Daily experience in Hawaii. Litterally had a neighbor whose entire ability to survive is based on his wife’s business doing wedding photography complaining about “immigrants and tourists”…

Like bruh. You are a kept man and a poorly performing house husband. Maybe just have the grace to accept things as they are?

This is why the Airbnb ban comes up super controversial too. From an unanalyzed/ outside perspective, the narrative “we need homes for locals” makes sense. Then you find out the entire campaign was pushed entirely by the hotel industry lobby in Waikiki (the counsel member who pushed the ban her husband was litterally on the payroll of the hotel lobby). Then the ban went into effect and it killed thousands of small, pop up businesses that had been cleaning, landscaping, maintaining the rentals. And it didn’t do one iota of good in terms of reducing or stabilizing rent; if anything, it made things worse. The airbnb’ almost all went down one of three tracks: either the owner kept it going illegally (the highest end with wealthiest owners), the owner stopped renting and has left it vacant, or the owner remodeled or sold to a flipper, in which case the house resold for a price quite litterally no locals can afford in rent.

What people don’t want to hear about Airbnb bans is that that they significantly hit the non-corporate, local economies far, far harder. It moved tourists out of local neighborhoods and back into Waikiki, meaning that the dollars those tourists might spend on breakfast, grocery, something on the side of the road in some community outside of Honolulu. It further consolidated power into the very already very small number of hands who own all the hotels in Waikiki, while it did basically nothing to stabilize rents.

That’s because that city’s economy didn’t start dependent on Tourism.

Tourism was just some kind of “silver bullet” that the local incompetent politicians chose because they were incapable of managing the place properly and make it better.

Further, Tourism isn’t exactly an activity that can bring a place to the forefront of Economic and Technological development: almost by definition you have to be behind those who are at the forefront and have cheap enough prices to attract tourists from those other, wealthier places - Tourism it’s the ultimate “second” World activity.

I’m from one such city, Lisbon, and it’s become a joke of a place, sort of an open air entertainment park on top of an historic city, slowly losing character and with the locals getting priced out of buying a home there which is pushing all other Economic activity out, especially things that rely on younger people (who are the ones most hit by the housing costs) such as Tech.

The country spent tons of money in training people to be Doctors, Engineers, Architects and so on and now the Economy is ever more based on cleaning rooms, making beds and serving drinks - literally half of the students graduating from University leave the country.

Betting on Tourism is betting on Mediocrity.

There really is no better proof of the profound incompetence, mediocrity and provincialism of Portuguese politicians than their bet of almost 20% (and growing) of the country’s Economy on Tourism.

That said, it’s not the fault of tourists.

I’m like this as an american who lives in another country. I get that face when i hear english being spoken because the tourists are usually jackasses.

St Lucia seemed generally excited for their tourism. There’s a million all inclusive resorts, but youre encouraged to walk the island, visit the locals, shop anywhere. Every single person i met was pleasant and generally excited to speak with me. I never felt unsafe like they warn about at other tourism destinations

Honestly tho, it felt weird.

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It would be fine if they would simply drive the speed limit instead of 10 under, and stopped littering.

I don’t understand why those two things simply aren’t a given.

I’m on the memes side.

While tourists can be assholes.

It’s amazing how many of these “locals” bitching, either made their money off the tourists or recently moved to town…

I have no sympathy for either type.

As always it’s the amount that makes something healthy or lethal, Tourism is fine, Over-Tourism is not. And while on normal levels of tourism, many people profit, over-tourism brings money to a few big places, and leaves the rest suffering the consequences like unaffordable rents.

I always hated the whole “local economy good” schtick. Not everyone in that city personally benefits from the things the local economy is supposed to be dependent on, and to expect them to be stoked when, say, oil is doing good, or lots of tourists are coming around, but only bad things happen to you as a result of it while rich people around you become richer and the wealth gap increases is just irritating.

Also when I worked in a tourist town doing construction there like 9/10 of the tourists were rich, fat, rude Americans that just made a mess of the beautiful town I was in and were super ignorant to everyone around them. I was so glad to be finished that project man.

Yeah, I’m sure the average person living in a tourist town gets tons of dividends from the extra taxes and capital earnings. It “trickles down” or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

I don’t really care about tourists hanging out in the tourist areas. But could they just drive the speed limit. I get that it’s beautiful, pull over and take some pictures you’ve got 3 cars behind you. They could also make sure their tires aren’t bald when they drive up in the winter, yes good tires are a must around here. Also if they wouldn’t litter out in nature that would be great too. Or if they would start hikes early in the morning instead of it getting dark out and calling 9-11 for a rescue because they’re lost now. Or just learn how to use caltopo, it makes orienteering trivial.

P.S. if you have to shit, walk off the trail somewhere out of sight. No one wants to step on that.

Can’t say I blame them. Tourists can be obnoxious, especially in swarms.

Looking at you, Kyoto

Had 3 or so americans in the train. The kids screaming and even came up to my ear to yell in it! They didnt have their kids under control.

Or american “woo!”-girls in the inner city talking so loudly you could hear them 2 streets down about how “its so primitive here.”, we “should have a parking spot for them in the center.” So they “dont need to walk so much”.

There are lots of respectful people tourists. But i have yet to meet a respectful tourist from USA