Towards a Sustainable Urban Tourism. For Ekain Laka
Cities have long been a product for sale and compete for customers – tourists – and their 
ability to purchase or final expenditure. Thus, there is now widespread recognition of the imbalances that non-sustainable tourism can generate, both socially and culturally and environmentally. So, what could be understood by sustainable urban tourism? and what may be more difficult to answer, on what basis should build a ‘sustainable tourism in our cities’ or ‘sustainable city experience’?
Conceptualization
The ‘sustainable tourism’ as some literature is one that happens to meet the needs of tourists but also the host regions, improving and protecting the common heritage, understood as a holistic identity and welfare / as residents.
One of the keys on which we could build a sustainable tourism, and therefore meets the requirements in this case the host cities, might be to articulate an attractive tourism strategy, singular, unique, self-managed or rather , starring the city or the agents of the city. A tool that is built with the objective of a reasonable distribution of this activity benefits the whole community and to use yet respects its natural and cultural resources.
Bases
Made a first reflection should now close the circle and propose the foundation that they can complete the vision of a strategy of creating a sustainable city experience. These could include:
Local actors. It is the people who teach their city. That is, the community itself should lead the momentum of tourism in an area. This role would ensure benefits far beyond those that could be limited to employment in sectors such as catering and tourism services.
TEACHING AS IS. This is not to convey an image of what is not the means to attract tourists. First, because the expectation of maintaining that it would be downright demanding visitors from all points of view, and second, because we would not be exploiting the potential that one’s daily activity of the city has their identity. Fortunately, no market ‘consumer city’ enough to not like the fact some get worried. In fact already happening: not to offer all the same means that the user is dialing and preferences.
Harnessing the power of the city itself. One often gets the impression that there is room for improvement in this section, linked also to the necessary role of the / as residents and real ‘agents for promoting tourism in the city’, which, in fact, already are. Well they give to know what is happening in the city (good and bad) to friends, acquaintances, customers and suppliers increasingly impact capacity (through various social networks on-line ) or because they are them / as those initiatives often draw the interest of visitors.
Things happen FAVOR IN OUR CITY AND CITIZENS ARE ACTORS / AS ‘. Maybe we’re leaving too much responsibility to our government as cultural agents or promoters / tourist, when we should be above all the citizens who exercise a leading role through the promotion of new initiatives of all kinds. Because if not, the city loses. We lose the opportunity to learn new things, be creative / as and grow as people, socialize, be happier in the end. And lose the community, because the culture, economy, that of which the citizen is the protagonist, is a major tool for social and economic dynamism.
ENABLE RESOURCE ‘SLEEPERS’. This could be the role of institutions in general or of a municipality in particular. A position of great importance, this strategy also star, serving as umbrella facilitator ‘of the set of initiatives, giving them a strategic sense under a common vision, and a wide coverage in those sections as needed. We won the citizens and institutions gain because manage their (our) resources more efficiently, if possible.
GENERATING BUSINESS YES, BUT sustainable. Leverage the capabilities but not so threatening capabilities that can make use of future generations, to paraphrase the most common definition of sustainable development, the Brundtland Report. Understanding of capabilities: the cultural or natural heritage but also the identity of the community and of course the will of the citizens themselves residents.
Tejeremos and, ultimately, a strategy that resulted in the generation of a unique and therefore unrepeatable, different endogenous and sustainable city, which starts from the citizens themselves / and put them as frontline actors as partners and promoting balanced development of the city.
Lack bit to go and Buenos Aires is getting more beautiful, more violet, each time with a more pleasant climate. And I’m cold. Phew, that’s all I can get put off by not tolerate much cold and do not want to go too full of jackets, but it is another. Meanwhile, I still friendly Buenos Aires , with increasing speed, knowing that soon I go and that we will not for a long time. She knows. Buenos Aires knows how to hate it and how to make, basically, wants it. He knows me from crazy and knows how to generate that feeling of “a little I will miss him.”
And while I’m in this city, I come back to these recurring questions I get whenever I meet a new place. What makes a city / town is like it is? What gives personality? Are people who inhabit it? Or is it the same city / town that makes people to be a certain way? Who shapes to whom? Is there a geographical determinism? Does geography has the power to define human groups?
And in Buenos Aires, in addition to asking things, I learned that there are many ways to travel without travel .
One is through Couchsurfing . Some time ago I started to accommodate travelers at home. I am returning, little by little, everything that people did for me in Asia and Latin America, I’m bringing a bit of another country to my chair. My first guests were Sam and Kayla, two American girls. With them I discovered that my house abounds in orange and rediscovered the cultural scene in Buenos Aires. My second guest was Richard, a Londoner with whom I laughed as could be for cultural misunderstandings that can arise between a cyclist and a foreigner eccentric innocent at the opening of a book (better not ask …). Things that happen. My new hosts are Olivier and Libby, a Peruvian and an American with whom I discovered that the world is very small: we realized that we already knew before we walked together for Pastoruri mountain in Peru , in September this year. And now in my house.
