39 ms·

Norway's Bold Plan to Tackle Overtourism

148 points by gerbilly 7y ago

jaclaz 7y ago
Maybe it is not the case at hand in Norway, but what I see around (Italy, Florence) is not as much as "overtourism" but rather "impolite tourism", i.e. tourism by masses of people that for whatever reasons lack the bare minimum of common sense and polite behaviour. The large numbers are of course part of the problem, but it would be minimized if tourists were behaving more properly.
- geomark 7y ago
  Same problem in Thailand. When mainland Chinese first started coming to Thailand in large numbers there was an outcry about their terrible behavior. After a while the tour operators arranged for them to mostly go places where they don't mingle with the locals. Except the really famous places like Maya Bay got totally overrun - they just couldn't say no to the profits, despite the trashing of what made it so attractive. Eventually the place was shutdown to tourism for some period. https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/advanced/1029745/phi-phis-maya-bay-overcrowding-an-environmental-disaster https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/advanced/1029745/phi-ph...
sgt 7y ago
Minor correction, the guy's name is Børge Ousland, not Borge.
- tomcooks 7y ago
  It's not minor, the implications of such mistakes are enormous (especially in the days of easy copy-pasting, semi-universal support for utf8 on the web, and plenty of ways to do research) on a cultural level. Poor journalism and disdain for what's foreign, the ASCII way. Vae victis.
  - 627467 7y ago
    I guess it should be 艾未未 rather than Ai Weiwei then...
    - odiroot 7y ago
      I'm pretty much sure he'd be happy with Ài Wèiwèi
  - brummm 7y ago
    It's often the same with German names/words. Ü/U, etc are absolutely not the same and not equivalent. Leaving out the two dots on top of the U changes the whole word/meaning. Ü would be equivalently written as ue.
    - tomcooks 7y ago
      I've always wondered if German speakers are generally ok with "ue"? I've seen it used on URL's
  - magashna 7y ago
    It can be easy to overlook. For instance I was curious about this TLD the other day .xn--6frz82g or .移动 Not sure how apt I would be to remember the English version or know which characters those are to type it in the native dialect.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    "Enormous"? No, not really, it's more of a nice to have. As a native speaker of an umlauty Nordic language, if you drop the umlauts, it's virtually always quite easy and in fact almost effortless to work out which words is being referred to from context.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
There's no silver bullet. Tackling overtourism means limiting the number of tourists. One way to do that is to impose high enough prices.
- buro9 7y ago
  And then only the wealthy may have holidays.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    That's how it is now, from a global perspective.
  - tomcooks 7y ago
    This unfortunately pleases the state, the tourist service providers and the wealthy. All three of them not being particularly known for their respect of culture, tradition and delicate (eco)systems. Blah.
    - balfirevic 7y ago
      The wealthy are less well-known for their respect of culture, tradition and delicate ecosystems than the not wealthy?
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    Holidays doesn't mean "travelling to another country in a plane" or "let's take a credit to tour Italy".
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Quite true but if some can and some can’t the social class implications will be picked up on very fast, whether the reason is money or political connections.
      - 7y ago
buyingarmor 7y ago
Overtourist is a paradox Once they will solve this problem, they will try to chaise it again
- frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago
  No it's not. Tourism changes not just prices but character. Consider the recent controversy over the line at Mount Everest. Queueing in line of 100 people so that you can have a minute or two at the summit to take your picture is not the same experience as what you would've gotten climbing Mount Everest 40 years ago. It's this, the destruction of character/experience, what the thing actually is, that is the primary symptom of overtourism.
  - ryanwaggoner 7y ago
    So? It’s a different experience, maybe even a worse one (though that’s pretty subjective), but a lot more people get to have it.
    - frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago
      Let's look at the article: >Surging visitor numbers are threatening Norway’s reigning principle of allemannsretten—the freedom to roam, a concept popular across all of Scandinavia. The thousand-year-old government policy states that individuals, as long as they are polite, can legally walk through any piece of undeveloped property and camp for one night without first obtaining the owner’s permission. This right has worked well for centuries, but in recent years, communities across the country are increasingly suffering from littering, human waste, and overzealous Instagrammers. So allemannsretten is threatening to be extinguished because it's a concept that doesn't scale. This is the threat of tourism, experiences which cannot scale are extinguished or priced out of reach of the average person/family. I think if tourism actually was good in the sort of utilitarian sense you're endorsing you wouldn't see pushback.
      - magashna 7y ago
        Sounds like it would be better to create extremely high fines. Idiotic "influencers" should be bankrupted for adding nothing to society and spreading waste.
happyman5000 7y ago
Problem is tourists will then move to cheaper destinations and with that usually comes even worse environmental consequences.
- ptah 7y ago
  the problem is that social media is focusing tourism on a tiny fraction that norway has to offer
- francisofascii 7y ago
  Not necessarily. Cheaper might mean, closer to home.
jacknews 7y ago
This seems to be more about carbon footprint and sustainability than "overtourism"? Does all the oil Norway extract count towards their carbon balance, or is that the consuming country's problem? Norway just collect the profit, to pay for all this green cleansing at home?
- ptah 7y ago
  they are looking at cutting down on oil https://www.worldoil.com/news/2019/9/10/voters-deliver-warning-to-norway-s-oil-industry https://www.worldoil.com/news/2019/9/10/voters-deliver-warni...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - bogomipz 7y ago
    Well, the article states: "In March, the Norwegian government announced it will gradually divest its shares in companies engaged in the exploration and extraction of oil and gas. (But it will still invest in companies that refine and sell oil.)" I'm not really sure how you reconcile these two things - a policy of carbon footprint reduction while actively investing in companies whose business is predicated on oil consumption.
