What a difference a Day makes

Date: 24/10/1996

I MISSED World Tourism Day last month. I must have been on holiday.

There are so many Days these days, it's not surprising some of them pass me by.

If it's not one Day, it's another: No-Smoking Day, perhaps, or No Cholesterol Day, or Keep Fit Day, or Stay Fat Day, or Take Up Yoga Day, or Rent A Dog Day, or Smile At A Mongoose Day.

Today, for all I know, is Don't Write A Column Day, in which case I apologise but it has to be done, just in case it happens to be Get Things Done Day.

As I write, I have in fact just discovered that it is the International Day for the Elimination of Poverty. If it works, presumably poverty across the globe will be wiped out by midnight. Exactly how this can be achieved is a bit of a mystery, but then I would never have chosen such an adventurous Day in the first place.

I would have picked something like Find A Pair Of Socks That Match Day or some similar target that is at least achievable. There is nothing worse than going to bed after a busy Day thinking that tomorrow everything will be the same as before and it's all been a waste of time.

Where was I? I was musing on World Tourism Day, which had been anticipated by schoolchildren everywhere, on the perfectly logical grounds that it must mean an extra day off school.

Sorry kids, you're getting confused with No School Today Day, a very natural mix-up because anyone would think that a Day on which we celebrate world tourism would be a day away from drudgery and the desk.

But no, World Tourism Day is the day when we take stock and give thanks for tourism and wonder where we'd be without it.

Still at home presumably, with no glossy brochures to flick through, no dreams to sign up for, like cruising down the Nile or riding a dingbat across the Sahara desert. What is a dingbat? We'll find out, no doubt, on World Dingbat Day, which can't be far off now.

Tourism is an important force for the Union in developing and strengthening international links, an instrument of peace and friendship, as well as a means of regional development.

I know this because Commissioner Christos Papoutsis, in charge of buckets and spades policy, said so in a speech I found in a pile of junk which is awaiting World Clear-Out All That Lingering Junk Day.

Mr Papoutsis has clearly never tried to argue his way into an Italian taxi cab which plainly has space for four customers, but a driver who insists he can only take three, plus himself.

Next time, I'll dive in through the passenger window and declare that tourism is an instrument for peace and friendship and order him to drive on.

Did you know that two-thirds of all the world's tourists come to the European Union? - mostly at the same time, just around rush hour. But Papoutsis, the greedy chap, wants more.

Six per cent of employment in the EU is directly attributable to tourism, and numerous other jobs are indirectly dependent upon tourism activites, he told me during Interview A Commissioner Day.

Six per cent doesn't sound much. No wonder the heating in my summit hotel in Dublin didn't work. No wonder I didn't get my wake up call. Not enough staff! Hopeless! Unfortunately, it was not Get Me the Manager Day while I was in Dublin so I let it pass, otherwise I would have waved the wise words of Papoutsis under his or her managerial nose (World Equality Day is just around the corner) and pointed to the bit where it says: “Success in tourism requires a total focus on customer satisfaction.”

That is why the Commission has unveiled the first multi-annual programme to promote tourism. It is just rather unfortunate that it is called PHILOXENIA, which sounds like the kind of thing you take on holiday in case of Spanish tummy, mosquito bites, sunburn or a dreadful hangover.

Just take a couple of PHILOXENIA in a glass of water and you'll be back on your sunbed in no time.

European tourism, says Papoutsis, has to become more competitive. This may be a short-sighted policy, because not everyone wants a competitive holiday. Lots of folk just want to sit quietly somewhere warm and read a mindless book, except, of course, if their vacation falls on Improve Your Mind Day when they will turn to something more erudite.

No, competitive holidays could be the death knell of a whole sector of the industry which does not wish to take part in Granada's donkey derby or the Mr Muscle contest on the promenade at Knokke-Le-Zoute.

PHILOXENIA - the programme, not the laxative or headache cure - seeks to increase our fund of knowledge in the field of tourism, according to Papoutsis.

But what more do you need to know? People like to get away from things, it's that simple. They want decent food, a luxury hotel overlooking either the beach, the countryside or one of the seven wonders of the world, and they don't want to run into anyone from the office.

They want a hotel that takes kids, but only their kids. They also want a hire car that doesn't break down, a comprehensible guide to all amenties within easy reach and prices for ice-creams and drinks that don't double every time another shell suit comes around the corner.

It isn't complicated, tourism, because we're all involved in it and we all know what it is about. We've all been tourists, we've all reached for the PHILOXENIA after a drop of the local brew or an experimental meal of hand-knitted spider's droppings on the side of a mountain in Tibet as part of a back-to-roots nature fortnight with Wobbly Coach Tours Limited.

What Papoutsis says he wants to do is promote Europe as an attractive destination for overseas visitors, but he also wants “sustainable development” which does not harm the environment.

This is obviously something to be considered very carefully during Have Your Cake And Eat It Day, because, as the Economic and Social Committee has just pointed out in an “Opinion on the Proposals for a Council Decision on the First Multiannual Programme to Assist European Tourism Day”, things are not going to be sustainable for very long if you go for the mass tourism vote.

What the ESC is saying, all-too politely, is that we don't really need a World Tourism Day, because it will just flood Europe with street-clogging, restaurant-packing, landscape-destroying trippers.

I tried to ask Heinrich van Moltke, the top tourism man in DGXX111, what he thought about it all, but someone told me he could not be disturbed during what for him had become Early Retirement Day.

Anyway, if you missed the great World Tourism event, don't worry: tomorrow is bound to be another Day.