48 ms·

The backlash against overtourism

195 points by bushido 8y ago

mattmanser 8y ago
I read Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End the other day, good book, but what surprised me was his naivety in describing the 'perfect' world. Briefly, the book starts with aliens peacefully invading and enforcing peace and order, while bringing prosperity. He talked about how anyone could travel anywhere, and did, without ever reflecting that if you have a few billion people just travelling anywhere they wanted, it would be utter chaos in all the tourist spots. It really underlines that he didn't even vaguely comprehend the incredibly privileged life he lived in (and I don't really either!), that he was so unfathomably richer than so much of the world's population that he couldn't even conceive the chaos of what he was proposing. And now more of us enter that section of society (and still we are only a small fraction of the world's population) there simply isn't the capacity to accommodate us all.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  A perfect society where everything is so great that everybody has the freedom to tromp all over the planet in an effort to occasionally distract themselves from their otherwise dreary existences. There's a parable about what a deeply entrenched mind virus materialism can be hiding in there somewhere.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jolesf 8y ago
“To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience, It is to impose yourself on places that in all non-economic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.” -David Foster Wallace
- maxfurman 8y ago
  I will almost always upvote DFW
- steve-benjamins 8y ago
  Is this from his essay on the cruise ship?
- grogenaut 8y ago
  And yet the irony is that the main reason I and many people travel is to break out of that.
- pradn 8y ago
  While the sort of travel/tourism this quote describes is the common, default way of experiencing the fact of putting yourself in another place, we must allow for the genuine joy of meeting other humans, experiencing other beauty, and getting closer to other cultures. It's the hateful paradox of being a tourist - your difference is pronounced, concentrated. As when home, a spirit of joy and generosity is the best way to go about going to other places.
- pradn 8y ago
  Discussion from another time this quote was brought up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8408870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8408870
  - jolesf 8y ago
    thank you, that is an interesting perspective... "This is one of those sentences that sounds insightful, but in reality is pretty surprisingly shallow."
- totalperspectiv 8y ago
  I struggle with this every time I travel! I think that part of the... guilt? ... can be assuaged by intent. As in, you are there to learn and absorb a culture and broaden your horizons, as opposed to being there for the entertainment of seeing crazy things and getting the Instagram shot. But maybe that's just a pretense I make up for myself.
esotericn 8y ago
Mass tourism is being treated as unique when really, we're discovering that everyone cannot have a "good" standard of living. We can't all go travelling, we won't fit in the same place and we'll boil the earth doing so. We can't all have a car because we'll boil the earth. If we develop EV's and don't boil the earth, they won't all fit downtown. We can't all live in the country, that's not sustainable either. We can't all eat high quality meat as often as we want. We'll boil the earth and it'll require too much farmland, anyway. I could go on. We either eliminate these experiences, accept economic inequality, or watch the experiences be eliminated via attrition (e.g. cars devolving into gridlock, tourism devolving into queues and displacement, ...). I find this to be an odd aspect of certain political movements at the moment - unwilling to accept that the Universe _is_ actually a big competition, and either some people lose, or we all lose. It sucks. But what's the alternative? It's perfectly reasonable to drag people out of poverty. But the idea that everyone should be able to do the same things implies a set of "things" very different from what, say, the middle class families on my suburban street do today.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  This view of things doesnt take into account that an absurdly higher number of people can travel and see multiple countries in their life, which was impossible 50 years ago. It is absolutely possible for every earth citizen to become a tourist, there is no economic impediment to do it.
  - collyw 8y ago
    He talked about environmental issues, not economic ones.
    - conanbatt 8y ago
      Environmental issues are economic issues.
      - pyrale 8y ago
        A totalitarian ideology is one that tries to creep into every aspect of our life, and rejects the exploration of alternative models.
badestrand 8y ago
It will be interesting to see how cities will cope with it. I am sure the amount of tourists will continue to rise significantly over the next decades - just think about much of India, Africa and South America entering global tourism. So Venice, Amsterdam, London, Barcelona, Paris, New York etc will maybe have 10 times the tourists than today and the cities will need a concept how to deal with it.
- alex_anglin 8y ago
  Like they do now with tourist taxes, perhaps? All the cities you mention won't have 10x as many tourists if they're 20x more expensive (in real and comparative terms).
kartan 8y ago
I am from Barcelona, even that I have not lived there for the past 5 years. Governments have been caring to maximize business profit. And in that pursuit, they have created cities where one cannot live anymore. Unregulated tourism has make things worse. The rise of Airbnb and similar schemes are punishing buildings in popular neighbourhoods that instead of a place to live with your family they become a business without rules. And any regulation is sold as "any business" and "communism" by the usual internet trolls. Problems are so bad in some neighbourhoods that even that push-back from online discussions and the business themselves is overridden by voters. Tourism is a very good thing. And that thought has not changed in the city. Abuses should not be tolerated, thou. That you bring money to the economy is not an excuse to be above the rules. Citizens first.
- alexgmcm 8y ago
  I live in BCN now and I think Airbnb is really the biggest issue - the other things don't really affect you if you stay out of Las Ramblas, Barceloneta etc. I moved from Sagrada Familia to Guinardo and its much nicer and not yet affected by the tourism etc. It must suck to own a house in Barceloneta or something as it has changed completely although you would probably be able to sell it for a lot more money than it used to be worth I suppose.
platz 8y ago
> Having spent decades trying to attract tourists This is what they designed for.
- Fuxy 8y ago
  They really just need to search for ways to manage the crowds instead alienating them to be honest. Tourist bring a lot of money to local businesses you really shouldn't be killing the goose who lays the golden eggs if you ask me.
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    The article also mentions stack parties in the first paragraph. I believe those to be a common problem with tourism in European cities. That's to me an obvious and extreme case of unacceptable behavior by tourists. People who do things like that are running it for everyone else, the locals and other tourists. Maybe it would be appropriate of those people can stay home and learn how to behave respectfully in a different country before they get to travel again. I see it as every travelers duty to learn about different cultural norms in the destination country and to follow those and of course follow basic decency you'd follow at home. If we don't all do this, we cannot have nice things.
Fuxy 8y ago
I found the quote “tourists go home, refugees welcome” quite funny. So what their basically saying is they would rather kick out tourists that bring in and spend quite a lot of money effectively boosting the economy in favour of some refugees the government will have to spend a large amount of money on... and you wonder why the contry's economy is in such a bad shape when the citizens advocate shooting themselves in the foot.
- knieveltech 8y ago
  What is good for the economy (short term) and what is good for people (long term) are frequently not the same things.
  - Fuxy 8y ago
    As far as I'm aware tourism is not a short term thing there will always be tourists coming and leaving this is an constant revenue steam in its own right. So I don't get what you mean.
    - galfarragem 8y ago
      He means that locals will be kicked out from their homes - or if they are luckier/smarter - will be living as animals in a zoo. Mass tourism is dystopic. Living in a touristic area is like living in Disneyland: everything is fake. Did you ever wonder why 'experienced' tourists (we like to call ourselves travellers) don't like touristic areas?
    - cr1895 8y ago
      >this is an constant revenue steam in its own right. Indeed. Amsterdam, for example, is enriched by its diverse trinket shops selling "XXX" poof ball hats and crass t-shirts, and the options for stale pizza, cold waffles and Nutella crepes have never been so plentiful.
    - knieveltech 8y ago
