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Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s. Is it really all thanks to platforms like Airbnb allowing cities to host so many more tourists t

Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s. Is it really all thanks to platforms like Airbnb allowing cities to host so many more tourists that is the problem?

mytailorisrich 2y ago
Cost and availability of flights has changed a lot. With companies like Ryanair (other budget airlines available) you can fly to anywhere in Europe for nothing by booking straight from your smartphone in 5 minutes.
ianburrell 2y ago
Lower costs and higher incomes mean more people can afford to travel. Which means people and countries that didn’t travel before. There is also style of travel of going to most popular places and taking photos for social media that overloads popular spots.
chung8123 2y ago
There are a lot more people and the same amount of places to go.
Scoundreller 2y ago
Poor people can do it now.
matwood 2y ago
Relative to costs of flights and accommodations, people just have a lot more money.
- cpach 2y ago
  Yeah, we tend to overlook this. I grew up in the 80s/90s and the global standard of living has increased dramatically since then.
allemagne 2y ago
It's because the supply of housing for tourists and residents alike has not kept up with demand. Maybe in someone's ideal world we can put everyone in a city into the categories of "outsiders" and "residents" and enforce a strict regime where "outsiders" are strictly prohibited from occupying housing that rightfully should go to "residents", but we don't live in a world where that's possible. If Airbnb didn't exist someone else would have come up with it. If somehow the idea was preemptively disallowed, then the complaint would be that there are too many hostels operating under-the-table. Without building more housing, there is nothing you can fundamentally do about tourism except make Barcelona a worse place, in comparison to everywhere else, for everyone.
- cpach 2y ago
  There’s something called zoning, and its used in a lot of places to do things like separating hotel areas and residential areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning
  - wintermutestwin 2y ago
    …and that is a major plus to using Airbnb. I don’t want to have to be in a tourist zone because they, just like hotels, suck. Airbnb has turned me into a traveller because they disrupted the hotel industry. When a city bans airbnb, they are banning me from visiting.
    - hindsightbias 2y ago
      So Barcelona builds 50K homes and 49K are airbnb’d. Build it and they will come.
gfxxxx 2y ago
I used to live in Rome in the late 90s. As many as tourists as there were, and there were many, the volume must have doubled in twenty years. Last time I visited, I felt an overwhelming anxiety that Rome didn't exist anymore. Instead I was walking through an amusement park shaped like it. Friends I spoke to, who live in the Alban Hills, told me they'd stopped going to Rome 10 years earlier. Which is insane because she can trace her family in Rome proper to the 16th century.
red-iron-pine 2y ago
> Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s Back then was mostly Western tourists, and maybe a smattering of other folks. Now much of Asia has caught up, as has Eastern Europe and parts of MENA. Volume has just increased. Cheapo flights like RyanAir + cheapo accommodations like AirBnB also make it feasible for less well off folks to travel. Again, just spiking the volume.

Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s. Is it really all thanks to platforms like Airbnb allowing cities to host so many more tourists that is the problem?

mytailorisrich 2y ago

Cost and availability of flights has changed a lot. With companies like Ryanair (other budget airlines available) you can fly to anywhere in Europe for nothing by booking straight from your smartphone in 5 minutes.

ianburrell 2y ago

Lower costs and higher incomes mean more people can afford to travel. Which means people and countries that didn’t travel before. There is also style of travel of going to most popular places and taking photos for social media that overloads popular spots.

chung8123 2y ago

There are a lot more people and the same amount of places to go.

Scoundreller 2y ago

Poor people can do it now.

matwood 2y ago

Relative to costs of flights and accommodations, people just have a lot more money.

cpach 2y ago
Yeah, we tend to overlook this. I grew up in the 80s/90s and the global standard of living has increased dramatically since then.

allemagne 2y ago

It's because the supply of housing for tourists and residents alike has not kept up with demand. Maybe in someone's ideal world we can put everyone in a city into the categories of "outsiders" and "residents" and enforce a strict regime where "outsiders" are strictly prohibited from occupying housing that rightfully should go to "residents", but we don't live in a world where that's possible. If Airbnb didn't exist someone else would have come up with it. If somehow the idea was preemptively disallowed, then the complaint would be that there are too many hostels operating under-the-table. Without building more housing, there is nothing you can fundamentally do about tourism except make Barcelona a worse place, in comparison to everywhere else, for everyone.

cpach 2y ago
There’s something called zoning, and its used in a lot of places to do things like separating hotel areas and residential areas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning
- wintermutestwin 2y ago
  …and that is a major plus to using Airbnb. I don’t want to have to be in a tourist zone because they, just like hotels, suck. Airbnb has turned me into a traveller because they disrupted the hotel industry. When a city bans airbnb, they are banning me from visiting.
  - hindsightbias 2y ago
    So Barcelona builds 50K homes and 49K are airbnb’d. Build it and they will come.

gfxxxx 2y ago

I used to live in Rome in the late 90s. As many as tourists as there were, and there were many, the volume must have doubled in twenty years. Last time I visited, I felt an overwhelming anxiety that Rome didn't exist anymore. Instead I was walking through an amusement park shaped like it. Friends I spoke to, who live in the Alban Hills, told me they'd stopped going to Rome 10 years earlier. Which is insane because she can trace her family in Rome proper to the 16th century.

red-iron-pine 2y ago

> Why is mass tourism such a problem today and not the 90s/2000s Back then was mostly Western tourists, and maybe a smattering of other folks. Now much of Asia has caught up, as has Eastern Europe and parts of MENA. Volume has just increased. Cheapo flights like RyanAir + cheapo accommodations like AirBnB also make it feasible for less well off folks to travel. Again, just spiking the volume.