5 ms·

I'm not talking about that, but if they don't want you visiting, they sure as heck don't want you staying.

Piskvorrr 8y ago
Nope. Nope nope nope. There's a great deal of difference, and it hinges on time. If your plan for visiting is "get the cheapest one-day return flight from Wherever, binge drink all night with your buddies, retch it up en route to airport and sleep on the return flight," all you care about is the cheap booze - literally nothing else matters (yes, this is a significant set of tourists around here). Then you get the other tourists who actually come for something else spend money in addition to using the infrastructure. That is normal, albeit with major scaling problems (there's the issue - "don't have enough space to put all the tourists coming to see the Major Must-See Sights, as those aren't inflatable"). Those care about the appearance NOW ("people retching on public transport? How revolting!"). And then you get the normal city traffic - with locals, expats, and whoever else actually lives here. And those care about quality of life in long term ("what good is public transport, if it efficiently gets you into a city center that's devoid of actual life, only with a disneylandesque imitation? Will I want to live in such city in 5 years? What do I want to change?"). In other words, the longer you're planning to visit, the more probable it is that you'll be nicer about it, because you'll be expecting similar behavior in return. If you just pass through: eh well, break that window, piss in the street, kick that dog - not likely anyone will catch you within the remaining four hours. Note that this doesn't have any relation to whence the tourists are coming - the behavior correlates very closely with the length of the stay, be it an just-out-of-town sports team (common) or a stag party from the UK (also common).
- skohan 8y ago
  Yeah this was a big complaint about tourists (especially from certain countries) in Barcelona: they viewed the city as a playground and somewhere to let off steam, and they acted in inconsiderate and disrespectful ways in which they would never act back home. It's like to them Mediterranean culture seemed permissive and relaxed compared to what they were used to, so they made the false assumption that "anything goes" rather than putting in the effort to actually learn and respect the norms of the culture they were guests of.
IkmoIkmo 8y ago
Not really... I absolutely wouldn't mind a Chinese looking individual, bringing and showing his culture, and learning mine, speaking my language, becoming my friend, colleague and neighbour. But I sure as hell get annoyed if a Chinese tourist runs over my feet with his luggage and speaking Chinese back at me when I complain and seeing him leave the country the next day, leaving money in the pockets of a few landlords who prefer him over me, as my street slowly transforms into a corridor of gift shops and regular jobs leave the city. These are superficial examples but you catch my drift. In any case, both migration and temporary visitors (tourists) only works in balance. I think virtually everyone recognises that basic truth. But what constitutes balance is a matter of opinion, and some of these opinions are definitely driven by racism.
- ksdale 8y ago
  I'm definitely more of an open borders guy myself, but I don't agree with this characterization. There are plenty of places in the US that used to be completely white, English speaking neighborhoods where you can now spend a few hours and not hear a single person speaking English. It doesn't make one bit of difference to me what language anyone speaks ever and I much prefer the diversity, but I don't think it's accurate to say that immigration doesn't involve people coming and completely changing the nature of a place. It's not always like that, but it's regularly like that. I agree that the people complaining the loudest often employ ugly arguments, but the crux of both the anti tourism and anti immigration arguments seem to be "There are lots of people in my city who don't look or speak like me and I don't like the way they act." As you said, it's a matter of balance, but I think most of the anti immigration people are closer in opinion to the anti tourism people than the anti tourism people would care to admit. We don't really get to choose how tourists or immigrants behave, they get the same freedoms as locals, and that includes the freedom to be rude with suitcases and speak Chinese unapologetically. Basically everyone is ok with immigrants provided they meet a bunch of qualifications that make them much less foreign, that's not exactly extreme open mindedness. In the US, it's often the people accused of being racist who say they don't mind immigration at all if the immigrants adopt American customs and learn English. I also don't really see a difference between complaining about a street full of gift shops or complaining about a street full of llanteras.

Nope. Nope nope nope. There's a great deal of difference, and it hinges on time. If your plan for visiting is "get the cheapest one-day return flight from Wherever, binge drink all night with your buddies, retch it up en route to airport and sleep on the return flight," all you care about is the cheap booze - literally nothing else matters (yes, this is a significant set of tourists around here). Then you get the other tourists who actually come for something else spend money in addition to using the infrastructure. That is normal, albeit with major scaling problems (there's the issue - "don't have enough space to put all the tourists coming to see the Major Must-See Sights, as those aren't inflatable"). Those care about the appearance NOW ("people retching on public transport? How revolting!"). And then you get the normal city traffic - with locals, expats, and whoever else actually lives here. And those care about quality of life in long term ("what good is public transport, if it efficiently gets you into a city center that's devoid of actual life, only with a disneylandesque imitation? Will I want to live in such city in 5 years? What do I want to change?"). In other words, the longer you're planning to visit, the more probable it is that you'll be nicer about it, because you'll be expecting similar behavior in return. If you just pass through: eh well, break that window, piss in the street, kick that dog - not likely anyone will catch you within the remaining four hours. Note that this doesn't have any relation to whence the tourists are coming - the behavior correlates very closely with the length of the stay, be it an just-out-of-town sports team (common) or a stag party from the UK (also common).

skohan 8y ago
Yeah this was a big complaint about tourists (especially from certain countries) in Barcelona: they viewed the city as a playground and somewhere to let off steam, and they acted in inconsiderate and disrespectful ways in which they would never act back home. It's like to them Mediterranean culture seemed permissive and relaxed compared to what they were used to, so they made the false assumption that "anything goes" rather than putting in the effort to actually learn and respect the norms of the culture they were guests of.

IkmoIkmo 8y ago

Not really... I absolutely wouldn't mind a Chinese looking individual, bringing and showing his culture, and learning mine, speaking my language, becoming my friend, colleague and neighbour. But I sure as hell get annoyed if a Chinese tourist runs over my feet with his luggage and speaking Chinese back at me when I complain and seeing him leave the country the next day, leaving money in the pockets of a few landlords who prefer him over me, as my street slowly transforms into a corridor of gift shops and regular jobs leave the city. These are superficial examples but you catch my drift. In any case, both migration and temporary visitors (tourists) only works in balance. I think virtually everyone recognises that basic truth. But what constitutes balance is a matter of opinion, and some of these opinions are definitely driven by racism.

ksdale 8y ago
I'm definitely more of an open borders guy myself, but I don't agree with this characterization. There are plenty of places in the US that used to be completely white, English speaking neighborhoods where you can now spend a few hours and not hear a single person speaking English. It doesn't make one bit of difference to me what language anyone speaks ever and I much prefer the diversity, but I don't think it's accurate to say that immigration doesn't involve people coming and completely changing the nature of a place. It's not always like that, but it's regularly like that. I agree that the people complaining the loudest often employ ugly arguments, but the crux of both the anti tourism and anti immigration arguments seem to be "There are lots of people in my city who don't look or speak like me and I don't like the way they act." As you said, it's a matter of balance, but I think most of the anti immigration people are closer in opinion to the anti tourism people than the anti tourism people would care to admit. We don't really get to choose how tourists or immigrants behave, they get the same freedoms as locals, and that includes the freedom to be rude with suitcases and speak Chinese unapologetically. Basically everyone is ok with immigrants provided they meet a bunch of qualifications that make them much less foreign, that's not exactly extreme open mindedness. In the US, it's often the people accused of being racist who say they don't mind immigration at all if the immigrants adopt American customs and learn English. I also don't really see a difference between complaining about a street full of gift shops or complaining about a street full of llanteras.