• by Gord Hotchkiss , Featured Contributor, November 19, 2024

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, well, you might find
You get what you need.  -- The Rolling Stones, 1969

When I retired from marketing 11 years ago, I did a brief stint running a tourism business, putting together custom bike tours. I thought it would be an ideal semi-retirement gig -- riding bikes and hanging out with others who loved road cycling.

Like many customer-facing businesses, we lived and died by ratings. Because we were an experience curator, we regularly dealt with dozens of other tourism-based businesses. We were all dealing in the same currency -- those elusive five-star ratings.

In theory, I think customer ratings are a good idea. But there is a dark side: the overly entitled customer who wields the threat of a negative review over the head of a proprietor. By the end of the season, all the operators we were dealing with were burnt out and frustrated. Overt entitlement sucked all the joy out of being in the tourism biz.

This trend got much worse as we were pulling out of COVID. It was as if the entitled had doubled down on their demands during the pandemic. That was when I decided to hang up my cycling shoes. Life was too short to stress about catering to a bunch of whiny, demanding guests who threatened to bring the wrath of a bad Trip Advisor review down on me.

The internet’s early promise was to democratize markets that were traditionally asymmetrical. Suddenly, everyone had a voice. At first, that was wonderful. But predictably, we found a way to screw it up. Compared to the dumpster fire that is social media, online ratings are not pure evil, but they do have their dark side in a culture full of entitled customers.

If you doubt that North America is narcissistically entitled, I direct you to Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell’s book “The Narcissism Epidemic.” Based on years of extensive research, it shows how we have fostered an age of entitlement that lives by the maxim that everyone should be treated as if they were special. That is now the baseline of expectation.

We have brought this on ourselves, by insisting that we -- and especially our children -- receive special treatment. But, as any statistician can tell you, we can’t all be above-average. Sooner or later, something’s got to give.

This is especially true in tourism. We all long for that magical, once-in a lifetime vacation – but it’s now impossible to deliver.

Just check into the most popular vacation destinations in the world: Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Venice and London. All are creaking under the weight of unprecedented numbers of tourist. And the supporting infrastructure can’t support it.

Those places are popular because they have a sense of romance, history and magic. Everyone wants to experience strolling through the secluded streets of Rome at twilight, stopping to toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain.

But the reality is far different. Last year, Rome was invaded by an onslaught of 35 million tourists. Crowds ten to twelve deep pushed toward the fountain, crushing each other and providing the ideal environment for pickpockets. It’s gotten so bad, the city of Rome is looking at instituting a ticket reservation system to see the fountain, as reported in Euro News.

The reality is, overtourism has stripped Rome of its magic. But marketing continues to push the elusive dream of the ideal Roman Holiday, leading us to believe that we’re entitled to that. Everyone else can put up with the crowds and the hassles. But not us - we’re special. And that expectation of special treatment unleashes a vicious cycle. Disappointment is sure to follow. We’ll voice our disappointment by leaving a nasty review somewhere. And some poor tourism operator who’s just trying to keep up will see his or her business slip away as the negative reviews pile up.

I do believe this idea of customer entitlement is particularly prevalent with North Americans. We have constructed it on pagan alter of crazy consumerism.

As this post by Susan Lahey from the Zendesk Blog explains, “U.S. culture, especially American consumer culture, focuses a lot on making people feel special. After being treated like this in enough scenarios, people come to expect it. Then, when they don’t get their way, they’re upset. They feel like they have a right to act however they want towards others until they’re appeased—which winds up isolating the consumer and shaping their view of the world as ‘me against them.’ “

Lahey provides a counterexample of sustainable consumerism, aligned to a culture that embraces egalitarianism. You’ll find it in what are supposed to be the happiest countries on earth, according to the 2024 World Happiness Report: Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. “One thing these countries have in common is a set of social norms called the Jante Laws, which say that no one is more special than anyone else,” Lahey writes. “Far from making citizens unhappy, it seems to make them more resilient when they don’t get what they want.”

Less entitlement, more resilience -- that doesn’t sound like a bad plan for the future!