6 ms·

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 att

• 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.
      • cco 8y ago
        I have to know which city this is, I need details on this proposed pet cemetery!
        • dsfyu404ed 8y ago
          I'd love to just so we can all laugh at it but I don't give out PII like where I grew up on HN
• bigbluedots 8y ago
  Venice already does the first part, the 'city tax' component of the hotel bill is quite high. There's no redistribution though.
  • whack 8y ago
    Presumably the city tax isn't high enough, if overtourism is a real problem.
• bliblah 8y ago
  You also need to ban Airbnb otherwise people will just Airbnb in the suburbs/residential areas and then Uber to the Touristy areas. Then locals will have to deal with gentrification and congestion during tourist season.
  • pmiller2 8y ago
    No, you just need to get AirBnB or AirBnB hosts to start paying their share of hotel tax, like they do in some other locales.
    • bobthepanda 8y ago
      That solves one market problem (AirBnB has no level playing field with existing hotels.) That does not solve the other large problem; most residents do not want to live in a hotel district with other tourists, and especially not as hallway or floor mates. And residents do not want new hotel builds or conversions competing with apartments. With traditional hotels this is solved with permits and zoning, but AirBnB is usable on pretty much all residential units.
      • stale2002 8y ago
        Seems like we don't have enough hotels then. Let's build more. It'd make a lot of money for the government.
        • bobthepanda 8y ago
          Governments don't answer to short-term visitors, they answer to residents. Quite frankly, it's a good thing that Venice or Amsterdam or Barcelona are not pursuing a Benidorm-style frantic race to the bottom for tourism.
          • stale2002 8y ago
            Indeed. And those residents would be greatly benefited by all the extra tax revenue and business that they recieve from tourists.
• dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Europe is the global leader in regulation (I mean this as a pure matter of fact, not some kind of backhanded compliment). If regulating is feasible I'd expect them to be doing it in some capacity. This kind of begs the question as to why they're not doing it. If someone has an example of a city that manages to use taxes/regulation on tourism to provide for the people who have to live there I'd like to hear it.
• hrktb 8y ago
  > 2. Redistribute the resulting tax dollars to all city residents One of the result is less and less “true” residents. That’s what is happening with airbnb, where some people prefer to move away and dedicate their appart to tourism, even if it’s only for part of the year. Or restaurants and other services used by everyone get tourism focused, and while money flows in, quality of life goes down. I think that’s one case where money doesn’t solve the issue (provided it’s an issue to solve, some might argue)
  • jhbadger 8y ago
    While I'm sure airbnb accelerated the process, when I visited Venice a decade ago I rented a flat owned by somebody who lived on the mainland. It had been his grandmother's residence, but he had been renting it out to tourists for years at that point.