Our regular columnist has his say on going cashless when travelling abroad, the impact of tourism on social cohesion and the irony about offence being cancelled after people were offended.
Are you bold enough to go cashless?
Cash. Cold, hard cash. Are you the type of person who always carries it or do you now depend on cards? Despite a huge rise in the use of cashless payments over the last five years, new research has revealed that more than one-fifth of Brits take over £450 cash abroad with them. That sounds like a hell of a lot to me. The survey, undertaken by Go.Compare Travel Insurance, also revealed that the average Brit takes £323.85 in local currency with them abroad, while just one in ten admitted they don’t take cash with them.
Now this might surprise you, but I’m in the one in ten. I was heading to get some euros before a trip to Krakow a couple of years ago and stopped myself. Since Covid I’ve dramatically reduced my use of cash, with more and more places and services offering contactless payment by card. I wasn’t headed to the middle of nowhere but a modern European city and I didn’t need cash for my entire trip.
Plus, take note: an analysis of travel insurance policies by Go.Compare has revealed that 20 annual trip policies don’t provide any cover for cash abroad, and 72 provide cover for less than £200. Bet you don’t know if your policy covers cash, but I reckon you’re now going to check. How about going really retro… who of you out there still uses travellers cheques?
The social value of tourism
Social cohesion – now there’s a phrase from the 21st century top drawer if ever I saw one. I guess it’s what we’re hoping for in what has become a very fractured society at times. Could tourism be an antidote?
New research published by VisitEngland is claiming it demonstrates the ‘positive cultural and social impacts that tourism has on local communities across the UK’. The report titled The Social Value of Tourism says it has found significantly higher levels of community pride, sense of well-being and social cohesion amongst residents living and working in areas frequented by both domestic and international visitors. 58% said they felt connected to their community compared to 35% elsewhere. Those living and working in tourism areas were also more likely to be proud of their local area with sense of pride-in-place scoring 12% higher overall.
Now I don’t want to be a cynic (who’d ever call me one of those) but I always thought that people living in tourism hot spots got the raving hump because they were battling through tour groups to do their shopping, or waving their fists when traffic was gridlocked. So, hands up: who lives somewhere with great ‘social cohesion’?
The perpetually offended strike again
This is a story that made me laugh and enraged in equal measure. An exhibition called Licence to Offend was cancelled because… some found it too offensive!
Satirical works from some of the most highly regarded political cartoonists was due to go on display at the TownSq space in Kingston upon Thames until some of its members presumably said they didn’t like to see Sir Keir Starmer doing ‘Verbal Gymnastics’ or Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk put in their place through the highly skilled pen of those blending humour with politics.
I quite enjoy the satirical cartoons you see in the papers, but we live in a world where many are what can only be described as the perpetually offended and find wit difficult to understand. The world is full of morons.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily the views of the publisher.
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