    - outside1234 7y ago
      Its green theater - they have no intention to actually do anything that will stop pumping the oil from Norway.
- e12e 7y ago
  Yes (it counts). We're (also) hard into the green certificates shell game;we should stop extracting fossil fuels . We're one of the few nations that could realistically stop.
  - dorian-graph 7y ago
iflywithbook 7y ago
It's interesting to see countries work so hard to developing the tourism and than reaching a point where they can't stop it I lived in Amsterdam for a year and you can't walk in the city center without drunk/high people around you I was completely fine with it, but I know that many people who live in the heart of amsterdam that their life changed once they tourist raised What people should realize is that when the tourist is high in a city/country it doesn't mean that all the people of the country benefit from it. Only the owners of shops and services around the tourist industry and in many cases it's a pretty centralised industry
- balfirevic 7y ago
  I live in a city that has had an explosion of tourism in the last 10 years. I don't benefit from it financially (if anything, the rents have shoot up considerably because of it), but it looks to me like it has been the main reason why the city doesn't feel empty and dead after 21h. I'm not sure I would be living here were it not for the side-effects of tourism.
  - ido 7y ago
    dont you think you benefit from the fact your city's government has more money to spend due to all the taxes collected from tourists' consumption/visits?
    - balfirevic 7y ago
      Theoretically, it would be possible. But there are several reasons why I don't think of it as financially beneficial: 1) Rent and all cafes/bars/restaurants are significantly more expensive. 2) Most of the consumption is taxed via VAT, which goes directly to national government. 3) Both local city government and national government are corrupt hellholes which are certain to misuse any funds that come their way. Edit: To be clear, I mean financially beneficial from "live in this particular city" perspective. On national level, tourism is such a high percentage of GDP that it's the only thing keeping the country alive. And we're in for a hell of ride if we stop being a desirable destination.
el_cujo 7y ago
I'm glad they're approaching it in a way beyond just "make everything more expensive". It's interesting how when it comes to climate change, a lot of the same people who are otherwise committed to egalitarian ideals immediately jump to "just charge more" as a solution for everything. I'm not saying those kind of policies can't be a piece of the solution, but I really don't see it being effective to tell all but the rich to bike to work and take on vegan diets and give up out of town vacations and stop using a/c, etc. Sure that would probably be effective, but expecting that level of asceticism out of people is just going to push them into the arms of the political parties who tell them "climate change is fake, so take that vacation and don't worry".
- 1023bytes 7y ago
  Well, Norway is already one of the most expensive countries in the world, second only to Switzerland.
  - sideshowb 7y ago
    Speaking as a tourist, Norway makes Switzerland look cheap. Even the Swiss complain about the beer price in Norway!
- mlinksva 7y ago
  "Just make it more expensive" is the right answer to overtourism!
- Dumblydorr 7y ago
  People will still go even if it's expensive, even if it causes emissions. People are irrational, economists have struggled with this fact of psychology for years.
ohduran 7y ago
Currently living in Barcelona, where 'overtourism' is a much bigger problem than in Norway IMHO, it feels weird. You start passing bills on restricting tourism, then the natural next step is being hard on immigration, then Brexit. The ability to control who goes in and who goes out usually falls on the hand of those that shouldn't have that kind of power. Edit: Removed "At the risk of being downvoted" as some comments suggested
- bjornsing 7y ago
  Yea it’s a funny word “overtourism”. I guess it’s what you call it when other people go on vacation (whereas when I go on vacation it’s just “tourism”). :P
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    Some of us aren’t convinced whether it’s us travelling or someone else.
  - ohduran 7y ago
    If it's you, then it's a 'traveler' or a 'wonderlust'. The rest of the world are simply 'tourists'. It all comes down to the question "who do you think you are to block my path?" It's not a straightforward answer, though. We've been struggling to answer this as human beings since forever.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      Instead of the destination country finding a way to charge tourists more to discourage them, source countries could tax them more to resolve the issue and keep the monies for themselves.
    - jameshart 7y ago
      Indeed. This exact attitude was satirized in an A Bit of Fry & Laurie sketch waaaay back in 1990: Hugh: Ah, yes well now you see, I have campaigned for years now to have tourists banned from Venice. Stephen: Have you? Have you? Hugh: I have, I have. It sounds very harsh, very cruel, very ... Stephen: Deglante? Hugh: Very deglante, thank you. But I'm sure it's the only way. Leslie: Who was it, who was it, who said "He is a tourist, you are a holidaymaker, but I am a traveller?" Hugh: Oh, was it Humbert Wolfe? Stephen: It was Cocteau, surely? ... etc., etc...
wxbq00 7y ago
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wxbq00 7y ago
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paulsutter 7y ago
I can't find much in the article about limiting tourism, except the two non-impactful items below. Am I missing something? > For 2019, the Norwegian Environmental Agency has a budget of $1.2 million to award grants to local areas to fortify existing trails or build new ones to accommodate increased visitor numbers. > Svalbard has taken a number of measures to manage its tourism, including banning cruise ships carrying heavy oil from national-park perimeters, avoiding worldwide marketing, developing wilderness experiences closer to Longyearbyen to reduce carbon-emitting snowmobile tours, and working on ways to extend the average visitor stay to increase per-capita spending and decrease transportation carbon emissions to the islands.
sarcasmOrTears 7y ago
The State seizes money from productive people and puts them into things that sounds good, like "tourism". This way they create a problem that then they also force themselves in chsrge of solving, seizing even more money and invading the lives of citizens and business
effnorwood 7y ago
A wall.
frereubu 7y ago
Whenever I hear about "sustainable tourism" developments like Ousland's, I can't help but think about the huge amount of emissions caused by people getting there in the first place. I bet the vast majority of visitors fly into Tromsø. It feels a bit like painting the walls while the house is falling down around you.
