What would you do about tourism?

[Ozgirl75]

Reading an article this morning about how Venice is charging day trippers a fee to visit, how Barcelona is protesting about cruise ships and also the “overrated places” thread elsewhere, what can be done to stop mass tourism ruining lovely places (both for the people who live there now, and for the future), whilst still allowing people to explore and see the world?

Is it something draconian like dramatically raising air fares (which seems unfair as then it’s like “travel but only for the rich”). Or are there other options? What about spreading out when people visit somehow? Moving summer holidays? Changing school timetables to have shorter breaks through the year?

Encouraging development and exploration of new places? I mean, it’s not like there are loads of new people around in the summer - it’s the same population, it’s just that too many of us are going to the same place at the same time.

Yes it should cost a lot of money to do luxurious things. We shouldn’t have the whole country thinking it’s normal to jet off to Spain for £20 every year.

I think cities like Venice will need powers to issue a set number of tourist visas which you will need to pre-book, kind of like concert tickets.

I live in London. We stay away from the touristy sites. It's just mental sometimes. The National Gallery and NPG are rammed, and it's difficult to stand and look at the paintings. I feel excluded from the Cultural Highlights even though they are literally a bus ride away. As for Buckingham Palace, Westminster, Leicester Square...eugh. Steer clear

London resident here who feels exactly the same way. Is it me or is it even worse than usual this year?

it's difficult to stand and look at the paintings

All the people taking photos? just buy a bloody postcard. Or download it. And please stop standing in front of exhibits for 10 minutes at a time (looking at YOU, people in the BM exhibition) as if you want to engrave it on your eyeballs.

Spreading the load to off the beaten track just seems to grow overall tourism

The north coast 500 is quite new
It's caused chaos
It hasn't reduced tourism in Edinburgh or anywhere else in Scotland

I think people should be able to spend 10 mins in front of something they find amazing

I don’t think a tourist tax of £5 will do anything about the problem of over tourism. 0% of people who were considering visiting London are going to be like, oh wow there’s a £5 tax, better not then.

But we should tax this just as a good source of income.

Only thing that will help is stopping cruise ships and day trippers for big cities, as then naturally the cities limit on accomodation provides the appropriate limit for visitors.

And an extension of tourist visas to not just be an entry to the country but an entry to the city/section of the city.

This wouldn’t require borders but could utilise a similar system to the covid vaccination QR code, people with a visa get a QR code on their travellers app and restaurants etc ask to scan this before serving the people.

The visas don’t need to be expensive, perhaps £2 to cover the admin of the system. And visas allocated on a ballot system to keep it fair. You can buy ballots in groups of 6/8 so still possible to organise group trips.

I think it’s grossly unfair to use cost levers to reduce numbers by making these prohibitively costly. Travel and seeing the world shouldn’t just be for the rich.

It’s just about managing visitor numbers to make the experiences enjoyable for visitors and sustainable for locals.

We need to dramatically reduce air travel to address the climate crisis.

Transport is a major contributor to the climate crisis which will destroy humanity unless we make drastic change very soon.

We need to ration air travel and make it expensive. No one really needs more than one return flight per year for leisure purposes.

Wasn't the NC500 developed by local/highland authorities to expressly attract more tourists?

We did NC last summer and it was one of the best holidays I ever have had. I love sea swimming and driving so it was perfect. And the area is incredibly beautiful.

We did it in a camper van and that is what I would change if we go again. I didn't expect how cut off you get from local communities in a camper van - difficult to park etc. So that side of it was a mistake on my part - though to be fair the Scottish tourism people really push the NC500 for camper vans.m & we did stay in some wonderful campgrounds. If I go again I will stay in small hotels/B&B's etc.

I do think the midges will prevent the Highlands from being too overcrowded with tourists.

I guess what needs to be worked on is the mindset that goes “I want to go to Venice, so I’ll go in July” instead of thinking “I want to go to Venice, I’ll go for a long weekend in April or October”. As I say, when we were in Barcelona in February, it wasn’t busy at all and we could see everything we wanted to, so how do we encourage people to visit off peak?

