Austria is a country travelers deem rare to include in Euro trips given the high cost of hotel stays and cost of living even just for a single day inside the capital of Vienna. The home of opera and celebration of classical music, Vienna is also home to the homeless who gainfully make their living making city tours memorable for travelers who wish to see the other side of the city.
According to According to The Independent UK, Shades Tour Vienna is a startup that began in 2016. Chief Operating Executive Perrine Schober believes their unique tourism company -- featuring only four employees who are homeless -- exposes the other side of the perceived invincibility and strength a developed nation possesses by foreigners. She said the tourism initiative could make the tours to be more "educational" because both Viennese and foreign travelers see "homelessness on a daily basis" but "have no idea what it is actually about."
Each tour costs about €15 ($15.95) for a two-hour journey into the physical stories of survival four of Vienna's homeless have to contend with daily. According to AsiaOne Travel -- citing their interview with homeless tour guide Barbara -- Vienna's Central Station attracts the most impoverished in the city as it has free heating -- a given for any public structure in the city.
Perhaps the most attractive part of the tour is the homeless giving the tour a "human" feel compared to the indifferent reports of television and online news networks. Barbara and the three other tour guides show the true gritty and difficult side of homelessness from finding food and shelter for the following day to the feeling of being alone; Barbara was quoted by AsiaOne Travel as she said, "Nobody from my former life knows where I am now and I have no family."
Shades Tour Vienna is comparable to the "slum tourism" companies operating in India and South America. "Slum tourism" intends to raise awareness about the impoverished side of every capital, but critics against the form of tourism said the companies are packaging poverty similarly to a safari or zoo trip.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