- timidiceball 7y ago
  I’ve lived in Oslo for six years now and repeatedly talked myself out visiting Tromsø for a long weekend because of this. At some point I need to accept that it’s really the primary way to get around the north.
cletus 7y ago
Welcome to the world of, by some measures, "too many" people having too much disposable wealth. There are obviously worse problems to have. But overtourism is a problem that's only going to get worse. This even affects Mount Everest where people are literally dying just to say they stood at the top of the world. And Everest simply can't support the number of climbers now. You see this in US national parks where the obvious ones (eg Yosemite) are arguably oversubscribed while others you could probably go days without seeing anyone. There's a certain lack of imagination here. Some of it is convenience. Take Everest. People climb it because it's the tallest and people know what it is. There are ~14 other peaks over 8000 meters. Are any of these qualitatively worse experiences? Probably not. But... bragging rights. Solutions to this fall into a number of buckets: 1. Making it more expensive: some will complain only the rich can go and this is unfair. 2. Quotas: you have to book far, far in advance and no doubt this is unfair to some people. 3. Lottery system: this is really a variation of quotas but probably fairer. So I've been to Paris like 4 times. I like it but my God the touristy places are a nightmare such that I basically never went to any. Honestly the best part for me was the bread. The sandwiches you'd buy on the street were unbelievably good. Anyway, I honestly don't understand this need people have to jam in with 100,000 other people just to see some famous building. Maybe that's just me.
- skohan 7y ago
  > this need people have to jam in with 100,000 other people just to see some famous building. Maybe that's just me. I was fortunate enough to spend a gap year traveling around the world, and one of the lessons I learned quickly was that I have little interest in "iconic" destinations. I can distinctly remember when I made this realization: I was in Oia Santorini at sunset, which I had decided to go to because I had seen amazing photos of this secluded town on a cliffside overlooking the sun go down over the Aegean. But while the view was beautiful, the reality of that moment was a thousand other tourists elbowing their way to a good vantage point to take the same picture which had been taken a million times before. There was even a newly married couple who was standing there dejected: they had apparently gone to that point to take wedding photos, but discovered it would obviously be impossible. I still like to travel, but please keep me miles away from anything famous.
hos234 7y ago
This is an Ad. For tourism.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
spodek 7y ago
I agree with Donella Meadows that top leverage points of changing systems are its beliefs and goals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points. Once the idea of humans flying was beyond fantasy, now we consider it beyond a right but a necessity. We believe nature is elsewhere, not where we live, and contribute to local degradation, dreaming that we'll experience it elsewhere, but flying or taking a cruise ship there. Without tackling the beliefs and goals driving the system -- the unbridled sense of entitlement, irresponsibility for how one's actions hurt others, the disdain for reducing growth and maintaining wilderness where we live -- we're rearranging the deck chairs of a sinking ship. Humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years before flight and they weren't all miserable. I propose promoting staycations, camping, biking, sailing, gardening, and other ways of experiencing diversity with less pollution and more empathy and compassion. But most of all promoting beliefs and goals other than you must fly to be happy. That a great life comes from appreciating where you are. That flying and cruises are dirty. Etc. The world is too big and beautiful to see everything. When I got that, I realized my best strategy was to enjoy here, now, us wherever I am. Then I didn't need to travel so much despite getting more out of life.
elisharobinson 7y ago
i should thing norway doesnt have a problem with tourism it has a problem with "nature toursim" it has a problem with tourists not paying any money to stay or explore. And im sure they might make some bull argument about sustianability. truth is people in tents will probably cause less damage than a climate controled carbon neutral lodge.
mogadsheu 7y ago
I think the answer is clear, if not a bit brutal: raise prices for tourists. Tourism is a luxury, not a right, and if there is a perceived negative externality to Norway from overtourism, it should be mitigated in the market. There will be fewer people who are willing to go to Trolltunga if they are not a Norwegian resident and the price of entry is $200. Sidenote: I lived in Norway for a few years, gorgeous place but it does need to be preserved to keep its integrity.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Why should travel be the exclusive domain of the wealthy?
  - purple_ducks 7y ago
    Low cost travel & tourism are _not_ rights. They're privileges. Seems fair to include negative externalities in the cost. If that excludes some people, so be it. They can travel closer to home.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      And again: why should those privileges be reserved to the wealthy?
      - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
        There are much more basic rights not being met across the globe before we can afford worrying about everybody having a yacht, a personal jet and close up time with Mona Lisa.
        dredmorbius 7y ago
        That's not answering the question.
        7y ago
quacked 7y ago
Everywhere there's people complaining about things like this and yet no one says "overpopulation". If there were fewer people on the planet...
- old-gregg 7y ago
  It's a taboo word for many reasons that are easy to explain, but mainly because there's nothing that can be done about it. You can try and "build more housing", you can "make it more expensive", you can "implement a lottery system" but you can't get rid of people, so it's not a constructive discussion. The book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond covers this pretty well.
  - dougmwne 7y ago
    There's absolutely things that can be done that don't involve authoritarian dystopia. Access to contraception and family planning resources. Education. Better childhood healthcare. Improved rights and economic independence for women. Decreased tax incentives for having more children. Improved economic systems that don't rely on endless population growth. Population growth in most of the developed world is already below replacement once you exclude immigration. So we've already arrived at a successful formula that solves overpopulation without limiting personal freedom.
