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The backlash against overtourism

economist.com

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Re: The backlash against overtourism

#191

Post by esotericn »

tolmasky wrote: post #143
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'…

So there for some reason seems to be a melding of the ideas of raising quality of life and eliminating inequality, which don't necessarily have to be the same thing. I do not think it is unreasonable that 100 years from today the lower middle class has access to everything the upper class of America has today (from a material perspective), while there may still exist an upper class that can do even more (travel to Ju…

I agree with this for the most part.

I suppose the main thrust of what I wanted to get at was that the concept of reducing inequality is problematic, there's a hard limit somewhere and we're starting to see the first signs of that.

Raising the baseline is certainly possible and a good aim.

But as you say, there will always be some 'thing' that some can do and others can't. Maybe there's a state in which the more damaging things aren't desirable and most people can do most things they want. I hope so.

I have the sense that a _lot_ of things that people want are basically status markers. And if that's true, then we can't really make everyone happy, because it's inherently hierarchical.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#192

Post by alex_anglin »

badestrand wrote: post #8

It will be interesting to see how cities will cope with it. I am sure the amount of tourists will continue to rise significantly over the next decades - just think about much of India, Africa and South America entering global tourism. So Venice, Amsterdam, London, Barcelona, Paris, New York etc will maybe have 10 times the tourists than today and the cities will need a concept how to deal with it.

Like they do now with tourist taxes, perhaps? All the cities you mention won't have 10x as many tourists if they're 20x more expensive (in real and comparative terms).

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#193

Post by calebh »

logfromblammo wrote: post #169
esotericn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that I covered this in my comment. > We either eliminate these experiences, accept economic inequality, or watch the experiences be eliminated via attrition (e.g. cars devolving into gridlock, tourism devolving into queues and displacement, ...). Specifically, the last part. If everyone is a tourist, what it means to be a tourist is very, very different. Consider: We strictly have enough jet fuel and alumin…

Do people go to see Venice, or to see Venetians? The easy, facile answer is to move all the residents out, turn the old city into Historic Venice Amusements District, build a commuter transit line out to New Venice (with no tourist attractions), and all of its civic services are then paid for by income from the tourist trap. Everyone has ready access to service jobs in the tourism and public safety sectors. If touris…

I recently visited Carcassonne, France, and this is how it basically works. The old city is dedicated solely to tourism, and the new city is where all the actual residents live. The old city was abandoned before it was restored, so this situation ended up occurring naturally.

My girlfriend and I stayed at a bead & breakfast in the new city. Most of the tourists are locals from France, but enough people speak English that communication is not a problem.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#194

Post by moate »

conanbatt wrote: post #179
moate wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume you're from N'Délé, in the North Central portion of the country. Let's also assume you've got twice the national average in wealth, or about $800 USD. Which of those methods is "reasonable" for you to use as a tourist. The bike is clearly out. You can take a ferry across the Mediterranean once you get to it, but that's a whole thing. There is no train and buses would be...a lot. A straight car ride is 10…

Momentary inconveniences of todays technology and productivity. In our lifetime we will see people go to space with private funds, that not the wealthiest person on earth could have achieved 50 years ago.

Sure. Cool story. How are you getting that guy from the CAR to Venice using one of the methods you mentioned in a reasonable way?

I'll wait while you address the actual line of conversation I was involved in instead of making up sci fi stories about how cool 2050 is going to be.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#195

Post by moate »

ant6n wrote: post #186
moate wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume you're from N'Délé, in the North Central portion of the country. Let's also assume you've got twice the national average in wealth, or about $800 USD. Which of those methods is "reasonable" for you to use as a tourist. The bike is clearly out. You can take a ferry across the Mediterranean once you get to it, but that's a whole thing. There is no train and buses would be...a lot. A straight car ride is 10…

You're using today's economy and infrastructure to make an argument of the inherent impossibility of using alternative modes of transport to flying in an argument about a possible future where everybody is rich enough to be a tourist. ...Consider that you can travel from Moscow to Beijing on a single train (or Paris-Beijing with a single transfer), it seems that traveling long distances by rail aren't inherently impo…

>>NegativeLatency 4 hours ago You could take another method of transport instead of a plane. Bus, train, bike, boat

>>InitialLastName 4 hours ago | Pretty much none of those things will make it reasonable for someone from, say, Central African Republic to visit Venice.

>>onanbatt 2 hours ago Why?

No I wasn't. I was answering "why" in this response chain. That's a whole other conversation going on elsewhere.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#196

Post by ajcodez »

cr1895 wrote: post #53
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…

>All Italy has to do is start load balancing tourists. This is the approach the city of Amsterdam is trying in order to alleviate the huge tourism pressure. I'm not sure how effective it has been. It has resulted in funny things like "Amsterdam Castle" or "Amsterdam Beach" in tourist promotions that have nothing to do with Amsterdam. But, if it spreads the load...

If you already have tickets booked to Amsterdam I would recommend spending some time in Utrecht too. All of the canals and dutch charm, none of the red light district pub crawls.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#197

Post by cco »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #183
mitchdoogle wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's arguing that that tax dollars should be divided among the city's residents, so even if you don't own an AirBNB or business, you will still benefit economically.

I grew up in a (tourism) town that did this. They had moderate property taxes (moderate property taxes on many multi-million dollar properties = huge windfall). The town squanders it all. The cops have every toy they want, the classrooms are full of overpriced hardware. I guess that's nice. The results delivered by the schools and cops are nothing special (relative to the rest of the state) though. I shit you not (be…

I have to know which city this is, I need details on this proposed pet cemetery!

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#198

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #129
spiralx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would paying people in countries with high birth rates to not have children be exploitative?

[deleted]

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#199

Post by dsfyu404ed »

cco wrote: post #197
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in a (tourism) town that did this. They had moderate property taxes (moderate property taxes on many multi-million dollar properties = huge windfall). The town squanders it all. The cops have every toy they want, the classrooms are full of overpriced hardware. I guess that's nice. The results delivered by the schools and cops are nothing special (relative to the rest of the state) though. I shit you not (be…

I have to know which city this is, I need details on this proposed pet cemetery!

I'd love to just so we can all laugh at it but I don't give out PII like where I grew up on HN

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#200

Post by Pharmakon »

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'…

The alternative is simple, just practically unachieveable without a world dictatorship or mass casualties; fewer people could enjoy all of what you describe, billions of us can’t. The problem is one of choosing who gets to reproduce, and doing so without touching off wars, rebellions, and religious violence. I somehow doubt we’re up to the task as a species.
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