Richard Turen
The fact is that none of us, to my knowledge, refuses to send travelers to the world's most polluted cities in China, India, Southeast Asia and Africa. We do it all the time. But now there might be a way we can help our clients, if only in the psychological sense, adjust to the foul air in Beijing, Mumbai, Bangkok and other major tourism centers.
We can suggest that our clients purchase clean air when they arrive. According to a recent story in the New York Times, fresh-smelling places all over the globe are bottling their air and selling pint jars of it on the streets of Beijing and elsewhere for about $100.
Canadians are selling something called Rocky Mountain Breeze, and travelers can now score six-packs of air guaranteed to have been bottled on Bondi Beach in Sydney.
Visitors to the Canadian Rockies this summer might want to pause for a moment as they ponder the incredible scenery and fresh, clean air in Banff and Lake Louise in Alberta. The air from this region is being captured by one company in air canisters that contain about 150 one-second sprays. If you think this is an idea that every shark on "Shark Tank" would find amusing, the company reports that it has attracted inquiries from China, India, Afghanistan and Iran.
Of course, buying bottled air is of little practical use. In theory, you would need to consume eight bottles to achieve one minute of pure breath. Or to put it another way, one leading pollution scientist has pointed out that we humans all need about 20,000 liter bottles of air each.
But that's not necessarily the point. Users who can afford it said that even a single serving is reinvigorating and helps them deal with the stress of breathing. After all, who would have predicted two decades ago that Americans traveling abroad would be seeking out plastic bottles of water and paying for it?
The unhappy reality is that the most heavily polluted air in the world contains heavy doses of "particulate matter," stuff that is dangerous for even the healthiest travelers. These particles are deadly and small enough to get into the lungs and other organs. Exposure over time leads to higher rates of cancer and heart attacks.
How many clients return home from China and comment about all the average folks in the street wearing masks? Well, perhaps our clients ought to be issued masks with their final documents.
There is some anecdotal evidence that some Chinese travelers are putting off actual trips abroad and, for a lower cost, inhaling bits of our air "as needed."
A company called Vitality Air sells canisters of fresh air for about $25 that provides somewhere between 150 and 200 breaths.
The wealthy entertain friends by serving the cherished bottles of air from some of the planet's most desirable destinations. Can't you just imagine the smiling host presenting his most-special dinner guests with "a lovely jar of New Jersey Turnpike" to breathe with their tea.
If you want a laugh today, check out a promotional video from Aethaer, a company that sells attractive glass jars of "freshly caught" air from the English countryside. The video depicts Aethaer employees in white frocks, pirouetting through fields of lavender, snagging fresh air in small nets.
Travel agents might want to gift their clients traveling to highly polluted regions with a few cans of air. Or, on a more serious note, they might conclude that in some urban areas, pollution is so pervasive that clients ought to be discouraged from visiting.
In China, the wealthy class is increasingly seen as a rich market for air-pollution devices. The cities of Beijing, Chongqing, Zhuhai and Shanghai are said to have the most serious pollution dangers.
In researching this column, I learned that every one of the Apple Stores in China now sells something called a Laser Egg, a personal air monitor. When walking in China's most polluted cities the device lets you know just how bad things really are, taking measure of air quality every few steps. For children, the walk to school can become a science lesson about the likelihood that they will die early as a result of unrestricted industrial pollution.
I have said, and I honestly believe, that there is travel and there is travel to India. The sights, the sounds and the smells of the country will never leave you. It is the most photogenic country I've ever visited. A Ganges River cruise of the type offered by Uniworld is a trip into another reality, a kaleidoscope of emotions and mental photos. When clients want to go on a journey instead of a vacation, I often suggest a Cox & Kings, Travcoa, or Abercrombie & Kent exploration of India.
But these clients need to be told that the air pollution in India is even more serious than in China. India is home to 13 of the world's 20 most polluted cities, a distinction the tourist board would prefer we not mention.
There have been well-documented studies of the effects of air pollution on residents, including American expats. International schools in China, for example, use a one-bell, two-bell system. One bell means it's OK for the kids to play outside, even eat lunch outdoors. Two bells, an increasingly common occurrence, alerts the teachers to seal doorways and windows, and the children are not permitted outside for recreation at all. Hopefully, the pollution will drop by the time school is out, or the children will just have to cope.
In New Delhi, bicycle riders and, increasingly, small-bore motorcycles are pervasive. Bikes can weave in and out of traffic and are an affordable alternative to car ownership. But residents of all economic classes are slowly becoming aware that a bicycle ride on a crowded New Delhi street exposes them to astoundingly high pollution.
This is all bound to affect tourism to the most heavily polluted countries. Some of the best reporting on this subject is coming out of Lonely Planet, whose younger demographic is particularly interested in pollution, especially last January's "Airpocalypse" in Beijing, which brought smog-alert scores to their highest level ever.
China remains the third-largest destination for travelers, after France and the U.S. But tourism to China is by most measures down. Though air-quality reports from the Chinese government have been generally encouraging, the U.S. Embassy has been reporting to both the Chinese and anyone else who will listen actual measurements of air pollution that would seem to make spark the question, "Is this the best time to visit China?"
Expats are leaving, and the EU Chamber of Commerce reported that the pollution in China's major cities is causing many non-Chinese executives to leave.
BMW has publicly acknowledged that it is having difficulty filling midlevel management positions due to perceptions that breathing the air in China is seriously unhealthy.
Yet we travel advisers continue sending families to China without warning of the potential long-term health effects of a few weeks of horribly polluted air. Ditto for India and other countries where the levels of particulate matter in the air are a national disgrace. And no canister of anything is going to make this problem go away.
Fortunately, we live in a country where climate change, clean air and clean water are addressed and administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We'll be fine, right?
Actually, the U.S. might not be much of a leader when it comes to environmental issues. President-elect Trump's nominee to head the EPA is Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma's attorney general, an opponent of environmental regulation and a climate-change denier.