Overbooked - recommended reading before your next trip

[Moscyn]

An avid traveller passed me this book - Overbooked - The Exploding Business of a Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker. I have just finished Chapter 4 and I am completely fascinated by this real eye opener. I travel very often and don't realize that what was once a hobby has become a profitable business at an exploding rate. The author travels the world and provides very strong evidence of how tourists are impacting the countries they travel to and how these countries benefit and also suffer environmental and many other forms of degradation. As Becker puts it "Travel is an extraordinary pleasure and was once a privilege. Now it is considered a basic right without limits of sense of responsibility for how all this travel is affecting the places we love." I've just finished the beginning chapters on how France is still a leader in the travel business, how Venice is losing itself to tourism and is sinking and the sad state of how tourism has affected Cambodia. I find the book a real page turner. It will turn me into a more responsible traveller.