  - quacked 7y ago
    It's tough because it would require literally every single person caring more about a nebulous concept of "humanity" and "longevity" than they would themselves, their families, and the next 40 years of world issues. A seriously smart human race would self-limit birthrates to replacement rates and focus efforts on long-term survival mechanisms (asteroid monitoring and redirection, wildlife and environmental management, wide-ranging health care, etc.) but it's so hard to get people to get on board.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Really the "problem" of overtourism feels like a stack of pretenses but it does bring to mind an issue of concentration and trying to make a system to help coordinate information on crowding, prices, etc. and lead tourist distribution to become more even which would be a bit more optimal for all involved both for enjoyment of tourists and infastructure return on investment and reliability of industries. It almost sounds like a job for travel agencies except for the obsolescence of their model.
qwerty456127 7y ago
Why is "overtourism" even considered a problem? Just start advertising new destinations somewhere else in the country, raise the prices at the original overwhelmed destination and take profit.
- dantheman 7y ago
  There are many places that: 1. Can only accommodate a certain number of people with the available infrastructure 2. Certain places lose their magic when too crowded, they become unenjoyable Many of these places are where you can't charge an admission or limit attendance easily.
  - starpilot 7y ago
    They could go the way of Bhutan and charge each tourist $250 per day. Would clear things up nicely.
cromwellian 7y ago
Travel tends to decrease xenophobia and increase empathy and cultural understanding among those who do it. I worry that some of the use of environmental impact is a "concern troll" cover to call for restrictions is the result of more deeply seated xenophobic feelings. Tourism is increasing because billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, especially Chinese, and now they want to experience what those in the West have experienced for decades with their disposable income. Now that the formerly poor have the money to travel, I expect more people complaining about the tourists, e.g. a big bus of Chinese pulls up in a small town, some kid vandalizes something or some people leave trash, and a stereotype that "these people" trash the town emerges. (I'd also say Americans don't travel enough, less than 1/3rd have traveled abroad, and some of this ignorance bolsters American exceptionalism, because until you see how bad shape your infrastructure is in, or how good healthcare, health, and public safety is in other countries, you have no context to be skeptical of some of the crazy political assertions thrown around)
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I always find it really strange because chances are that by the time you get to the most touristy places you’ve utterly failed at expanding your mind to any real extent. Furthermore, it isn’t even necessary to travel- If you’re a city person, vacation on a farm where you pay to try and help out with the farm chores. If you’re a rural dweller live in a city like Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago. If you live in the north, travel to the south, vice versa. Swing by Buffalo or Rochester. Entertain Ithaca. Explore philly. It might not even need to require travel. Volunteer for refugee crisis centers. Volunteer for elder care. Volunteer for child care. Volunteer for wildlife care. Raise a baby bird. Go to a reptile exhibit. Go fishing. Go to an anime convention. Go to a furry convention.
  - cromwellian 7y ago
    It really depends on how you travel. Tour bus excursions are one thing, but when you're young, backpacking and biking through another country, or doing foreign exchange or student travel programs gives you much more exposure. Consider the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Programme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Programme in Europe for example. However, even traveling to touristy places can expand your mind. I recently spent 3 weeks in Ecuador, it completely changed my mind about the country and burst all of my pre-conceived nations, and I say this as someone who has already been to Columbia, Chile, Peru, Argentina, et al. For an American who thinks other countries are "shitholes" and that other people "live in huts", even a touristy tourbus experience can burst your bubble.
partiallypro 7y ago
This is somewhat ironic because I am served ads to visit Norway constantly
a3n 7y ago
If they want to reduce over tourism in Norway, they could publish a list of "secret gems" in Finland. Sort of how Japanese banks would park money in competing banks because it cost money to hold it.
- chantelles 7y ago
  This is an excellent idea. I have family in rural Finland and prefer it to Norway. Also: Helsinki is overtouristed too by cruise ships and could benefit from some spreading out of interest. The tourist infrastructure is already there ( I just returned from driving around the Kuopio/Oulu/Aaland/Turku regions).
Thlom 7y ago
The problem is mass tourism, not tourists. I’ve lived I two of the biggest cruise destinations in Norway, and that kind of tourism is terrible. Hundreds of mostly middle aged and old people overflow the city for a few hours and spending next to nothing as their cruise is all inclusive. Maybe they will hop on a bus for a guided tour to see all the sights in two hours. All the while the cruise ship is alongside port spewing exhaust all over the city. This is not sustainable. I take 500 German motorhomes driving 20 km/h below the speed limit instead of a cruise ship.
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago
  Cruises need to die, they’re horrible for the environment and local economies.
outside1234 7y ago
I mean this is great, but how about stopping the pumping of oil if you are really serious about carbon? All of this is a snowflake on top of an iceberg compared to the massive amount of carbon they are exporting every year.
newnewpdro 7y ago
If you consider the fact that the Sherpas do all the work for the vast majority of people "climbing" everest, they may as well just install a climate-controlled elevator to the top, charge money to vastly more visitors, and give the Sherpas a break.
deleted 7y ago
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geomark 7y ago
Standing room only at Maya Bay in Thailand. https://static.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20160707/c1_1029745_620x413.jpg https://static.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20160707/c1_102... Same effect. Made famous by a Hollywood movie. Now everybody has to say they have been there. It is (was) nice. But there are hundreds of other equally nice beaches and bays in the country.

