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I hate my customers too. I get it.
Customer service inspires a certain level of misanthropy
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.
the advent of airbnb and consorts did far more to the downwards spiral of beautiful places all over the world than the tourists themselves could ever do on their own.
suddenly the tourists don’t book the hotels but occupy space meant for regular people . a handful of greedy assholes profits while easily dodging taxes, health or privacy standards and any accountability really.
tourists obviously take the perceived cheapest comfortable accommodation closest to their goal. the large airbnb owners even cosplay as this normal local guy
Went up to London a couple of months back to see Pulp. Hit up AirBnB to look for a cute place to stay.
It quickly became apparent that the vast majority of places listed on there are owned by investment firms, or at the very least, firms that own a large portfolio of AirBnB properties. Ended up staying in a cheap, no frills chain hotel near the O2, because fuck that shit.
If I think too hard about how much companies like AirBnB, Uber, Amazon and such have fucked our local economies, I get really angry. So I tend not to.
The locals who dislike tourists are most likely not the same locals who profit from tourism. Wealth is too concentrated, that’s also true for e.g. big hotels or shops in the picturesque old town. If every second or third resident had a room rented out to a tourist that’d likely be a different story. But same as always, some people profit, but all the people suffer the increased traffic, noise, waste, rent etc.
Comments in this thread are weirdly one sided. I get the airbnb shit, mass tourism, and all that, but to me it’s more a symptom of late stage capitalism.
At which point do you stop becoming a tourist yourself? Has nobody ever been to another city or region? Are you not sometimes a tourist in your own city, region, or country? You always stay home and never go anywhere?
As a Montrealer, am I a nasty tourist for going to Québec City? Should I stick to my own city? Am I a bad tourist for going to another province? Is Vancouver too far or too rich? Is Toronto too far too? Would I be a bad tourist for going to visit and spend a night in Toronto, coming from Montreal? Am I a nasty tourist for going camping in Ontario? Should I stick only to local campings?
Is it only bad when we go to what… 10 km away from our home? 100? 1000? Where is the line? When we need hosting?
I don’t really understand the logic of “fuck tourists”, unless they just want everyone to stay home and never go anywhere.
It’s almost as if the meme presents an oversimplified view, and you’ve run with that oversimplification.
that only happens on reddit
People are pissed that they can’t afford rent, where housing is inflated by massive profits of short-term renting. You see more tourists than before, you just want them gone that’s all
More than the inevitable rent-pricing, a lot of people just misbehave, tourists or not. Like most tourists are of course fine, but when you deal with the millions there must be some bad guy in there. I bet most of us don’t even notice tourists unless they’re of the loud variety.
But the same asshole still owns all the houses when the tourists leave. Just because they are gone doesn’t mean the locals will get anything.
It’s just that the same people can afford to own all those houses because they get them rented out to tourists who pay an exuberant amount of money to stay somewhere for a week or two.
If there would be less tourists, the houses should be rented out, because an unused house is money lost. And if locals can’t afford them , and tourists don’t use them, the only option is to lower the prices.
And there is a lot of large landowners that would start losing a lot of money fast if they wouldn’t manage to rent out their houses. Makes me think of a bubble of sorts.
I think there is certainly an element to travel tourism that has soured a lot of people, but also the world has become a very cynical place to live in. Mass tourism machines like cruise ships have several layers of issues to them, but they are also the economic centers of many marine locations that wouldn’t be what they are without them, but that’s also sort of the problem with them.
Add into it the cheap air fares, etc… and it opened up the world to the average Joe, who has not the best manners or realistic expectations all the time.
Then, add in the fact there are too damn many of us on this planet that anywhere remotely interesting to visit is packed from dawn to dusk and it gets annoying having to wait for things all the time, especially at home for the 3 months or so people want to see your little stretch of the world.
I get it. I don’t agree with it all but I get it. I work in tourism to a degree. We are spread too far, everywhere you go there is more of us.
Mass tourism machines like cruise ships have several layers of issues to them, but they are also the economic centers of many marine locations that wouldn’t be what they are without them, but that’s also sort of the problem with them.
Very bad example for your point. The port towns visited profit very little from the cruise ships. People sleep, eat and shop on their ship, the local economy sees almost no benefit but the streets are clogged by their day trips.
I’m talking about how bad things like cruise ships are and you are saying I am wrong and then backing me up? Small ports rely heavily on cruise ship visits, large ports fucking hate them. Alaska is basically oil and gas and cruise ships that keep it floating.
anywhere remotely interesting to visit is packed from dawn to dusk
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, I’ve been having the time of my life here in vietnam, just ask the locals for some ideas and check Google maps for traffic to avoid the one everyone is already going to, and you’ll have a beach, mountain, beautiful twisty roads along rivers and mountains, local swimming hole, etc to yourself and like 3 or 4 locals who you have to flee before they invite you to lunch, introduce the whole family, then dinner, then to sleep at their place, marry their daughter, etc.
