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Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

bbc.com

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Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#31

Post by kd5bjo »

tomxor wrote: post #6

I think this is a potential basically everywhere, unfortunately most people do not respect the environment and given access will treat nature like a city. Where it becomes an issue is more a matter of forces acting to encourage "normal" people with no previous interest in nature to go and e.g have their piece of the pie for their worthless facebook pic. Anecdotally, I've seen this multiple times on smaller scales in…

Go on just about any cave tour in the US, and there’ll be at least one chamber filled with graffiti from sometime before the cave was protected/commercialized(1) as it will have been a popular youth spot. It’s never cleaned up because it’s now historical and gives the guides a good opportunity to lecture against vandalism.

(1) choose your preferred description

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#32

Post by [deleted] »

davidhyde wrote: post #26

Clickbaity title implies that all tourists that visit Iceland trash the place and this could not be further from the truth, I thought people were pretty well behaved. This article was about a few bad actors, literally. Iceland’s economy is now heavily reliant on tourism but tourism always comes at a cost and this needs to be factored in when choosing this as your source of income as a country. You don’t hear about th…

[deleted]

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#33

Post by tonyedgecombe »

“The relatively new trouble with mass society is perhaps even more serious, but not because of the masses themselves, but because this society is essentially a consumers’ society where leisure time is used no longer for self-perfection or acquisition of more social status, but for more and more consumption and more and more entertainment… To believe that such a society will become more “cultured” as time goes on and education has done its work, is, I think, a fatal mistake. The point is that a consumers’ society cannot possibly know how to take care of a world and the things which belong exclusively to the space of worldly appearances, because its central attitude toward all objects, the attitude of consumption, spells ruin to everything it touches.”

Hannah Arendt

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#34

Post by crankylinuxuser »

castis wrote: post #23
sillyquiet wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, maybe 'snob' is a better word to describe folks who cannot handle the unwashed masses invading their domain. But in seriousness, I understand the impact a bunch of oblivious (willfully or otherwise) people can have on a here-to carefully curated and managed space, I sympathize.

Is it snobbery to think that maybe those unwashed masses should get their shit together and not trample on the places they've just landed?

"me too"

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#35

Post by Juliate »

marapuru wrote: post #27

This quote from the article baffles me: > The good instagrammers try to show different ways of enjoying nature. We don't tag places that are off the beaten path that we want to protect as long as possible. Some places have become "insta-famous" without ever mentioning where they are but eventually they become known to everyone. Wait, what? So you take a picture. Put it on instagram (because you are an 'instagrammer')…

When an instagrammer dies, where go all the likes and the pictures?

At least, with paper-printed photos, you have|had material stuff to inherit with some context and history.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#36

Post by tomxor »

cameronbrown wrote: post #29
growlist wrote: post #4

At first they were just shitting up the Web - now it's the real world too :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

This isn't even remotely comparable to the tragedy of nature being so carelessly trashed.

In importance yes, but in analogy it's pretty close.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#37

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

growlist wrote: post #7
jihadjihad wrote: post #3

You see the same thing in Yellowstone--inattentive Instagrammers with selfie sticks hoping to snap the perfect pic next to the wildlife and scenery. Nothing quite as real as being scalded by a hot spring when you're used to viewing the world through a screen.

Mass tourism has ruined travel for me.

If and when I go somewhere, I try to go in off season. And if there is no such thing as off season for a place, I just avoid it.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#38

Post by AmericanChopper »

kd5bjo wrote: post #17
wmne wrote: post #8

Okay, so restrict their entrance and live without their tourism money. :')

That would require withdrawing from Schengen, and probably the EEA, impacting Icelanders’ travel rights to Europe.

If Icelanders aren’t happy with their current level of sovereignty, then perhaps they should do that. Otherwise they may consider directing some of the 10% of their GDP they generate through tourism to solving some of these problems.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#39

Post by throwaway847272 »

Until recently, I worked at a company that sends these people to Iceland, among other places.

Influencers end up in that career for a reason. They are, in general, everything you'd expect them to be: flaky and privileged almost as a rule. They're not bad people per se (no tantrums that I've seen), and are often well-meaning, but most are desperate to be famous. These are the same people who competed to be on The Bachelor or Dancing with the Stars as a means to improve their marketability. They have no real marketable skills other than marketing themselves.

Thus it should surprise no one that they are terrible tourists. If I could speculate, it's a combination of cluelessness, lack of interest in researching anything about their destination (other than good photo spots), and a low-key sense of privilege that "it's not that big of a deal" if they do something that might be harmful. In other words, they are a lot like average tourists but with bigger egos.

Re: Iceland tire of tourists trashing their nature

#40

Post by mcv »

marapuru wrote: post #27

This quote from the article baffles me: > The good instagrammers try to show different ways of enjoying nature. We don't tag places that are off the beaten path that we want to protect as long as possible. Some places have become "insta-famous" without ever mentioning where they are but eventually they become known to everyone. Wait, what? So you take a picture. Put it on instagram (because you are an 'instagrammer')…

> But I found that a photo never does justice to the moment.

Pics or it didn't happen.

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