The Sensory Input Miners - Alastair Macleod (most romantic novels .txt) 📗

THE SENSORY INPUT MINERS

 

     “We need new locations to exploit”, said Allan Bitter.

 

The team looked at him expectantly across the vast boardroom table.

 

     “Birna, list the criteria.”

    “The country must offer some or all of the following; restful, safe, romantic, surprising, challenging, exciting, and interesting, even risky.”

     “Risky?” Queried Freda.

     “Yes, risky as in extreme sports for example,” said Birna.

     “Not Baghdad risky?” Replied Freda.

     “Not yet, but we might get to that someday – studies show a niche market for really high adrenalin breaks.”

 

Birna continued,

 

      “Physically the location should offer some or all of the following physical characteristics; temp range, 15 degrees to 30 degrees, summer rainfall, light to no precipitation, main rainfall to be winter, cooling breezes, seascapes, mountain or hill scapes, vegetation variety.”

     “What do you mean by vegetation variety?” asked Sandra.

     “Well, not endless grassland or swamp” continued Birna.“A bit of everything – trees scrub, open spaces, rocks, sand. Perhaps let me illustrate by a negative. The tundra; falls down, no vegetative variety, freezes in winter, no seascape, no mountains or hills.”

     “So it’s a no no,” said Freda.

     “Absolutely, nil pointes,” said Ben.

 

     This was a “Big Strategy” meeting for Global Tour, a large multi-national tourist operator.

Their research department had identified “exhaustion” in tourism, meaning tourists were beginning to exhaust, mine, extract, all the sensory input from the known tourist venues of the world.

 

The tourist had been defined by the founder of Global as a sensory input hoover – gobbling up locations as units of sound, light, visual quality, colour, temperature and emotions.

 

The research had shown sensory input acts just like a drug on the brain. The brain craves it, the more it gets the more it wants as long as it provides a high - but, the brain quickly reaches habituation.

 

Some of Global’s customers were reaching saturation on existing resorts. Global had two options; find or create new stimulating venues for its target customers or bring totally new customers into the frame.

 

Today the team were looking at the finding of new locations.

 

     “Let’s look at current, dormant, tourist areas,” said Ben, “that could open up in future as peace or political change emerges.”

 

Peter stood up and went to the flip chart and wrote “Afghanistan.”

The team barked out other locations;

 

     “Iraq.. Libya... Chechynya... Algeria, Darfur, Gaza, Uruguay, Belarus, Bosnia, Russia, Northern Ireland, The Antarctic, China, Siberia, Uzbekistan”

 

For a moment they looked silently at the list.

 

     “But,” said Ben, “we will have to wait a long time for normalisation to let us penetrate and develop these potential markets in a conventional way.”

     “So what do you suggest?” quizzed Allan.

     “That we rethink the concept of the tourist,” interjected Birna. “How many of you have felt and been annoyed by the passivity of tourism, the neutrality. In some places people hardly seem to see you. It’s as if you personally don’t exist, you are a ghost, an invisible species of alien, until you purchase something. You’re not part of the community, you’re objectified. I propose we turn round that around.”

     “How?” said Freda.

     “By introducing “active tourism” where the tourist gives sensory input, doesn’t just hoover it up.”

     “Wow, interesting” said Ben. Birna continued.

    “Tourists could enhance locations. Plant trees, dig wells, build accommodation, pass on skills, provide entertainment.”

 

They all looked at Allan Bitter.

He wasn’t saying no. He was thinking perhaps there was something in this. After all, the stimulus of interacting with people was incredibly powerful, it would be different from the passive touring people did.

     “Develop this a little more,” he said. “For example, how could you fit it in the two week, one week, short break set up?"

      “We could call it, “Give Holidays,” said Ben “because people are giving something.”

     "Or, “Do Holidays,” said Sandra, “ because they’re doing.”

     “Two weeks in Italy helping to restore a church; full instruction given, gilding, painting, stone work”, said Freda.    

   “Or perhaps ,” said Birna, “a week in Morocco planting olive trees.”

    “Or even," said Bob, "a weekend in Granada, laying tiles in the Albecin, the old quarter."

 

Alan Bitter got up. A signal the meeting was over. The team gathered their papers as he left.

 

GRASPING

 

Birna sat cross-legged on the temple floor. The teaching was on grasping; on how humans can have unlimited desires for material goods, wealth, and the affection of others.

 

It was both an easy and a difficult concept thought Birna. She had already moved away from her American material culture – the constant shopping, the obsession with clothes, cars, the bombardment of TV adverts that urged you to shop.

 

But grasping was more subtle than that. You could even be grasping in the way you were drawn to Buddhism. She had turned to Buddhism through a friend. Initially she had found it a safe place, calming, now it was challenging and it contradicted so much of what she was; a thrusting young executive steeped in western market thinking, of competition of exploitation.

 

Her work had been all about creating needs in people and sometimes in a very cynical way, playing on their deepest emotional securities. When she worked at Kleen it was worrying women about clean houses. Then she worked for a cosmetics firm, “Younger”, which sold anti-ageing products aimed at women.

 

She should have known tourism would be no different. What had she naively imagined?

Sun, sea and sand? The cheap holidays were a definite plus, better than a cupboard full of packets of Kleen or a shelf full of anti-wrinkle cream.

 

At the end of the session she approached Thupa her mentor. She felt confused she said by the teaching of grasping.

 

     “What is grasping?” Said Birna.

 

Thupa looked at her troubled face; this one was starting upwards on the spiral.

 

     “Grasping is the action that stems from desire for things; material goods, clothes, food, cars, houses and for emotional things like affection.”

     “But,” said Birna, “people need food, some clothes, transport, a place to live.”

