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The backlash against overtourism

economist.com

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Re: The backlash against overtourism

#91

Post by alexgmcm »

kartan wrote: post #10

I am from Barcelona, even that I have not lived there for the past 5 years. Governments have been caring to maximize business profit. And in that pursuit, they have created cities where one cannot live anymore. Unregulated tourism has make things worse. The rise of Airbnb and similar schemes are punishing buildings in popular neighbourhoods that instead of a place to live with your family they become a business witho…

I live in BCN now and I think Airbnb is really the biggest issue - the other things don't really affect you if you stay out of Las Ramblas, Barceloneta etc.

I moved from Sagrada Familia to Guinardo and its much nicer and not yet affected by the tourism etc.

It must suck to own a house in Barceloneta or something as it has changed completely although you would probably be able to sell it for a lot more money than it used to be worth I suppose.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#92

Post by Aunche »

Fuxy wrote: post #14

I found the quote “tourists go home, refugees welcome” quite funny. So what their basically saying is they would rather kick out tourists that bring in and spend quite a lot of money effectively boosting the economy in favour of some refugees the government will have to spend a large amount of money on... and you wonder why the contry's economy is in such a bad shape when the citizens advocate shooting themselves in…

Tourism dollars do a lot less for the local economy than one might expect. Tourist destinations like the Caribbean and Bali have some of the worst income disparity in the world. Tourism provides utility to the tourists, but nothing in return for the locals. Doctors and electricians get paid more to serve tourists than their home communities. Worst of all is that a lot of children are incentivized to sell things to tourists than to finish school.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#93

Post by the_af »

coldtea wrote: post #60
robben1234 wrote: post #42

I won't argue about off topic issues, but I don't think mass tourism is killing any sights. Ignorance kills natural sights, over advertisement kills human created sights. Nearby Venice there's so much interesting stuff and small cities, a bit further are big cities. None of them really struggles with tourists as much as Venice. Maybe you'll see a huge line for Firenze Duomo but that's it, streets and other sights are…

> Why Florence struggles with Duomo and Venice struggles in general? Because they're famous all over the world for things they're struggle with. Everyone know about floating city of Venice, and Florence's Cathedral. Those things are being romanticised for centuries. There's a reason they've been "romanticised for centuries", even when there was not a "lure tourists" motive: they are beautiful. (Not that 90% of the mo…

> Those other places, not so much

Are you arguing those other, less known places are not beautiful? I can't agree with that.

There are perfectly valid reasons why Florence and Venice are tourist bottlenecks: they are well known because they are historically important cities, featured in famous works of arts -- paintings, literature, etc -- all over the world. So of course I want to see Venice and cities like it: they have well deserved fame. But they are not the only or even the most beautiful cities, they are just the most well known (again, for valid reasons).

The same reasoning can be applied to many "tourist bottlenecks": of course it's reasonable to want to see the Mona Lisa or visit the Eiffel Tower: they are world famous! You learned about them in school! But are they the best or the most beautiful? Nope.

(For the record: I thought Venice was ugly. YMMV)

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#94

Post by selimthegrim »

clojurestan wrote: post #69
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 commo…

Down the street from me by the Industrial Canal someone has an “AirBnB Crossing” sign in their window with an ape ascending into a man with a club on it.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#95

Post by spiralx »

narag wrote: post #75
maxxxxx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It sucks. But what's the alternative? " Ideally we would stop breeding and keep world population at a certain number. In reality population will probably keep growing and we can only hope that technology will help avert a disaster.

It's interesting that the two comments that touch the overpopulation side are being downvoted. Why? Does the people downvoting care to explain? There's a huge contradiction here. Either you do "something" to control population or else all the measures to control climate change are stillborn. We are struggling with the current population!

Because world population is already forecast to peak and then decline over the next few decades, economic development has already "done something" about this issue, unless you're proposing mass murder or something equally implausible.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#96

Post by somebodythere »

908087 wrote: post #57
stochastic_monk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not choose to live in such a world. It sounds like a dystopia, d’après The Matrix.

The main difference will be that, thanks to the direction our "tech" industry has been headed, "our" matrix will be projecting a constant stream of advertisements onto any natural wonder or monument you attempt to "visit". "Half Dome -- BROUGHT TO YOU BY PEPSI"

In a virtual reality where you can zap any good you might like into existence, why would Pepsi need to exist?

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#97

Post by dagw »

zanny wrote: post #63
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 infrastructur…

We can all travel in a more sustainable way if we can do full body VR immersion wherever we want to go

Will that include simulated human interaction?

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#98

Post by esotericn »

dagw wrote: post #97
zanny wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 infrastructur…

We can all travel in a more sustainable way if we can do full body VR immersion wherever we want to go Will that include simulated human interaction?

Ha!

That's a good one.

I suppose we'll need to shard it. And simulate some "real" individuals (i.e. non tourists). Maybe they can be NPCs.

Gosh.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#99

Post by [deleted] »

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'…

[deleted]

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#100

Post by okal »

narag wrote: post #75
maxxxxx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It sucks. But what's the alternative? " Ideally we would stop breeding and keep world population at a certain number. In reality population will probably keep growing and we can only hope that technology will help avert a disaster.

It's interesting that the two comments that touch the overpopulation side are being downvoted. Why? Does the people downvoting care to explain? There's a huge contradiction here. Either you do "something" to control population or else all the measures to control climate change are stillborn. We are struggling with the current population!

I didn't downvote the GP, but my impulse to disagree with population control is due to the likelihood that, in my experience, it's not the population groups that have the largest adverse impact on the planet (highly industrialised, middle to high income societies) that are generally the target of this sentiment.
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