Snapshot with Cremation
It’s part of the ritual for the individualist-tourist to set himself apart almost compulsively from the package-deal tourist. He would never call himself a tourist, but claims for himself the more sophisticated-sounding term “traveler.” If he notices German package-deal tourists at the next table in a Turkish beach town, he will speak only English. And if he hears of complaints like those from the Bavarian couple who felt bothered by the natives in Africa, he says: Yikes, how inhuman! He himself manages with ease to attend a cremation on Bali and to pose for a photograph in front of the open casket with the priests and the female dancers, a photograph in which the Balinese are stony-faced. However, he cannot imagine what would happen if backpacking tourists from Borneo stormed into a cemetery chapel in Münsterland, cameras at the ready, while the priest was still reciting the Hail Mary. Needless to say, the German individualist-tourist reviles the German package-deal tourist who carries his own habits around the world and barricades himself inside hotel grounds.
[ . . . ]
The “Bacardi-Feeling” propagated by advertising, for example, is a chimera. Only a minority (about five to six percent of German vacationers) has ever gone on a long-distance trip outside of Europe. Spain, on the other hand, has been the most popular foreign holiday destination for Germans since 1986. Seven million Germans already flew to Mallorca alone in 1975; in 1995 it was thirteen million. For the end user, this data has one advantage: it shows the individualist-tourist the path to the countries where he can avoid the German masses, and show the German masses the path to themselves.
Behind the Wheel out of Fear of Terrorism
The most obvious change in the travel behavior of Germans, however, can be seen in the rediscovery of the car. Last year, 36 of 100 vacationers used the car, in the coming season nearly half of all families with children intend to travel by car. The 20th Tourism Analysis of the Hamburg BAT Leisure Time Research Institute lists fear of terrorist attacks and economic constraints as the reasons. And perhaps what was heard in the fifties will be said again: “Without car traffic, no tourist traffic.”
Back then, the preferred destination of the West Germans was Lake Garda; Lili Marleen was blaring from the radio. The camp grounds were mass camps, surrounded by barbed wire. Protest signs that said things like “Überall is Gitter und das ist bitter, überall ist Draht und das ist schad” (Bars everywhere – how bitter, wires everywhere – how sad) could not dampen the collective fun. You washed and ironed and cooked under the eyes of others. Society showed itself classless in swimming trunks – this was not substantially different from the camp grounds in East Germany or Bulgaria. The long-distance travelers had hardly returned and candles were dripping from the Italian wicker bottle in the basement party room. Housewives were exchanging spaghetti recipes.
What began in the fifties with the trip across the Alpine passes in the VW Bug has now come to fruition: the German citizen has become Europe’s most willing consumer of vacation happiness. On vacation he indulges in something resembling life, whereas in his everyday life he is grimly sparing with his money and emotions. Germany is the land that torments him with taxes and work and doctor’s fees and cutbacks, and he doesn’t want to be reminded of this during the pleasant weeks of the year. Germany is not the land of sweet leisure, of grand performances by waiters, of easy flirtation. Perhaps that is why Germans agree on nothing more than that the primacy of the foreign vacation. In other words: they have to escape, and they do.
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