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The backlash against overtourism

economist.com

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Re: The backlash against overtourism

#291

Post by Markoff »

agreed with this sentiment in Prague, city center now it's tourist ghetto locals avoid unless they work there or few young hipsters who wanna show off their presence, but all in all full of Russian owned shops/restaurants, everything with jacked up prices to milk tourists

personally I don't go there at all because tourists also dunno basic manners in public transport about letting elders and small children to sit or don't block space for prams, similar with sidewalks, them you have noise everywhere, especially in evening from drunk people and when I dared as local to visit park popular among tourists i was pushed by tourist who want to cut the queue to be with friends in front of me, while i was holding small child

when i see tourist outside city center heading wrong direction in tram i usually help them, but i can't really visit city center with my family anymore because they ruined the city center and am more and more disgusted by them

also companies dodging taxes while renting airbnb apartments don't help, if it would be up to me I would ban airbnb completely and hike accommodation tax to push away groups of young boys usually from UK/DE who come for cheap beer on their sausage parties

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#292

Post by alistairSH »

drb91 wrote: post #243
alistairSH wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peru does this on the Inca Trail trips. There is a daily cap on the number of people allowed on trail (tourist + guides + porters/cooks), plus guides are required. While it certainly isn't cheap, it wasn't prohibitively expensive (i.e., if you can afford the airfare and hotels in a city, you can likely afford to hike the Inca Trail). Having recently visited Iceland, I could see that the Reykjavik-area was near its li…

> As was the airport (gate areas were overcrowded throughout the terminal) It's also a popular layover destination, right?

Yes, it's the hub for WOW and IcelandAir, so a lot of people passing through on trans-Atlantic trips.

IcelandAir also allows travelers to split their itinerary for no extra fee, so a few days in Reykjavik isn't too costly (just room/board). I assume WOW does the same.

I was there in mid-January and was amazed how busy both KEF and Reykjavik were for the "offseason." A few locals said there wasn't really an offseason any more.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#293

Post by alex__c »

buboard wrote: post #157
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…

People go where other tourists go. Very few tourists actually care to have awkward interactions with locals or feel that they are intruding. People on holidays want to spend a pleasant time and not think a lot (despite what many travel guides say). In a massively tourist city, they feel comfortable and they dont stick out

Wanting to spend a pleasant time doesn't seem to rhyme with people that end up in a two-hour queue in London or Milan.

I do know people who genuinely want to have a nice, relaxing vacation. They book holidays at the beach, in warm countries, at 5* hotels. They don't bother much with overrated and crowded touristy places, really.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#294

Post by ck425 »

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #205
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pointing out that 'piece' is an editorial, not a news article. The US has had multiple waves of immigration from most of the world, over the last few centuries. And there has been similar pushback from nativists over and over again. If that long history is any indication, Sweden will be fine.

What do you think would be a comparable migration in the US? I see three key distinguishing factors that make Sweden quite interesting as a test case: 1) The first is of course just sheer volume. Sweden has gone, in less than a single generation, from a mostly ethnically homogeneous nation to one where about 20% of the population is foreign born and that's only going to keep rising. The US is at record setting levels…

Point 2) here is important. Folk migrate to the US due to some variation of the American Dream. Therefore the migrants bring and reinforce part of American culture.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#295

Post by alexgmcm »

Nasrudith wrote: post #174
coldtea wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The thing is not all wealth is raw materials. While we are at least thousands of times richer than peasant herders from ancient times we don't have 17k head of cattle each. While there is likely still a limit assuming economic growth must stop entirely is overly simplistic. There are many areas where the limit is research - drugs themselves are fairly cheap to manufacture but expensive to develop, test, and set up in…

We aren't making any more land though - property prices just seem to grow and grow and millenials have little hope of owning a house at the same age or with the same quality that their (often poorer) parents did.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#296

Post by [deleted] »

conanbatt wrote: post #233
moate wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#297

Post by Nasrudith »

alexgmcm wrote: post #295
Nasrudith wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is not all wealth is raw materials. While we are at least thousands of times richer than peasant herders from ancient times we don't have 17k head of cattle each. While there is likely still a limit assuming economic growth must stop entirely is overly simplistic. There are many areas where the limit is research - drugs themselves are fairly cheap to manufacture but expensive to develop, test, and set up in…

We aren't making any more land though - property prices just seem to grow and grow and millenials have little hope of owning a house at the same age or with the same quality that their (often poorer) parents did.

The funny thing in the US at least is that we have plenty of land that comparatively nobody wants since the jobs aren't there. Lack of development and transit structure appears to be more of a limitation than just space want - people are living with stranger roommates in single family homes for instance - they're not seeking nor getting private spaces. Telework could help with that but it had oddly failed to materialize for what can most optimistically be attributed to ergonomic reasons in the productivity gearing sense. Real estate is frustratingly sticky however in that people and institutions often refuse to sell low even in the face of depressed markets and low occupancy. Perfectly rational for them to do so when possible - using their positions for land speculation was one of the low key examples of founding father corruption.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#298

Post by forapurpose »

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…

> you can barely afford to survives yourself

Italy is a modern, advanced, wealthy economy - I would guess they are more wealthy than any country in the history of the world before 1970. They can do far more than afford to survive, and they can help those in need. Current people in Italy benefit from a long history of 'humanitarianism' by their predecessors; it's not an exceptional behavior, it's the norm.

Human beings are more important than money. Also, those human beings will grow the economy in the future - in the near future. In the long run they also keep the demographics from getting exceptionally old.

> The assumption that all immigration is good immigration is not true.

I'm not sure what that means, nor did I hear anyone say it.

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#299

Post by [deleted] »

Nasrudith wrote: post #297
alexgmcm wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't making any more land though - property prices just seem to grow and grow and millenials have little hope of owning a house at the same age or with the same quality that their (often poorer) parents did.

The funny thing in the US at least is that we have plenty of land that comparatively nobody wants since the jobs aren't there. Lack of development and transit structure appears to be more of a limitation than just space want - people are living with stranger roommates in single family homes for instance - they're not seeking nor getting private spaces. Telework could help with that but it had oddly failed to material…

[deleted]

Re: The backlash against overtourism

#300

Post by pyrale »

arbitrary_name wrote: post #218
pyrale wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A totalitarian ideology is one that tries to creep into every aspect of our life, and rejects the exploration of alternative models.

Capitalism has crept into every aspect of my life. I cannot leave my house without people trying to put ideas into my head. I am not free, because of property rights, and there are many laws to prevent me from behaving in c certain ways. I cannot sustain myself from gathering food, because the capitalists have harvested the fish and cut down the trees. Your freedom is a prison. Don't talk to me about totalitarianism.

You seem to have misread me. Which ideology do you think I was criricizing ?
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