The all-inclusive travel package needs to change

We had been waiting for this trip since the start of the pandemic. Our excitement grew as the departure approached and we thought that we would finally enjoy a real, much-deserved vacation after more than two years of pandemic, anxiety and stress in the new reality of work and society.

Yves Barrel
Montreal

What a disappointment on the return from this long-awaited trip. This trip brought me back more sadness than joy.

I do not mention the name of the hotel chain that hosted us in the Dominican Republic because the same situation occurs in any hotel chain. What we have bitterly reviewed is a vacation model that needs to be seriously redefined.

We have seen, once again, the indecency of food waste, the gluttony and carelessness of most holidaymakers towards this waste. With the lack of planetary resources at the moment, the price of food, rationing and famines in many countries, filling plates half of which end up in the trash is simply indecent and immoral.

Many times we have seen adults and children chew on a dessert in order to taste only and not finish it. Plates with meat and vegetables left without even being eaten. Full glasses of water thrown away, half-drunk drinks ending up in the sand. And so on. Each meal was like the last for many. One plate could feed three people. Young children already obese and in the image of their parents. At least half of the vacationers were overweight and eating as if they would be without food for a week. Restaurant workers notice with each plate thrown that we are just a herd of well-heeled beasts purely insensitive to their reality. Each plate thrown away could feed their own family adequately.

All-inclusive does not mean wasting everything. The all-inclusive must be redefined in order to avoid (or at least limit) this indecent waste. We have to arrive at a certain formula of the paying user while limiting the issue of the payment card for everything.

Technology and artificial intelligence can greatly help. You just need to have the will to do it.

Some will say that I only have to go to a hotel where I pay for everything I consume. It’s true, but knowing that this waste will always be at work elsewhere makes me say, like many others, that humanity will soon hit a wall if nobody cares and nothing changes. The all-inclusive model also reflects recklessness towards global warming. We consume and throw away without thinking of all the resources on the planet that brought this food to the plates.

This trip made me feel ashamed of being of this “intelligent” race that wastes everything. Do we see animals do the same in nature?

Ultimately, I would encourage the hotel chain to become eco-responsible and sensitive to waste with concrete actions in this direction. Many times, we have proposed to the managers of the hotels already visited to make tourists aware of waste. The comments received were that it might offend people.

Really… nobody cares. Like our society me-myself-and-my-selfie.