      I am saying that using economic activity to gauge positive impact on society is utterly misguided. Consider: we are currently living in an age of robust economic growth and international trade, historic levels of income inequality, and are in the midst of a global mass extinction event with the very real possibility of climate change rendering human civilization in it's current form impossible.
Loughla 8y ago
Honest to God, the best take on this theory was actually the Consul's tale in Hyperion explaining why he was against the Hegemony. The degradation of Maui-Covenant is just so very realistic and easy to visualize. Reading that as a child actually led me to travel less than I really want to as an adult. Instead, I enjoy making my small part of the world 'mine' instead of trying to make the rest of the world 'mine'.
- quest88 8y ago
  What do you think of traveling to experience other parts of the world that you can incorporate into your part of the world?
  - Loughla 8y ago
    Genuinely. I can't come up with a reason or 'thing' that I wouldn't be able to learn from the internet/video chat/vr (hopefully soon). What were you thinking of when you wrote this?
    - plouc 8y ago
      Learn, sure. But it's all about the experience! Especially when you talk about traveling, the travel itself is an experience you can't really feel reading a book or watching a video.
- zanny 8y ago
  It doesn't hurt that you can get a large chunk of the travel experience virtually now. Either watching someone elses travel vlogs (from just phone camera stuff to professional productions on various places) or using something like google maps lets you "tour" the world. If I want the sensation of being somewhere busy I could just drive an hour and walk main street in my closest city. I'm sure all the shops and attractions there would love to see you more often as much as the ones halfway around the world would. And the good news is a lot of missing pieces (the grandeur and immersion that comes with being somewhere in person) can be improved on with VR. Really looking forward to virtual tours of places being commonplace within my lifetime. To be fair its much the same problem remote work experiences. Its mostly subjective experience that people feel is lacking telecommuting more than anything physically being absent. Which makes it a personal thing if you are satisfied with it or not. But it just being an option means many people can experience 99% of something without having the immense marginal costs moving bodies around the planet.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Meh. I grew up somewhere tourism was the biggest local industry. I will never be able to go on a "normal vacation" without feeling dirty because I know how the sausage is made. Tourism sucks and the suck percolates through the entire local economy and everybody who has to participate in it (i.e. everyone who lives there). Even if you don't sell grossly overpriced goods or services to the tourists you make your living off of those that do. The non-repetitive nature of transactions means shady people get rewarded shady business practices and everyone develops this world view in which everyone else is a lying scumbag who will screw you for a quick gain until proven otherwise. Of course many people bury their head in the sand from a young age and convince themselves that wherever they live really is special (protip: it's really not). Drugs are rampant in whatever the off season is. People get all bent out of shape over "branding" issues (e.g. the color you paint your house, what kind of business you run, etc, etc) because your local "brand" is what attracts tourists and money. I could go on and on and on about specific downsides to having an economy dependent on tourism. By trying to curtail tourism I think these cities are doing the right thing in the long term even if they could make a few dollars in the short term by selling out. This isn't a pro business/anti-business issue. It's a "what kind of business are we ok with" issue. Tourism unconstrained poisons local society the way a chemical plant will poison local waterways if left unchecked. Also, FWIW all the negative predictions about cost of living in this article are correct in my observation.
- etblg 8y ago
  Where did you grow up?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Tourist destination on the east coast of the US. More of a summer family destination than an old money vacation homes or college spring break destination but old money and the 18-25 party crowd were well represented during the season. I'm not getting any more specific than that.
- clojurestan 8y ago
  I live in New Orleans and this rings true to me. It sucks because many times there is something special about the place that led it to become a tourist destination in the first place, whether it's natural wonders like mountains or a beach, a culture that produces new musical genres every few decades, or a historical legacy of art and architecture. It is nice to live in these environments and it sucks that cheap commodified travel and packaged tourism is exacerbating the problems that come from an economy based on serving tourists.
mattnewton 8y ago
Sounds like in many cases they need a pricing mechanism to pay for the externalities. A tourist tax on hotels downtown is nice, what about a tax on tourist alchohol? And cannabis in Amsterdam, that pays for the stag party cleanup? Tickets for publically vomiting after 10pm? But in other cases, for any reasonable tax the demand might still keep outstripping supply. I guess that leaves unreasonably high fees, or something new and much more creative.
- eternalban 8y ago
  Back in the early 90s in St. Marks (NYC) there was this head shop (among many others on that fabled stretch) with a [prominently displayed] "This Ain't Kansas Dorothy" t-shirt with a drawing of a handgun. Manhattan had this unique 'buzz', and some people actually were scared of visiting! Now it is an open air disney land for the tourist. The buzz is gone and most of us have retreated to Brooklyn. I now fully sympathize with "rude" Parisians.
Tepix 8y ago
We need (very) high fidelity virtual reality to save the planet, making traveling superfluous. I'm afraid we're still far away from that development.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  I would not choose to live in such a world. It sounds like a dystopia, d’après The Matrix.
  - 908087 8y ago
    The main difference will be that, thanks to the direction our "tech" industry has been headed, "our" matrix will be projecting a constant stream of advertisements onto any natural wonder or monument you attempt to "visit". "Half Dome -- BROUGHT TO YOU BY PEPSI"
    - somebodythere 8y ago
      In a virtual reality where you can zap any good you might like into existence, why would Pepsi need to exist?
      - 908087 8y ago
        Because here in real reality, humans still need to consume actual food and fluids to survive. Strapping a headset on and pretending to drink a virtual good won't sustain you.
- wild_preference 8y ago
  It's sad how travel, to most people, is just seeing things. No wonder so many HN comments are grandstanding about how they dislike or don't need travel: they aren't talking about meeting other people or experiencing other cultures. They're just talking about weekend travel packages where they're shuttled around to take some pictures. How incredibly boring. Your VR idea like saying you've been to Prague because you spent extensive time in Google Maps street view: I wouldn't even bother.
robben1234 8y ago
I won't argue about off topic issues, but I don't think mass tourism is killing any sights. Ignorance kills natural sights, over advertisement kills human created sights. Nearby Venice there's so much interesting stuff and small cities, a bit further are big cities. None of them really struggles with tourists as much as Venice. Maybe you'll see a huge line for Firenze Duomo but that's it, streets and other sights are practically lineless. Why Florence struggles with Duomo and Venice struggles in general? Because they're famous all over the world for things they're struggle with. Everyone know about floating city of Venice, and Florence's Cathedral. Those things are being romanticised for centuries. All Italy has to do is start load balancing tourists. Advertise other sights in the area, build easier public commute to other stuff. They have means to do so, they have tourism ad budget, they have 'city_name' cards which grant discounts to different sights. I've been to Croatia this summer, they are struggling with Dubrovnik too. But most beautiful things are not there. Plitvice is like heaven and past 2pm I was walking there practically alone, Split's old city is as beautiful as Dubronik's and except 12-2pm is not crowded, beaches in Makarska and on Hvar are way more scenic and comfortable than Italy's and there's no crowds. Go other places or rot in queues of over advertised sights.
- js2 8y ago
  I stayed with my wife and two kids on Venice almost exactly four years ago this month. We avoided the busy spots during the day, and had Venice to ourselves at night. So even at places as busy as Venice, it's still possible to avoid crowds. We actually found Florence to be busy almost everywhere, even with lots of people still wandering around at night. The Uffizi was the one place that was impossible to enjoy, mostly because of the tour groups. I wish they would limit the number of people in any given room at a time. But, we wandered across to the Museo Galileo and had it to ourselves.
  - lozaning 8y ago
