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Congestion pricing. Cities like Venice and Barcelona are beautiful and should absolutely have the right to control tourism, why not do it with a (steep) tax? A

Congestion pricing. Cities like Venice and Barcelona are beautiful and should absolutely have the right to control tourism, why not do it with a (steep) tax? A double benefit: fewer tourists and more public funds. The tax could be dynamically adjusted to control visitors Im generally an advocate for low taxes, but why shouldn’t cities benefit from being desirable rather than suffer for it

pishpash 8y ago
Because you may find yourself completely locked out of places you might want to visit in the future. Yes, there are always people richer than you, who don't want your company, either.
- scrumper 8y ago
  Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position. Maybe a lottery system then? 5k free "tourist visas" per year, that sort of thing.
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    This is how they do mountains here. You enter yourself and your party in a lottery for a permit. A limited number of permits are also sold on a first-come first-serve basis, so if you wanted to summit Mount Adams at the last minute you could show up at the ranger station at 4:00 in the morning and camp out in line like you're buying a PS4 on launch day.
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    In some cases (major world heritage sites), one could argue the tourists' right to visit should be considered along with residents' rights. It's a tough balance and I don't have answers. But, I would hate to be locked out of the Vatican because they realize they can charge $5000/day for visitor passes. A lottery of some form might work, if prices are kept reasonable.
  - FooHentai 8y ago
    >Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position. Interesting position. Competing against that thought you have stuff like United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights #13: Freedom to Move. "We all have the right to go where we want in our own country and to travel as we wish"
    - rpedela 8y ago
      The UN isn't talking about tourism.
      - FooHentai 8y ago
        My initial instinct was to handwave as well but I don't think that holds up. Not explicitly naming tourism doesn't mean it's not applicable, as the point of calling them 'universal' is that they apply no matter the context. Person, government, country, planet. Universal. What do you consider to be a definition of 'travel' that applies to that statement, that wouldn't also include tourism? The kind of restriction on tourism we're discussing here appears to run contrary to that particular line. Even at it's most conservative reading it seems to set the bar at 'if you're a citizen of a country then you can travel freely to any public place within it'. The idea of locking down a city to prevent that is exactly what's being proposed here. Or are we talking about only international tourism here?
        rpedela 8y ago
        The context of the entire thread is using money to "control" tourism which is already common. I have been to many places where tourists paid more or had a special tax. Or were required to have a local guide. The UN charter is specifically about citizens not foreigners. Additionally they are talking about no militay checkpoints, preventing a marginalized ethnic group from traveling from point A to point B, etc. It isn't about not charging rich Americans a little bit more because they want to see New Zealand.
      - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcguire 8y ago
    "Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position." Suddenly, I'm having flashes of California, particularly SF, residential problems, including the hated NIMBY-ism.
- sdoering 8y ago
  And that is free market at it's best. If something is in high demand with limited availability then I would expect the price to rise. Keeping the price artificially low would be like the policy of the old socialistic ideologies. Isn't that what the free market evangelism teaches? As there is only one Venice, I would hope that the price reflects the amount of demand as well as the the amount of externalities that the tourism is producing. This last aspect should be covered by taxes to ensure that the tourism not harms the city/environment, as not to fall into the trap of the tragedy of the commons.
