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Comment by skilled | Hacker News Reader

I lived in Asia for nearly four years. Since 2015 and came back home a few months ago.

It was surreal to see the level of tourism increase between my favorite places. And I am convinced this is a bad thing because it steals the soul of the said environment.

People become more comfortable with greed. I was in Cambodia in late 2015,and was quite happy with pricing of things, even if often charged a premium. Then, I returned earlier this year for a holiday and quickly learned that prices have soared, and sellers don't care if you put your fruit and vegetables back. This was a huge warning for me personally.

In short, a lot of these places are becoming the exact same thing anywhere you go. An opportunity to grab money from foreigners, whilst putting culture as the very last thing for others to see and experience.

Anyway, I am probably just ranting. I do love Asia but the effects of mass tourism are very real.

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Is it really greed? Sounds more like market pricing at work to me. The people who live there deserve a good living too, right? So long as their country is being flooded by tourists anyway they might as start enjoying a somewhat comparable standard of living.

Prices are soaring because tourism is soaring. Don't be mad at the people responding rationally to market forces and enjoying a higher standard of living; be mad at the tourists. And as someone who isn't from there and only lived there for a few years, you have more in common with the tourists than the locals.

When I visited Thailand the tour guide said "Don't go around talking about how cheap things are because 1) it's priced for the locals who don't make as much as you do and 2) it may imply that you think they're inferior to you". And of course it was still the first thing many people said, chuckling with glee...

Actually, I have more "foreign local" friends than people I know in my country of birth. It wasn't a choice per se, but it just so happened that I found a lot of interesting people to connect with.

I understand your point, it's valid. But I will add that local markets, in Cambodia for example, will sit on mangoes and papaya until they rot, and still charge a premium despite the product being borderline inedible.

Oh, and I am very well aware of local prices. If you take a local with you to theater or even grocery shopping, you'll astound yourself at the "premium" that you get charged as a foreigner.

Food waste is hardly unique to developing countries though! Nearly half of all food that's produced in developed nations ends up not being eaten; it's thrown out at various points in the pipeline. From a food waste criterion, the developing world is actually much better.

Given enough time every tourism destination turns into a morally bankrupt cesspool that puts up a "brand image" to attract tourists who's wallets can be mined. Of course, eventually the locals start behaving the same way to each other and you can expect that everyone will screw everyone for personal gain. The people living there either drink the cool-aid and embrace the facade, GTFO or do a lot of drugs to cope.

Source: Grew up in a town where tourism was the only industry.

I agree. Show me a tourist-only country that is not "third world" level

It's kind of obvious - tourism requires low skilled laborers.

Malta has a strong component of tourism in its GDP, and it's not third-world level. It's not "tourist-only", but then again, no country is - only in the Maldives it surpasses 30% of GDP.

I think its more the fact that if it wasn't third worldish it wouldn't be tourist only.

vicious cycle - similar to the resource curse

What's your benchmark for a tourist only country, and what's your benchmark of third world level? A quick google showed me [0]. 10% of your GDP (as in Iceland) is pretty substantial. It actually looks per their stats that the third world level countries are more likely to _not_ rely on tourism.

[0] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/Mapped-...

> What's your benchmark for a tourist only country

Mostly as % of workforce working in tourism - but may also be % GDP. And yeah there are outliers, but still : Iceland 300K people - Malta 400K people.

http://banjaraman.com/sustainable-tourism-need-of-the-hour/

Tourist only countries are less developed because they only have tourism (and not much manufacturing, high end services, etc...), not the other way around. If they had other things, they wouldn’t be considered tourist only and would necessarily be more developed (like say Thailand, which has a lot of tourism but a lot of everything else also).

I don't disagree, but tourism can be a trap like Oil - it makes the country complacent in other forms of development - and in cases outiright hostile to them.

> Show me a tourist-only country that is not "third world" level

Iceland (3 tourists per resident - 70,056.87 USD GDP per capita)

> As of 2016, the tourism industry is estimated to contribute about 10 percent to the Icelandic GDP;

Tourism is 9.6% of France’s GDP as well.

And that makes it clearly not tourist only.

That'll be because there's no such thing as a tourist-only country.

From Wikipedia:

> Tourism accounted for more than 10% of Iceland's GDP in 2017.

That doesn't sound like a tourist-only country.

According to the World Tourism and Travel council's report, Iceland is #21 on the list of countries most reliant on tourism. The highest is Maldives with 25%. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there aren't any countries where 100% of GDP comes from tourism.

https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/2018/power-and-pe...

Is there any such thing as a "tourist-only country"?

Even in developing countries that are popular with rich tourists, like Thailand, tourism is <20% GDP.

> Even in developing countries that are popular with rich tourists, like Thailand, tourism is <20% GDP.

When you spend your entire vacation at a resort, it might feel like the entire country is a third world "shit-hole" dependent on tourism. That's probably why the OP feels like this.

Also, Thailand is a upper middle income country. Developing sure, but slightly richer than China and Mexico on a gdp per person basis.

Singapore and Hong Kong get a lot more tourism (per GDP) and are both high income city states.

Complaining about prices in Cambodia is pretty greedy indeed

> and sellers don't care if you put your fruit and vegetables back.

What does this mean?

When you're trying to haggle down the price, you can put back the goods you're interested in, in order to show that at a particular price point it's a no go for you. If the seller doesn't respond by offering a lower price, that might indicate they don't care about the lost sale because they figure the next schlub who comes along will pay more.

That they won't haggle? - take it or leave it. But yes, even worse would be "you picked it up, so you must buy it at the given price"

>People become more comfortable with greed.

Maybe the greedy one was the guy who thought he could pay pennies from his Western salary because he's dealing with third world vendors who should be satisfied living a third world lifestyle.

I lived on both sides; a lavish villa lifestyle and a humble jungle hut. And I learned the hard way that the humble little jungle hut is the way to go if you wish to immerse yourself in your environment. A lavish lifestyle comes at the expense of being treated like a bag of money, which can taint a very false picture of a "happy" travel experience. Then again, those are just my personal thoughts and opinions. Everyone has the right to enjoy themselves as they find appropriate.

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