Each person that stays in my chair I do know places you never travel or features reminds me of country I love.
Sam and Kayla at the Faculty of Law
And another way of traveling is getting into a taxi (I’m not doing a bad joke. Lean.) If there is something I try not to do in Buenos Aires taxi to take me. It seems an unnecessary expense. But today (Saturday night) was of force majeure: I have tendinitis in his right foot (hilarious) and I can not walk much, so I got one to go home. The dialogue between the driver and I was so good that it was worth 20 pesos. I think she should have paid more for the copyright of their stories.
We started talking about Cristina’s daughter lived in the area (he told me I had no idea). We were about Recoleta. After that resulted in the government of “Mendez”, Mr. driver went bankrupt, lost everything and can not own property in your name. And the conversation went like this:
â € “I have no choice: either I am a transvestite taxi driver or me. But what hurts most is being a transvestite walking with stilettos, I am very fat and lose my balance, you see.
Laughter.
He continues:
â € “Taxi drivers are all metal. I look in the mirror every day and think “what the drivers are crazy.” Look, never get married or with a taxi driver, or with a bus driver or a truck driver. Three guilds of crazy people. Did you do research?
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â € “I’m done … I studied Social Communication.
â € “Uhhh, others are re crazy. The other day I took four girls, all studying Communication, it was a pretty crazy, it seems that it was the birthday of a … What if you can study how communication work? How does the media?
â € “Y. .. you can dedicate to journalism, marketing, advertising … I dedicate myself to write.
â € “Uhh, then you have come to ask me stories. You do not know the things I hear here, sometimes I am tempted to write to people, to put a microphone and a camera … Then you know, bringing it back and I get half a millionaire. You do not know the things I hear … Each passenger who comes up with his situation, his life and all that brings me to the back seat. You do not know what can go up to your car. And I hear everything, you see, and sometimes I can not believe.
â € “A Do Quà © things heard, for example?
â € “Once I was in Belgrano and got a young guy, very well dressed in suits, and I asked him what he did. For what. Sometimes it would close the mouth. You know what I said? That was a murderer, who killed people on request. At first I thought it was crazy and went along. It seems that working for a doctor. I asked if he killed many, and I said no, that only eight. He told me that they pay according to the person and the work cheaper than he was 20 thousand dollars. He told me that if I ever needed anything to call him. And you know how I convinced that the story was true? Before exiting showed me the pistol hidden in the suit. Things like that happen to me. Do you leave you here?
â € “Yes, behind this car is good.
â € “Well, I hope you to come and go.
â € “Thanks, you have good night and continue to collect stories.
I swear I almost give my mail to send me more stories.
I went to my house, I sat at the computer and, at 4 am, I transcribed this conversation and I realized that sometimes it takes more than getting into a taxi or offer space to dive into a chair, but for a little while, in another reality. And things like that can happen around the world. But this time I spent in Buenos Aires.
On your bike says ‘The tramp’
At the Ecological Reserve
Someone lost a smiley face?
I will not get to talk politics here, nothing about who I am sure he will win the election next Sunday, November 20, or about whom I voted, I just want to tell my experience to vote from across the pond .
In Spain I have voted several times by mail, because having lived first in Salamanca while studying the race and then in Barcelona, I was more comfortable for a postal vote to get close to Burgos. Yes, I could have taxed both at Salamanca and Barcelona (Barcelona and in fact it was during the last two years and voted there), but I felt more informed voting in Burgos, and run errands I’m too lazy.
Voting from abroad is something like a postal vote, but not exactly the same. To start the Spanish who live abroad, since the last reform of the electoral law, if we vote we have to apply for what is called (which I discussed in the entry on the ‘ angry ‘) the’ Vote prayed, ‘so that it is a little different to vote by mail.
At first, I knew I could vote, but as seems to be that voters who live abroad vote soon, either by ignorance or by boredom, in TVE Internacional have made a great campaign in which he explained that even temporary residents abroad can vote .
The process is as follows: approach the Embassy or Consulate of the country where you live and see you appear on the electoral roll. I was not on the list, probably because I am not yet living in this country, but I am considered as a temporary resident, but that is quickly resolved. They searched my data on their lists (since arriving in the country the first thing to do is tell your embassy that you are there and tell immigration status) and added to the census.
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Once on the list, from the embassy sent a paper to the electoral registration office to which you belong, ie in my case to that of Burgos, in which they request to be sent to my house the necessary documents so that I can make my vote. In about 20 days an envelope arrived home from my polling place with the ballots of all parties with candidates for the House of Representatives by Burgos and the Senate. Each with their respective envelope, white and sepia, and a sheet with instructions to send my vote. At first it seemed simple and very similar to voting by mail.