  - adwf 8y ago
    Except taxes are almost explicitly not the free market. If hotels want to raise their prices they can, if not, then not. Taxes are the definition of market distortion. It would be a crying shame if all the world's greatest sights were restricted to the rich due to government interference. EDIT: It would also be a shame if all the world's greatest sights were destroyed by mass-tourism, so who knows? But pretending it's as simple as an Econ 101 problem would be naive.
    - alistairSH 8y ago
      Taxes are a distortion, but also one way to deal with the tragedy of the commons (in this case, previously remote locales that cannot absorb the influx off tourists). Lottery or some other system to limit access could also work.
- paulsutter 8y ago
  It's really funny you mention this, because I'm in St Barts today as I posted the comment, and that may well be true here!
flubert 8y ago
Also, there should be an externalities tax on air travel (especially for vacationing) since it has such a disproportionate effect on atmospheric CO2. https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=air%20travel%20climate%20change%20impact https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=air%20travel%20climate%20chang...
- maxerickson 8y ago
  If you want to subsidize business travel or the shipping of high value goods, it's probably better to do that separately from the externality tax.
joe_the_user 8y ago
There are many items for which imposing congestion pricing has the potential to be more of a burden for less-well-healed locals than for wealthy tourists - a city can spoiled for its residents just as much by unaffordable prices as it can by mobs of tourists (more imo, in fact). On the other hand, regulations and fees on hotels, car rentals and tours historically did serve as a limit and a tax on tourism. However, institutions like AirBnb, uber allow the equalization of prices paid by tourists and prices paid by locals. Hypothetically, one could role back these things by regulation but sadly that seems to be opposite of how things are going.
merinowool 8y ago
Does it mean that you want to marginalise people that are not too wealthy? Because if you increase prices those better off would still be able to come.
- w0utert 8y ago
  >> Does it mean that you want to marginalise people that are not too wealthy? Because if you increase prices those better off would still be able to come. Obviously the answer to that is yes. Maybe not the ‘want to’ part, but surely the effect of taxing certain forms of tourism heavily will shut out less fortunate people. The follow-up question would be whether this is the kind of ‘unfairness’ that needs to be fixed. Maybe it’s just a fact of life we all should accept, that there will always be places that you will never visit, or activities you will never be able to experience, because they are out of reach? It has always been like this, and in some sense it will always be: even as someone fortunate enough to be able to travel all around the world, I will most likely still never be able to visit many places because it would be too expensive. What entitles me to say this is unfair and I should also be able to e.g. travel to Antarctica? Discussions like this always feel awkward because I realize I’m part of the problem. Nonetheless I sincerely think mass tourism and making every place of the world accessible to as many people as possible ruins them and spoils them for everyone, and in particular for locals who don’t benefit directly from the tourist industry. If prohibitive cost is the tool to preserve these places, so be it. There’s enough other interesting things to discover for me than some hill that featured in LoTR or some cathedral I can see on a million pictures on the internet.
  - merinowool 8y ago
    That's fair. I think you're right.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

