“Efforts to preserve the world’s natural and cultural treasures are facing a major obstacle: FOMO.
Travelers’ fears of missing out (i.e. FOMO) on the chance to come face-to-face with a blue-footed booby in the Galapagos Islands or to fight off the pigeons in Venice’s Piazza San Marco are encouraging more of them to visit those very hard-to-preserve places. Called “last chance tourism” the phenomenon leads travelers to flock to a delicate sites, threatening them even further.
A survey published last month found a major reason for tourists visiting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef was to see it before it completely disappeared.”
This is an excerpt from an article originally published on QUARTZ. To read the whole story, visit Trying to preserve the world’s most delicate sites often leads to more tourists who come and destroy them