Its not an issue of too many people, just everyone goes to the same exact place because some influencer recommended it.
Add into it the cheap air fares, etc… and it opened up the world to the average Joe, who has not the best manners or realistic expectations all the time.
Should only rich people should be able to travel? People with more money also have more manners?
add in the fact there are too damn many of us on this planet that anywhere remotely interesting to visit is packed from dawn to dusk and it gets annoying having to wait for things all the time
Just dropping this here: Debunking ‘overpopulation’
There is a football stadium near my home. Those fans should all stay home. I bet some don’t even come from my city. They make public transit busy when there are games! Why do we have to share this world with others?!
EDIT: I don’t want to seem like I entirely disagree but again, capitalism and mass tourism. Social media is also to blame. Societal hype. But if you think you have to wait everywhere that’s “worth” visiting, maybe you can try to spread out. We don’t all have to go visit the Eiffel tower or the same national park in Croatia.
I don’t don’t think it should be just for rich people, but when i was a kid it was rare to travel far abroad, and with it came a sort of feeling of responsibility to represent your place of origin well through good behavior, and be respectful to the place you are visiting, even as a kid i understood that without being told.
That aspect is definitely gone in the era of mass tourism. Every place can be reached quickly and for cheap, it sort of devalues the experience of travelling.
This is all I was alluding too. Change in access is not inherently a bad thing, but it has cheapened the experience over all and expectations have changed along with it. Add in today’s culture of Now Now Now and things are getting tense out there.
Personally, even when I am a tourist, I hate tourist shit. Almost always overpriced, overcrowded, often polished turd quality at premium prices. Go from store to store and it’s the same mass produced shit with branding themed for whatever local attractions that place has. Staffed with kids who don’t really give a fuck because they are the cheapest available (not that I blame the kids for not giving a fuck, I know I wouldn’t in their place).
My last vacation was to visit a friend and that was nice. Instead of doing any touristy shit, we mostly hung out at his place and checked out places he liked to go to, which was a way better experience IMO than something curated by people whose main focus is getting as much money as possible from you.
there’s things that are designed for visitors, and then there’s things that are designed for “vacationers” who spend way too much fucking money to just sit around not actually enjoying things for some god forsaken reason.
the former is great, make things enjoyable regardless of where you’re from or how long you’re staying.
It’s not distance it’s behaviour.
You can be from the other side of the planet and as long as your respectful doesn’t really matter. But there is certain types of people, typically those who come in large coaches with lots of other people, that can tend to be rather obnoxious and shove their way to the front, so they can take the same picture that everyone takes in front of whatever local monument you wish to substitute.
Often they seem to be Chinese.
Weirdly, chinese tourists in China are completely different from chinese tourists outside of China, and the effect increases the further you go.
I suspect the ones with money to travel further and to wealthier countries are the kids of new money petty bourgeois who are used to not giving a shit about social consequences.
Has nobody ever been to another city or region? Are you not sometimes a tourist in your own city, region, or country? You always stay home and never go anywhere?
I think you’ll find a lot of your answers here.
Can’t say I blame them. Tourists can be obnoxious, especially in swarms.
ring ring KOM OP VAN HET FIETSPAD, KANKERTOERIST
Dutch is such a beautiful language!
It’s not “a” tourist, it’s “a milion” tourists they don’t tolerate
And the messes they leave. If they could pick up after themselves and not treat our service staff like shit, that’d be great.
Edit: spelling
I recently went to a very… rich area that’s for sure a destination (there’s a boat tour around the lake to look at mansions, of which there are dozens. It’s really gross. I did not enjoy being there.)
People looked at me funny when I picked up trash that wasn’t mine while walking… but like there’s a trash can RIGHT THERE! Why wouldn’t I??
But that’s just the vibe in touristy areas… not my home, not my problem. And that’s gross.
Curious… was this in the US? If so, which state?
Yes, Lake Geneva, WI
It really depends. Most people are incredibly friendly, give lots of local tips, are interested in where I’m from. People are genuinely excited and welcoming. But I’ve also been yelled at—“fucking tourist!”—for stopping on the street to reverse parallel park…an hour south of the border for the numberplate my car had 🤷
I don’t think it’s much tha you meet people that hate tourists, just that you meet any other asshole that hatess the things that aren’t them. So of course they hate tourists too. Good thing the majority of society aren’t at all like that.
No, they all suck 😂
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.
Or thanks to tourism you will never be able to afford to live in the area you grew up in and have to move somewhere cheaper.
Yup, this is happening to me. A whopping 70% (not exaggerating) of houses in my hometown have turned into AirBNB’s in the last 10 years!
I would certainly believe it easily can be 70%. Been to other seaside towns before when visiting family and especially in the main part of the town everything is now rented out.
