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The backlash against overtourism

economist.com

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Re: The backlash against overtourism

#61

Post by siruncledrew »

esotericn wrote: post #4

Mass tourism is being treated as unique when really, we're discovering that everyone cannot have a "good" standard of living. We can't all go travelling, we won't fit in the same place and we'll boil the earth doing so. We can't all have a car because we'll boil the earth. If we develop EV's and don't boil the earth, they won't all fit downtown. We can't all live in the country, that's not sustainable either. We can'…

Most of the places that are top tourist destinations don't have the capacity to handle such a high volume of people. It's just not how they were designed (and they had no reason to anticipate a huge surge in population and transportation hundreds or thousands of years ago).

In order for places we hold dear to avoid being trampled into the ground by people like herds of buffalo, there has to be some sort of gatekeeping that takes place to protect them. In theory, it would be fantastic if places could be open and appreciated by people from all over, but what happens in reality is more people creates more chaos. We can't expect that people will follow common behaviors and understandings because, if they did, then there wouldn't be a need for rules and oversight in the first place.

There's many beautiful places in the world and we should do our best to keep them beautiful for future generations to enjoy. Unfortunately, there's unavoidable costs to doing so, and not everyone will be able to get things the way they want. A finite reality with infinite intentions are going to end up at odds with each other.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#62

Post by dsfyu404ed »

etblg wrote: post #54
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #22

Meh. I grew up somewhere tourism was the biggest local industry. I will never be able to go on a "normal vacation" without feeling dirty because I know how the sausage is made. Tourism sucks and the suck percolates through the entire local economy and everybody who has to participate in it (i.e. everyone who lives there). Even if you don't sell grossly overpriced goods or services to the tourists you make your living…

Where did you grow up?

Tourist destination on the east coast of the US. More of a summer family destination than an old money vacation homes or college spring break destination but old money and the 18-25 party crowd were well represented during the season.

I'm not getting any more specific than that.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#63

Post by zanny »

esotericn wrote: post #4

Mass tourism is being treated as unique when really, we're discovering that everyone cannot have a "good" standard of living. We can't all go travelling, we won't fit in the same place and we'll boil the earth doing so. We can't all have a car because we'll boil the earth. If we develop EV's and don't boil the earth, they won't all fit downtown. We can't all live in the country, that's not sustainable either. We can'…

At least a few of those have evolving technical solutions. We can all travel in a more sustainable way if we can do full body VR immersion wherever we want to go. We don't need cars if we have fleets of autonomous vehicles to pick us up and drop us off wherever we want to be on a whim. We can all live in the country if you don't need to commute either yourself or property to and from where you live (the infrastructure to maintain sparse development is much more a hindrance on low density living than just building dwellings). And we can eat all the meat we want if we are growing it ourselves from cultured cells rather than having to make the rest of the animal for years to get just the muscle we want to cook.

No, those aren't the experiences we have today, but I'm not consuming all my performance entertainment as live acts in a theater because doing so would have been unsustainable for the scale you want to produce at. We evolved the technology into film and later television and now we watch what we want, when we want, where we want. The marginal cost of that entertainment went from stadium sized buildings with productions that took years to refine and practice with crews and casts in the hundreds able to perform for a thousand at most to millions of people being able to repeatedly enjoy hand crafted frames and sounds for the marginal cost of cents of power and wire.

A hundred years from now mankind won't lament missing out on driving any more than most people don't crave horseback riding today. Because we innovate our way to better solutions.

And its insane hubris to think mankind is anywhere close to the potential limits of physical science that we won't dramatically, in ways we can't even comprehend or imagine, refine our condition in the decades to come, and for centuries thereafter if we at last that long.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#64

Post by quest88 »

Loughla wrote: post #16

Honest to God, the best take on this theory was actually the Consul's tale in Hyperion explaining why he was against the Hegemony. The degradation of Maui-Covenant is just so very realistic and easy to visualize. Reading that as a child actually led me to travel less than I really want to as an adult. Instead, I enjoy making my small part of the world 'mine' instead of trying to make the rest of the world 'mine'.

What do you think of traveling to experience other parts of the world that you can incorporate into your part of the world?