    I found Florence pretty miserable and dont get me started on the 'italian food' within a mile of the Coliseum in Rome. I had the good fortune to spend quite some time in Castiglion Fiorentino and found that much preferable.
js2 8y ago
If you stay on Venice, you can explore away from the busiest tourist areas during the day, then at night when most of the tourists leave, have the city to yourself to explore. Obviously a place can be loved or touristed to death. Groups with a large number of people arriving all at once (whether by van or bus or ship) exacerbate it. But everywhere I've traveled, even very popular places, if you can find a way to avoid the large groups and peak times, you have a much more pleasant experience. My initial impression of Venice when I visited it four years ago was: "this seems like a place Disney would build if it only could." Perhaps Venice should take a page from Disney's playbook: treat itself like a theme park and limit total daily access with time-of-day tickets for the most popular destinations.
- Bayart 8y ago
  Being a theme park is existential terror for any historical city.
- buboard 8y ago
  It IS a theme park, albeit a sloppy one. If the city did not rely on tourism they would have more efficient boats, perhaps some other transportation system (so that the city is actually livable by working age locals, and not just by pensioners), some squares would have a playground instead of cafes and jewelry shops etc. Tourism sets the whole city to "tourist mode", slow and geared only towards tourism-related businesses. It wouldn't work as a tech city for example (even though i would love to see the innovations they would have to build for it). It has been museum-ified by choice of the Venetians. I love the history of Venice to bits (I live in one of their former conquests) , but nowadays its indeed like a disney construction, you can't trust it to maintain a culture. Even the art students who frequent the various squares look like posers.
  - bliblah 8y ago
    I am very doubtful that Venice has some latent value outside of Tourism. There are many reasons it fell out of power while other cities flourish and thrived during the same period. This isn't a case like Singapore where land is limited because you could just live in the mainland. The buildings are all historical treasures so modernizing the infrastructure is probably out of the question. So business need to thrive in a place that is hard to access, can't grow, and can't modernize itself. Don't get me wrong, I love the place but the only people who live there are Millionaires that use those houses as vacation homes half the year and don't contribute much to the local economy. The local craftspeople are all masters so only the most wealthy could afford their wares so they have been replaced by Chinese souvenir shops. It's definitely a shame but I don't see how a common Italian person is supposed to reap the benefits of less tourism.
ip26 8y ago
The elephant in the room, of course, is that tourism helps people think of themselves as part of something bigger. The National Parks, for example, help drive votes for conservation. If you've never set foot in nature, and you've never left your town, other places and their problems will always be somewhere beyond the horizon.
- spadros 8y ago
  Yeah, I actually just got back from a trip to Spain last week. I saw the "TOURISTS GO HOME" graffiti in Barcelona and Granada. Very weird thing to run into when you're from Canada; we're all about new people and cultures and tourism bucks over here. I don't really feel guilty for wanting to see these famous historic places, though, and I'm not going to feel guilty when I go to Amsterdam in April and Japan in September to see their way of life.
  - TremendousJudge 8y ago
    If you want to see "Amsterdam's way of life" then stay away from the downtown. It's literally adult Disneyworld, with pretty much everything it implies. It's great if that's what you're into (all of Europe visits the city regularly to get high), but not if you actually want to see their "way of life"
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    But Canada is gigantic! Other than Niagara Falls, the tourist attractions are either in nature and not world famous (no Instagram-pressure to pick any particular place), in big, modern cities and not particularly focussed to one place (Montreal, Toronto), in old cities where people don't live (centre of Quebec), or in places like ski resorts where if all the hotels are full, it's full. Amsterdam is large, but everyone only wants to go to the centre, which has mediaeval-size streets. In Barcelona there are a few expected sights. Both cities are also normal cities. 27 million tourists to Canada — 82 million to Spain — 17 million to the Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Canada and similar.
CodeSheikh 8y ago
I don't want to sound harsh but aren't some of those European countries struggling financially and tourism money is the least hectic way to bring in new revenues where it affects (positively) across the entire food-chain (from visa fees to airline tickets to food carts on the streets). Why such a backlash? It can be governed and moderated but blatantly discouraging tourism is not a solution.
- buboard 8y ago
  Absolutely it is, more so for the poorer southern regions. But tourism is like a natural resource, it becomes a curse. Requiring mostly unskilled workers, it doesnt help diversification of the economy. Most of the tourist-based economies are in third world countries.
partycoder 8y ago
Tourism is the easiest way to become a 1% polluter.
grogenaut 8y ago
This was one of the undertones of the Hyperion series. People from Rich planets setting gates to gorgeous poor ones and then slowly destroying the unique cultures shaped by totally different planets for their comfort. Also evil AI and man that guy hates the Catholic Church.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  Also, rich folk could have every room of their houses be on different planets, so that their only interaction with a planet could be that they go there only to poop in its ocean.
csomar 8y ago
Couldn't this be a failure from the European cities in question? While European countries are on the top of the list, the cities? Not that much. The first one is Bangkok. With around 22 million tourists. Paris is third with 18 million. Interestingly, Paris has more things to see, a more extensive metro system (actually waaa..y more extensive). Yet, I seem to be more bothered by tourists in Paris than in Bangkok. In Bangkok, the tourism is spread around the city. There is the Sukhumvit line which is quite a lot of BTS stations. It is full of hotels but things are spread out. You do see lots of tourists but there doesn't seem to be a problem of tourists overcrowding as in Paris. Paris has failed to grow outside of Paris 1-6. There isn't much space to build there, so things got messy. What Paris should have done is create a whole new region (regions?) for young tourists, couples, families, and old tourists. Each region is separate. They can be a bit far but not too far. Tourists traveling around will find their mates instead of stumbling on locals. Other cities that adapted better to tourists: Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. All on the top list.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  In Bangkok, the tourism is spread around the city. This is how tourism works in LA. The tourist locations are so spread out from one another that the mobs of tourists can't overwhelm any particular part of the city. That being said, events like this past weekend's Sportsmageddon and last year's Women's March demonstrated that LA is fully capable of handling large masses of visiting crowds without much negative impact other than more garbage.
- httpz 8y ago
  The cities you mentioned were mostly developed recently with a solid plan. The primary purpose of those European cities weren't being a tourist destination. When the Notre Dame was built 800 years ago, they weren't thinking about 21st century tourists. A lot of tourist attractions in European cities were built before the airplane/car era so preparing for a massive influx of tourists probably didn't cross their minds.
- thatfrenchguy 8y ago
  Paris's actually fine if you don't go to the tourist areas (and that's amazing). I never see any tourists when I'm there (thank you for not ruining the other neighbourhoods)
lordnacho 8y ago
The problem with most tourist destinations is the same as the tragedy of the commons: there's a bunch of tour guides, restaurants, airlines, hotels, etc that can sell a piece of the common heritage, and there's no overall coordination of the total amount served. I went to Galapagos, and they were thinking of limiting the total number of visitors. To me this make a lot of sense. You can't have hordes of people showing up, it'll wreck the place. I would do an auction, 10k or whatever highest bidders get to enter. A tourist attraction could then act like a monopoly and extract the maximum out of it, without straining themselves serving those customers (yeah I've got BT internet). Granted, there will be a lot of politics about the distribution of that pie, but at least you can say you are getting the most out of the situation.
- senorjazz 8y ago
  so only the richest should be able to visit such places? Probably from far away countries, whilst people from neighbouring countries are not able to see?
  - lordnacho 8y ago
