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The backlash against overtourism

economist.com

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Re: The backlash against overtourism

#231

Post by pmiller2 »

bliblah wrote: post #167
whack wrote: post #123

If cities really had a problem with "overtourism", there's a simple solution: 1. Gouge the hell out of tourists by jacking up the taxes on hotels & tourist attractions. Exemptions provided only for those with local IDs/passports 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents Either you will successfully drive away all tourists, or you'll be making so much money that your residents will love them. The…

You also need to ban Airbnb otherwise people will just Airbnb in the suburbs/residential areas and then Uber to the Touristy areas. Then locals will have to deal with gentrification and congestion during tourist season.

No, you just need to get AirBnB or AirBnB hosts to start paying their share of hotel tax, like they do in some other locales.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#232

Post by graeme »

Chathamization wrote: post #171
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'…

One mistake people make is pretending that every choice we make is a hard one with no good answers. Sometimes there are good decisions and bad ones, and we end up making bad ones even when the good ones are obvious. We often see this happen with individuals, it shouldn't be too surprising that this happens with societies as well. A few years back when I looked at solutions to "cooking this planet" that didn't involve…

Could you elaborate? Not cooking the planet requires moving to zero emissions AND taking them negative by a large margin beyond what simply planting forests would do. How csn we do this easily?

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#233

Post by conanbatt »

moate wrote: post #194
conanbatt wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If your point is how to get one guy today that makes 800 dollars a month with a car from where he is in central africa to venice and allow for a middle-class tourist vacation, the answer is 'its impossible'.

What a narrow point that is! Useless to make any decision whatsoever.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#234

Post by bobthepanda »

pmiller2 wrote: post #231
bliblah wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also need to ban Airbnb otherwise people will just Airbnb in the suburbs/residential areas and then Uber to the Touristy areas. Then locals will have to deal with gentrification and congestion during tourist season.

No, you just need to get AirBnB or AirBnB hosts to start paying their share of hotel tax, like they do in some other locales.

That solves one market problem (AirBnB has no level playing field with existing hotels.)

That does not solve the other large problem; most residents do not want to live in a hotel district with other tourists, and especially not as hallway or floor mates. And residents do not want new hotel builds or conversions competing with apartments. With traditional hotels this is solved with permits and zoning, but AirBnB is usable on pretty much all residential units.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#235

Post by paganel »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #80
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…

One of the greatest cities in northern Italy is Torino. While medieval and in a certain shabby way as attractive as Firenze they only get a small percentage of the tourists.

I'd add Trieste to the list, an unique combination of Austro-Hungarian architecture and Italian feeling.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#236

Post by paganel »

coldtea wrote: post #55
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'…

> It sucks. But what's the alternative? It's perfectly reasonable to drag people out of poverty. But the idea that everyone should be able to do the same things implies a set of "things" very different from what, say, the middle class families on my suburban street do today. Exactly. The "eternal growing of the economic cake" which the majority of the related policies are based on, ignores limits to growth (e.g. ener…

> ignores limits to growth (e.g. energy, rare materials, food, etc.)

Lots and lots of people have tried to discredit Malthus and his reasoning in the last 200 years but we keep going back to him, he must of have been right in a way (if it matters, I think he was). The same way idealist political thinkers tried to discredit the writings of Hobbes and Machiavelli but it turns out human nature is closer to the writings of those two great political minds compared to whatever is fashionable at any given.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#237

Post by smileysteve »

buboard wrote: post #147
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…

It IS a theme park, albeit a sloppy one. If the city did not rely on tourism they would have more efficient boats, perhaps some other transportation system (so that the city is actually livable by working age locals, and not just by pensioners), some squares would have a playground instead of cafes and jewelry shops etc. Tourism sets the whole city to "tourist mode", slow and geared only towards tourism-related busin…

The water taxis bothered me because the planing hulls needed trim tabs or to go a bit faster.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#238

Post by hrktb »

whack wrote: post #123

If cities really had a problem with "overtourism", there's a simple solution: 1. Gouge the hell out of tourists by jacking up the taxes on hotels & tourist attractions. Exemptions provided only for those with local IDs/passports 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents Either you will successfully drive away all tourists, or you'll be making so much money that your residents will love them. The…

> 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents

One of the result is less and less “true” residents. That’s what is happening with airbnb, where some people prefer to move away and dedicate their appart to tourism, even if it’s only for part of the year.

Or restaurants and other services used by everyone get tourism focused, and while money flows in, quality of life goes down.

I think that’s one case where money doesn’t solve the issue (provided it’s an issue to solve, some might argue)

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#239

Post by jhbadger »

hrktb wrote: post #238
whack wrote: post #123

If cities really had a problem with "overtourism", there's a simple solution: 1. Gouge the hell out of tourists by jacking up the taxes on hotels & tourist attractions. Exemptions provided only for those with local IDs/passports 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents Either you will successfully drive away all tourists, or you'll be making so much money that your residents will love them. The…

> 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents One of the result is less and less “true” residents. That’s what is happening with airbnb, where some people prefer to move away and dedicate their appart to tourism, even if it’s only for part of the year. Or restaurants and other services used by everyone get tourism focused, and while money flows in, quality of life goes down. I think that’s one cas…

While I'm sure airbnb accelerated the process, when I visited Venice a decade ago I rented a flat owned by somebody who lived on the mainland. It had been his grandmother's residence, but he had been renting it out to tourists for years at that point.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#240

Post by kweks »

40acres wrote: post #180

I like to travel but hate overcrowded touristy places. There are some popular spots where the overcrowding actually seems to be a part of the experience (Time Square for instance) but I will probably never go see the Mona Lisa or Sistine Chapel because it's filled to the brim. When I travel I have some pretty simple heuristics, if we're staying at a resort I prefer a smaller luxury resort, ideally w/o kids, and I lik…

So there are "hidden" side entrances to the Louvre. With your back to the glass pyramids, cross the road, and next to the arch on the right is an underground staircase that will pop you in without queues.

Likewise, pick your times and you'll have La Joconde (Mona Lisa in French) to yourself. And then scoot off to the other sections that are actually so much more interesting - including a literal castle in the basement.

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