Studying the Future, People the Process of Change Is Inevitable; It’S up to Everyone to Can Better Anticipate What Lies Ahead
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
v JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF TOURISM STUDIES JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF TOURISM STUDIES ISSUE 4 DEcISSUEEMbER 42009 |DECEMBER 1 2009 IDEAS tourism culture heritagE Dynamics of the Apocalypse Studying The Necromancer the Future of Malta 2 welcome IDEAS tourism culture heritagE Join BOV Club and benefit from: • Unsecured Student Loan at reduced rates • High Interest Rate on BOV Student eAccount • Free BOV Club Cashlink Card and Credit Cards • Travel Incentives… and much more!! Loans and Credit Card facilities are subject to normal bank lending criteria and final approval from your BOV branch. Terms and conditions apply. 24813 BOV Issued by Bank of Valletta p.l.c., 58, Zachary Street, Valletta VLT 1130 - Malta ITS MAGAZINE A4 339X240.indd 1 10/14/09 3:20:40 PM JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF TOURISM STUDIES ISSUE 4 DEcEMbER 2009 | 3 editorial This issue of Welcome deals with the Future. Speculations Why is humanity so obsessed with what may happen on Speculation tomorrow? Is this propensity hardwired into our nature? Even nowadays, it is unthinkable for most of us to drive down a road at a History shows that human hundred kilometres an hour without looking ahead. The human cultural spectrum is coloured with striations of endeavours, verging from the insane to the profound, beings are ab origine future- to foresee, or indeed predict, what is to come. The claim to man’s oldest profession directed animals. Ever since should be revisited and be attributed also to the teller of the future. Homo erectus began the long According to Greek mythology, the first oracle, the maker of forecasts, was the trek out of Africa and into earth goddess Gaia, at Delphi, from the Greek delphus, “womb”. Gaia’s prophecies were Eurasia, the horizon-watchers sung out by a mythical figure referred to as the Sybil, who inhaled trance-inducing vapours from a fissure in the mountain. The site was guarded by Gaia’s daughter, the knew that their survival fearsome serpent Python. Then came the god Apollo, whose first big achievement, depended on what they the one that put him on the map, was to slay the giant serpent Python. Since Python found over the hill in the no- was Gaia’s daughter, amends had to be made and Apollo had to work for eight years as man’s time of the day after. a cowherd to purify himself. But once that was done, he returned to Delphi and, in a hostile takeover, claimed the oracle from Gaia. From that moment on, he was known as Pythian Apollo, the god of prophecy, and Delphi was his main shrine. The result was the most successful prediction business in history. For almost a thousand years, the Delphic Oracle called the shots in business, politics, religion, and war. The oracle at Delphi eventually fell into decline with the rise of Christianity, around 300 A.D., but the orb was passed on to the hands of both orthodox, and unorthodox, forecasters of the future. In this issue of Welcome we attempt to take a quick look at mankind’s attempts to look into his objective and subjective futures. Rather than separating the historical, magical, supernatural efforts from the scientifically-inspired ones, we view both as a single manifestation of man attempting to transcend his confines. Professor Carmel Cassar ventures into the realms of the supernatural with Fra Vittorio Cassar’s attempts to foretell the future through necromancy and his eventual tribulations with the Holy Inquisition. Francesca Farrugia examines the realm of literature for imaginative forays into the future, some serious, some frivolous. Strangely enough the literature of proposals and projections about future things appear as a mere blip at the end of civilisation’s 10,000 year record. It is strange too, that utopias and dystopias, forecasts, projections and speculative literature are RAy vassallo in origin, and still largely so, a Western intellectual activity. In his article, David EDITOR Pace deals with our endangered future as environmental catastrophe looms ahead promising an end to both the tourist industry...and eventually ourselves. Martin Debattista discusses how the rapid acceleration in scientific and technological development may drastically affect our future. Finally, we talk about the future of ITS as it passes through its twentieth year in its present incarnation and propose some pathways it may take in its foreseeable future. Join BOV Club and benefit from: Why tackle this particular subject? • Unsecured Student Loan at reduced rates This issue of Welcome is a special issue dedicated to the foundation of the ITS • High Interest Rate on BOV Student eAccount Centre for the Future, a think-tank dedicated to future studies, otherwise known • Free BOV Club Cashlink Card and Credit Cards as foresight studies. The Centre plans to organise its first international seminar in • Travel Incentives… and much more!! conjunction with the University of Manchester Business School at the ITS, between www.its.edu.mt Loans and Credit Card facilities are subject to normal bank lending criteria and final approval from your BOV branch. Terms and conditions apply. 