Paid Vacation

Cabourg, CalvadosSo I guess what is surprising is that while one part of the population is suffering, hungry, homeless and vagrant, the other part of the population is enjoying itself, having fun wandering the country, or different countries as tourists. Surprising? I would not be too sure about that...isn't that still the case? Anyways, what I found really interesting in Berkowitz's text, is the idea that this leisure, the payed vacation and all those new benefits, were not entirely opposed to the depression, bu rather,, were a way to reach a possible economic prosperity, as Berkowitz writes, “The crisis of the depression was ultimately responsible for completing the transformation of tourism into a mass phenomenon.” So far from being opposed, it seems tourism emerges well because the depression happened. Also, what I find intereesting is that the movement towards paid vacation goes along with the idea of the New Deal, and even more interesting is the a certain shift which occurred between the socialists ideals of a paid vacation, and the use of tourism as a business tool, as Berkowitz writes, “local business leaders and government officials began to establish a network of professional tourism promotonial associations. (…) Community businessmen and government officials, for their part, observing the rise of paid vacation and improvements in transportation, began viewing tourism as a potential strategy of economic development (…)” So clearly, tourism is viewed as a possible tool to create a new economic prosperity . What I find intereresting, also, is the whole way in which tourism becomes a kind of mass consumption, justified by the general consensus and enthusiasm, and how it introduced a new approach to work and travel, thus reshaping, in a way, the culture, and the “American way of life.” Paid vacation and travel also reshapes the notion of place and motion we have extensively talked about and it seems that the idea of travelling for leisure generates another notion of the relation between the individual and place- travelling is no longer an exile, but a pure pleasure... and it is travelling out of choice, no longer out of constraint. Paid vacation, even today, is an essential element in society, the French would know about it... with their 6 weeks vacation... and some would argue whether it really helps the growth of the economy... while others, like Sarkozy, use happiness and leisure time as a way to think of GDP...