The day I requested them to send me those papers from the Embassy a very nice guy (which he told me it was new) told me that when he received the papers could be sent by certified mail or go to deliver my papers in the same Embassy on 16, 17 and November 18. So once I decided I thought my vote would be easier and safer especially voting at the Embassy on Wednesday 16 I went there.
As always there was a big queue to make other arrangements, but who we were going to vote by placing the other side and calling by name from a list that we had previously noted. While we waited a very nice man, a worker at the embassy would take her check that all required documents. To my asked me to make a copy of my passport because it had to go inside the envelope, an indication that at no time put in the instructions that came to me. Talking to several people in line had found that several different instructions. The explanation for this in the two party representatives who were there (PP and PSOE, of course) is that each polling works differently). And when I finally went to the window to deliver my papers, the same guy who had processed my application for a month (the new), which obviously did not remember my face, I said I could not make my vote more than sending it by certified mail, because I am not resident in Mexico. To which I replied that he had told me that he could, and he huffed and puffed it was impossible. Why argue, having spent all morning at the Embassy to give my vote went to a post office to send my vote certificate to my polling station.
The Spanish with residence in Mexico seem to have a single ballot box to leave your on the votes, and a copy of your passport and the confirmation of being on the electoral roll, because the procedure was the same: from the Embassy all those votes have been sent by certified mail.
And although it seems it’s very clear who will win and should not worry about my vote (one more / one less …), now I still doubt it will ever and if in the case of arrivals, it is valid. At least I tried to exercise my right, on the other hand I think it is a must (at least then I want to complain or congratulate those who govern me).
The city of Petra in Jordan, east of the Araba valley between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba , its name comes from the Greek word for stone, an appropriate name because it is a city carved and sculpted on the rocks . To reach it one must cross the gorge or Siq is an impressive gorge 2Km. length that runs between sandstone walls of yellow, pink and gray-blue with heights of 91 m. and 182 m, due to a geological fault produced by tectonic forces, there was a cleft in the mountains, the waters of Wadi Musa, Moses Creek, contributions toward the erosion of the area and shaped the Siq, the gorge leads directly to the necropolis of the Nabatean city.
The first signs of residents at Petra were the Edomites from the late eighth to the seventh century BC, were important but not stressed ceramics in construction, enemies of the Jews who are mentioned in the Bible to oppose the passage of Moses in Exodus Hebrew.
The Nabataeans were a nomadic people who settled in the land of Edom took control of Petra. It was the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom reached its peak in AD 50 and had over 20,000 inhabitants, in the first century were built most of the tombs and temples, the Deir, the tombs of the Palace and Corinthian are in this time in the second century include parts of Greek architecture and friezes, pilasters and create a capital known as Nabataean, are slowly incorporating rosettes, lions, elephants, thus reaching an important cultural development.
For access between mountains and the river Wadi Musa knew that the Nabataeans channel to the city, Petra was an Asian oasis for caravans, got rich because of the caravan trade between Asia and Europe, especially the incense route , a route that began arriving in Yemen and Petra was subdivided into two routes, north-west to northeast Gaza to Damascus, these caravans were loaded with luxury items like incense from southern Arabia, sea pearls Red, spices and silks from India, Africa or ivory tree resin incense, high demand and high value for the time it was used as medicine and for religious offerings, all of these products were requested by the Nabateans as payment in exchange for a stay of one night in Petra and offer water and security for the caravans coming to town.
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In 63 BC the Roman Emperor Pompey subjected to the Nabataean empire and annexed to whom a tax return and the commitment to protect its borders against the desert tribes granted some autonomy. Rome stands a prosperous city in the valley but to create maritime trade routes began to decline Petra’s prosperity by the diversion of trade routes and caravans decreased use the city. In 106 after the death of Soter II Rabbel Nabataean car shipping Petra last king is annexed to the empire.
During the Byzantine period in the year 325 Christianity was imposed, is named a bishop and churches are built and used some of its buildings, churches and cathedrals. An earthquake in 363 and aftershocks destroyed nearly half of the city was not rebuilt.
The region was conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century Petra becomes a village, the Crusaders are the preserved until 1187. Petra is missed.
Jean Louis Burckhardt a Swiss national, traveled from Damascus to Egypt through Jordan to reach the village of Wadi Musa heard that there were some ruins surrounded by mountains that formed a natural fortress, at that time Petra Ottoman era, there was a distrust of people who were curious antiques consider the works of infidels, posing as Arab by the name of Sheikh Ibrahim, accompanied by his guide posed as pilgrims to the tomb of Aaron and was able to cross the ruins of the ancient city in August 1812 , could not take notes or make drawings but was amazed and was a big proponent of Petra between Eastern and Western Egypt. In 1828, five years after his death began the first archaeological missions.