Revenge tourism may be an actual thing, but so are the lingering variants of COVID

These days, when there’s a lot of talk about hatemongers, religious intolerance, fanaticism and taking revenge on the ‘wrongs’ perpetrated in history with regard to the mandir-masjid controversies, there’s another type of revenge that is being practised widely, from the mountainous regions to the silvery sand beaches at seashores. Interestingly, sociologists have named it “revenge tourism”. In layman’s term, such travel is when people travel not for joy or peace but out of vengeance that they were forced to remain confined within the four walls of their encampment and could not move around during the two years when the pandemic scare was at its peak. In expert speak, it is explained as a phenomenon that has people who are tired of mundane everyday routines due to successive lockdowns, rush to travel to nearby destinations for short breaks. This habit stems from the fact that people have spent long, dreary months in lockdowns and are experiencing what has been described as “lockdown fatigue” or exhaustion that escalates on account of the monotony of routine. Not unique to India, this phenomenon has been experienced across the world when the respective Governments eased lockdown restrictions after successive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just in case you are wondering, it’s not just a figment of fertile imagination. There is veritable data to back this theory. For example, Goa crossed pre-COVID-19 air passenger footfalls in December 2021. Even religious towns such as Tirupati, Shirdi, Kishangarh and Prayagraj have recently crossed their pre-COVID-19 passenger numbers. The number of domestic passengers in Goa rose 14 per cent to 815,935 in December 2021 from 715,293 in December 2019, before the pandemic, as per the Airports Authority of India data. These numbers hold out hope for the air travel, tourism and hospitality sectors, which were badly battered by the pandemic. A word of caution, though! Revenge tourism has often led to a fresh round of spurt in the number of novel Coronavirus cases across the world because tourists generally don’t follow COVID-appropriate behaviour. They tend to behave like carefree kids out on a picnic, without realising that the threat hasn’t yet gone away; it’s just hiding from plain sight. So, the next time you book your tickets, don’t ignore the face masks and the sanitiser bottle. Your life, and that of your loved ones, may depend on these!