September 27th is World Tourism Day, and to celebrate the founding of the World Tourism Organization, Niantic wants us all to travel to Europe to get a Mime Jr.

Yes, that’s part of the actual promotion Pokémon GO announced on Wednesday, stating that the first-ever World Tourism Event will begin September 26th to encourage people to explore the world through use of its regional Pokémon.

Exploring the world is great and all, but asking people to explore the world specifically to capture Pokémon is all kinds of ridiculous.

Perhaps Niantic is confused. Just because they gave Wailords and Tirtougas the “Surf” ability doesn’t mean that players can bust them out on their phones and ride across the Atlantic Ocean. For those of us in the western hemisphere, that kind of travel takes months of planning and thousands of dollars.

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Sure, the tagline of the Pokemon anime was “gotta catch ‘em all,” but nobody actually cares that much about catching them all. Most people didn’t even care enough to buy both Pokémon Red and Blue back when that was the only way to hunt down all 151 original Pokémon. You’re not promoting tourism at all, you’re just letting people who are already tourists know that maybe they should take out their cell phone while they’re abroad.

The World Tourism Day announcement boasted that people from other countries took part in the 2019 Pokémon GO Fests in Chicago and Dortmund, but those people weren’t there for the Pokemon GO Fest. At best, those people just so happened to be in Chicago and Dortmund while the festivals were going on. At worst, those people just spoofed their location to trick the game into thinking that they were there.

Until it becomes a tradition to kick kids out of the house at age 10 with nothing but an iPhone and a freshly-downloaded copy of Pokémon GO, Niantic is only kidding themselves if they think region-based events will result in any meaningful amount of travel. Yes, their game is popular, and yes, players are willing to spend money to get what they want from the game. But they're not willing to spend that much money, and it's ridiculous to think otherwise.

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