Jordan through the eye of Mariël: Visiting one of the seven new world wonders

Today was the day we finally visited Petra. Due to his beautiful rock-cut architecture, the city has been one of the new seven world wonders since 2007. So, one thing is clear: you can’t leave Jordan without visiting Petra.
A long road trough narrow gorges leads us to Petra’s most famous facade: the Treasury. It is almost 40 meters high and intricately decorated, really magnificent to see!! Our tour continues quickly because we try to reach the Monastery. A beautiful route with amazing views everywhere leads us to the start of 800 stairs climb. The largest monument of Petra and an magnificent overview of Petra makes the heavy climb worth. After taking a lot of pictures and enjoying the view I start my way back alone. It gave me a lot of time to take in the beautiful environment and to think. For the first time in Jordan I saw a lot of tourists and the level of involvement of them was terribly high. Most of the male locals were dressed as if they came directly from the set of a new Pirates of the Caribean movie, women were selling scarves and jewellery everywhere and camels were decorated like Christmas trees. It was funny but also strange to see and I wondered if this is what we want to see as tourists?
In tourism we call this the demonstration effect: changes of behaviour from locals through tourists. Fisher (2004) locates the origins of the concept in the work of De Kadt (1979) who observed how local patterns of consumption will often adapt to reflect those of the tourist.¹In some cases, the demonstration effect can have positive outcomes but more typically, in my opinion and in this case as well, is it characterised as a disruptive influence because it takes the authentic experience away.

¹ Williams S. (2009) Chapter 6: socio-cultural relations in tourism (p.134-156). In Tourism Geography A new synthesis. Routledge