The Final Call: Investigating Who Really Pays For Our Holidays

Description

Hickman travels from cruise-liner to eco-lodge to ski-slope in his quest to discover how we can have a truly 'good' holiday. No industry in the world employs more people or is the world's largest foreign currency earner than tourism. Long billed as the cleanest industry for developing countries to invest in, tourism seems to offer everyone involved a positive experience.This is the official line, anyway. In truth, the reality is much more complex . For The Final Call Hickman travels the world on a range of holidays to find out what this industry is really like. We hear from everyone - the holidaymaker, the hotel manager, the waitress, the disillusioned travel agent, the exploited prostitute and the angry local politician to discover what they don't tell you in the glossy brochures. Behind the sunny facade of pools, smiling locals, sightseeing trips and exquisite cuisine is an ugly reality and it is spreading unchecked to all corners of the globe. But none of us are going to stop holidaying and at the heart of this is a heartfelt attempt to discover the best way to holiday wherever you are.

Leo Hickman is a journalist and editor at the Guardian, and writes a weekly column on ethical living. He is also the author of A Life Stripped Bare- my year trying to live ethically and How to Buy, and editor of A Good Life- The Guide to Ethical Living. Leo lives in Cornwall with his wife Jane, and their three children.

Excellent. One of the clearest and most sobering analyses I've ever seen of the environmental, social, and economic damage done by tourism...This is a necessary book. * Philip Pullman * Well written, entertaining and hugely important. * Zac Goldsmith * Hickman is very persuasive and travels with heart and brain fully engaged to reveal the environmental havoc wreaked by the exponential growth in international travel. -- Barbara Gunnell * New Statesman * Persuasive and sobering . . . a page-turner unlikely to be found poolside. * Financial Times * A project [Hickman] pursues intelligently and thoroughly . . . Other writers might have contented themselves with aloof tut-tutting. What makes The Final Call absorbing as well as persuasive is that Hickman illuminatingly talks to people ranging from fishermen and bar girls to developers and activists. * Guardian *