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Comment by gtowey | Hacker News Reader

I think it's worse than that. I'm starting to think that there may not really be an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country. Especially coming from a high cost of living area to a lower one.

Just being there puts you in economic competition with the locals. You can spend more on everything than everyone else and that raises their costs too. Especially housing and food. Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate and Airbnb means locals have to compete with the tourist rental prices.

And there is more and more people traveling all the time so some areas are just overloaded -- as in the article here.

Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

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I think there’s a zero sum fallacy in play here. For example you say “Those fancy resorts take all the prime real estate” but many resort towns in Mexico like Cancun were literally invented out of thin air for international tourism. The alternative reality is not “Cancun for the locals”; the alternative reality is no Cancun.

In general we have the ability to expand the amount of available housing/hotels/etc. to meet increased demand. It’s not a zero sum game.

Even sticking with Japan, Kyoto was basically saved by international tourism. An American tourist ended up ended up intervening 20 years after his visit when he saw Kyoto at the top of America's list of cities to use nuclear weapons on.

Although I don't think the commonly repeated story that Stinson visited on his honeymoon is true, he had gotten married in the previous century

This is a little bit what confuses me about these stories.

As someone who lives in NYC and works with Broadway shows we thrive on tourists. Are there locals who live in Times Square or a few blocks off? Sure, it’s not all that annoying, and most folks like me live in an area that isn’t particularly crowded with tourists, if at all.

When I read stories like this, I never quite understand if it’s worse other places than NYC. Or if I’d go there and be unphased. That it’s just people from some empty suburb where lots have a 10 acre minimum that are bothered by this and write these stories.

more details on the Honeymoon myth in this https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2023/07/24/henry-stimson-did...

Wow, this is an extremely long-winded and self-indulgent "well actually" comment. I read the whole thing hoping to find the point, but it never came.

Who cares if it was an actual honeymoon or another trip decades after he was married? He was key to sparing the city, and his personal experience with its rich history was a part of that. That's the interesting story, and nothing in this article refutes that.

Your fallacy is that you are implicitly thinking of yourself as an intrinsically evil corrupting force that should be minimized as much as possible, in fact it would be better if you didn't exist at all.

This is a very bleak misanthropic view that isn't true. It's possible to be a force for good. To form a symbiosis where each side benefits from the other. If you see a native resident, do you think he is perfectly pure, content and happy? Or does he have his troubles and issues. How can you help him? Entertain? Teach? Trade?

There are so many humans that are blithely destructive and nearly all of them believe themselves to be good, because it is human nature to have faith in your own wholesome intentions. Overtourism is one area among many where we would be better off if more people at least considered their impact.

The ones who are going to heed your advice to minimize their existence are not the ones who need to hear it, generally. That mentality just punishes thoughtful people and will not reach the vast majority of the ones you believe are a problem.

Living an examined life and choosing actions in tune with your conscience is its own reward, not self-denial.

Staying home is not the only alternative to participating in the most destructive acts of overtourism.

I understand you're not the same person as the one who started your side of this argument, but you can't just jump from "there's not really an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country" to "I was only talking about overtourism, stop being extreme."

If self-denial is rewarding to you, that's your business. You don't decide with vague statements what's rewarding to others.

There are so many great options for exploring the world. Even in your neighborhood all it takes is a novel perspective to discover something new, and the same is true elsewhere.

Are there no mountains to climb other than Everest? Is there no way to experience a mountain other than scaling the summit?

Why must considering how you impact your surroundings mean “self-denial”? Why can’t it mean choosing amongst abundant riches and savoring the very experience of choosing?

Can I recommend thinking about your own country and then extrapolating from there to understand how foreigners feel? For example: I'm Australian. I actively want you to come be a tourist here! What I'd like you to do, though, is not go to the exact same place as 80% of the rest of the tourist inflow goes.

You don't need to go to the Gold Coast: the entire country is surrounded by water ("girt by sea" is in our national anthem), most of it has great beaches, and you're legally allowed to be on any of those beaches up to the high water mark! The 12 Apostles are cool, sort of, but they're surrounded by beautiful coastline and rainforest filled with waterfalls which a big chunk of international tourists drive through without stopping longer than a toilet and coffee break. The Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are neat and they aren't too busy, but they're also just a bridge and a big building. Uluru is big and impressive, but it's next to the far more interesting Bungle Bungles which get a tenth of the visitors each year, and the entire centre of Australia is scattered with gorges and craters and rock formations.

Go somewhere other than the top places! The best thing you can do for the locals struggling with house prices on the Gold Coast is to save your own money, skip the queues, and go literally anywhere else along the coast in NSW or QLD. Australia has the same population density as Idaho. We can absorb an effectively unlimited number of tourists as long as they ramp up slowly and spread themselves out. It's easy to be an ethical non-disruptive tourist if you just ignore tiktok and don't treat other countries like bingo cards.

