This was the last project I worked on for my tenure in OCADU. After years of learning and growing myself as a designer, I choose to focus one school year of my energy and heart developing and executing this concept.
My thesis explores both the exploitive and excessive practices of the tourism industry. Namely, how tourism business models use capitalistic, imperialistic and neo-colonial methods of operation in order to make profit. Mass tourism can’t function without poverty, displacement of indigenous & native peoples, as well as environmental commodification.
I have taken on a critical lens to speculate on this industry if it were to continue to utilize an extremely outdated economic structure that thrives on foreign interest and “first world” profiting. What I made consists of a travel company that takes the immoral aspects of tourism that our companies conceal, but highlight and elevate them to be the actual attractions themselves.
My work showcases what happens when this industry is allowed to continue along the current path it has been on, without any regulation or control.
My thesis is: Disaster as Tourism.
My booth at OCADU's GradEx 104. Showing all the pieces I have made throughout the school year.
Why Tourism
The tourism industry is neatly packaged, attractively designed and presented. It makes us, as consumers, completely oblivious to its negative impacts, so it’s no wonder that we are complacent in the perpetuation of its harmful cycles. In order to subvert the connotations associated with the activity of “leisure pastime” I will demonstrate how outlandish and despicable current tourism practices are, through this speculative brand created.
A page from my fall process book, highlighting the problems with the tourist mentality. I have purposefully blacked out the eyes of all the photos/visual material that shows the eyes of the foreigner, as the tourist gaze is inherently colonial and problematic.
The Problem
The crux of this industry is made up of a system and power structure that is imperialistic in its very nature. In common with other industries that prize capital accumulation above all else, tourism relies on a system that does little to benefit, or compensate sufficiently, the local and indigenous peoples who provide the bulk of labour that drives the service and hospitality sector. Local voices often go unheard in our pursuit of profit. For many working in the industry, this service has become their only source of income which further enhances the foreign (predominantly white) saviour trope.
The activities in which we partake during travel are very much reflective of, and comparable to the harmful imperialist policies of the past. Today, that harm is just hidden behind a facade of sunny islands and exotic locations. The colonization we perform now is neocolonialism.
The front and back covers from one of my guidebooks, using real quotes about tourism that showcases the imperial nature of this industry.
My Proposal
A fundamental perceptive shift must occur in the industry in order to make the impacts of the industry more accountable and transparent. Corporations, marketing agencies and local governments know how to craft the perfect narrative for the westerner to earn themselves billions of dollars, whilst keeping us blind in our privilege.
We are all familiar with the notion of been there, done that, so I invite you to welcome aboard, and come travel with us. By imaging this narrative, maybe others will wake up from their prerogative and reflect on their past actions, and maybe that will be the spark for a change in their behaviour for the future.
Poster Series: Advertising the potential of man made oil spills as a potential tourism attraction.
Tourism Guidebook that explores New York underwater.
Tourism Guidebook that explores the oil spills cruise package.
I developed a critical and constructive framework to build this brand and fully flesh out this concept. These conditions are:
· Nothing is too outlandish or off limits in the future unregulated market
· Morality or ethics do not matter in any capacity
· Everything can/will be commodified for the purpose of profit
· The tourist and consumer always comes first
From this framework gathered from a near semester of research complied into a 240 page process book. I created the brand: Premier White Star Cruises, and designed 2 tourism packages with 3 posters for each, a guidebook detailing the while trip and a few small laser cut trinkets and ticket designs to flex my creative muscles.
Lastly I created several pieces of animation to top off the print and digital work I have created. I made all the posters into animations and I made a mock up UI/UX based off of the first guidebook I created.
