The trip has a bad press. From Barcelona to Kyoto via Annecy, the scourge of surcourism strikes all possible and imaginable destinations and triggers the anger of local populations. Wherever they go, tourists overconsume the available resources, whether apartments rented on Airbnb or drinking water. Leaving mountains of waste behind them, they pollute the countries they visit and destroy the entire planet. According to a study published in December 2024 in the journal Nature Communications, the carbon footprint of tourism increases at least twice as fast as the planetary average.
Worse, the journey is criticized for embodying all the flaws of Western culture. With 95% of world tourists who visit only 5% of the emerged land, it offers a standardized dream to ultra -conformist consumers. Under the guise of allowing a small elite of privileged to discover the world, it perpetuates a colonial scheme which reduces the natives to a subordinate role and folklorizes their lifestyle-all by enriching the tour operators more than local populations. And he glorifies the virile figure of the traveler-explorer, who foams the planet and displays his pride in having “made” all the countries of the world.
But, totally waterproof for these criticisms, the sector is in great shape and seems promised to an even better future. Everywhere, we welcome the return of tourists after the years marked by the COVID-19. And there is little country in the world that do not hope to take advantage of its economic benefits, which do not undertake airports and do not launch advertising campaigns. The already tourist regions always want more and the others hope to place themselves on the map. Even Seine-Saint-Denis, for example, built hotels in turn to attract tourists to the other side of the peripheh.
Massification and murder of tourism
Comedy The backpackerreleased on April 2 in the cinema (with Hakim Jemili and Christian Clavier), reminds us that he is another sector that benefits from this boom, namely that of travel guides. In France, with more than fifty million copies sold since its creation in 1973, the backpacker’s guide dominates the market and illustrates another contradiction whose trip has the secret. There is no less rewarding role than that of the lambda tourist who, his nose in his guide, faithfully reproduces the route advised by the backpacker. But here again, tourists seem impermeable to criticism, as they are rare to leave without their copy.
Formerly contemporary of the hippies leaving for Kathmandu, the backpacker peacefully accompanied the massification and the subject of tourism. His collection “by bike” will suit lovers of soft mobility. Ditto for guides devoted to “walks and hikes”, while the rise of “escapades”, “favorite weekends” or “city-trips” respond to overractive people these days, lacking time but always eager to see the world. The guide has even become an indicator of global geopolitics. According to Philippe Gloaguen, its co-founder and owner, Donald Trump disgusts the French to the point that they buy significantly fewer guides on the United States (with the exception of New York, a democratic city which they obviously continue to appreciate).
The same Philippe Gloaguen also plays his own role in the film directed by Philippe Mechelen, a real cinematographic consecration for his collection. We follow the tribulations of a young mowing in Belleville (played by Hakim Jemili), the greatest frustration of which is not being able to go on vacation. In many comedies, antiheroes are virgin or singles. But in this case, the worst stigma of lose is not to be able to travel. Let us recall that the backpacker makes his best sales in the cossus VIe and XVIe Arrondissements de Paris and that 40% of French people are too poor to go on vacation, according to a study of the observatory of inequalities published in July 2024.
The vicious circle of travel clichés
By sending his hero to Morocco with the mission of updating the guide to Marrakech, the film The backpacker depicts the fairly comical mutation of a proletarian in a real backpacker, at least according to the canonical definition of the guide, that is to say resourceful, sympathetic, in love with freedom and open to the world. With its most visited city status in Morocco, its legendary place Jemaa El-Fna, its medina listed as a UNESCO World Heritage and its Golfus and Piscines which consume ever rarer water due to global warming, the destination is quite well chosen.
We therefore come across Parisians who recycle their millions in a sumptuous riad, a kindly crooked taxi driver, tourists naively amazed by a junk exoticism, an indigenous with the big heart that takes care of orphans in the heart of the old town and quantity of hoteliers and more or less honest, but always sympathetic restaurateurs.
So many shots, of course, but with a fairly convincing second degree. And above all, so many shots that are at the very heart of the subject of the film. The tone is set from the opening credits, during which parade the images of the most famous monuments in the world, from the Great Wall of China to Machu Picchu via the Tower of Pisa. The same goes for the voluntarily grotesque skills in which Christian Clavier camps a director of the backpacker in caricatural traveler, who continues Trek in Himalayas, safari in Africa and yoga lessons in India.
To say things differently, what we see when we go on a journey is what we have already seen in the iconography of the trip, whether they are the “favorite” photos of the Routard Guide, advertisements of the tour operators, atlas and world cards for children or publications on Instagram. With his guide, the traveler seems to be condemned to review the clichés taken by those who preceded him and to admire “in real life” which appears on the images he saw before the departure and who convinced him to leave in turn.
Aware of the dilemma and concerned about surcourism, the backpacker’s guide makes efforts. He recommends, for example, “not aside”, that is to say a little less popular destinations, but which may become it once they appear in the guide. However, you should not have an illusion. Because after all, at the end of the cinema, the spectator will probably only have a desire: (re) go to Marrakech and eat skewers on the Place Jemaa El-Fna, like a tourist.
