The narcissistic traveller sees himself wherever he goes; the world forms his mirror. To him, what is a trip to Tyrol but a room with a mountain view, like changing the channel on TV? Mahlzeit, Kinder, eat your fill, but please, only food I recognize, prepared by hands bent on serving me.
What might happen, we wonder, if like Alice we step off the Mercedes Touring bus for a bit and venture down that dirt road over there, behind the red geraniums, through a screen of trees? You'll find a stream of digits. Put your ego in your pocket, press here , and let your imagination -- and the Internet -- be your guide.
Or would you like this Internet Guided Tour or rather this one? Das Angebot ist riesig, im Internet genauso wie auf Papier, im Fernsehen, und im Radio.
The Internet Guides show you images like these , statistics on Tirol (Tirol in Zahlen), including figures on (tourism in "Piefke-Saga land"). You can see how many inhabitants are involved with tourism ( Wirtschaftliche Gliederung der Berufstätige), and how much has been built in Austria lately, probably also due to tourism ( Flächennutzung).
Note: These guides are offered by the Institut fuer Geographie, Innsbruck.
If you do not speak German, use this "German for Travellers" book. Nevertheless, if you go off the beaten path, you might need this guide to the Languages of Austria. And even with this guide, I wonder how many tourists will ever understand this Viennese poem Gedicht auf "weanarisch"...
Enough of this, let's now think of a new travel ethic, the "ecotourism".
