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Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

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Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#261

Post by xiphias2 »

skohan wrote: post #66
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…

> this need people have to jam in with 100,000 other people just to see some famous building. Maybe that's just me. I was fortunate enough to spend a gap year traveling around the world, and one of the lessons I learned quickly was that I have little interest in "iconic" destinations. I can distinctly remember when I made this realization: I was in Oia Santorini at sunset, which I had decided to go to because I had s…

In what part of the year did you go?

I went in late October when weather in other parts of Europe was bad anyways, and there were many tourists, but still an OK amount, not what you’re describing.

It was amazing so actually I want to go back some time to show it to my parents.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#262

Post by rmc »

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.…

In that vein, I'm always optimistic about restaurants in non-touristy places where there's a choice of restaurants (i.e. not just the only one). Those places live and die on local traffic. And people won't go back if it's rubbish.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#263

Post by imtringued »

buro9 wrote: post #4
mytailorisrich wrote: post #3

There's no silver bullet. Tackling overtourism means limiting the number of tourists. One way to do that is to impose high enough prices.

And then only the wealthy may have holidays.

in overcrowded locations that have reached their maximum capacity.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#264

Post by johnchristopher »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #231
barry-cotter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite true but if some can and some can’t the social class implications will be picked up on very fast, whether the reason is money or political connections.

People will find a way to separate themselves into classes no matter what. And those of higher class will separate themselves from the proles using any means available. Even in Soviet Union the running joke was that all people are equal, but some people are more equal than others.

There is another running joke "Everyone is born equal, then God sort them out".

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#265

Post by Grue3 »

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.

Except it's obviously not a wealth issue. Even poor Norwegian people can visit Norway, because they're already there. They probably don't mind poor Swedes much either. Tourist hatred is almost always rooted in xenophobia.

>especially outside the US

Funny of you to assume US is somehow more racist than the rest of the world.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#266

Post by notafrog »

PhilWright wrote: post #256
notafrog wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Rome with my wife for less than two days for other reasons, and we decided we'd pass by Trevi Fountain. Let me tell you, that place was packed . Maybe 400-500 people packed just to say they were there, or maybe wait in hopes of getting a clear shot. All of this just to brag in social media. I think the problem would be better if people didn't brag on social media about every single place they go to.

And you were one of the 400-500 packing the place. All the others were thinking you are part of the problem and they are the legitimate visitor.

If only you'd put as much effort into reading as you put into your condescending tone, then, just maybe, you'd notice the part where I mentioned we wanted to "pass by", and not "sit for hours just to take a picture".

Those 400-500 people were just staying there, with many blocking the street – you know, the thing people walk on?

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#267

Post by homonculus1 »

vkou wrote: post #226
homonculus1 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 negatio…

I think it's weird to recognize the harm caused by unlimited permanent resettlement, without recognizing the harm caused by the existence of problematic current residents. If we're going to start stack-ranking people based on how much harm they do where they live, quite a lot of locals in any particular area ought to be shown the boot. This is why anti-immigration rhetoric tends to explicitly avoid trying to quantify…

To the contrary, it is usually the people who deny the potential harms of immigration who also tend to deny the harm caused by the most problematic locals. It would be great to have a quantified discussion about who's doing the most crime, but that's politically radioactive.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#268

Post by mytherin »

eisa01 wrote: post #117
skohan wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed feelings about this. I used to live in El Raval, and during August I dreaded even leaving the apartment because I knew I would have to fight crowds even to go to the corner and buy milk. I agree with your general premise, that restricting freedom of movement has not historically been a good thing, but I do also think it's a tragic when a beautiful and interesting place gets absolutely overrun by tourists…

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 live in Amsterdam and I would argue the exact opposite. There are tons of crappy restaurants, bars and night clubs here, primarily in the more touristic places. These places serve shitty food and have shitty service. They get away with it because they do not need repeat customers. There are new tourists that will visit every single day anyway, so why would they bother serving good food and treating their customers well. In my experience less touristy cities in the Netherlands have better food and friendlier service for a lower price.

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#269

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #175
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 3 cars, private plane, large concreted property, ..., yes at a holiday home, as one goes further up-market? What? We are discussing visitors on holidays, not people moving in or buying second homes.

Isn't it a progression?

Re: Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

#270

Post by jcranberry »

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…

I don't think distribution is the only problem. Japan is currently trying to distribute tourists through shuttles/advertising/etc but there can be adverse effects on those communities in addition to the normal tourist spots.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Cover-Story/Japan-gets-mor...

There's just too many tourists.

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