Changing of the Great European Vacation by Rod Usher

Changing of the Great European Vacation by Rod Usher

When steam builds to a certain point in a pressure cooker an escape valve comes into play; without it you get an explosion. The same principle applies to people: work accumulates to the point where, if we don’t want psycho-steam coming out of our ears, we’d better empty our minds of the office, the dreary commute, the house repairs, sliding stocks and grinding study. In short, vacate or die. Hence vacations, the escape valve now coming into play for millions across Europe: families piling into station wagons with the kids and the dog, teens squeezing onto trains with bulky backpacks, buckling into airplanes in their shorts and baseball caps.

“Holy days” transformed into the sacred institution of the Great European Vacation, the massive July through August exodus during which Europeans escape to seek rest and recreation in friendlier climes. The summer holiday is going through some hard times, though. At least some would-be travelers have been deterred by fears of terrorism, infectious disease, clogged road and air (and leg) arteries and the Continent’s shaky economies. Some even suggest that Europe can’t afford so many days off. And they may well start to ruminate. But others still have their getaways. “Holiday trips are a regular consumer good, which is sacrificed only under extreme conditions,” says Peter Aderholt, secretary of the German Vacation and Travel Research Society. “And apparently, today’s uncertain economic and geopolitical conditions just aren’t extreme enough.”

While Europeans are vacationing with undiminished fervor, the trips they’re taking now come in several different flavors. A classic is still S&M – sand and masochism – those wonderful weeks of getting burnt, stung by jellyfish (and the local doctor who treats you), losing your watch while making sandcastles with the kids, eating a prawn that has gone off and having to be rescued by a lifeguard with an obscenely flat stomach. Whatever form vacation takes, we keep on doing it – we may even want to do it more to escape all the talk of terror and war. We are escapaholics convinced that this time we will definitely “get away from it all”, returning to the office slimmer, tanned and desperately keen to read a spread sheet. But escaping can be stressful. A survey published by the British recruitment firm Reed found that 22% of 5,000 British workers said they suffer a syndrome Reed calls “Pre-Holiday Stress”, that sense of panic caused by trying to get everything in order before leaving. And do they relax while lying on the beach? The survey shows 47% of workers are afraid something will go wrong at the office while they’re gone; 10% even fear they will be made redundant. Some argue that Europeans are not going as far as they used to. Maybe a two- or three-hour flight, but no more. This could be due to money and safety jitters, but they are not the only reasons the Great European Vacation is changing. The traditional months off are July and August, but more people now seem to be breaking their time down into smaller chunks instead of taking one three- or four-week lump. Many Italians now opt for, say, a fortnight in summer, a week at Christmas, and a short trip in spring or fall. Others say they see a similar pattern. A second travel market of short trips and short distances is coming into being.

Is this a good thing? Psychiatrists argue that tourists who substitute several short breaks for one sustained vacation “do not disengage sufficiently – the mind doesn’t have time to forget the workplace. Alain de Botton, author of The Art of Travel, agrees: “There’s a huge advantage in a long holiday, really getting into a place, getting unwound and also getting bored. You realize the limits of leisure.”

Even for those who insist on the traditional long getaway – those who each summer confront roads, airways, terrorism, disease, salmonella and stretched budgets – the European vacation spirit is unconquerable. The thing about vacations is that recollection of the bad bits fades in direct proportion to exaggeration of the good bits. Says German researcher Opaschowski, “Tourists have chronic short-term memory.” No sooner are we back at the desk than we start daydreaming, planning like hordes of Houdinis our next escape.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04