    Yep. They also live in the nicest homes, live longer, have nicer cars, and so forth. Not saying it's fantastic, but if you have to ration a resource willingness to pay is a place to start. I don't feel the same way about every resource (eg health and education) but whether you can visit some old town somewhere doesn't seem essential.
    - Mankrik 8y ago
      And then you've changed the meaning of these pieces of cultural heritage to mean they are some kind of exclusive culture that can only be accessed by the wealthy bourgeois of the world. There would be no limit to this, they can artificially make the price as high as they want. It should be on a ticketing basis that is limited daily, not by pricing out wealth brackets in the world. You can only imagine that of the hundreds of thousands to millions that visit these places every year, there are millions more people that may never visit. Those nice homes and cars have materials and resources invested into making them. The resources around tourist attractions are limited.
whack 8y ago
If cities really had a problem with "overtourism", there's a simple solution: 1. Gouge the hell out of tourists by jacking up the taxes on hotels & tourist attractions. Exemptions provided only for those with local IDs/passports 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents Either you will successfully drive away all tourists, or you'll be making so much money that your residents will love them. The fact that no city is actually doing this, makes me think that no one really has a problem with "overtourism". They just love to complain about it, while still hooked to the GDP boost tourists bring.
- pyrale 8y ago
  Your argument reads like you believe that the proceeds of tourism are equally shared among the population. I don't get a dime if someone starts renting next door via airbnb to endless parties of nightlife addicted tourists.
  - mitchdoogle 8y ago
    He's arguing that that tax dollars should be divided among the city's residents, so even if you don't own an AirBNB or business, you will still benefit economically.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      I grew up in a (tourism) town that did this. They had moderate property taxes (moderate property taxes on many multi-million dollar properties = huge windfall). The town squanders it all. The cops have every toy they want, the classrooms are full of overpriced hardware. I guess that's nice. The results delivered by the schools and cops are nothing special (relative to the rest of the state) though. I shit you not (believe me, I wish I were), the town is looking into running it's own pet cemetery. If that isn't boondoggle waste I don't know what is. Locals still pay high vehicle excise taxes, town dump fees are sky high (the rust belt city I now live in takes my trash away every week for less $$), there's a big fee for a (local resident) beach parking lot pass, etc, etc so it's not like the town is using it's windfall to ease the burden on everyone else. I think expecting a suddenly cash flush government to fairly distribute it is a recipe for disappointment. I would be very wary of the "profit centers" (e.g. hospitality industry) achieving something akin to regulatory capture whereby they get whatever they want because they're the money makers for the town. I'd love for municipalities to be able to make money hand over fist using tourism and then use that money to provide for their citizens (like Norway does with oil money) but I have near zero confidence that can happen without being corrupted by special interests and the well connected.
abalone 8y ago
This article is mostly about overcrowding but another important consideration is carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of tourism is a big blindspot in the "liberal" mindset (speaking as one). On the one hand travel is supposed to be good and healthy for your development and the broadening on your mind.. Anthony Bourdain.. listen and exposure yourself to cultures.. etc. On the other, air travel is 100% fossil fuel based. Flying to Europe from SF is like driving coast to coast in a gas car. We could use a healthy backlash against the idea that everyone should strive to fly around the world. Sustainability must come first. This is a bitter pill for us "liberals" to swallow, I think.
40acres 8y ago
I like to travel but hate overcrowded touristy places. There are some popular spots where the overcrowding actually seems to be a part of the experience (Time Square for instance) but I will probably never go see the Mona Lisa or Sistine Chapel because it's filled to the brim. When I travel I have some pretty simple heuristics, if we're staying at a resort I prefer a smaller luxury resort, ideally w/o kids, and I like to go in the off season, which so far has meant Sept-Oct or March-April, depending on the climate of the location. There are lots of smaller towns and cities near the big tourists hubs that have a lot of charm. When I visited Italy I went to Positano, a small town on the Almafi coast about an hour from Naples. The city was great and I was able to visit the island of Capri and check out Pompeii all while being stationed in a small, beautiful town. There were tourists but it did not feel overcrowded.
- kweks 8y ago
  So there are "hidden" side entrances to the Louvre. With your back to the glass pyramids, cross the road, and next to the arch on the right is an underground staircase that will pop you in without queues. Likewise, pick your times and you'll have La Joconde (Mona Lisa in French) to yourself. And then scoot off to the other sections that are actually so much more interesting - including a literal castle in the basement.
- phil21 8y ago
  I also hate lines and crowds and general "tourist" stuff. That said the Louvre is one of those worth going to, and it's not hard to avoid the crowds. Yes, skip the Mona Lisa - it's in my opinion one of the least impressive pieces of the entire museum. It's a giant museum with only a couple wings actually busy - at least when I went. The rest of the museum was almost empty.
chicob 8y ago
Mass tourism is the prostitution of places.
neuralRiot 8y ago
This reminds me of stars complaining about paparazzi or fans harassing them.
domador 8y ago
Personally, I hate the bucket-list-as-a-checklist idea, and have found the idea of visiting places and seeing things to feel pretty hollow to me, regardless of whether the sites are well known or not. Except for beautiful parts of nature and architectural beauty, visiting places does little for my soul. I find cultural, people-oriented tourism, though, to be lifegiving for me. This is a bit surprising to me, given that I'm a kind of person that's lesser suited to it, as someone who tends toward shyness and also happens to be a picky eater (which is not great for sharing and enjoying meals in foreign countries). But on those times where I've been able to connect on a deeper level with locals, I've felt very fulfilled in my tourism experience. Having friends who invite me to visit the place they're now living in has been one gateway for me to be able to pursue this kind of cultural tourism (though I realize not every would-be tourist has personal networks that would provide this kind of opportunity.) Given our common language and culture and their local connections, these friends can help me enjoy their new home on a much deeper level much sooner than if I just went to that place by myself. I realize that my tourism preference is personal, and that various other forms of tourism are perfectly valid and more enjoyable to others. However, if I were to generalize, I'd say that tourism that values, respects, and enjoys the places, people, and cultures involved for their own sake is commendable, while tourism that simply uses such places and people for narcissistic motives should be questioned. (These narcissistic motives typically revolve around showing others how much richer, more beautiful, more refined, classier, more knowledgeable, worthier, and ultimately better you are than them.) Loving a place, people, or culture might even involve leaving it alone, and enjoying them vicariously through other's tales, photos, and videos. Speaking of motives, and on a somewhat-related note, you might enjoy this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V68SMFrpFt8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V68SMFrpFt8 (First Person To Run A Marathon Without Talking About It)
Markoff 8y ago
agreed with this sentiment in Prague, city center now it's tourist ghetto locals avoid unless they work there or few young hipsters who wanna show off their presence, but all in all full of Russian owned shops/restaurants, everything with jacked up prices to milk tourists personally I don't go there at all because tourists also dunno basic manners in public transport about letting elders and small children to sit or don't block space for prams, similar with sidewalks, them you have noise everywhere, especially in evening from drunk people and when I dared as local to visit park popular among tourists i was pushed by tourist who want to cut the queue to be with friends in front of me, while i was holding small child when i see tourist outside city center heading wrong direction in tram i usually help them, but i can't really visit city center with my family anymore because they ruined the city center and am more and more disgusted by them also companies dodging taxes while renting airbnb apartments don't help, if it would be up to me I would ban airbnb completely and hike accommodation tax to push away groups of young boys usually from UK/DE who come for cheap beer on their sausage parties

