write an essay social distancing making us antisocial for and against
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"get away from it all” is an oft repeated and imagined phrase many have gotten used to. In fact, a whole segment of the travel industry has grown up around this desire to be isolated. However, the last few months have really given a chance for many of us to ‘get away’ albeit forcefully. The virus has created a ‘new normal’, one in which staying isolated or staying away is prescribed as perhaps the only remedy so much so that many destinations are now advertising their isolation. Even otherwise, we no longer shake hands or hug when we meet someone, there is no contact and everyone tries to keep the so called 1m distance. All this in the name of ‘social distancing’. I wonder who invented this term ‘social distancing’ when there is nothing social about it. In fact, it goes solidly against anything that a society should stand for. The word social comes from society which is a group of people and means togetherness and mutual help. When there is a virus in the air, this is definitely advisable but I wonder if the ‘new normal’ will become the normal.
Now that most people have got a sense of what isolation means and what it entails, do we really want to ‘get away from it all’ or do people crave for getting back to the days of the 10000 crowd rock concerts or the 5000 guest weddings? There are many who are predicting that this is going to bring about a behavioural change in society and that distancing would become the new normal. The tourism industry especially would predicate on one or the other. In fact, till now tourism has come to mean mass tourism. The high capacity cruise liners, the huge stadia, the double decker airplanes and the 1000 room hotel have all been touted as examples of the idea that ‘more is less’.
Now, with the pandemic situation where almost all tourism came to a standstill, many experts are predicting the death of mass tourism. Convention centres and hotels are being redesigned for distancing which automatically means drastically reduced capacity. Studies have predicted that it will take at least till 2024 for the world to return to the levels of travel and tourism that existed before February 2020. However, it is to be seen if the capacities built up over these years can exist if they are idling or are non-remunerative for 3-4 years. All break-even analysis which are already endangered would become completely irrelevant during this period.
There are also many experts who believe that the trend is over and the era of mass tourism or any mass activity has officially ended. As someone who is claustrophobic, this kind of situation is personally a bliss. However, as a tourism professional, I am not sure if I would welcome it. However, if trends are to be believed, no virus or epidemic can stop human beings from being social as man is a social animal by instinct. The crowds that one has seen at certain events in Taiwan and China as well as in the protests in many parts of Europe and the US make it certain that people are waiting to get together and are really sick of the isolationism. I would like to bet that sooner than later, vaccine or no vaccine, the masses are coming and the capacity charts would have to be recalculated again.
Amongst all this, what I think is most imperative that the tourism industry especially should take this pause and disruption as a wakeup call. Our right to be social need not come at the cost of society. Build the 1000 room resorts and take the 5000 pax cruise ships but don’t do it harming the environment. Let us socially distance ourselves from the destruction that has been blatantly allowed in the name of tourism. There had already been a strong movement towards sustainability in tourism and that needs to be carried forward despite and inspite of the present gloom and the expected boom. As someone recently wrote, tourism needs to be regenerative. Bring on the numbers but bring them on responsibly.
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Explanation:
Social distancing making us anti- social .For or against