148 points by gerbilly 7y ago

Maybe it is not the case at hand in Norway, but what I see around (Italy, Florence) is not as much as "overtourism" but rather "impolite tourism", i.e. tourism by masses of people that for whatever reasons lack the bare minimum of common sense and polite behaviour. The large numbers are of course part of the problem, but it would be minimized if tourists were behaving more properly.

geomark 7y ago
Same problem in Thailand. When mainland Chinese first started coming to Thailand in large numbers there was an outcry about their terrible behavior. After a while the tour operators arranged for them to mostly go places where they don't mingle with the locals. Except the really famous places like Maya Bay got totally overrun - they just couldn't say no to the profits, despite the trashing of what made it so attractive. Eventually the place was shutdown to tourism for some period. https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/advanced/1029745/phi-phis-maya-bay-overcrowding-an-environmental-disaster https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/advanced/1029745/phi-ph...

sgt 7y ago

Minor correction, the guy's name is Børge Ousland, not Borge.

tomcooks 7y ago
It's not minor, the implications of such mistakes are enormous (especially in the days of easy copy-pasting, semi-universal support for utf8 on the web, and plenty of ways to do research) on a cultural level. Poor journalism and disdain for what's foreign, the ASCII way. Vae victis.
- 627467 7y ago
  I guess it should be 艾未未 rather than Ai Weiwei then...
  - odiroot 7y ago
    I'm pretty much sure he'd be happy with Ài Wèiwèi
- brummm 7y ago
  It's often the same with German names/words. Ü/U, etc are absolutely not the same and not equivalent. Leaving out the two dots on top of the U changes the whole word/meaning. Ü would be equivalently written as ue.
  - tomcooks 7y ago
    I've always wondered if German speakers are generally ok with "ue"? I've seen it used on URL's
- magashna 7y ago
  It can be easy to overlook. For instance I was curious about this TLD the other day .xn--6frz82g or .移动 Not sure how apt I would be to remember the English version or know which characters those are to type it in the native dialect.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  "Enormous"? No, not really, it's more of a nice to have. As a native speaker of an umlauty Nordic language, if you drop the umlauts, it's virtually always quite easy and in fact almost effortless to work out which words is being referred to from context.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

There's no silver bullet. Tackling overtourism means limiting the number of tourists. One way to do that is to impose high enough prices.

buro9 7y ago
And then only the wealthy may have holidays.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  That's how it is now, from a global perspective.
- tomcooks 7y ago
  This unfortunately pleases the state, the tourist service providers and the wealthy. All three of them not being particularly known for their respect of culture, tradition and delicate (eco)systems. Blah.
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    The wealthy are less well-known for their respect of culture, tradition and delicate ecosystems than the not wealthy?
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  Holidays doesn't mean "travelling to another country in a plane" or "let's take a credit to tour Italy".
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Quite true but if some can and some can’t the social class implications will be picked up on very fast, whether the reason is money or political connections.
    - 7y ago

buyingarmor 7y ago

Overtourist is a paradox Once they will solve this problem, they will try to chaise it again

frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago
No it's not. Tourism changes not just prices but character. Consider the recent controversy over the line at Mount Everest. Queueing in line of 100 people so that you can have a minute or two at the summit to take your picture is not the same experience as what you would've gotten climbing Mount Everest 40 years ago. It's this, the destruction of character/experience, what the thing actually is, that is the primary symptom of overtourism.
- ryanwaggoner 7y ago
  So? It’s a different experience, maybe even a worse one (though that’s pretty subjective), but a lot more people get to have it.
  - frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago
    Let's look at the article: >Surging visitor numbers are threatening Norway’s reigning principle of allemannsretten—the freedom to roam, a concept popular across all of Scandinavia. The thousand-year-old government policy states that individuals, as long as they are polite, can legally walk through any piece of undeveloped property and camp for one night without first obtaining the owner’s permission. This right has worked well for centuries, but in recent years, communities across the country are increasingly suffering from littering, human waste, and overzealous Instagrammers. So allemannsretten is threatening to be extinguished because it's a concept that doesn't scale. This is the threat of tourism, experiences which cannot scale are extinguished or priced out of reach of the average person/family. I think if tourism actually was good in the sort of utilitarian sense you're endorsing you wouldn't see pushback.
    - magashna 7y ago
      Sounds like it would be better to create extremely high fines. Idiotic "influencers" should be bankrupted for adding nothing to society and spreading waste.

happyman5000 7y ago

Problem is tourists will then move to cheaper destinations and with that usually comes even worse environmental consequences.

ptah 7y ago
the problem is that social media is focusing tourism on a tiny fraction that norway has to offer
francisofascii 7y ago
Not necessarily. Cheaper might mean, closer to home.

jacknews 7y ago

This seems to be more about carbon footprint and sustainability than "overtourism"? Does all the oil Norway extract count towards their carbon balance, or is that the consuming country's problem? Norway just collect the profit, to pay for all this green cleansing at home?

