Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism • Hacker News Board

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#161

Post by PeterStuer » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:13 PM UTC

neves wrote: post #160

PeterStuer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dosage matters. Many things that are completely destructive or toxic are not a problem and even beneficial and enriching in small dosage. Tourism is most definitely one of those things. Typically it benefits a very few in the host location while externalizing the destruction of the culture, the environment and the quality of life for the many that have these places as their home. So it is not about 'you' vs 'the othe…

Not just few people. These are great jobs for an uneducated population.

Did you just say 'trickle down'? Trust me, Norway is just fine without these 'Jobs, jobs, jobs!' excuses by which neoliberals try to excuse their socio-economic destructive practices.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#162

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #146

scarejunba wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just auction? That way you don’t have the misallocation of quotas without auctions, the uncertainty of lotteries, or the deadweight loss of incorrect price choosing. Pick a number the trail can handle, auction tickets.

Sure - if you don't mind cutting off all less wealthy travelers, then go ahead.

I thought that was the point given their goals. I guess it makes their inner ugliness too blatant though.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#163

Post by dang » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #131

dang wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if we should add a guideline about that, a la: Please don't comment about your own comment ('unpopular opinion here', etc). It's noise and it's boring.

We already have a guideline against talking about voting. "Unpopular opinion but here goes" or "spicy take here but" is just normal human conversation, and it doesn't actually add much noise; sometimes it's even a little useful. I wouldn't crud up the guidelines with this, but maybe refine the "commenting about voting" guideline.

I wonder how to refine the "commenting about voting" guideline?

Normal chattiness in comments is totally fine. What's tedious is "I, the noble freethinker against the hideous masses" posturing. It's also common, because of the biases in how people perceive the community; basically, anything you dislike shapes that perception 10x more than anything you like, so most people's image of the community becomes an inverse image of themselves. This leads to a lot of noise and pre-emptive defensiveness, a sense of being surrounded by enemies in a hostile place, when the reality is we're all just wandering in a big statistical cloud.

It's such a fundamental dynamic at work here, that I'd love a way to distill it into a new guideline.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#164

Post by homonculus1 » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #96

ohduran wrote: post #24

Currently living in Barcelona, where 'overtourism' is a much bigger problem than in Norway IMHO, it feels weird. You start passing bills on restricting tourism, then the natural next step is being hard on immigration, then Brexit. The ability to control who goes in and who goes out usually falls on the hand of those that shouldn't have that kind of power. Edit: Removed "At the risk of being downvoted" as some comment…

> You start passing bills on restricting tourism, then the natural next step is being hard on immigration, then Brexit. This is kind of an interesting comment if you overthink it, as I enjoy doing. By my reading, "then the natural next step is being hard on immigration" is a rather boldly axiomatic statement, as if being hard on immigration is _Wrong_, full stop. If others hold the opinion that ~open borders are a Go…

It's interesting that someone could recognize the harm caused by droves of temporary visitors to a desirable area, yet not make the simple extrapolation of those effects to unlimited permanent resettlement.

I think that weird feeling OP is talking about is the cognitive dissonance from recognizing in person the need to keep from being overrun by outsiders, yet having a blind spot over the solution because its negation has already been accepted as a given due to social conformity.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#165

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #69

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The most beneficial way to limit the number of visitors for local communities is to increase prices. // Can you expand on that, it doesn't seem self-evident to me.

I'm assuming that the money goes to the local communities (even countries). If it does then it seems quite obvious that more money is better than less money.

Sell me your brain?

It seems like communities can be ruined by richer tourists in ways that not so rich tourists won't. For example, in Pembrokeshire and areas of Devon some communities have been partially replaced by clusters of second-homes because rich people like to have their holidays there. Locals can no longer afford to live there because they lack the wealth to outbid incomers. Maybe that's not quite in scope for "tourism".

I can imagine other issues, like facilities being tailored to richer people (all your green spaces get turned into golf courses, or whatever, all the pubs cost a fortune); teachers, services workers and such can't afford to live locally.

Richer people maybe cause more environmental damage? 3 cars, private plane, large concreted property, ..., yes at a holiday home, as one goes further up-market?

Perhaps good if you want to work in service industries.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#166

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #136

Grue3 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, "only white people used to be able to come here".

This is a useless comment because it takes a wealth issue and tries to turn it into a racial issue. There are poor white people who couldn't go and rich black people who could go, so it's not even apt to say. Not everything needs to be a matter of race, especially outside the US.

I don't think it is wrong though.

I have seen plenty of "too many tourists" complaints that were blatant xenophobia like complaining about hearing too many foreign languages or "feeling like a foreigner in their own country".

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#167

Post by Nasrudith » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

Really the "problem" of overtourism feels like a stack of pretenses but it does bring to mind an issue of concentration and trying to make a system to help coordinate information on crowding, prices, etc. and lead tourist distribution to become more even which would be a bit more optimal for all involved both for enjoyment of tourists and infastructure return on investment and reliability of industries. It almost sounds like a job for travel agencies except for the obsolescence of their model.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#168

Post by yuft » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:41 PM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #146

scarejunba wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just auction? That way you don’t have the misallocation of quotas without auctions, the uncertainty of lotteries, or the deadweight loss of incorrect price choosing. Pick a number the trail can handle, auction tickets.

Sure - if you don't mind cutting off all less wealthy travelers, then go ahead.

Vickrey auction?

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#169

Post by bogomipz » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:50 PM UTC

ptah wrote: post #20

jacknews wrote: post #17

This seems to be more about carbon footprint and sustainability than "overtourism"? Does all the oil Norway extract count towards their carbon balance, or is that the consuming country's problem? Norway just collect the profit, to pay for all this green cleansing at home?

they are looking at cutting down on oil https://www.worldoil.com/news/2019/9/10/voters-deliver-warni...

Well, the article states:

"In March, the Norwegian government announced it will gradually divest its shares in companies engaged in the exploration and extraction of oil and gas. (But it will still invest in companies that refine and sell oil.)"

I'm not really sure how you reconcile these two things - a policy of carbon footprint reduction while actively investing in companies whose business is predicated on oil consumption.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#170

Post by old-gregg » Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #147

Everywhere there's people complaining about things like this and yet no one says "overpopulation". If there were fewer people on the planet...

It's a taboo word for many reasons that are easy to explain, but mainly because there's nothing that can be done about it. You can try and "build more housing", you can "make it more expensive", you can "implement a lottery system" but you can't get rid of people, so it's not a constructive discussion.

The book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond covers this pretty well.