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#65

Post by totalperspectiv »

jolesf wrote: post #3

“To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience, It is to impose yourself on places that in all non-economic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction afte…

I struggle with this every time I travel! I think that part of the... guilt? ... can be assuaged by intent. As in, you are there to learn and absorb a culture and broaden your horizons, as opposed to being there for the entertainment of seeing crazy things and getting the Instagram shot. But maybe that's just a pretense I make up for myself.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#66

Post by Bayart »

js2 wrote: post #46

If you stay on Venice, you can explore away from the busiest tourist areas during the day, then at night when most of the tourists leave, have the city to yourself to explore. Obviously a place can be loved or touristed to death. Groups with a large number of people arriving all at once (whether by van or bus or ship) exacerbate it. But everywhere I've traveled, even very popular places, if you can find a way to avoi…

Being a theme park is existential terror for any historical city.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#67

Post by lmm »

js2 wrote: post #25
esotericn wrote: post #4

Mass tourism is being treated as unique when really, we're discovering that everyone cannot have a "good" standard of living. We can't all go travelling, we won't fit in the same place and we'll boil the earth doing so. We can't all have a car because we'll boil the earth. If we develop EV's and don't boil the earth, they won't all fit downtown. We can't all live in the country, that's not sustainable either. We can'…

This is reductio ad absurdum, isn't it? You could implement a fair system giving everyone the equal opportunity to access (e.g. a tourist destination), even if not everyone gains access (via some sort of lottery). There's also enough places and opportunities on the planet that not everyone will want to do everything, certainly not all at once. So you could implement cap and trade.

> You could implement a fair system giving everyone the equal opportunity to access (e.g. a tourist destination), even if not everyone gains access (via some sort of lottery).

A lottery is inherently inefficient (someone who really wants to go somewhere gets the same chance as someone who only barely marginally cares) and likely to lead to a black market.

> There's also enough places and opportunities on the planet that not everyone will want to do everything, certainly not all at once. So you could implement cap and trade.

That's a better idea, and seems like what some of these places are already implementing (the article mentions Easter Island; Nepal does something similar for Mt Everest).

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#68

Post by kranner »

Fuxy wrote: post #43
Daishiman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... it's not all about money. You can refuse to accept money from sources which are really not all that cracked up (because the margins in tourism are not great actually) and accept people for humanitarian reasons. If you're not 14 or completely driven by greed you can understand the reasoning behind this.

Being a humanitarian is admirable but at the end of the day it's a luxury that may or may not pay off in the long run. Just the same way you don't give your money to a beggar on the street when you can barely afford to survives yourself the employment of personal boundaries is important for humans and countries. So given that Italy is not doing so well at the moment I kind of have to question their thinking reducing…

Humanitarianism or other altruism doesn’t have to pay off at all. That is not a measure by which to evaluate it.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#69

Post by clojurestan »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #22

Meh. I grew up somewhere tourism was the biggest local industry. I will never be able to go on a "normal vacation" without feeling dirty because I know how the sausage is made. Tourism sucks and the suck percolates through the entire local economy and everybody who has to participate in it (i.e. everyone who lives there). Even if you don't sell grossly overpriced goods or services to the tourists you make your living…

I live in New Orleans and this rings true to me. It sucks because many times there is something special about the place that led it to become a tourist destination in the first place, whether it's natural wonders like mountains or a beach, a culture that produces new musical genres every few decades, or a historical legacy of art and architecture. It is nice to live in these environments and it sucks that cheap commodified travel and packaged tourism is exacerbating the problems that come from an economy based on serving tourists.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#70

Post by Daishiman »

Fuxy wrote: post #43
Daishiman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... it's not all about money. You can refuse to accept money from sources which are really not all that cracked up (because the margins in tourism are not great actually) and accept people for humanitarian reasons. If you're not 14 or completely driven by greed you can understand the reasoning behind this.

Being a humanitarian is admirable but at the end of the day it's a luxury that may or may not pay off in the long run. Just the same way you don't give your money to a beggar on the street when you can barely afford to survives yourself the employment of personal boundaries is important for humans and countries. So given that Italy is not doing so well at the moment I kind of have to question their thinking reducing…

Tourism is a low value-added industry with little to provide beyond low quality service jobs. I mean, it's clear considering that Italy is one of the most visited countries in the world and yet things aren't so hot there.

On the other hand, why do you falsely assume that acceptance of refugees has to have no limits or conditions? I'm saying that you can achieve a level of practical balance for two different areas on unrelated motives.

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