ptah 7y ago
they are looking at cutting down on oil https://www.worldoil.com/news/2019/9/10/voters-deliver-warning-to-norway-s-oil-industry https://www.worldoil.com/news/2019/9/10/voters-deliver-warni...
- deleted 7y ago
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- bogomipz 7y ago
  Well, the article states: "In March, the Norwegian government announced it will gradually divest its shares in companies engaged in the exploration and extraction of oil and gas. (But it will still invest in companies that refine and sell oil.)" I'm not really sure how you reconcile these two things - a policy of carbon footprint reduction while actively investing in companies whose business is predicated on oil consumption.
  - outside1234 7y ago
    Its green theater - they have no intention to actually do anything that will stop pumping the oil from Norway.
e12e 7y ago
Yes (it counts). We're (also) hard into the green certificates shell game;we should stop extracting fossil fuels . We're one of the few nations that could realistically stop.
- dorian-graph 7y ago

iflywithbook 7y ago

It's interesting to see countries work so hard to developing the tourism and than reaching a point where they can't stop it I lived in Amsterdam for a year and you can't walk in the city center without drunk/high people around you I was completely fine with it, but I know that many people who live in the heart of amsterdam that their life changed once they tourist raised What people should realize is that when the tourist is high in a city/country it doesn't mean that all the people of the country benefit from it. Only the owners of shops and services around the tourist industry and in many cases it's a pretty centralised industry

balfirevic 7y ago
I live in a city that has had an explosion of tourism in the last 10 years. I don't benefit from it financially (if anything, the rents have shoot up considerably because of it), but it looks to me like it has been the main reason why the city doesn't feel empty and dead after 21h. I'm not sure I would be living here were it not for the side-effects of tourism.
- ido 7y ago
  dont you think you benefit from the fact your city's government has more money to spend due to all the taxes collected from tourists' consumption/visits?
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    Theoretically, it would be possible. But there are several reasons why I don't think of it as financially beneficial: 1) Rent and all cafes/bars/restaurants are significantly more expensive. 2) Most of the consumption is taxed via VAT, which goes directly to national government. 3) Both local city government and national government are corrupt hellholes which are certain to misuse any funds that come their way. Edit: To be clear, I mean financially beneficial from "live in this particular city" perspective. On national level, tourism is such a high percentage of GDP that it's the only thing keeping the country alive. And we're in for a hell of ride if we stop being a desirable destination.

el_cujo 7y ago

I'm glad they're approaching it in a way beyond just "make everything more expensive". It's interesting how when it comes to climate change, a lot of the same people who are otherwise committed to egalitarian ideals immediately jump to "just charge more" as a solution for everything. I'm not saying those kind of policies can't be a piece of the solution, but I really don't see it being effective to tell all but the rich to bike to work and take on vegan diets and give up out of town vacations and stop using a/c, etc. Sure that would probably be effective, but expecting that level of asceticism out of people is just going to push them into the arms of the political parties who tell them "climate change is fake, so take that vacation and don't worry".

1023bytes 7y ago
Well, Norway is already one of the most expensive countries in the world, second only to Switzerland.
- sideshowb 7y ago
  Speaking as a tourist, Norway makes Switzerland look cheap. Even the Swiss complain about the beer price in Norway!
mlinksva 7y ago
"Just make it more expensive" is the right answer to overtourism!
Dumblydorr 7y ago
People will still go even if it's expensive, even if it causes emissions. People are irrational, economists have struggled with this fact of psychology for years.

ohduran 7y ago

Currently living in Barcelona, where 'overtourism' is a much bigger problem than in Norway IMHO, it feels weird. You start passing bills on restricting tourism, then the natural next step is being hard on immigration, then Brexit. The ability to control who goes in and who goes out usually falls on the hand of those that shouldn't have that kind of power. Edit: Removed "At the risk of being downvoted" as some comments suggested

bjornsing 7y ago
Yea it’s a funny word “overtourism”. I guess it’s what you call it when other people go on vacation (whereas when I go on vacation it’s just “tourism”). :P
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Some of us aren’t convinced whether it’s us travelling or someone else.
- ohduran 7y ago
  If it's you, then it's a 'traveler' or a 'wonderlust'. The rest of the world are simply 'tourists'. It all comes down to the question "who do you think you are to block my path?" It's not a straightforward answer, though. We've been struggling to answer this as human beings since forever.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Instead of the destination country finding a way to charge tourists more to discourage them, source countries could tax them more to resolve the issue and keep the monies for themselves.
  - jameshart 7y ago
    Indeed. This exact attitude was satirized in an A Bit of Fry & Laurie sketch waaaay back in 1990: Hugh: Ah, yes well now you see, I have campaigned for years now to have tourists banned from Venice. Stephen: Have you? Have you? Hugh: I have, I have. It sounds very harsh, very cruel, very ... Stephen: Deglante? Hugh: Very deglante, thank you. But I'm sure it's the only way. Leslie: Who was it, who was it, who said "He is a tourist, you are a holidaymaker, but I am a traveller?" Hugh: Oh, was it Humbert Wolfe? Stephen: It was Cocteau, surely? ... etc., etc...

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paulsutter 7y ago

I can't find much in the article about limiting tourism, except the two non-impactful items below. Am I missing something? > For 2019, the Norwegian Environmental Agency has a budget of $1.2 million to award grants to local areas to fortify existing trails or build new ones to accommodate increased visitor numbers. > Svalbard has taken a number of measures to manage its tourism, including banning cruise ships carrying heavy oil from national-park perimeters, avoiding worldwide marketing, developing wilderness experiences closer to Longyearbyen to reduce carbon-emitting snowmobile tours, and working on ways to extend the average visitor stay to increase per-capita spending and decrease transportation carbon emissions to the islands.

sarcasmOrTears 7y ago

The State seizes money from productive people and puts them into things that sounds good, like "tourism". This way they create a problem that then they also force themselves in chsrge of solving, seizing even more money and invading the lives of citizens and business

effnorwood 7y ago

A wall.

