Superficial Tourism

Superficial Tourism In Positano

“Nearly always when you find a place as beautiful as Positano, your impulse is to conceal it. You think, “If I tell, it will be crowded with tourists and they will ruin it, turn it into a honkytonk and then the local people will get touristy and there’s your lovely little place gone to hell”. There isn’t the slightest chance of this in Positano”-John Steinbeck.

Well over 60 years after Steinbeck’s visit to the peninsula, the stairs, sparse space, and the Positaneses’ lack of a damn have not kept the tourists at bay.

This is first apparent when you try to take the bus. My colleague and I thought that getting to the bus station 30 minutes before our 13:00 bus would give us plenty of time to be in Positano by 14:00. We were wrong. The 13:00 bus passed our stop because it was already too crowded. We barely squeezed onto the 13:30, having to stand in the middle of the aisle and hold on for dear life on every sharp turn to keep from falling into the people next to us.

In Positano, there is a museum that features the Villa ’Ozio. An ancient Roman villa, created at the end of the 1st century BC. When you walk in, it’s surreal to see the dining room and the crypts of people who existed so long before us and it begs the question, do any of the tourists wandering about in their linen, sandals and cross-body bags know about the villa that exists bellow them? Or any history of those who walked the same streets 1,000 or 100 years before?  

Do they know why its depiction of the virgin Mary is the Byzantine interpretation, about the code of the fisherman, or that it was a crucial coastal town that helped to write the first maritime laws? Would they know that Emperor Tiberius sent his servants there to get flour as he worried the people around him would poison the flour in his refuge in Amalfi or that the towers still existing strategically about the peninsula served as a lookout for pirates and other invaders?

Among the touristy beaches, hotels, restaurants, shops, and means of transport, there exists a few pockets of the original Position. On the less-touristy side of town, at the back of the beach, there is a small cabin built into the side of the rock. There lives one of the oldest fishermen in Positano. The room was such a place that could only be described by words as a picture could never do its quaintness justice. You walk up a few stone steps into the doorway that exists only as an opening. The walls were covered with black and white photos of the old Positano. When the beaches were scattered with fishermen instead of crowded with tourists. An American dollar hung on the wall and dried garlic and pepper hung from the ceiling. Without knowing who we were, besides American journalists, he invited us into his home and offered us lemon cookies and espresso which we happily accepted. Although our language barriers didn’t allow for perfect communication, the interaction still left us with a profound sense of how much the seaside town had changed.

After leaving the beach, we explored the more touristy side of Positano where we ran into an old man sitting by the stairs, he had lived in Positano all his life. From him is where I learned the phrase, superficial tourism. That word struck my colleague and me as it perfectly described the phenomenon we had seen that day but could not name. Tourists swarmed the town, seeking its beautiful beaches and views but with no appreciation for the history they stood on. Because how can you appreciate something that you don’t know exists?

In future articles, I will further discuss the rich history of Positano and the rest of the peninsula and how the increase in tourism has affected the region. But in conclusion, if you plan to visit Positano, or anywhere in the world, familiarize yourself with the history and be respectful. With the exception potentially of Disney, there is no place in the world that’s sole purpose is to support you as a tourist. Respect the history, people and customs of the places you are visiting and appreciate the fact that you are experiencing a culture besides your own, and of course, soak up every minute of the beautiful place you are in.