195 points by bushido 8y ago

I read Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End the other day, good book, but what surprised me was his naivety in describing the 'perfect' world. Briefly, the book starts with aliens peacefully invading and enforcing peace and order, while bringing prosperity. He talked about how anyone could travel anywhere, and did, without ever reflecting that if you have a few billion people just travelling anywhere they wanted, it would be utter chaos in all the tourist spots. It really underlines that he didn't even vaguely comprehend the incredibly privileged life he lived in (and I don't really either!), that he was so unfathomably richer than so much of the world's population that he couldn't even conceive the chaos of what he was proposing. And now more of us enter that section of society (and still we are only a small fraction of the world's population) there simply isn't the capacity to accommodate us all.

bunderbunder 8y ago
A perfect society where everything is so great that everybody has the freedom to tromp all over the planet in an effort to occasionally distract themselves from their otherwise dreary existences. There's a parable about what a deeply entrenched mind virus materialism can be hiding in there somewhere.
deleted 8y ago
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jolesf 8y ago

“To be a mass tourist, for me, is to become a pure late-date American: alien, ignorant, greedy for something you cannot ever have, disappointed in a way you can never admit. It is to spoil, by way of sheer ontology, the very unspoiledness you are there to experience, It is to impose yourself on places that in all non-economic ways would be better, realer, without you. It is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing.” -David Foster Wallace

maxfurman 8y ago
I will almost always upvote DFW
steve-benjamins 8y ago
Is this from his essay on the cruise ship?
grogenaut 8y ago
And yet the irony is that the main reason I and many people travel is to break out of that.
pradn 8y ago
While the sort of travel/tourism this quote describes is the common, default way of experiencing the fact of putting yourself in another place, we must allow for the genuine joy of meeting other humans, experiencing other beauty, and getting closer to other cultures. It's the hateful paradox of being a tourist - your difference is pronounced, concentrated. As when home, a spirit of joy and generosity is the best way to go about going to other places.
pradn 8y ago
Discussion from another time this quote was brought up. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8408870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8408870
- jolesf 8y ago
  thank you, that is an interesting perspective... "This is one of those sentences that sounds insightful, but in reality is pretty surprisingly shallow."
totalperspectiv 8y ago
I struggle with this every time I travel! I think that part of the... guilt? ... can be assuaged by intent. As in, you are there to learn and absorb a culture and broaden your horizons, as opposed to being there for the entertainment of seeing crazy things and getting the Instagram shot. But maybe that's just a pretense I make up for myself.

esotericn 8y ago

Mass tourism is being treated as unique when really, we're discovering that everyone cannot have a "good" standard of living. We can't all go travelling, we won't fit in the same place and we'll boil the earth doing so. We can't all have a car because we'll boil the earth. If we develop EV's and don't boil the earth, they won't all fit downtown. We can't all live in the country, that's not sustainable either. We can't all eat high quality meat as often as we want. We'll boil the earth and it'll require too much farmland, anyway. I could go on. We either eliminate these experiences, accept economic inequality, or watch the experiences be eliminated via attrition (e.g. cars devolving into gridlock, tourism devolving into queues and displacement, ...). I find this to be an odd aspect of certain political movements at the moment - unwilling to accept that the Universe _is_ actually a big competition, and either some people lose, or we all lose. It sucks. But what's the alternative? It's perfectly reasonable to drag people out of poverty. But the idea that everyone should be able to do the same things implies a set of "things" very different from what, say, the middle class families on my suburban street do today.

conanbatt 8y ago
This view of things doesnt take into account that an absurdly higher number of people can travel and see multiple countries in their life, which was impossible 50 years ago. It is absolutely possible for every earth citizen to become a tourist, there is no economic impediment to do it.
- collyw 8y ago
  He talked about environmental issues, not economic ones.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    Environmental issues are economic issues.
    - pyrale 8y ago
      A totalitarian ideology is one that tries to creep into every aspect of our life, and rejects the exploration of alternative models.

badestrand 8y ago

It will be interesting to see how cities will cope with it. I am sure the amount of tourists will continue to rise significantly over the next decades - just think about much of India, Africa and South America entering global tourism. So Venice, Amsterdam, London, Barcelona, Paris, New York etc will maybe have 10 times the tourists than today and the cities will need a concept how to deal with it.

alex_anglin 8y ago
Like they do now with tourist taxes, perhaps? All the cities you mention won't have 10x as many tourists if they're 20x more expensive (in real and comparative terms).

kartan 8y ago

I am from Barcelona, even that I have not lived there for the past 5 years. Governments have been caring to maximize business profit. And in that pursuit, they have created cities where one cannot live anymore. Unregulated tourism has make things worse. The rise of Airbnb and similar schemes are punishing buildings in popular neighbourhoods that instead of a place to live with your family they become a business without rules. And any regulation is sold as "any business" and "communism" by the usual internet trolls. Problems are so bad in some neighbourhoods that even that push-back from online discussions and the business themselves is overridden by voters. Tourism is a very good thing. And that thought has not changed in the city. Abuses should not be tolerated, thou. That you bring money to the economy is not an excuse to be above the rules. Citizens first.

alexgmcm 8y ago
I live in BCN now and I think Airbnb is really the biggest issue - the other things don't really affect you if you stay out of Las Ramblas, Barceloneta etc. I moved from Sagrada Familia to Guinardo and its much nicer and not yet affected by the tourism etc. It must suck to own a house in Barceloneta or something as it has changed completely although you would probably be able to sell it for a lot more money than it used to be worth I suppose.

platz 8y ago

> Having spent decades trying to attract tourists This is what they designed for.

Fuxy 8y ago
They really just need to search for ways to manage the crowds instead alienating them to be honest. Tourist bring a lot of money to local businesses you really shouldn't be killing the goose who lays the golden eggs if you ask me.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  The article also mentions stack parties in the first paragraph. I believe those to be a common problem with tourism in European cities. That's to me an obvious and extreme case of unacceptable behavior by tourists. People who do things like that are running it for everyone else, the locals and other tourists. Maybe it would be appropriate of those people can stay home and learn how to behave respectfully in a different country before they get to travel again. I see it as every travelers duty to learn about different cultural norms in the destination country and to follow those and of course follow basic decency you'd follow at home. If we don't all do this, we cannot have nice things.

Fuxy 8y ago

I found the quote “tourists go home, refugees welcome” quite funny. So what their basically saying is they would rather kick out tourists that bring in and spend quite a lot of money effectively boosting the economy in favour of some refugees the government will have to spend a large amount of money on... and you wonder why the contry's economy is in such a bad shape when the citizens advocate shooting themselves in the foot.

knieveltech 8y ago
What is good for the economy (short term) and what is good for people (long term) are frequently not the same things.
- Fuxy 8y ago
  As far as I'm aware tourism is not a short term thing there will always be tourists coming and leaving this is an constant revenue steam in its own right. So I don't get what you mean.
  - galfarragem 8y ago
    He means that locals will be kicked out from their homes - or if they are luckier/smarter - will be living as animals in a zoo. Mass tourism is dystopic. Living in a touristic area is like living in Disneyland: everything is fake. Did you ever wonder why 'experienced' tourists (we like to call ourselves travellers) don't like touristic areas?
  - cr1895 8y ago
    >this is an constant revenue steam in its own right. Indeed. Amsterdam, for example, is enriched by its diverse trinket shops selling "XXX" poof ball hats and crass t-shirts, and the options for stale pizza, cold waffles and Nutella crepes have never been so plentiful.
  - knieveltech 8y ago
    I am saying that using economic activity to gauge positive impact on society is utterly misguided. Consider: we are currently living in an age of robust economic growth and international trade, historic levels of income inequality, and are in the midst of a global mass extinction event with the very real possibility of climate change rendering human civilization in it's current form impossible.