frereubu 7y ago

Whenever I hear about "sustainable tourism" developments like Ousland's, I can't help but think about the huge amount of emissions caused by people getting there in the first place. I bet the vast majority of visitors fly into Tromsø. It feels a bit like painting the walls while the house is falling down around you.

timidiceball 7y ago
I’ve lived in Oslo for six years now and repeatedly talked myself out visiting Tromsø for a long weekend because of this. At some point I need to accept that it’s really the primary way to get around the north.

cletus 7y ago

Welcome to the world of, by some measures, "too many" people having too much disposable wealth. There are obviously worse problems to have. But overtourism is a problem that's only going to get worse. This even affects Mount Everest where people are literally dying just to say they stood at the top of the world. And Everest simply can't support the number of climbers now. You see this in US national parks where the obvious ones (eg Yosemite) are arguably oversubscribed while others you could probably go days without seeing anyone. There's a certain lack of imagination here. Some of it is convenience. Take Everest. People climb it because it's the tallest and people know what it is. There are ~14 other peaks over 8000 meters. Are any of these qualitatively worse experiences? Probably not. But... bragging rights. Solutions to this fall into a number of buckets: 1. Making it more expensive: some will complain only the rich can go and this is unfair. 2. Quotas: you have to book far, far in advance and no doubt this is unfair to some people. 3. Lottery system: this is really a variation of quotas but probably fairer. So I've been to Paris like 4 times. I like it but my God the touristy places are a nightmare such that I basically never went to any. Honestly the best part for me was the bread. The sandwiches you'd buy on the street were unbelievably good. Anyway, I honestly don't understand this need people have to jam in with 100,000 other people just to see some famous building. Maybe that's just me.

skohan 7y ago
> this need people have to jam in with 100,000 other people just to see some famous building. Maybe that's just me. I was fortunate enough to spend a gap year traveling around the world, and one of the lessons I learned quickly was that I have little interest in "iconic" destinations. I can distinctly remember when I made this realization: I was in Oia Santorini at sunset, which I had decided to go to because I had seen amazing photos of this secluded town on a cliffside overlooking the sun go down over the Aegean. But while the view was beautiful, the reality of that moment was a thousand other tourists elbowing their way to a good vantage point to take the same picture which had been taken a million times before. There was even a newly married couple who was standing there dejected: they had apparently gone to that point to take wedding photos, but discovered it would obviously be impossible. I still like to travel, but please keep me miles away from anything famous.

hos234 7y ago

This is an Ad. For tourism.

deleted 7y ago

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spodek 7y ago

I agree with Donella Meadows that top leverage points of changing systems are its beliefs and goals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points. Once the idea of humans flying was beyond fantasy, now we consider it beyond a right but a necessity. We believe nature is elsewhere, not where we live, and contribute to local degradation, dreaming that we'll experience it elsewhere, but flying or taking a cruise ship there. Without tackling the beliefs and goals driving the system -- the unbridled sense of entitlement, irresponsibility for how one's actions hurt others, the disdain for reducing growth and maintaining wilderness where we live -- we're rearranging the deck chairs of a sinking ship. Humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years before flight and they weren't all miserable. I propose promoting staycations, camping, biking, sailing, gardening, and other ways of experiencing diversity with less pollution and more empathy and compassion. But most of all promoting beliefs and goals other than you must fly to be happy. That a great life comes from appreciating where you are. That flying and cruises are dirty. Etc. The world is too big and beautiful to see everything. When I got that, I realized my best strategy was to enjoy here, now, us wherever I am. Then I didn't need to travel so much despite getting more out of life.

elisharobinson 7y ago

i should thing norway doesnt have a problem with tourism it has a problem with "nature toursim" it has a problem with tourists not paying any money to stay or explore. And im sure they might make some bull argument about sustianability. truth is people in tents will probably cause less damage than a climate controled carbon neutral lodge.

mogadsheu 7y ago

I think the answer is clear, if not a bit brutal: raise prices for tourists. Tourism is a luxury, not a right, and if there is a perceived negative externality to Norway from overtourism, it should be mitigated in the market. There will be fewer people who are willing to go to Trolltunga if they are not a Norwegian resident and the price of entry is $200. Sidenote: I lived in Norway for a few years, gorgeous place but it does need to be preserved to keep its integrity.

dredmorbius 7y ago
Why should travel be the exclusive domain of the wealthy?
- purple_ducks 7y ago
  Low cost travel & tourism are _not_ rights. They're privileges. Seems fair to include negative externalities in the cost. If that excludes some people, so be it. They can travel closer to home.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    And again: why should those privileges be reserved to the wealthy?
    - UnFleshedOne 7y ago
      There are much more basic rights not being met across the globe before we can afford worrying about everybody having a yacht, a personal jet and close up time with Mona Lisa.
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        That's not answering the question.
        7y ago

quacked 7y ago

Everywhere there's people complaining about things like this and yet no one says "overpopulation". If there were fewer people on the planet...

old-gregg 7y ago
It's a taboo word for many reasons that are easy to explain, but mainly because there's nothing that can be done about it. You can try and "build more housing", you can "make it more expensive", you can "implement a lottery system" but you can't get rid of people, so it's not a constructive discussion. The book "Collapse" by Jared Diamond covers this pretty well.
- dougmwne 7y ago
  There's absolutely things that can be done that don't involve authoritarian dystopia. Access to contraception and family planning resources. Education. Better childhood healthcare. Improved rights and economic independence for women. Decreased tax incentives for having more children. Improved economic systems that don't rely on endless population growth. Population growth in most of the developed world is already below replacement once you exclude immigration. So we've already arrived at a successful formula that solves overpopulation without limiting personal freedom.
- quacked 7y ago
  It's tough because it would require literally every single person caring more about a nebulous concept of "humanity" and "longevity" than they would themselves, their families, and the next 40 years of world issues. A seriously smart human race would self-limit birthrates to replacement rates and focus efforts on long-term survival mechanisms (asteroid monitoring and redirection, wildlife and environmental management, wide-ranging health care, etc.) but it's so hard to get people to get on board.