I suppose I do also live in a seaside town but it isn’t popular with tourists, we have a beach but as its on a peninsula and just like the rest of the beach that stretches on for like 100km or so around the coast there is very little reason for anyone to come here for it unless they live here.
Yeah that also sucks ass.
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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.
Thanks for providing an insightful alternative perspective on an issue I was quite convinced about.
While not a city, tourists have ruined the town I work in… It used to be a working town and the surrounding area was where people actually lived. Then the area got popular for rich people to come walk around in the summer… They bought all the housing for their vacation homes/air b&b and the bought up local businesses, turning them into seasonal shops…
Locusts…
In my experience economies based around tourism have much greater inequality, with a few wealthy landowners/business owners raking it in, scumbag tourists throwing their weight around and any non wealthy locals forced into low wage service work and treated like shit in a high cost of living environment. Fuck tourism and fuck tourists.
As usual, seems he underlying problem is capitalism, not people wanting to visit nice places.
I think it’s entitlement. People feel entitled for some reason? I have no idea why, but they fucking do.
Its generally the people whom capitalism has rewarded who can afford tourism. And goddamn are they obnoxious about it. Maybe buy a house in your community and spend 4 months there and vote in your elections. Fuckin’ scum.
Homie there’s a lot of families who have to save for years to go on one family vacation, it’s not all Uber rich lol.
Additionally local issues in tourist destinations like low pay for service workers is entirely unrelated to the tourism itself, rather shitty business practices.
I think there’s little difference between the unrecognized harms that tourists do and the increasingly recognized harms that expats do, see for instance the Andrew Callahan Channel 5 piece recently on the flood of American expats in Mexico causing gentrification, housing shortage caused by air bnb and skyrocketing prices, along with them not acculturating and exploiting and abusing the people who natively live there any number of ways. Solidarity forever with those affected by American expats, as plenty have fled the cities to live in permanent vacation with their shady money here at home too.
But that wasn’t brought up at all before now lmao. I don’t disagree with what you’re saying at all.
increasingly recognized harms that expats do
I’d argue that is also an oversimplification to one region. I grew up in an eastern EU country, and I worked hard to get a good education so I can get a job that is more on the side of R&D and making new things. But then western EU companies bought up everything that does stuff like that, laid off all the engineers and only left menial manufacturing jobs in the country.
And when I then grab my things and move over to their countries where those jobs went, you know, we all signed “freedom of movement of people and capital”, people there are complaining that the best paying jobs are not in their local language but in English now. And then that they are indignant that they have to do at least a fraction of what I needed to do, like be comfortable using 2-3 languages professionally, with a foreign one being the default. And that I can pay more for an apartment than them or their kids, driving up prices. Like I want to pay that much money.
So yeah, I love to live in a country that has people call me names instead of my own, but this is globalisation.
Yuuup. The people complaining are not the ones that decided that their city should be a tourism dump.
What do the people who study this for a living say?
“Thanks for the grant money, tourism industry”
Why do you think the government wants to spend(grant) money to investigate how the proletariats feel about the bourgeois?
You guys use as many code words as those sovcits.
You DO know that Economics is a field of study, right? And the cost-benefit of tourism has been well-examined by many, oh so many people.
Right?
This. 100%
Maybe they lived in the place before the landlords turned the economy over to tourists.
If I lived in Barcelona and got kicked out of my apartment so it could be a peak-season AirBnB and stay 75% vacant the rest of the year I’d be pissed off too.
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
Your so cute, apparently you have never met well off Chinese tourists.
I have seen what they do online but not encountered them yet, you are right
Yes you have, you just didn’t know they were American or you forgot about them because they weren’t memorable.
Lived in Banff for 18 years. Some days those tourists are just the fucking worst; feeding animals, littering, having fires anywhere they want. I got real possessive of my home. But the many are decent, outdoor lovers who don’t suck.
When I went to Banff many years ago, the chipmunks near our lodge were the fattest that I’d ever seen. It was obvious people had been feeding them and they had become dependent on it. Very sad.
I live on a sea side resort in UK. It’s a big and very popular one and gets crazy busy in the summer. Some of the visitors show us just how bad humans can be. Litter everywhere, some people just leave it all where they were sitting on the sand. Some people buy tents and just leave them fully pitched and leave full of all their rubbish. Parking, people just park wherever they want even though they shouldn’t. Yeah they get a ticket but I guess they think the price of a ticket is worth the convenience of parking somewhere stupid.
Fires are also a serious risk here. On the heath and woodland it is signed everywhere no smoking, BBQs, etc. and yet people still do.
I’m sure there are visitors who are respectful and decent, not everybody is awful. Also a huge shout out to the volunteers and workers who tidy up after these people leave. And the fire services who deal with heath fires every year.
Whose*
It’s not that we live in a direct democracy where the people have a say in the decision to turn the city into a tourism place. More often than not people are born there or moved there long before tourism was so big
