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Comment by pishpash | Hacker News Reader

Because you may find yourself completely locked out of places you might want to visit in the future. Yes, there are always people richer than you, who don't want your company, either.

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Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position.

Maybe a lottery system then? 5k free "tourist visas" per year, that sort of thing.

This is how they do mountains here. You enter yourself and your party in a lottery for a permit. A limited number of permits are also sold on a first-come first-serve basis, so if you wanted to summit Mount Adams at the last minute you could show up at the ranger station at 4:00 in the morning and camp out in line like you're buying a PS4 on launch day.

>Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position.

Interesting position. Competing against that thought you have stuff like United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights #13: Freedom to Move. "We all have the right to go where we want in our own country and to travel as we wish"

The UN isn't talking about tourism.

My initial instinct was to handwave as well but I don't think that holds up. Not explicitly naming tourism doesn't mean it's not applicable, as the point of calling them 'universal' is that they apply no matter the context. Person, government, country, planet. Universal. What do you consider to be a definition of 'travel' that applies to that statement, that wouldn't also include tourism?

The kind of restriction on tourism we're discussing here appears to run contrary to that particular line. Even at it's most conservative reading it seems to set the bar at 'if you're a citizen of a country then you can travel freely to any public place within it'. The idea of locking down a city to prevent that is exactly what's being proposed here.

Or are we talking about only international tourism here?

The context of the entire thread is using money to "control" tourism which is already common. I have been to many places where tourists paid more or had a special tax. Or were required to have a local guide.

The UN charter is specifically about citizens not foreigners. Additionally they are talking about no militay checkpoints, preventing a marginalized ethnic group from traveling from point A to point B, etc. It isn't about not charging rich Americans a little bit more because they want to see New Zealand.

Tourism is a subset of "travel".

In some cases (major world heritage sites), one could argue the tourists' right to visit should be considered along with residents' rights. It's a tough balance and I don't have answers. But, I would hate to be locked out of the Vatican because they realize they can charge $5000/day for visitor passes.

A lottery of some form might work, if prices are kept reasonable.

"Which is in effect saying that the residents' right to control access to their city is subordinate to random tourists' right to visit whenever they like. That doesn't sound like a reasonable position."

Suddenly, I'm having flashes of California, particularly SF, residential problems, including the hated NIMBY-ism.

It's really funny you mention this, because I'm in St Barts today as I posted the comment, and that may well be true here!

And that is free market at it's best. If something is in high demand with limited availability then I would expect the price to rise.

Keeping the price artificially low would be like the policy of the old socialistic ideologies.

Isn't that what the free market evangelism teaches? As there is only one Venice, I would hope that the price reflects the amount of demand as well as the the amount of externalities that the tourism is producing.

This last aspect should be covered by taxes to ensure that the tourism not harms the city/environment, as not to fall into the trap of the tragedy of the commons.

Except taxes are almost explicitly not the free market. If hotels want to raise their prices they can, if not, then not.

Taxes are the definition of market distortion. It would be a crying shame if all the world's greatest sights were restricted to the rich due to government interference.

EDIT: It would also be a shame if all the world's greatest sights were destroyed by mass-tourism, so who knows? But pretending it's as simple as an Econ 101 problem would be naive.

Taxes are a distortion, but also one way to deal with the tragedy of the commons (in this case, previously remote locales that cannot absorb the influx off tourists).

Lottery or some other system to limit access could also work.

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