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Comment by bjornsing | Hacker News Reader

Yea it’s a funny word “overtourism”. I guess it’s what you call it when other people go on vacation (whereas when I go on vacation it’s just “tourism”). :P

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Living Iceland, the increased amount of tourists means that everything can no longer be written in the local language so that the tourists can understand, and that when you go to a restaurant, you often can't even order food using icelandic as the staff won't understand you, walking down the street, everyone is speaking English to each other, things that used to be free and offered to the public, now have to come at a charge due to the amount of people trying to take advantage of a place or a service, and the fact that we have several times the amount of tourists as we do locals, it's eroding the culture.. quickly.

At least for me, I feel a difference between tourism, and over-tourism.

...you often can't even order food using icelandic as the staff won't understand you...

One doubts that the restaurant staff are tourists? You seem to be saying that they aren't Icelandic, however.

i don't know about iceland specifically, but at least some countries offer various working visas, so you can stay in the country for a year and work to fund it. the folks using those are bit a more likely to end up with jobs in tourism, because they speak the language of the tourists, and they want to be in tourist destinations themselves, being a different form of tourist.

increased tourism, has meant an increased demand in everything.. which has meant an increased demand in low-wage jobs, increasingly held by foreigners looking for work.

I don't see this as a wholly bad thing, but the negative impact is that the people you interact with in the service industry, are not able to converse with you easily.

Imagine living in mexico, walking into a mexican restaraunt, and having to order in english because the wait staff and kitchen can't understand spanish.

It's not the worst thing that's ever happened, but I do miss being able to speak my native language outside of close circles.

If it's you, then it's a 'traveler' or a 'wonderlust'. The rest of the world are simply 'tourists'.

It all comes down to the question "who do you think you are to block my path?" It's not a straightforward answer, though. We've been struggling to answer this as human beings since forever.

Instead of the destination country finding a way to charge tourists more to discourage them, source countries could tax them more to resolve the issue and keep the monies for themselves.

Indeed. This exact attitude was satirized in an A Bit of Fry & Laurie sketch waaaay back in 1990:

Hugh: Ah, yes well now you see, I have campaigned for years now to have tourists banned from Venice.

Stephen: Have you? Have you?

Hugh: I have, I have. It sounds very harsh, very cruel, very ...

Stephen: Deglante?

Hugh: Very deglante, thank you. But I'm sure it's the only way.

Leslie: Who was it, who was it, who said "He is a tourist, you are a holidaymaker, but I am a traveller?"

Hugh: Oh, was it Humbert Wolfe?

Stephen: It was Cocteau, surely?

... etc., etc...

I think of it as “Only rich people used to be able to come here, but now people of more moderate means can, oh noes”.

I think it's probably a convergence of relatively cheaper air travel and also network effects due to social media. For instance not too long ago, I was in a particularly scenic beach Italy, and was surprised to find that, while it had previously been a destination mostly for Italians, this year they experienced a large number of American tourists even though it's a bit complicated to reach and it's hard to navigate that region with English alone. I suspect you could trace that shift to a social media post or a travel blog.

I see it as the same.

Where before you had to hire your home travel agent to hire a local guide overseas (and know who), you can now do it all yourself via SM.

That massively improves accessibility.

Dosage matters. Many things that are completely destructive or toxic are not a problem and even beneficial and enriching in small dosage. Tourism is most definitely one of those things. Typically it benefits a very few in the host location while externalizing the destruction of the culture, the environment and the quality of life for the many that have these places as their home. So it is not about 'you' vs 'the others'. It is about the quantity of people exceeding what is a healthy balance.

> It is about the quantity of people exceeding what is a healthy balance.

As it is everywhere. If two people don't pay taxes, society functions just normally. If everybody doesn't pay taxes, there is no funding for even the most basic programs. When the argument is "a bit is fine, just not too much", the second part of the argument should always be "and here's how we determine who gets to enjoy it and who is forbidden from enjoying it".

Not just few people. These are great jobs for an uneducated population.

Did you just say 'trickle down'? Trust me, Norway is just fine without these 'Jobs, jobs, jobs!' excuses by which neoliberals try to excuse their socio-economic destructive practices.

No, I'm saying that in countries like Brazil, waiter is really decent job. Unfortunately also above average.

Same as: 'You're not stuck in traffic, you are traffic'

Some of us aren’t convinced whether it’s us travelling or someone else.

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