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Comment by dendrite9 | Hacker News Reader

I struggle with the idea of tourism being a good basis for an economy. At some point you reach a level where the appeal is outweighed by crowding, and the experiences people want are no longer available.

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Sure, but what are the alternatives? They never had significant industrialization. Before mass tourism, their economies were based on fishing and banana farming. The British Crown Dependencies, without the great weather and scenery of the Canaries, developed into offshore tax havens.

Sounds like that’s solved by raising prices, no?

Yep, exactly my thought. Start raising prices (via taxes or touristic accommodation quotas or whatever) and find that goldilocks zone balancing revenue and pressure on the environment/locals.

The problem here is that this creates negative externalities on the housing market unless regulation is in place. Otherwise, it creates an incentive for short-term housing over long-term housing, which affects the people who do live there. This is the crux of the matter in many places that have a problem with tourism.

Regulation is definitely necessary to protect low-income residents. Areas that understand this and implement it well will be rewarded for it.

tax stays of less than 3 months by 50%

Surely it’s self limiting, as more tourists arrive the attractiveness goes down.

From a sustainability point of view though 10,000 people concentrated in a single tourist complex is better than 100 villages with 100 people each.

It's not a 100 villages though, is it?

It's 2.2 million local residents living a long term largely sustainable life that are being swamped by an additional non resident 13.9 million people per annum.

Nothing is sustainable about living on the canaries. Energy is largely imported fossile fuel, water comes from desalination via said energy. The banana monocultures are an ecological desaster as well.

Economic sustainability != Environmental sustainability

Tourism in general is unsustainable but mass tourism in limited areas is more sustainable per head than spread out tourism

Tourism here, as in most places overrun with tourism, isn't advancing by consolidating all prior tourist locations into a single more efficient tourist hotspot, it's proceeding by adding on additional tourist mega plexes.

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