How It Happens
Probably, tourist traps are as old as tourism itself. The essence of this phenomenon is to lure a tourist to a place from which he cannot escape for some time and fleece him to the bone. There are many ways to do this. They are based on the fact that a tourist, firstly, is a curious creature, easily susceptible to advertising and persuasion for the sake of the opportunity to see something interesting. Secondly, a tourist is also a person; he always wants to eat, drink and buy souvenirs.
Since a tourist is a traveling person, due to circumstances he constantly finds himself in such places. Take an airport, for example - isn't it a trap? Even if a cup of coffee costs ten times more at the airport than on the street, it will still be bought. And a sandwich will be bought. Because you want to eat! You can leave a railway station in search of food because it is in the city. But from an airport there is nowhere to go!
The second ideal trap is a ship. That's where you can jack up prices for food and drink to the ceiling, and dilute cocktails to the state of lemonade! A club hotel in the middle of a wild shore is also a good trap. A cafe on a wild beach. An amusement park. Much more could be added to this list!
The most extortionate traps are those shops where tourists are taken by guides during excursions. Jewelry workshops and crocodile farms in Thailand, papyrus factories in Egypt and carpet factories in Tunisia, sheepskin coat shops in Turkey and fur coat shops in Greece. Try not to buy a carpet in Kairouan when you first drove there for half a day, and then listened for an hour about how unique it is and at the same time surprisingly cheap! Only later do you learn that in an ordinary shop all these unique products cost three times less, but the carpet will already be packed. Therefore, it is better to order a carpet from a specialized online store http://www.carpetcenter.ru/ than to haul an expensive purchase from abroad.
Even in European countries such traps are set: the Swarovski museum, the Paris Museum of Perfume, the Fragonard estate on the Côte d'Azur, artificial pearls in Majorca. The most innocent of these imposed excursions are Spanish wine cellars-bodegas with tasting. There at least you buy a necessary thing, not to mention the pleasure of the tasting itself!
The Marathon Tomb
One of the varieties of tourist traps is prepaid excursions. In your city you buy an excursion to the British Museum or the same Museum of Perfume, and only in London or Paris do you find out that entry there is free, and the walk from the hotel takes ten minutes.
Other traps are based on the tourist's love of sights. The main thing is that their names sound convincing. For example, the Marathon Tomb: who can resist the temptation to see such a legendary thing with their own eyes? We all once knew from a school history textbook about an ancient warrior who in 490 BC ran from the battle site at Marathon to Athens to announce the victory over the Persians. Trusting tourists are drawn to the legend, take a car, or even a taxi, or walk on foot in the Greek heat, buy tickets, enter an open-air museum... And what do they see there? A big round hill overgrown with wormwood and sun-scorched couch grass. Several chickens scatter from underfoot with clucking. Somewhere behind the fence a goat bleats.
It is no better in Egypt: you pay $30 for a dive on the 'most beautiful reef'. You get on a bus. The bus drives around hotels for a long time picking up those who want to dive. Then it brings them to the pier. Everyone boards a boat and sails for about fifteen minutes. Then you are dropped off on the shore near a pontoon from which it is convenient to dive. You look up and see that you are on the territory of a neighboring hotel; you could have walked to that very pontoon completely free of charge! Not to mention that in your hotel the corals are no worse.
Cedar Valley
Some tourist traps are not sold. Locals provide them free of charge either out of carelessness or out of love for art. They themselves like this place so much that they want to show it to all guests.
For example, you are vacationing in Cyprus. You feel good. You are relaxed and happy. And then Cedar Valley comes up. It turns out that in the valley you will find a stunning view and stunning air: there grow 40,000 Cyprus cedars - the most cedar-like cedars in the world. And you take a car and go.
Up to the forest station 'Stavros Psokas' everything goes well: a pleasant road, amazing views, a cool breeze. From the forest station you turn according to the sign and find yourself on a dirt road as wide as your compact car, which winds like a serpentine along the edge of an abyss. There is no way to drive around stones lying on the road. Only a passenger can admire the views. Oncoming jeeps force you to make maneuvers worthy of stuntmen. Be patient: in this close-to-combat situation you will have to drive about twenty kilometers.
Two hours later you descend into a narrow space between two ridges and see a large sign reading: 'Cedar Valley'. Near the sign there is a clearing where you can park your car, and a bench. You sit on the bench, look at the Troodos mountains and the Paphos forest, and painfully wonder: how is this valley different from the twenty previous ones and what is so special about it. Without finding an answer to this question, you get in the car and drive on. Forward to the road to Kykkos or back to the forest station - it doesn't matter. You will have to cover the same twenty kilometers along the same unpaved serpentine. Because you are in a trap for curious tourists.