunteer rather than a holidaying tourist - again a very different experience from a package holiday.

I've been on package holidays and mainly met people who can't speak a single word of the local language and who wouldn't dream of exploring foreign places without being ferried practically from door to door and having an English-speaking rep on hand.

I've also been to more far-flung places and only got a taste of the culture/food/architecture, etc., but that's surely a very different experience from going to a mini-England on the coast of Spain, and suggests an interest in broadening one's knowledge and expanding the mind rather than just recreating home but with sunnier weather.

Fuma

You sound like you are fishing for ideas for an undergrad essay. False curation is a distinctive phrase.

Also you are incorrect in equating Polish sausage shops in the UK serving a population who is resident in the UK and therefore immersed in British culture with someone going abroad for a short period and seeking to only enjoy familiar things from their own culture.

I agree OP. I totally don't get the whole 'My holiday is such a wonderful cultural experience' thing. You go on holiday to relax and do different stuff. It's not an amazing cultural experience, and its a bit patronising to other cultures to think you can get any real insight into them at all from your two week hols. What I learnt about Catalans from my hols there is that they like doughnuts with hot chocolate, eat late and have a shitey attitude to animals. Your not going to get a lot more than that from your vacation. Because, you know, its a vacation not a social anthropology field trip.

YAB slightly U. Many years ago I worked with a woman from Leeds who went to one of The Canary islands, can’t recall if it was Gran Canaria or Tenerife and complained about some people not speaking English and foreign food! I swear I’m not making this up. I reserve the right to look down on people like that.

I struggled with the OP. Where would be an acceptable place to holiday then OP?

I personally think that people should go wherever they want provided that they are not hurting anyone else.

whether people want a mock tudor pub in Benidorm, a farm house in Tuscany or a tour of India, there can be no doubt that tourism brings much needed money and work to the places tourists visit. Personally, I would have liked to visit Italy in the early 50s like my aunt, before mass tourism escalated to the levels of today. But hey ho ... was a kid then so too bad. I didn't get the cultural experiences as a young adult in Europe that she did.

However there was a lot of poverty then, after the war, and the development of tourism has helped with that. Its swings and roundabouts.

If we could turn the clock back I'm pretty sure that places like Benidorm would have been developed far more sensitively but places like Benidorm have their place today bringing money into the economy and who are those of us with other tastes to mock those who just want a bit of sun and sand and a bit of a rest on a limited budget.

Personally, while I'm all for sensitive development I take issue with those who want to turn the clock back and keep everything as it once once. It's all very, for example, to want to restore tigers to the wild when their natural habitat has become smaller forcing them into ever closer contact with the human race ...but do people really care about the impact on villagers where people want to implant these projects. I sometimes get the feeling that a villager's child or two or and old man maybe, is, deepdown, viewed as collateral damage in the interests of saving these magnificent animals. Are westerns, seeking 'authentic' experiences in danger of wanting to keep things the same, the isolated tribe, the primitive work tools, more for their own 'experience' rather than what truly benefits local communities? Just a thought.

Actionhasmagic and Ponoka7 it was Holiday Showdown.

@LolaSmiles why is an all inclusive boring though? They don’t lock you in and force feed you! 😉

It’s purely about convenience. When I’m lying by the pool, there’s a help yourself beer, wine, water, hot drink and soft drink station. I don’t have to worry about having my purse with me or going back to the room for it. I can get iced water every 10 minutes if I want it. I’m a vegetarian so all inclusive buffets in half decent hotels tends to cater pretty well for my requirements (salads, vegetables, bit of pasta) and I don’t have to traipse round looking for somewhere that has something I can eat. If we fancy going out for something to eat, we can. It’s not like anyone checks up 😂. As a bit of a type a, I also like having the knowledge that I’ve paid in advance and we’re not going to run out of money (no, we're not skint students any more but old habits die hard 😉).

LOL it's just a phrase that I was quite proud of summing up what I'm feeling so I've probably overused it. I'm definitely not writing a dissertation - am sat running recovery/tests on dd's laptop that she's poured water on and was looking out of the window and musing on a rainy afternoon chained to home but actually now my mind is running along these lines I'm finding it quite fascinating.

I've been on holiday to Barcelona AND Blackpool this year for music festivals, and loved both of them. I grew up in Brighton, so seaside resorts always make me feel nostalgic. I've never been to places like Benidorm, but I went Menorca once and hated it, although that was because my mum was going through a nervous breakdown while we were there. I honestly don't think I'd enjoy them though. It's not because I'm a stuck up bitch, it's just not my sort of thing. I'm not into backpacking either.

Also, I don't think I've ever stayed in a luxury hotel. Just motels, travelodges or B'n'Bs/self-catering.

Yeah, I agree with the op. If a tourist stayed in London for a fortnight and then expressed some kind of cultural insight based on eating at the restaurants, speaking to the waiters and swanning around the sights we can recognise how laughable that 'authenic' experience was for the sanitised and artificial bubble that they operated within.

my point is that you cannot possibly understand another culture by going on holiday there.

But I would argue that you have a greater understanding of the culture after a week of eating in local restaurants etc than if you go to an all inclusive place and never set foot outside the resort.
It also depends on the location and how set up for tourists it is. We went to Dubrovnik this year. It is very tourist centred and despite eating in restaurants, drinking in bars etc I don’t think I know one thing about Croatian life and culture.
We went to Tokyo and stayed in a tiny hotel out in the suburbs. We got a much better understanding of how people lived their day to day lives there.

I agree OP. We often go to Italy to tourist destinations and visit places like Pompeii and Verona. We are tourists and we are not immersing ourselves in Italian culture.
I have never been to Venice but I know that tourism is ruining it.
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/06/venice-losing-fight-with-tourism-and-flooding