And girls, VALS and the destitute revealed as heroes of surf travel.
An exciting new scientific research paper, Establishing a pre-COVID-19 baseline for surf tourism: Trip expenditure and attitudes, behaviors and willingness to pay for sustainability, has revealed a shocking truth.
The better you surf, the more high-performance craft you ride, the less y’care about whether or not the joint you’re visiting puts a little back into the host country, employees locals etc.
You want waves, some booze and maybe a few hookers on the last night. The rest is up to the hotel owner.
That’s my view, at least.
The paper, from Leon Mach, an Associate Professor in Environmental Policy and Socioeconomic Values from Panama and Jess Ponting, Associate Professor in sustainable tourism at San Diego State University, finds girls, VALS and the destitute are the real heroes when it comes to looking after mother earth.
Scroll down to page seven, 5.2, to find this lil gem.
“The results of this study indicate that female surfers, younger surfers, and lower income surfers value both sustainable attitudes and behaviors more highly than other groups. Additionally, those who predominantly ride short-boards, and those with higher ability levels see less value in selecting sustainable tourism providers. Future research could explore the implications of this finding as it is likely that expert surfers will be among the most likely to travel before the pandemic is finally under control.”
And, how about this?
“International surf tourism expenditure was valued between $31.5 to $64.9 billion USD per year and surfers reported being willing to pay between $1.99 and $4.1 billion USD more annually for sustainable surf tourism products.”
Two things.
The word sustainable is meaningless.
And, I’d got out of my way to avoid a joint that offered an “authentic”, “sustainable” surf experience.
Did they survey King Kelly? Gouterknown keep telling me he always puts people and the planet first and wears undies made from old fisherman’s beards, so he is obviously not one to mock “sustainable attitudes and behaviors”.
Wouldn’t the conclusion be “those who suck at surfing are least likely to spend a shit ton of money to travel for surfing?”
Derek Rielly, your disregard for sustainability in surf travel supports the thesis of the paper. Cheers!
Fascinating.
There’s some guy called Jess Ponting from the Surf park Summit (surfparkcentral.com) who is spruiking wave parks.
I wonder how these wave pools that gobble up water, power and land stack up on the sustainability front.
Oh dear.
no it doesn’t. Derek is both shithouse at surfing and destitute. Like the rest of us here.
And Chas rides a mid length….
DR coming out swinging on this one. So where does this put the Malloys and Rasta and Rob? And it’s no wonder outerknown stuff is 500$ for a shirt. Those of us who would buy it because we believe in it can’t afford anything but some wax, and all the pros could care fuck all.
I don’t think Dave Rastovich is very bright. Or else he’s being used by patagonia. Maybe both. Big Oil don’t surf may well have been a good principle but you know, that surfboard and that plane you just caught require oil. Awkward.
I think Machado is just doing the long hair don’t worry be happy thing without peddling an agenda. Using pawlonia and eco resin doesn’t make him a hypocrite if he isn’t spinning the Patagonia line.
Patagonia are the biggest hypocrites of all. I mean kudos to them for not being populated with suit wearing corporate kooks, but if you’re going to manufacture your clothing range overseas because making it local cuts into your bottom line then don’t bullshit us about your green credentials.
I’ll go head to head any old time with white lightning but as long as we stay on dry land it ain’t gunna end well for him.
Jeez you could sell tickets for any version of that.
What was untenable is now sustainable.
https://youtu.be/hSp8IyaKCs0
Just like the Wozzle greenwashing everything while also celebrating pro surfers flying halfway round the world for a swell….
I always wanted to open a surf resort / tyre burning yard on Sumatra
couple old man orang-utans chained up to the front door for atmosphere.
They could get work as Security guards.
I actually came up with a whole alter ego persona for it during the depths of a boat trip flat spell. Russian-Indonesian tyre burning tycoon Boris Beng Beng Yudhiyono.
with a very young wife.
Last time we were in Bali, spent a bit of time in a cafe/restaurant that was run by a gorgeous young Ruski chick. Very gregarious, fun, twinkle in the eye type of gal. All that changed when the money man turned up about 9pm each night. Then it became very business like.
Tire burning? Thats fucked. The real money is first world plastic burning. We used to ship all our plastic to China and lesser populated SE asian countries for ‘recycling’.
Plastic recycling is a scam fueled by the petroleum industry. At least in the states its been proven that the petro industry paid big $$ on PR to make it appear like all those soda bottles get re-used in the plastic stream.
https://www.npr.org/2020/09…
Biggest fucking hoax laid on the first world maybe ever. Weapons of mass destruction level shit. Guilt free consumption. How the fuck did we all stay hydrated before the plastic bottle?
Yeah dude you know whats up! About 8% of plastic in the states is recycled. You ask most people how they’re ‘saving the planet’ they’ll say recycling but its bullshit.
Starting in the 1990s, the public saw an increasing number of commercials and messaging about recycling plastic. These commercials carried a distinct message: Plastic is special, and the consumer should recycle it.
It may have sounded like an environmentalist’s message, but the ads were paid for by the plastics industry, made up of companies like Exxon, Chevron, Dow, DuPont and their lobbying and trade organizations in Washington. Industry companies spent tens of millions of dollars on these ads and ran them for years, promoting the benefits of a product that, for the most part, was buried, was burned or, in some cases, wound up in the ocean.
and coke and all those companies response to china not buying the plastic anymore.. they are going to focus on building recycling in the states.. why… so we can continue to fucking consume without guilt.. fucking biggest bunch of cunts we are.. how many boards do i own.. fuck…
In the UAE, water is actively marketed on the basis that small plastic bottles are more hygienic. As a result they have a significant issue with bottles being chucked out of large SUVs into the desert being consumed by camels. The stomachs of the beasties then fill up, but don’t get digested, leading to them starving to death because they are ‘full’ and don’t feel the need to eat.
Fawk.. i am in Central America. you should see near the river mouths after the hurricanes and such from the winter. so much shit on the beaches. fuck pepsi
Bottled water is the least of the problems with Gulf Arabs. Building golf courses in the desert using gas-powered desal machines and letting the water evaporate. It’s fucking crass. If you give uneducated nomads blank cheques, you don’t end up with utopia. You end up with a fool’s paradise. Every time I work in the Middle East I weep for the future of humanity.
Blame Evian. They were the first wankers to spruik water that didn’t come out of a tap. The only time you might buy bottled water beforehand was when you got offered fizzy stuff at a fancy restaurant.
right. perrier was kind of special at a club.. but i think there were spigots all over the fucking place.. paid by tax payers so we could drink
Well Derek that is where we disagree. As a very average surfer, I’m going to one of these sustainable places to be the best surfer in the water, surrounded by fawning surf chicks and admiring Oregonians on mid lengths!
Yeah, but the aprés sesh surf talk is gonna do ya head in.
Better to spend time regaling VALs with my fictional exploits at Mullaghmore than listening to cunts who might have actually surfed there!
That’s where whisky and cocaine come in handy
I’m torn.