It's not quite that simple. Your tourism money is valuable. It's a huge influx of money into the local economy. They don't want it to go to zero.

It literally is quite that simple. I can tell you from experience via friends and acquaintances that tourists are crushing the locals out of Barcelona and Amsterdam. And I expect the same to be true of Warsaw or Berlin.

And its not just tourists. ASML has completely destroyed the housing market in the Brainport region. They're planning to hire 20.000 more people, but with The Netherlands currently being in one of the most severe housing crises in the world, these expats just end up pushing everyone out of the local housing market because they can overbid on houses / rental properties so much.

ASML has woken up to this and is underwriting affordable housing developments, but only at a clip of 1500 per year. So yeah, the locals are not exactly happy, even if it is good for The Netherlands and EU as a whole.

Frankly, I expect the next decade or two to be about harsh protectionism. People are really, really tired of globalisation eating the world.

Japan closed their borders to tourists during COVID. If it's as simple as you say, then they can do it again.

They won't because you couldn't get a majority of their populace to agree with you, which doesn't necessarily mean it's incorrect but does at least mean it's not simple.

Who's holding people's hands and preventing them from building new houses? It's possible Netherlands genuinely has very little land left, but the "housing crises" in most other places are completely made up. Housing is either affordable or an asset that appreciates, it can't be both.

Medieval places that have nowhere to expand to (Venice, Dubrovnik) are hit extra hard.

That said, I visited Rome 20 years ago and a year ago, and what used to be fairly live city center is now one writhing mass of bodies.

I suspect the people profiting off tourism aren't the same ones who gets squeezed out by it.

Barcelona has immigration problem, not tourists. The same with Warsaw and Berlin.

Meaning they've become gentrified by rich foreigners?

> Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average as a tourist, but the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

I think this is definitely not true.

And I think oversaturation generally happens because most people don't think that, or think about it at all. They have a checklist of spots to hit, photos to take, things to eat, and they follow it. They'll put up with huge lines, crazy prices, etc. Overcharging isn't terrible for everyone local, of course, but the crowding certainly changes a place. Often not better for most locals.

If you're trying to be respectful I think that rules out following those huge crowds usually. Like, seeing the Mona Lisa is usually a shitty experience, but at least its in a controlled environment. Visiting a trendy vacation spot like Barcelona, on the other hand, is hitting the whole town and frankly ... maybe not that interesting or novel. There are other places out there, many not even that far away from the hotspots. Though you also need to rein in any instinct to show off any other finds or places online, let the local place you enjoyed become deluged.

How do you say it’s not true and then immediately follow by suggesting people just shouldn’t go to Barcelona?

I'm not sure what you mean?

This is what I said isn't true: "Everyone thinks that they are being more respectful than average"

I think most people don't think about being respectful much at all.

I think someone who does want to be respectful would be like "hey, locals say tourism is currently out of control in Barcelona, we'll pick somewhere else for now."

This is in the section you quoted before saying it’s not true:

> the hard truth is that the best thing you can do for these places is to not be there at all.

What a ridiculous statement... so applying for a remote job is unethical if you live in a lower cost of living area than your employer? It's only natural that people want to make money from higher cost areas and spend it elsewhere.

And this article is about Japan, a freaking island where the government has a total control over how many people are getting in...

I know what you mean but I live close to the border of another country. Can it really be unethical to stay in a hotel in a city two hours west but not two hours northeast because of a border? Maybe you're just talking about the American experience.

There are certainly places where it is clearer cut. Hawaii and Barcelona come to mind.

It's unethical to do tourism in Barcelona? What's so "clear cut"?

The locals really don't want tourists to be there.

As a blanket statement that's false. Barcelona is a very welcoming city for tourists. I don't think it's unethical to visit as long as one behaves and is not a loud obnoxious tourist.

Do these locals ever go on vacation to other parts of the planet?

> there may not really be an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country.

You can hire a full time tour guide using your wealth disparity. Providing a real job to someone with a real schedule and predictable income.

Ok, so there's no ethical way of doing tourism. So what's the alternative?

Stay at home? Do not take vacations? Never learn anything about the outside world that's not mediated by books or the internet?

Because I can tell you not even your own country (whatever that is) is spared from this. You cannot travel within your country without causing this, either.

I take it you have a degree from a US university

Lots of people saying this is ridiculously false, I think it's ridiculously true: Of course there are more ethical uses for your money than traveling, including thousands of legit charities you can write a check to right now. Tourism creates jobs and helps the economy? A good charity creates better jobs than hawking souvenirs and asking for tips.

People just quietly pretend this isn't the case, probably so they don't feel guilty about it. Or maybe they just never put 2 and 2 together.

In touristy places, tourism can easily be 10-20% of the GDP. That's not nothing.

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