     “Grasping is involved when these needs are pursued to excess,” replied Thupa.

     “For example, someone with 20 pairs of shoes or 40 dresses.”

 

Birna had a flash picture of her overstuffed wardrobe – did she have 20 pairs?

 

    “Could someone who is an ascetic not be guilty of grasping in that they had an inordinate desire for simplicity, for starvation?” queried Birna.

 

     “Yes ,” said Thupa. “The Buddha saw this. It is central to his teaching. That is why he advocated the middle way between asceticism and excess."

 

 MEETING TWO

 

Andrew was a radical at meetings, Allan Bitter knew. Andrew would often see things from a completely different angle, sometimes very usefully; like solving the housing crisis by raising the housing density.

 

As the meeting began, and the team started to expand on their analysis of how to enter the new markets identified the week before, Andrew said,

 

     “I think this is already happening.”

 

There was silence. Across the boardroom table all eyes swivelled to him.

 

     “Are not our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan really a form of tourism, and our Aid missions in Africa?”

     “How can you say that?” spluttered Freda.

     “Isn’t it true we are getting sensory inputs from these things; fear, adrenalin, in the case of war? A sense of nurturing, caring, feeding, the need to be needed, in the case of Aid work?"

     “It’s a very cynical view,” said Birna.

     “He has a point,” said Allan Bitter, “let him continue.”

 

He had a soft spot for Andrew. Both had similar backgrounds; deprivation in the east end of London, making good.

 

     “Conflict and aid as a sort of tourism?” Said Ben. “I never thought of it that way.”

     “You see,” said Andrew, “Once you think of it this way you realise that both aid and conflict are setting up the infrastructure we need to move in; airports, hotels, transport. A dislocated and impoverished workforce is created - just right for the service industry, and ready to be dependent on our manufactured goods and manufactured foodstuffs.

The war or Aid crisis also puts the country on the map, does the advertising. You know the old saying – no publicity is bad publicity. All you need to do is switch the image because you’ve already got their attention."

 

Alan Bitter felt a warm glow. This was why he had picked Andrew as his apprentice back in 2002, just for this type of lateral thinking.

 

     “I think we go with this. Drop whatever you’ve done and start to build from Andrew’s analysis. I want costs, timings, pilot projects on Afghanistan.”

 

As the meeting broke up Freda took Birna’s arm,

 

     “Let’s grab a coffee."

 

Maxim’s had tables outside. Freda leaned close to Birna.

 

     “What do you feel about this project? Isn’t it exciting? So cutting edge, Andrew is so radical!”

Birna could only say “Yes,” as she stirred the latte.

 

In reality she had been appalled but then realised with horror that Andrew’s analysis was so right. It clarified for her why she felt so uneasy about these conflicts and Aid programmes in the past. The curtain of moral purpose was just that; behind it was all grasping. The West, all it knew was grasping. Was this what the human race would take into space?

 

MEETING THREE

 

Andrew was standing at the flip chart now. He drew a diagram of how a tourist market develops.

 

“This diagram still holds true even in Niche markets”

“What are the niche markets in Tourism?” Alan Bitter asked.

“OK team,” said Andrew “let’s have them.”

 

The group peppered Andrew with replies and he posted them on the flip chart.

Sports tourism.

Extreme sports.

Winter sports.

Other sport; walking, shooting, fishing, equine, football, Olympics, golf, cricket.

Sex tourism.

Cultural tourism; books, music, opera, history, archaeology.

Trains.

Birds, wildlife.

Courses.

Conferences.

 

“All of these have positive potential in Afghanistan,” continued Andrew. "Weather is excellent, terrain full of variety and it is a clean environment for the most part.”

“For the most part?" Queried Birna.

“For the most part," said Andrew. “There are some depleted uranium shells, cluster bombs, but these can be dealt with.”

 

The team then laid out the costings for an early pilot accommodation scheme and tourist packages.

Ben felt the pitch to start with would be to capitalise on the risky image and promote the packages as full of adventure, exploration and niche in trekking, climbing, extreme sports such as kayaking and snowboarding.

 

After the meeting Birna found herself with Andrew in the lift.

 

     “Did you really dream up that analysis yourself Andrew?” Said Birna pointedly.

     “If you want the truth? No,” He replied. “I got it from a source.”

 

Birna scrutinised him. Andrew often over dramatised.

 

     “A source?” She repeated.

     “Yes, and one close to power.”

     “You mean this really is part of how they think?”

     “Yes.” He lowered his voice. “Your problem is you’re naïve Birna; "capitalism is not soft ball," my source said.

He was in full flow now.

 

"The neo-conservatives worked out that for capitalism to survive, i.e. not to atrophy, it needs constantly expanding markets.”

“But surely not at the point of a gun?”

“My source said it’s a win win situation for them. They get the arms business during the “war phase”, then in the “rebuilding phase” they get the infrastructure contracts, then in the last phase they are already there bolted in for the “tourist phase.”

“So it’s not about aid, or moral purpose, this is their actual plan?” Said Birna shocked.

“Yep, pretty cool eh?”

“And you want to be part of it?”

“Why not? I happen to agree. Look, what have they got right now? Peace? No. Health? No. Services? No. Schools? No. Supermarkets? No. Cars? No. Freedom for women? No.”

"And, said Birna, "this plan will bring all that?"

“Yes.”

“What if they don’t want these things?"

“They won’t have a choice because by the end of the war phase and reconstruction phase they’re powerless and there’s nothing else on offer. It’s our system or chaos. For us it’s win win.”

 

Birna reeled out of the lift at the ground floor. She watched Andrew’s back as he strode confidently off. To think she once fancied him – for his decisiveness.

 

She took