pishpash 8y ago

Because you may find yourself completely locked out of places you might want to visit in the future. Yes, there are always people richer than you, who don't want your company, either.

scrumper 8y ago
Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position. Maybe a lottery system then? 5k free "tourist visas" per year, that sort of thing.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  This is how they do mountains here. You enter yourself and your party in a lottery for a permit. A limited number of permits are also sold on a first-come first-serve basis, so if you wanted to summit Mount Adams at the last minute you could show up at the ranger station at 4:00 in the morning and camp out in line like you're buying a PS4 on launch day.
- alistairSH 8y ago
  In some cases (major world heritage sites), one could argue the tourists' right to visit should be considered along with residents' rights. It's a tough balance and I don't have answers. But, I would hate to be locked out of the Vatican because they realize they can charge $5000/day for visitor passes. A lottery of some form might work, if prices are kept reasonable.
- FooHentai 8y ago
  >Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position. Interesting position. Competing against that thought you have stuff like United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights #13: Freedom to Move. "We all have the right to go where we want in our own country and to travel as we wish"
  - rpedela 8y ago
    The UN isn't talking about tourism.
    - FooHentai 8y ago
      My initial instinct was to handwave as well but I don't think that holds up. Not explicitly naming tourism doesn't mean it's not applicable, as the point of calling them 'universal' is that they apply no matter the context. Person, government, country, planet. Universal. What do you consider to be a definition of 'travel' that applies to that statement, that wouldn't also include tourism? The kind of restriction on tourism we're discussing here appears to run contrary to that particular line. Even at it's most conservative reading it seems to set the bar at 'if you're a citizen of a country then you can travel freely to any public place within it'. The idea of locking down a city to prevent that is exactly what's being proposed here. Or are we talking about only international tourism here?
      - rpedela 8y ago
        The context of the entire thread is using money to "control" tourism which is already common. I have been to many places where tourists paid more or had a special tax. Or were required to have a local guide. The UN charter is specifically about citizens not foreigners. Additionally they are talking about no militay checkpoints, preventing a marginalized ethnic group from traveling from point A to point B, etc. It isn't about not charging rich Americans a little bit more because they want to see New Zealand.
    - AnimalMuppet 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mcguire 8y ago
  "Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position." Suddenly, I'm having flashes of California, particularly SF, residential problems, including the hated NIMBY-ism.
sdoering 8y ago
And that is free market at it's best. If something is in high demand with limited availability then I would expect the price to rise. Keeping the price artificially low would be like the policy of the old socialistic ideologies. Isn't that what the free market evangelism teaches? As there is only one Venice, I would hope that the price reflects the amount of demand as well as the the amount of externalities that the tourism is producing. This last aspect should be covered by taxes to ensure that the tourism not harms the city/environment, as not to fall into the trap of the tragedy of the commons.
- adwf 8y ago
  Except taxes are almost explicitly not the free market. If hotels want to raise their prices they can, if not, then not. Taxes are the definition of market distortion. It would be a crying shame if all the world's greatest sights were restricted to the rich due to government interference. EDIT: It would also be a shame if all the world's greatest sights were destroyed by mass-tourism, so who knows? But pretending it's as simple as an Econ 101 problem would be naive.
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    Taxes are a distortion, but also one way to deal with the tragedy of the commons (in this case, previously remote locales that cannot absorb the influx off tourists). Lottery or some other system to limit access could also work.
paulsutter 8y ago
It's really funny you mention this, because I'm in St Barts today as I posted the comment, and that may well be true here!

flubert 8y ago

Also, there should be an externalities tax on air travel (especially for vacationing) since it has such a disproportionate effect on atmospheric CO2. https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=air%20travel%20climate%20change%20impact https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=air%20travel%20climate%20chang...

maxerickson 8y ago
If you want to subsidize business travel or the shipping of high value goods, it's probably better to do that separately from the externality tax.

joe_the_user 8y ago

There are many items for which imposing congestion pricing has the potential to be more of a burden for less-well-healed locals than for wealthy tourists - a city can spoiled for its residents just as much by unaffordable prices as it can by mobs of tourists (more imo, in fact). On the other hand, regulations and fees on hotels, car rentals and tours historically did serve as a limit and a tax on tourism. However, institutions like AirBnb, uber allow the equalization of prices paid by tourists and prices paid by locals. Hypothetically, one could role back these things by regulation but sadly that seems to be opposite of how things are going.

merinowool 8y ago

Does it mean that you want to marginalise people that are not too wealthy? Because if you increase prices those better off would still be able to come.

w0utert 8y ago
>> Does it mean that you want to marginalise people that are not too wealthy? Because if you increase prices those better off would still be able to come. Obviously the answer to that is yes. Maybe not the ‘want to’ part, but surely the effect of taxing certain forms of tourism heavily will shut out less fortunate people. The follow-up question would be whether this is the kind of ‘unfairness’ that needs to be fixed. Maybe it’s just a fact of life we all should accept, that there will always be places that you will never visit, or activities you will never be able to experience, because they are out of reach? It has always been like this, and in some sense it will always be: even as someone fortunate enough to be able to travel all around the world, I will most likely still never be able to visit many places because it would be too expensive. What entitles me to say this is unfair and I should also be able to e.g. travel to Antarctica? Discussions like this always feel awkward because I realize I’m part of the problem. Nonetheless I sincerely think mass tourism and making every place of the world accessible to as many people as possible ruins them and spoils them for everyone, and in particular for locals who don’t benefit directly from the tourist industry. If prohibitive cost is the tool to preserve these places, so be it. There’s enough other interesting things to discover for me than some hill that featured in LoTR or some cathedral I can see on a million pictures on the internet.
- merinowool 8y ago
  That's fair. I think you're right.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]