24813 BOV Issued by Bank of Valletta p.l.c., 58, Zachary Street, Valletta VLT 1130 - Malta ISSN 1998-9954 ITS MAGAZINE A4 339X240.indd 1 10/14/09 3:20:40 PM 4 welcome IDEAS tourism culture heritagE We cannot make the 1st – 5th May 2010, with the title “Competing with the Capitals of Art through wise choices if we innovative incoming tourism product development : Foresight”. The scientific study of future possibilities started late in the Second World do not understand War when strategists argued for a concerted effort by sociologists, historians, psychologists, economists and political scientists to examine social and current world technological trends as a means of learning the true shape of coming things. In the trends and their last few decades future studies has grown into a coherent body of techniques and knowledge, known also by such terms as futuring or futurism. Thanks to the work of likely consequences many creative pioneers, these techniques are now used systematically by companies, for ourselves government agencies, think-tanks, and professional futurists around the world to anticipate an endless variety of problems and opportunities. We too can learn these and the options skills and techniques and practice them systematically to improve our careers and we have for our lives. Having an understanding of the future does not mean, of course, that we will achieving our goals be able to predict it in detail. Our ability to forecast most future events is extremely limited. Yet what we can know is critical for our future success. We cannot make wise choices if we do not understand current world trends and their likely consequences for ourselves and the options we have for achieving our goals. As a final note, one should perhaps ponder the words of the legendary science fiction writer and inventor of the telecommunications satellite Sir Arthur C. Clarke, “If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one- the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.” JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF TOURISM STUDIES ISSUE 4 DEcEMbER 2009 | 5 Editorial Team Editor: Raymond J Vassallo Deputy Editor: Martin Debattista welcome Deputy Editor (Culture & Heritage): Vincent Zammit Deputy Editor (Travel & Environment): David Pace Welcome is the official magazine of the Institute of Tourism Studies, Malta’s Deputy Editor (Arts): Francesca Farrugia only professional and higher education institution that meets the changing Sales and Marketing: Elaine Jones needs of the Tourism Industry in the Maltese Islands. The aims of Welcome Advertising Manager: Carmenrita Bugeja are to promote discussion, research and reflection in the field of tourism in respect of the ever-growing importance of innovation, culture, heritage and Contributors technology in its development and evolution. Prof Carmel Cassar Manuel Mangani The views expressed in Welcome do not reflect the views of the Board of Governors or of the Management of the Institute of Tourism Studies but Published by the only that of the individual authors. Institute of Tourism Studies St George’s Bay, St Julians PBK1553 - Malta Tel: +356 2379 3100, Fax: +356 2137 5472, © All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has Email: [email protected] been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. The Institute of Tourism www.its.edu.mt Studies shall have no liability for errors, omission or inadequacies in the Advertising Office information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. Carmenrita Bugeja ISSN 1998-9954 Email: [email protected] Tel: +356 7900 9925, Fax: +356 2137 5472 Cover Image Welcome is distributed to all stakeholders in the Maltese tourism, An 18th century painting by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince: hospitality and higher educational sectors. To subscribe contact the belief that the hands are “mirrors of destiny”, Elaine Jones, Institute of Tourism Studies, St George’s Bay, St Julians, in which a person’s character and future are reflected, Tel: 2137 5472 or Email: [email protected] has flourished for centuries. PARAMOUNT GARAGE Paramount Garage 257, Constitution Street Mosta Tel: 2141 0220, 2141 1193, 2143 2001 | Mobile: 9949 2360 Fax: 2141 2187 | Email: [email protected] 6 welcome IDEAS tourism culture heritagE Inside Information The Necromancer of Malta 05 Envisioning the Future: Far-sighted writers throughout the ages 18 ITS launches new Centre for Future Studies 32 Competing with the Capitals of Art 34 Dynamics of the Apocalypse 36 Right Technology, Wrong Prediction 48 “Champagne” 57 Serving alcohol, without doing any harm 60 How is ITS dealing with the future? 63 JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF TOURISM STUDIES ISSUE 4 DEcEMbER 2009 | 7 CARMEL Cassar Professor Carmel Cassar is a cultural historian who has published mainly on Maltese and Mediterranean Culture and History of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.