Nasrudith 7y ago

Really the "problem" of overtourism feels like a stack of pretenses but it does bring to mind an issue of concentration and trying to make a system to help coordinate information on crowding, prices, etc. and lead tourist distribution to become more even which would be a bit more optimal for all involved both for enjoyment of tourists and infastructure return on investment and reliability of industries. It almost sounds like a job for travel agencies except for the obsolescence of their model.

qwerty456127 7y ago

Why is "overtourism" even considered a problem? Just start advertising new destinations somewhere else in the country, raise the prices at the original overwhelmed destination and take profit.

dantheman 7y ago
There are many places that: 1. Can only accommodate a certain number of people with the available infrastructure 2. Certain places lose their magic when too crowded, they become unenjoyable Many of these places are where you can't charge an admission or limit attendance easily.
- starpilot 7y ago
  They could go the way of Bhutan and charge each tourist $250 per day. Would clear things up nicely.

cromwellian 7y ago

Travel tends to decrease xenophobia and increase empathy and cultural understanding among those who do it. I worry that some of the use of environmental impact is a "concern troll" cover to call for restrictions is the result of more deeply seated xenophobic feelings. Tourism is increasing because billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, especially Chinese, and now they want to experience what those in the West have experienced for decades with their disposable income. Now that the formerly poor have the money to travel, I expect more people complaining about the tourists, e.g. a big bus of Chinese pulls up in a small town, some kid vandalizes something or some people leave trash, and a stereotype that "these people" trash the town emerges. (I'd also say Americans don't travel enough, less than 1/3rd have traveled abroad, and some of this ignorance bolsters American exceptionalism, because until you see how bad shape your infrastructure is in, or how good healthcare, health, and public safety is in other countries, you have no context to be skeptical of some of the crazy political assertions thrown around)

SolaceQuantum 7y ago
I always find it really strange because chances are that by the time you get to the most touristy places you’ve utterly failed at expanding your mind to any real extent. Furthermore, it isn’t even necessary to travel- If you’re a city person, vacation on a farm where you pay to try and help out with the farm chores. If you’re a rural dweller live in a city like Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago. If you live in the north, travel to the south, vice versa. Swing by Buffalo or Rochester. Entertain Ithaca. Explore philly. It might not even need to require travel. Volunteer for refugee crisis centers. Volunteer for elder care. Volunteer for child care. Volunteer for wildlife care. Raise a baby bird. Go to a reptile exhibit. Go fishing. Go to an anime convention. Go to a furry convention.
- cromwellian 7y ago
  It really depends on how you travel. Tour bus excursions are one thing, but when you're young, backpacking and biking through another country, or doing foreign exchange or student travel programs gives you much more exposure. Consider the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Programme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Programme in Europe for example. However, even traveling to touristy places can expand your mind. I recently spent 3 weeks in Ecuador, it completely changed my mind about the country and burst all of my pre-conceived nations, and I say this as someone who has already been to Columbia, Chile, Peru, Argentina, et al. For an American who thinks other countries are "shitholes" and that other people "live in huts", even a touristy tourbus experience can burst your bubble.

partiallypro 7y ago

This is somewhat ironic because I am served ads to visit Norway constantly

a3n 7y ago

If they want to reduce over tourism in Norway, they could publish a list of "secret gems" in Finland. Sort of how Japanese banks would park money in competing banks because it cost money to hold it.

chantelles 7y ago
This is an excellent idea. I have family in rural Finland and prefer it to Norway. Also: Helsinki is overtouristed too by cruise ships and could benefit from some spreading out of interest. The tourist infrastructure is already there ( I just returned from driving around the Kuopio/Oulu/Aaland/Turku regions).

Thlom 7y ago

The problem is mass tourism, not tourists. I’ve lived I two of the biggest cruise destinations in Norway, and that kind of tourism is terrible. Hundreds of mostly middle aged and old people overflow the city for a few hours and spending next to nothing as their cruise is all inclusive. Maybe they will hop on a bus for a guided tour to see all the sights in two hours. All the while the cruise ship is alongside port spewing exhaust all over the city. This is not sustainable. I take 500 German motorhomes driving 20 km/h below the speed limit instead of a cruise ship.

thatfrenchguy 7y ago
Cruises need to die, they’re horrible for the environment and local economies.

outside1234 7y ago

I mean this is great, but how about stopping the pumping of oil if you are really serious about carbon? All of this is a snowflake on top of an iceberg compared to the massive amount of carbon they are exporting every year.

newnewpdro 7y ago

If you consider the fact that the Sherpas do all the work for the vast majority of people "climbing" everest, they may as well just install a climate-controlled elevator to the top, charge money to vastly more visitors, and give the Sherpas a break.

deleted 7y ago

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geomark 7y ago

Standing room only at Maya Bay in Thailand. https://static.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20160707/c1_1029745_620x413.jpg https://static.bangkokpost.com/media/content/20160707/c1_102... Same effect. Made famous by a Hollywood movie. Now everybody has to say they have been there. It is (was) nice. But there are hundreds of other equally nice beaches and bays in the country.