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Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

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Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#191

Post by Scoundreller »

maxlamb wrote: post #141
eisa01 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s at least one benefit of tourists: you get more and a better selection of restaurants I live in a part of Oslo with a vibrant restaurant scene, and one of the reasons is the extra business tourists drum up

I found this to be the opposite in Barcelona. I had a discussion with people who live there who said that since the majority of restaurant customers are tourists (a lot of whom travel on a budget, i.e. young backpackers) and will never come back, most (~70%) restaurants can get away with okay or even substandard food and bad service and still make a profit. So tourism is actually lowering the quality of restaurants.…

That’s what social media sorta solved: bad service will tank a restaurant. Bad food won’t.

I’m thankful that one of my favourite French dishes (aligot), while looking like a pile of whipped vomit, is presented in an entertaining manner.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#192

Post by Scoundreller »

lozaning wrote: post #158
kgwgk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "more" but restaurants catering to tourists are not usually "better".

Anecdotally, the Italian food one can find within a mile of the Colosseum is lower quality than what you'd get at any American Olive Garden.

Tourists traps aren’t anything new. If anything, social media helps guide people away from them in a way that wasn’t possible before.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#193

Post by dredmorbius »

purple_ducks wrote: post #190
dredmorbius wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should travel be the exclusive domain of the wealthy?

Low cost travel & tourism are _not_ rights. They're privileges. Seems fair to include negative externalities in the cost. If that excludes some people, so be it. They can travel closer to home.

And again: why should those privileges be reserved to the wealthy?

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#194

Post by jen729w »

cletus wrote: post #55

Welcome to the world of, by some measures, "too many" people having too much disposable wealth. There are obviously worse problems to have. But overtourism is a problem that's only going to get worse. This even affects Mount Everest where people are literally dying just to say they stood at the top of the world. And Everest simply can't support the number of climbers now. You see this in US national parks where the o…

> 2. Quotas: you have to book far, far in advance and no doubt this is unfair to some people.

Reminds me of that scene from Into The Wild where our protagonist tries to kayak down the Colorado River and is told by a ranger that the next permit is available in 12 years.

Of course it feels absurd, but what do we do?

Edit: the clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4mWt2D_d6s

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#195

Post by oh_sigh »

lozaning wrote: post #158
kgwgk wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "more" but restaurants catering to tourists are not usually "better".

Anecdotally, the Italian food one can find within a mile of the Colosseum is lower quality than what you'd get at any American Olive Garden.

Realistically, they both serve Barilla dried pasta.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#196

Post by ACow_Adonis »

maxlamb wrote: post #141
eisa01 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s at least one benefit of tourists: you get more and a better selection of restaurants I live in a part of Oslo with a vibrant restaurant scene, and one of the reasons is the extra business tourists drum up

I found this to be the opposite in Barcelona. I had a discussion with people who live there who said that since the majority of restaurant customers are tourists (a lot of whom travel on a budget, i.e. young backpackers) and will never come back, most (~70%) restaurants can get away with okay or even substandard food and bad service and still make a profit. So tourism is actually lowering the quality of restaurants.…

Interesting... here in a relatively touristy part of Melbourne, anecdotally, it's pretty much those backpackers who are working the tables in half of the trendy restaurants and cafes.

There's definitive trends on making food 'instagrammable', but the overall quality and competition between all the restaurants is undeniably good.

Although now that I think about it, you take somewhere like Lygon street famous for its Italian, and the local advice would be to never eat there if you want good Italian (with maybe one or two notable exceptions).

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#197

Post by z3t4 »

munificent wrote: post #178
cletus wrote: post #55

Welcome to the world of, by some measures, "too many" people having too much disposable wealth. There are obviously worse problems to have. But overtourism is a problem that's only going to get worse. This even affects Mount Everest where people are literally dying just to say they stood at the top of the world. And Everest simply can't support the number of climbers now. You see this in US national parks where the o…

> "too many" people having too much disposable wealth. I don't think this is the problem at all. The world is huge. There are millions of tourist destinations and plenty of room for people in all of them. The problem is with distribution. Social media creates power law distributions of attention. There are a few pieces of writing I wish every human on Earth had read and this is one of them: http://shirky.com/writings…

In statistics if 100 people think a destination is good what is the chance that the experience is not good?

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#198

Post by bduerst »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #23
buyingarmor wrote: post #5

Overtourist is a paradox Once they will solve this problem, they will try to chaise it again

No it's not. Tourism changes not just prices but character. Consider the recent controversy over the line at Mount Everest. Queueing in line of 100 people so that you can have a minute or two at the summit to take your picture is not the same experience as what you would've gotten climbing Mount Everest 40 years ago. It's this, the destruction of character/experience, what the thing actually is, that is the primary s…

Who was chasing more tourism for Everest?

This seems more like it's a side effect of the rock climbing fad than a countries' tourism board balancing their national tourism.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#200

Post by DennisP »

munificent wrote: post #178
cletus wrote: post #55

Welcome to the world of, by some measures, "too many" people having too much disposable wealth. There are obviously worse problems to have. But overtourism is a problem that's only going to get worse. This even affects Mount Everest where people are literally dying just to say they stood at the top of the world. And Everest simply can't support the number of climbers now. You see this in US national parks where the o…

> "too many" people having too much disposable wealth. I don't think this is the problem at all. The world is huge. There are millions of tourist destinations and plenty of room for people in all of them. The problem is with distribution. Social media creates power law distributions of attention. There are a few pieces of writing I wish every human on Earth had read and this is one of them: http://shirky.com/writings…

Maybe people should stop making fun of hipsters, who consciously try to avoid the peaks of power law distributions.
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