Loughla 8y ago

Honest to God, the best take on this theory was actually the Consul's tale in Hyperion explaining why he was against the Hegemony. The degradation of Maui-Covenant is just so very realistic and easy to visualize. Reading that as a child actually led me to travel less than I really want to as an adult. Instead, I enjoy making my small part of the world 'mine' instead of trying to make the rest of the world 'mine'.

quest88 8y ago
What do you think of traveling to experience other parts of the world that you can incorporate into your part of the world?
- Loughla 8y ago
  Genuinely. I can't come up with a reason or 'thing' that I wouldn't be able to learn from the internet/video chat/vr (hopefully soon). What were you thinking of when you wrote this?
  - plouc 8y ago
    Learn, sure. But it's all about the experience! Especially when you talk about traveling, the travel itself is an experience you can't really feel reading a book or watching a video.
zanny 8y ago
It doesn't hurt that you can get a large chunk of the travel experience virtually now. Either watching someone elses travel vlogs (from just phone camera stuff to professional productions on various places) or using something like google maps lets you "tour" the world. If I want the sensation of being somewhere busy I could just drive an hour and walk main street in my closest city. I'm sure all the shops and attractions there would love to see you more often as much as the ones halfway around the world would. And the good news is a lot of missing pieces (the grandeur and immersion that comes with being somewhere in person) can be improved on with VR. Really looking forward to virtual tours of places being commonplace within my lifetime. To be fair its much the same problem remote work experiences. Its mostly subjective experience that people feel is lacking telecommuting more than anything physically being absent. Which makes it a personal thing if you are satisfied with it or not. But it just being an option means many people can experience 99% of something without having the immense marginal costs moving bodies around the planet.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

Meh. I grew up somewhere tourism was the biggest local industry. I will never be able to go on a "normal vacation" without feeling dirty because I know how the sausage is made. Tourism sucks and the suck percolates through the entire local economy and everybody who has to participate in it (i.e. everyone who lives there). Even if you don't sell grossly overpriced goods or services to the tourists you make your living off of those that do. The non-repetitive nature of transactions means shady people get rewarded shady business practices and everyone develops this world view in which everyone else is a lying scumbag who will screw you for a quick gain until proven otherwise. Of course many people bury their head in the sand from a young age and convince themselves that wherever they live really is special (protip: it's really not). Drugs are rampant in whatever the off season is. People get all bent out of shape over "branding" issues (e.g. the color you paint your house, what kind of business you run, etc, etc) because your local "brand" is what attracts tourists and money. I could go on and on and on about specific downsides to having an economy dependent on tourism. By trying to curtail tourism I think these cities are doing the right thing in the long term even if they could make a few dollars in the short term by selling out. This isn't a pro business/anti-business issue. It's a "what kind of business are we ok with" issue. Tourism unconstrained poisons local society the way a chemical plant will poison local waterways if left unchecked. Also, FWIW all the negative predictions about cost of living in this article are correct in my observation.

etblg 8y ago
Where did you grow up?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Tourist destination on the east coast of the US. More of a summer family destination than an old money vacation homes or college spring break destination but old money and the 18-25 party crowd were well represented during the season. I'm not getting any more specific than that.
clojurestan 8y ago
I live in New Orleans and this rings true to me. It sucks because many times there is something special about the place that led it to become a tourist destination in the first place, whether it's natural wonders like mountains or a beach, a culture that produces new musical genres every few decades, or a historical legacy of art and architecture. It is nice to live in these environments and it sucks that cheap commodified travel and packaged tourism is exacerbating the problems that come from an economy based on serving tourists.

mattnewton 8y ago

Sounds like in many cases they need a pricing mechanism to pay for the externalities. A tourist tax on hotels downtown is nice, what about a tax on tourist alchohol? And cannabis in Amsterdam, that pays for the stag party cleanup? Tickets for publically vomiting after 10pm? But in other cases, for any reasonable tax the demand might still keep outstripping supply. I guess that leaves unreasonably high fees, or something new and much more creative.

eternalban 8y ago
Back in the early 90s in St. Marks (NYC) there was this head shop (among many others on that fabled stretch) with a [prominently displayed] "This Ain't Kansas Dorothy" t-shirt with a drawing of a handgun. Manhattan had this unique 'buzz', and some people actually were scared of visiting! Now it is an open air disney land for the tourist. The buzz is gone and most of us have retreated to Brooklyn. I now fully sympathize with "rude" Parisians.

Tepix 8y ago

We need (very) high fidelity virtual reality to save the planet, making traveling superfluous. I'm afraid we're still far away from that development.

stochastic_monk 8y ago
I would not choose to live in such a world. It sounds like a dystopia, d’après The Matrix.
- 908087 8y ago
  The main difference will be that, thanks to the direction our "tech" industry has been headed, "our" matrix will be projecting a constant stream of advertisements onto any natural wonder or monument you attempt to "visit". "Half Dome -- BROUGHT TO YOU BY PEPSI"
  - somebodythere 8y ago
    In a virtual reality where you can zap any good you might like into existence, why would Pepsi need to exist?
    - 908087 8y ago
      Because here in real reality, humans still need to consume actual food and fluids to survive. Strapping a headset on and pretending to drink a virtual good won't sustain you.
wild_preference 8y ago
It's sad how travel, to most people, is just seeing things. No wonder so many HN comments are grandstanding about how they dislike or don't need travel: they aren't talking about meeting other people or experiencing other cultures. They're just talking about weekend travel packages where they're shuttled around to take some pictures. How incredibly boring. Your VR idea like saying you've been to Prague because you spent extensive time in Google Maps street view: I wouldn't even bother.

robben1234 8y ago

I won't argue about off topic issues, but I don't think mass tourism is killing any sights. Ignorance kills natural sights, over advertisement kills human created sights. Nearby Venice there's so much interesting stuff and small cities, a bit further are big cities. None of them really struggles with tourists as much as Venice. Maybe you'll see a huge line for Firenze Duomo but that's it, streets and other sights are practically lineless. Why Florence struggles with Duomo and Venice struggles in general? Because they're famous all over the world for things they're struggle with. Everyone know about floating city of Venice, and Florence's Cathedral. Those things are being romanticised for centuries. All Italy has to do is start load balancing tourists. Advertise other sights in the area, build easier public commute to other stuff. They have means to do so, they have tourism ad budget, they have 'city_name' cards which grant discounts to different sights. I've been to Croatia this summer, they are struggling with Dubrovnik too. But most beautiful things are not there. Plitvice is like heaven and past 2pm I was walking there practically alone, Split's old city is as beautiful as Dubronik's and except 12-2pm is not crowded, beaches in Makarska and on Hvar are way more scenic and comfortable than Italy's and there's no crowds. Go other places or rot in queues of over advertised sights.

js2 8y ago
I stayed with my wife and two kids on Venice almost exactly four years ago this month. We avoided the busy spots during the day, and had Venice to ourselves at night. So even at places as busy as Venice, it's still possible to avoid crowds. We actually found Florence to be busy almost everywhere, even with lots of people still wandering around at night. The Uffizi was the one place that was impossible to enjoy, mostly because of the tour groups. I wish they would limit the number of people in any given room at a time. But, we wandered across to the Museo Galileo and had it to ourselves.
- lozaning 8y ago
  I found Florence pretty miserable and dont get me started on the 'italian food' within a mile of the Coliseum in Rome. I had the good fortune to spend quite some time in Castiglion Fiorentino and found that much preferable.

js2 8y ago

If you stay on Venice, you can explore away from the busiest tourist areas during the day, then at night when most of the tourists leave, have the city to yourself to explore. Obviously a place can be loved or touristed to death. Groups with a large number of people arriving all at once (whether by van or bus or ship) exacerbate it. But everywhere I've traveled, even very popular places, if you can find a way to avoid the large groups and peak times, you have a much more pleasant experience. My initial impression of Venice when I visited it four years ago was: "this seems like a place Disney would build if it only could." Perhaps Venice should take a page from Disney's playbook: treat itself like a theme park and limit total daily access with time-of-day tickets for the most popular destinations.

