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Australia's ABC reports on a growing backlash against the level of tourism in Europe, including in Spain where AirBnB rentals have driven up rental housing prices to levels where many locals cannot now afford to live there, and Dubrovnik where Game-of-Thrones tours are driving the locals nuts.
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An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
-- William Shakespeare, "Henry VI"
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @08:59AM (5 children)
Been following news regarding Iceland for some time now, and it amazes me about things that tourists do there.
Here a short selection:
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/08/09/giant_penis_drawn_into_an_iceland_crater/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/07/22/tourists_charged_with_animal_abuse/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/07/12/group_of_boy_scouts_visiting_iceland_swim_at_danger/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/07/10/tourists_on_icelandic_highlands_ill_prepared_as_a_r/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/06/27/moss_graffiti_in_iceland_fixed/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/06/21/tourists_knock_on_residents_doors_looking_for_a_pla/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/07/24/seljalandsfoss_completely_trashed/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is]
Damaging nature? Check. Killing local live stock? Check. Jeopardizing your own life (requiring S&R services)? Check. Being a rude guest? Check.
And then there is this:
http://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/nature_and_travel/2017/07/23/oh_is_iceland_an_island/ [icelandmonitor.mbl.is] (More or less explains most of the above.)
(Score: 4, Funny) by kaszz on Sunday August 13 2017, @09:57AM
I love this one:
Well make sure to close all the doors and then bring out the silicon tube and apply plentiful around the door frames. Don't forget the LOX tank for yourself and the motor. Take the direction using a compass and drive. It might be muddy and there are no road signs for a long while. You might see fishes, but absolutely don't open the doors....
*facepalm*
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:11PM (1 child)
Obviously this person has never witnessed Australian tourists at play in Bali. Or British tourists in Turkey. Or Germans in Majorca. Or American frat boys in Cancun. Or Japanese businessmen in the Philippines. Or...
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:29PM
Or turkish migrant workers in Germany. Or muslims in Sweden or Britain. Or syrian immigrants in Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @03:19PM
Lol! Wow. Holy cow. On second thought, I take the lol back. That is plain sad, and I can't even, especially given that it is $current_year.
But it makes sense. Only people that fucking stupid could elect Trump, even if the alternative was a lizard person.
(Score: 2) by aliks on Sunday August 13 2017, @09:28PM
I love Iceland, but not the "entitled" attitude of icelanders. Just because it gets a bit cold in Winter doesnt mean you can:
say ripping off tourists is OK - we need the money more than they do ( and yes I heard someone say that)
say that ripping off banking deposits from UK deposit holders is OK ( and yes using anti-terrorist legislation to stop Iceland repatriating cash was OK)
say that tourist money is welcome but we don't want to clean up behind you.
To err is human, to comment divine
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 13 2017, @09:48AM (12 children)
"Tourists bringing all that money in can fuck right off but send us all the violent, economically draining refugees that refuse to adapt to our culture that you can find."
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @10:14AM
"Only thing worse than dragons: Americans." Gerard Butler's charater in "Reign of Fire". And it is true. Refugees usually are thankful, but tourists are obnoxious and feel entitled. And more stupid than refugees, since they have money, which makes people stupid, at least judging from Americans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @10:32AM (9 children)
First, you're assuming those two positions are held by the same people. I assure you, we have refugee-haters in Europe as well.
Second, tourists can also be economically draining (damaging historical landmarks etc.), and refugees are likely to be a long-term positive influence on the economy. If countries don't want to be in the position that they actually need immigrants, they should either develop better tech to support old people, or get their people to fuck more to keep the population numbers stable.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:14PM (5 children)
Well that's too bad if Europeans don't want Americans to visit anymore. There are lovely places there. But that also means that Europeans wouldn't get to visit places in America anymore like the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Death Valley, the Redwoods, Hollywood, San Francisco, New York, etc. Sounds like a lose-lose to me.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:59PM (3 children)
Would love to visit all those great places... yet, I respect myself enough to not go through that security circus to enter the country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @02:11PM
+1 This!!!
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
Oh shit. A guy waves a wand at you for 3 seconds and somebody else looks at your ID. It's such a huge hassle.
PS: Enjoy your weekly Muslim terror attacks.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @06:55PM
If it would be just that, I would not have any issues with it. The circus already starts with a registration for a visa (fingerprints), continues with booking tickets (all sorts of data including food preferences), then there is boarding the plane (naked scanners, in Europe). The flight itself would be fine and then there is the whole thing at the US border (God knows what).
PS: From a very US-loving country that still has to experience its first Muslim terror attack.
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:59PM
Well, anybody who comes over here to see Hollywood probably won't be back...but in fact, tourism to the US is reporting a 16% drop since Trump took office.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @03:41PM (2 children)
What kind of mental gymnastics does it take to reach this conclusion?
Besides, I thought everything was just going to be automated in the future and nobody will have or need jobs. And everyone will get free mon--I mean, universal basic income--from the...Well, wherever free money comes from.
Or are you saying that, in the future, the refugees will all be engineers in charge of the automated machinery after peacefully integrating into their new society? And I guess everyone else will be tourists? Oh wait, tourists are bad now.
I'm not one of the enlightened ones, so please help me understand this "long-term" plan that everyone else seems to take as common sense.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @06:04PM (1 child)
Recognizing that refugees are just one type of immigrants.
Seems likely. Elon Musk, for example, may not be a refugee, but he is an immigrant.
