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I grew up in Alaska in a town of about 30,000. The cruise ships carried ~5000 passengers, and they kept building new docks, so that there would be several at a

I grew up in Alaska in a town of about 30,000. The cruise ships carried ~5000 passengers, and they kept building new docks, so that there would be several at a time docked and anchored, each of which was bigger then our 10 story federal building. Picture a floating sky scraper. The part of town around their piers turns into theme park in the summer. They used to make announcements on their megaphones that I could hear from my house 2 miles away. They dumped sewage and trash in the ocean close to nearby towns sometimes using legal loopholes, but sometimes illegally, and were occasionally fined for this. They also set up company stores downtown, and bussed hundreds of people into small local parks, trails, and beaches. The cruise companies are incorporated in low tax foreign jurisdictions, outside the political reach of the citizens of places they visit. Sometimes the city pushes back a bit. The last time I went home they seemed to have eased off of the megaphones, and I heard a head tax was proposed at some point to help clean up after the tourists and maintain the public parks, but I don’t know if it passed. The city and state are both small enough that the cruise companies can out-lobby locals interests quite handily. They promise jobs, but import labor. They have PR campaigns that brag about their public service efforts, omitting that these are court ordered, etc. It seems to me that the ability to shop for jurisdiction creates great opportunity for legal arbitrage. I have no idea what to do about this, but I think it’s interesting. Maybe there’s a metaphor here… something something Panama papers. :)

koboll 8y ago
>I grew up in Alaska in a town of about 30,000. How many of those people would not be living there if not for the revenue brought in by tourism? Reading the article, my immediate thought was: of course the Balinese hate tourists, when the ill effects are so obvious, and the benefits more subtle; easy to take for granted. But where would they be economically if all the tourists just stopped coming? I would bet the resulting recession would make people yearn for what they once despised.
- elipsey 8y ago
  I would guess most of them. I don't think the population has grown proportionately with the tourist traffic. They used to only dock a couple of smaller ships at time, which had less impact on the town. It's the state capital, and there are also various industries. Also, tourism jobs tend to be temporary/seasonal, and people often come from out of town to do them for a few months and then leave. We get a hundred inches of rain a year, and in the winter it's dark a lot so there is no tourism in the winter. EDIT: Population has grown about 15% since 1990, but dock space has roughly trippled, and per ship passenger capacity has substantially increased. I haven't heard anyone suggest that tourism should be banned, just that it would be nice for it occur at a scale similar to a few decades ago, and to externalize costs less; e.g. refrain from illegal dumping, contribute to the upkeep of public goods that are exploited, and only increase the population of the town by, let's say, %20 on a given day.

koboll 8y ago

>I grew up in Alaska in a town of about 30,000. How many of those people would not be living there if not for the revenue brought in by tourism? Reading the article, my immediate thought was: of course the Balinese hate tourists, when the ill effects are so obvious, and the benefits more subtle; easy to take for granted. But where would they be economically if all the tourists just stopped coming? I would bet the resulting recession would make people yearn for what they once despised.

elipsey 8y ago
I would guess most of them. I don't think the population has grown proportionately with the tourist traffic. They used to only dock a couple of smaller ships at time, which had less impact on the town. It's the state capital, and there are also various industries. Also, tourism jobs tend to be temporary/seasonal, and people often come from out of town to do them for a few months and then leave. We get a hundred inches of rain a year, and in the winter it's dark a lot so there is no tourism in the winter. EDIT: Population has grown about 15% since 1990, but dock space has roughly trippled, and per ship passenger capacity has substantially increased. I haven't heard anyone suggest that tourism should be banned, just that it would be nice for it occur at a scale similar to a few decades ago, and to externalize costs less; e.g. refrain from illegal dumping, contribute to the upkeep of public goods that are exploited, and only increase the population of the town by, let's say, %20 on a given day.