Bayart 8y ago
Being a theme park is existential terror for any historical city.
buboard 8y ago
It IS a theme park, albeit a sloppy one. If the city did not rely on tourism they would have more efficient boats, perhaps some other transportation system (so that the city is actually livable by working age locals, and not just by pensioners), some squares would have a playground instead of cafes and jewelry shops etc. Tourism sets the whole city to "tourist mode", slow and geared only towards tourism-related businesses. It wouldn't work as a tech city for example (even though i would love to see the innovations they would have to build for it). It has been museum-ified by choice of the Venetians. I love the history of Venice to bits (I live in one of their former conquests) , but nowadays its indeed like a disney construction, you can't trust it to maintain a culture. Even the art students who frequent the various squares look like posers.
- bliblah 8y ago
  I am very doubtful that Venice has some latent value outside of Tourism. There are many reasons it fell out of power while other cities flourish and thrived during the same period. This isn't a case like Singapore where land is limited because you could just live in the mainland. The buildings are all historical treasures so modernizing the infrastructure is probably out of the question. So business need to thrive in a place that is hard to access, can't grow, and can't modernize itself. Don't get me wrong, I love the place but the only people who live there are Millionaires that use those houses as vacation homes half the year and don't contribute much to the local economy. The local craftspeople are all masters so only the most wealthy could afford their wares so they have been replaced by Chinese souvenir shops. It's definitely a shame but I don't see how a common Italian person is supposed to reap the benefits of less tourism.

ip26 8y ago

The elephant in the room, of course, is that tourism helps people think of themselves as part of something bigger. The National Parks, for example, help drive votes for conservation. If you've never set foot in nature, and you've never left your town, other places and their problems will always be somewhere beyond the horizon.

spadros 8y ago
Yeah, I actually just got back from a trip to Spain last week. I saw the "TOURISTS GO HOME" graffiti in Barcelona and Granada. Very weird thing to run into when you're from Canada; we're all about new people and cultures and tourism bucks over here. I don't really feel guilty for wanting to see these famous historic places, though, and I'm not going to feel guilty when I go to Amsterdam in April and Japan in September to see their way of life.
- TremendousJudge 8y ago
  If you want to see "Amsterdam's way of life" then stay away from the downtown. It's literally adult Disneyworld, with pretty much everything it implies. It's great if that's what you're into (all of Europe visits the city regularly to get high), but not if you actually want to see their "way of life"
- Symbiote 8y ago
  But Canada is gigantic! Other than Niagara Falls, the tourist attractions are either in nature and not world famous (no Instagram-pressure to pick any particular place), in big, modern cities and not particularly focussed to one place (Montreal, Toronto), in old cities where people don't live (centre of Quebec), or in places like ski resorts where if all the hotels are full, it's full. Amsterdam is large, but everyone only wants to go to the centre, which has mediaeval-size streets. In Barcelona there are a few expected sights. Both cities are also normal cities. 27 million tourists to Canada — 82 million to Spain — 17 million to the Netherlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Canada and similar.

CodeSheikh 8y ago

I don't want to sound harsh but aren't some of those European countries struggling financially and tourism money is the least hectic way to bring in new revenues where it affects (positively) across the entire food-chain (from visa fees to airline tickets to food carts on the streets). Why such a backlash? It can be governed and moderated but blatantly discouraging tourism is not a solution.

buboard 8y ago
Absolutely it is, more so for the poorer southern regions. But tourism is like a natural resource, it becomes a curse. Requiring mostly unskilled workers, it doesnt help diversification of the economy. Most of the tourist-based economies are in third world countries.

partycoder 8y ago

Tourism is the easiest way to become a 1% polluter.

grogenaut 8y ago

This was one of the undertones of the Hyperion series. People from Rich planets setting gates to gorgeous poor ones and then slowly destroying the unique cultures shaped by totally different planets for their comfort. Also evil AI and man that guy hates the Catholic Church.

logfromblammo 8y ago
Also, rich folk could have every room of their houses be on different planets, so that their only interaction with a planet could be that they go there only to poop in its ocean.

csomar 8y ago

Couldn't this be a failure from the European cities in question? While European countries are on the top of the list, the cities? Not that much. The first one is Bangkok. With around 22 million tourists. Paris is third with 18 million. Interestingly, Paris has more things to see, a more extensive metro system (actually waaa..y more extensive). Yet, I seem to be more bothered by tourists in Paris than in Bangkok. In Bangkok, the tourism is spread around the city. There is the Sukhumvit line which is quite a lot of BTS stations. It is full of hotels but things are spread out. You do see lots of tourists but there doesn't seem to be a problem of tourists overcrowding as in Paris. Paris has failed to grow outside of Paris 1-6. There isn't much space to build there, so things got messy. What Paris should have done is create a whole new region (regions?) for young tourists, couples, families, and old tourists. Each region is separate. They can be a bit far but not too far. Tourists traveling around will find their mates instead of stumbling on locals. Other cities that adapted better to tourists: Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur. All on the top list.

gamblor956 8y ago
In Bangkok, the tourism is spread around the city. This is how tourism works in LA. The tourist locations are so spread out from one another that the mobs of tourists can't overwhelm any particular part of the city. That being said, events like this past weekend's Sportsmageddon and last year's Women's March demonstrated that LA is fully capable of handling large masses of visiting crowds without much negative impact other than more garbage.
httpz 8y ago
The cities you mentioned were mostly developed recently with a solid plan. The primary purpose of those European cities weren't being a tourist destination. When the Notre Dame was built 800 years ago, they weren't thinking about 21st century tourists. A lot of tourist attractions in European cities were built before the airplane/car era so preparing for a massive influx of tourists probably didn't cross their minds.
thatfrenchguy 8y ago
Paris's actually fine if you don't go to the tourist areas (and that's amazing). I never see any tourists when I'm there (thank you for not ruining the other neighbourhoods)

lordnacho 8y ago

The problem with most tourist destinations is the same as the tragedy of the commons: there's a bunch of tour guides, restaurants, airlines, hotels, etc that can sell a piece of the common heritage, and there's no overall coordination of the total amount served. I went to Galapagos, and they were thinking of limiting the total number of visitors. To me this make a lot of sense. You can't have hordes of people showing up, it'll wreck the place. I would do an auction, 10k or whatever highest bidders get to enter. A tourist attraction could then act like a monopoly and extract the maximum out of it, without straining themselves serving those customers (yeah I've got BT internet). Granted, there will be a lot of politics about the distribution of that pie, but at least you can say you are getting the most out of the situation.

