The backlash against overtourism • Hacker News Board

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#251

Post by thisrod » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:01 AM UTC

bliblah wrote: post #159

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…

Shame that people think this way or rather that people focus so much on the negatives they miss out on the positives. I travel quite a bit and always encourage / force the people with me to visit museums and cultural highlights of the location because the truth is that only by being in a new city/state/country can you expand your horizons. The only thing I see coming from this anti tourist attitude is more xenophobia…

The thing is, you can't go to most of the sites where history happened. They don't exist anymore.

Want to see where the French Revolution happened? Sorry, Haussmann blew it up and built today's Paris on the rubble. Venice? OK, a few bits of St Mark's basin were there when the galleys came back from the crusades. Dare you to say which bits. Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution? Nup, their Palace of Westminster burnt down in the 19th Century. Imperial China? It fell down and was rebuilt with every earthquake.

Archeologists can go to these places, but they have to work hard for it.

One of the essays in Parkinson's Law turns this into a law of nature. When the grand parliament house was built, parliament no longer mattered, and the country was really run from a dingy shed out the back. That shed was later demolished and a well-appointed cabinet room built in its place, but by that time cabinet no longer mattered, and the country was run by a king.

On the other hand, visiting exotic places makes me curious about how they got that way, which is one way to discover history.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#252

Post by phil21 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:02 AM UTC

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…

I also hate lines and crowds and general "tourist" stuff.

That said the Louvre is one of those worth going to, and it's not hard to avoid the crowds. Yes, skip the Mona Lisa - it's in my opinion one of the least impressive pieces of the entire museum.

It's a giant museum with only a couple wings actually busy - at least when I went. The rest of the museum was almost empty.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#253

Post by bobthepanda » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:14 AM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #245

bobthepanda wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

Seems like we don't have enough hotels then. Let's build more. It'd make a lot of money for the government.

Governments don't answer to short-term visitors, they answer to residents. Quite frankly, it's a good thing that Venice or Amsterdam or Barcelona are not pursuing a Benidorm-style frantic race to the bottom for tourism.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#254

Post by IkmoIkmo » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:16 AM UTC

js2 wrote: post #52

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…

I stayed with my wife and two kids on Venice almost exactly four years ago this month. We avoided the busy spots during the day, and had Venice to ourselves at night. So even at places as busy as Venice, it's still possible to avoid crowds. We actually found Florence to be busy almost everywhere, even with lots of people still wandering around at night. The Uffizi was the one place that was impossible to enjoy, mostl…

Yup, same experience in Florence. Beautiful city but just couldn't enjoy it. I saw half a dozen other Italian cities and had a great time, Florence was the worst experience and it had little to do with the city and everything to do with the guests.

The one thing that bugs me about museum tours these days is that they all wear in-ear headphones connected to the guide. Which means whereas before you'd mostly have groups of 5 people with one guide, you now have groups of 20 people walking 20 meters behind one guide because distance isn't an issue. Some rooms become unbearable, it's like you take a super busy street market in Mumbai and hang up some paintings and expect people to enjoy the art while navigating through a flood of people.

In a way it helps because you get fewer guides and possibly less shouting. You'd hope this makes things more quiet but it doesn't. It drops the costs of a guide for individuals to next to nothing due to the size of the groups, so you get massive groups and more groups.

Having a few groups of two or three individuals standing around isn't an issue. But when it's a blob of 15-20 people, it's no longer possible to navigate through it or look through/past it, you have to go around and if they're infront of an art piece, you're mostly out of luck.

As for the city, in many parts you hardly hear any Italian and if you do, it's someone in the tourist business trying to sell you something.

I'm not necessarily complaining, I'm part of the problem haha. Just sharing my experience.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#255

Post by whack » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:31 AM UTC

bigbluedots wrote: post #161

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…

Venice already does the first part, the 'city tax' component of the hotel bill is quite high. There's no redistribution though.

Presumably the city tax isn't high enough, if overtourism is a real problem.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#256

Post by pmiller2 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:32 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #234

pmiller2 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

You just said the answer to the other problem: require a permit or business license to be an AirBnB host. Alternatively, "the market" offers annoyed neighbors another option: move.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#257

Post by shadowxs76 » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 12:59 AM UTC

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'.

Wow, read the book years ago (books actually, there are four that I remember but the first is by far the best) and you just brought me back to the emotional impact of that particular story. It was powerful. The story of Rachel and her Merlin's sickness also. The story of the priest, the cruciform parasite and the bikura was viciously disturbing on the other hand.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#258

Post by majos » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 1:29 AM UTC

wild_preference wrote: post #141

Tepix wrote: post #39

We need (very) high fidelity virtual reality to save the planet, making traveling superfluous. I'm afraid we're still far away from that development.

It's sad how travel, to most people, is just seeing things. No wonder so many HN comments are grandstanding about how they dislike or don't need travel: they aren't talking about meeting other people or experiencing other cultures. They're just talking about weekend travel packages where they're shuttled around to take some pictures. How incredibly boring. Your VR idea like saying you've been to Prague because you sp…

For me, I find it difficult to make quick connections with people, so I'm unlikely to really "meet other people" in a brief week or two in another place. In this way, I find myself a true tourist in almost all places I visit, which is not so interesting.

At this point I'm most excited about travel where I know somebody who lives there and can make those connections for me.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#259

Post by dsego » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 1:30 AM UTC

jlangenauer wrote: post #77

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…

Dubrovnik is one of the most awful places I've visited - literally everything is optimised purely to extract money from tourists. Want to walk around the city walls? That'll be €20! And if over-priced, mediocre restaurants are your thing, there's plenty of them too.

Split is becoming like that as well. Right now, almost all of the restaurants and bars in the center are closed until next season. It's all a big ruse.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#260

Post by kranner » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 1:44 AM UTC

Fuxy wrote: post #85

kranner wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're right it doesn't but everyone seems to assume it will which is quite baffling.

You seem to be looking at the economic payoff alone, whereas others are talking about the intrinsic payoff, i.e., that it is worthwhile to help refugees even if it's a net economic loss.