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>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 a
by 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 agoI 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.