senorjazz 8y ago
so only the richest should be able to visit such places? Probably from far away countries, whilst people from neighbouring countries are not able to see?
- lordnacho 8y ago
  Yep. They also live in the nicest homes, live longer, have nicer cars, and so forth. Not saying it's fantastic, but if you have to ration a resource willingness to pay is a place to start. I don't feel the same way about every resource (eg health and education) but whether you can visit some old town somewhere doesn't seem essential.
  - Mankrik 8y ago
    And then you've changed the meaning of these pieces of cultural heritage to mean they are some kind of exclusive culture that can only be accessed by the wealthy bourgeois of the world. There would be no limit to this, they can artificially make the price as high as they want. It should be on a ticketing basis that is limited daily, not by pricing out wealth brackets in the world. You can only imagine that of the hundreds of thousands to millions that visit these places every year, there are millions more people that may never visit. Those nice homes and cars have materials and resources invested into making them. The resources around tourist attractions are limited.

whack 8y ago

If cities really had a problem with "overtourism", there's a simple solution: 1. Gouge the hell out of tourists by jacking up the taxes on hotels & tourist attractions. Exemptions provided only for those with local IDs/passports 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents Either you will successfully drive away all tourists, or you'll be making so much money that your residents will love them. The fact that no city is actually doing this, makes me think that no one really has a problem with "overtourism". They just love to complain about it, while still hooked to the GDP boost tourists bring.

pyrale 8y ago
Your argument reads like you believe that the proceeds of tourism are equally shared among the population. I don't get a dime if someone starts renting next door via airbnb to endless parties of nightlife addicted tourists.
- mitchdoogle 8y ago
  He's arguing that that tax dollars should be divided among the city's residents, so even if you don't own an AirBNB or business, you will still benefit economically.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    I grew up in a (tourism) town that did this. They had moderate property taxes (moderate property taxes on many multi-million dollar properties = huge windfall). The town squanders it all. The cops have every toy they want, the classrooms are full of overpriced hardware. I guess that's nice. The results delivered by the schools and cops are nothing special (relative to the rest of the state) though. I shit you not (believe me, I wish I were), the town is looking into running it's own pet cemetery. If that isn't boondoggle waste I don't know what is. Locals still pay high vehicle excise taxes, town dump fees are sky high (the rust belt city I now live in takes my trash away every week for less $$), there's a big fee for a (local resident) beach parking lot pass, etc, etc so it's not like the town is using it's windfall to ease the burden on everyone else. I think expecting a suddenly cash flush government to fairly distribute it is a recipe for disappointment. I would be very wary of the "profit centers" (e.g. hospitality industry) achieving something akin to regulatory capture whereby they get whatever they want because they're the money makers for the town. I'd love for municipalities to be able to make money hand over fist using tourism and then use that money to provide for their citizens (like Norway does with oil money) but I have near zero confidence that can happen without being corrupted by special interests and the well connected.

abalone 8y ago

This article is mostly about overcrowding but another important consideration is carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of tourism is a big blindspot in the "liberal" mindset (speaking as one). On the one hand travel is supposed to be good and healthy for your development and the broadening on your mind.. Anthony Bourdain.. listen and exposure yourself to cultures.. etc. On the other, air travel is 100% fossil fuel based. Flying to Europe from SF is like driving coast to coast in a gas car. We could use a healthy backlash against the idea that everyone should strive to fly around the world. Sustainability must come first. This is a bitter pill for us "liberals" to swallow, I think.

40acres 8y ago

I like to travel but hate overcrowded touristy places. There are some popular spots where the overcrowding actually seems to be a part of the experience (Time Square for instance) but I will probably never go see the Mona Lisa or Sistine Chapel because it's filled to the brim. When I travel I have some pretty simple heuristics, if we're staying at a resort I prefer a smaller luxury resort, ideally w/o kids, and I like to go in the off season, which so far has meant Sept-Oct or March-April, depending on the climate of the location. There are lots of smaller towns and cities near the big tourists hubs that have a lot of charm. When I visited Italy I went to Positano, a small town on the Almafi coast about an hour from Naples. The city was great and I was able to visit the island of Capri and check out Pompeii all while being stationed in a small, beautiful town. There were tourists but it did not feel overcrowded.

kweks 8y ago
So there are "hidden" side entrances to the Louvre. With your back to the glass pyramids, cross the road, and next to the arch on the right is an underground staircase that will pop you in without queues. Likewise, pick your times and you'll have La Joconde (Mona Lisa in French) to yourself. And then scoot off to the other sections that are actually so much more interesting - including a literal castle in the basement.
phil21 8y ago
I also hate lines and crowds and general "tourist" stuff. That said the Louvre is one of those worth going to, and it's not hard to avoid the crowds. Yes, skip the Mona Lisa - it's in my opinion one of the least impressive pieces of the entire museum. It's a giant museum with only a couple wings actually busy - at least when I went. The rest of the museum was almost empty.

chicob 8y ago

Mass tourism is the prostitution of places.

neuralRiot 8y ago

This reminds me of stars complaining about paparazzi or fans harassing them.

domador 8y ago

Personally, I hate the bucket-list-as-a-checklist idea, and have found the idea of visiting places and seeing things to feel pretty hollow to me, regardless of whether the sites are well known or not. Except for beautiful parts of nature and architectural beauty, visiting places does little for my soul. I find cultural, people-oriented tourism, though, to be lifegiving for me. This is a bit surprising to me, given that I'm a kind of person that's lesser suited to it, as someone who tends toward shyness and also happens to be a picky eater (which is not great for sharing and enjoying meals in foreign countries). But on those times where I've been able to connect on a deeper level with locals, I've felt very fulfilled in my tourism experience. Having friends who invite me to visit the place they're now living in has been one gateway for me to be able to pursue this kind of cultural tourism (though I realize not every would-be tourist has personal networks that would provide this kind of opportunity.) Given our common language and culture and their local connections, these friends can help me enjoy their new home on a much deeper level much sooner than if I just went to that place by myself. I realize that my tourism preference is personal, and that various other forms of tourism are perfectly valid and more enjoyable to others. However, if I were to generalize, I'd say that tourism that values, respects, and enjoys the places, people, and cultures involved for their own sake is commendable, while tourism that simply uses such places and people for narcissistic motives should be questioned. (These narcissistic motives typically revolve around showing others how much richer, more beautiful, more refined, classier, more knowledgeable, worthier, and ultimately better you are than them.) Loving a place, people, or culture might even involve leaving it alone, and enjoying them vicariously through other's tales, photos, and videos. Speaking of motives, and on a somewhat-related note, you might enjoy this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V68SMFrpFt8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V68SMFrpFt8 (First Person To Run A Marathon Without Talking About It)

Markoff 8y ago

agreed with this sentiment in Prague, city center now it's tourist ghetto locals avoid unless they work there or few young hipsters who wanna show off their presence, but all in all full of Russian owned shops/restaurants, everything with jacked up prices to milk tourists personally I don't go there at all because tourists also dunno basic manners in public transport about letting elders and small children to sit or don't block space for prams, similar with sidewalks, them you have noise everywhere, especially in evening from drunk people and when I dared as local to visit park popular among tourists i was pushed by tourist who want to cut the queue to be with friends in front of me, while i was holding small child when i see tourist outside city center heading wrong direction in tram i usually help them, but i can't really visit city center with my family anymore because they ruined the city center and am more and more disgusted by them also companies dodging taxes while renting airbnb apartments don't help, if it would be up to me I would ban airbnb completely and hike accommodation tax to push away groups of young boys usually from UK/DE who come for cheap beer on their sausage parties