With a quick search [duckduckgo.com], I found this [theatlantic.com]:
(I also found out that Comcast was founded by a refugee, but I'm not sure which side of the argument that supports.)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday August 14 2017, @12:50PM
> About 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded either by immigrants
Americans are 99% immigrants... yeah, all those fortune 500 companies were founded after the previous generations of immigrants perpetrated a genocide on the natives, so I think we are not considering all factors in this analysis.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @11:09AM
Don't worry, they migrant guests will eventually experience that their welcome has expired in great numbers.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday August 13 2017, @11:56AM (1 child)
Dubrovnik was always a bit of a tourist trap, I guess GOT just made it somewhat worse. Last time I was there was before the war, tourist-trap-hotels everywhere along the coast outside of town. They had guided tours in the old town visiting what is now then the GOT-stops -- houses, harbor, stairs, walls etc. There is a church there to.
From what I understand it's not all to uncommon tho, they don't seem to mind so much when they make movies or tv-shows in places. What they tend to mind is the legion of "fans" that after plague the land like locusts.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:17PM
That's a common phenomenon, but it passes. New Orleans was besieged by goths after Anne Rice's vampire books. London had Harry Potter fans. Then one day it fades as any other fad does and the good times recede for all the local restaurants, hotels, and other businesses that live and die on the tourist trade. It only tends to last if the setting for those stories actively work to keep it alive, like Prince Edward Island does Anne of Green Gables.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Informative) by lgsoynews on Sunday August 13 2017, @12:24PM (1 child)
(I'm french.) France is -by far- the country with the most foreign visitors each year (this does not include french people on vacations, etc.)
The article is about Spain (3rd most visited), but the problems are similar in France, so I'll give my own perspective.
In 2014, foreign visitors were 84,2 millions, compared to the US ( the second most visited country) with "only" 66,7 millions. Remember that the US population (324.8 millions) is about 4.8 times the population of France (67.5 millions).
Each year, in France, the number of incoming visitors is MUCH HIGHER than the number of natives! To put it into perspective, in 2017, only 15 countries in the world have more than 85 millions citizens... Basically, the equivalent of whole countries go and visit France each year (such numbers boggle the mind). In July/August, when you take the subway in Paris, you hear so many different languages around you that sometimes you wonder where are the natives (they are also on holidays :-), it's quite funny.
This means obviously that the tourism sector is something HUGE in France.
Of course, this is a big deal, both in term of economical benefits and, more subtly, in terms of cultural/political influence.
A lot of people in France are quite xenophobic and simply assholes toward tourists (especially foreigners), only seeing the drawbacks & conveniently forgetting all the benefits (plus it's an easy target for the various "haters" who need some scapegoats).
Obviously, there are some drawbacks to such numbers. People must eat, consume various things, so even if there are careful about it, they will pollute, then there is noise, congestion of streets, problems with lodging in the most touristic areas, etc. It's difficult enough to deal with native tourists, add to them millions of foreigners and it's a headache. Ever tried to visit a major touristic place like the "Château de Versailles", especially during the holidays? Good luck! Theme parks will seem empty in comparison.
But suppress suddenly all those visitors in those very crowded -and successful- places, and you'll see the local economy take such a dive that most of the complainers will be jobless within a week. There has to be a balance. And it's true that in some places that balance is seriously out of control.
Then of course, there is the problem that huge number of people means huge number of jerks/assholes (the ones people will remember). Add to that the very old problem that many people don't behave the same when they are not at home, because there is not long term negative consequences (they'll be away in a few days of weeks) in comparison with doing it in their own neighborhood. French themselves are pretty bad in that area. Being in a subway especially during the holidays can be jarring when a group of people behave like really obnoxious jerks: talking VERY loudly, singing, pushing other passengers, making a real mess, and behaving as if there was nobody around. Not the majority, but numerous enough to be a problem for everybody else (including the foreign tourists who behave like real adults).
So, in conclusion, yes, some places are victims of their own success. There is no easy solution. But investments in infrastructures to accomodate tourists would help a lot, you can only be host to so many people, especially in the historical areas. Unfortunately, given how dysfunctional most french local & national administrations are, I won't hold my breath...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 13 2017, @01:06PM
I live in Paris.
Way too many tourists are loud, smelly, block the way, etc. as if they were kings there when they should act like guests. The tourist hate doesn't come out of thin air. And the French tourists aren't any better, I'd get them up there with Americans as the worst (especially since they are so fat).
(Score: 1) by GDX on Monday August 14 2017, @01:46AM (1 child)
First the situation in Spain is a little different as put in the article and even though we have problems with some tourist (specially UK tourists) the situation is nos as bad as it appear. Arran is not exactly a protest group as its related to la CUP a Catalonia independentist party, they practice ideological squatting, their protest are not exactly pacific and they exercise violence to anything/anybody that they see as Spanish as they are a catalanist radical group. They define themselves as a action group in the political left group but for me an other they are a nazist group, nazist in the pure sense of the Nazism before the WWII.
(Score: 1) by GDX on Monday August 14 2017, @01:53AM
Dam, to view errors after posting.
with some tourist -> with some tourists
is nos as bad -> is not as bad
and possibly some more.
Posted very late (03:50).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 14 2017, @02:34AM (1 child)
Spain where AirBnB rentals have driven up rental housing prices to levels where many locals cannot now afford to live there
What exactly is the problem here? This isn't the tourists' fault, this is the fault of the Spanish people themselves. If they don't like AirBnB's effect on the housing market, it's their responsibility to make their government deal with the problem somehow. Obviously, they're failing at that, so they only have themselves to blame. Similarly, we Americans only have ourselves to blame for electing Trump.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 14 2017, @02:35AM
I forgot to add a great quote that's highly relevant here:
"Every nation gets the government it deserves." - Joseph de Maistre