It’s hard with summer holidays but even Easter is quieter than July. How do we move away from the idea that we have to visit places all at the same time, if they’re particular places that we really want to see. Nowhere is busy all year round (or if they are, there are ebbs and flows).

Im obviously approaching this from a “people will travel” mindset because I think they will - and although we can do things to dissuade them, people will still travel so how do we get people to disperse at different times. I think ballots etc is a really good start by the way.

No one really needs more than one return flight per year for leisure purposes

Who gets to decide that 'need'?

Or how do we encourage more train use or other alternative forms of transport.

So much is being driven by social media influencers that tourism to lesser known places will only increase.

Unknown undeveloped places I quietly visited in 80's & 90's are now invariably massive tourist resorts.

Despite the many who claim to care about the environment etc, human nature craves more more more. See the impact of fast fashion as well as tourism.

Sadly I don't think anything will change. Discarded Boo Hoo & Temu clothing will be polluting the formerly most isolated beaches the world over unless there is government intervention. And governments tend to want jobs and ££ more than they want environmental protection.

The Government. They can legislate.

The fact is that Greta Thunberg warned us in 2018 that we only had 12 years to save the planet before climate change became irreversible and catastrophic. On the BBC they say we have now entered 'global boiling'. So we need to do something fast.

It will take decades to build the infrastructure we need to supply all of our energy needs as a nation purely from renewables and cleantech. For example we only have one sustainable aviation fuel pant in the UK and it won't be operational until like 2030 or something.

So the only option as I see it is to STOP as much fossil fuel use as possible, asap. We obviously need to prioritise things like power supplies to hospitals and other things that are required to sustain life. So that means that anything that is not necessary to life has to go.

I don't think it will be pleasant and it will involve a drastic life change for everyone in the country but given where we are and that it is a matter of life or detah, I reckon I could give up flying more than once a year, couldn't you?

Love the bookable by locals idea.

I used to walk through Westminster to get to work & there would always be a long queue of people wanting selfies by the red phone box in front of Big Ben - that always made me laugh.

For a lot of UK tourist destinations, more variation in school holiday timings would probably help most! (The vast majority of UK tourists come from the UK.)

However, there are other reasons why that gets complicated.

I think cheap train travel is an excellent idea. But I can't see it ever happening here in uk.

Germany did cheap summer train passes for the last 2 years (€50 for a month on most local & regional trains ) and it was very successful- successful at attracting more tourists!

I'd love to get the train to somewhere in Europe with our bikes & then cycle for a holiday.

*Who gets to decide that 'need'?

The Government. They can legislate*

Yes, I can just imagine that scenario. A new department specifically set up to stop people travelling that'll have to have lots of fact finding missions flying abroad to find out how other countries implement curbing their citizens' travel (all ok of course, because they are work flights) and a burgeoning bureaucracy set up to monitor people, check they aren't travelling, levy the appropriate penalties; and of course sliding scales and exemptions and deciding what's a justified exemption and what isn't...all of it taking months, of course, so if you want to go to a funeral abroad better get your claim in before the death occurs because backlogs etc etc and we can't guarantee you'll actually get that permission despite it being your mother....

I can see that being HUGELY popular. 🙄

As a parent the school holiday rush is a nightmare. I miss the September holidays we used to have before children. Quiet, great weather, warmest sea.

But having year round schooling with allowed weeks leave (like jobs) probably won't go down well with a lot of teachers.

I do wonder if we need to build more tourist things for the growing number of tourists. Centre parks, Disneyland, Merlin parks. All totally fake, but built to take a large number of tourists.

I get what you mean. I prefer off peak holidays. But I always find Easter very very busy everywhere

I reckon I could give up flying more than once a year, couldn't you?

Well you probably could. You aren't me. Or anyone else, so you're only speaking for you. Incidentally, your plan would have stopped me either seeing my mother when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer or attending her funeral.

I would also love to travel through Europe on the train, and it seems easier and cheaper in Europe than in the U.K.

I had to visit Edinburgh over the summer for work and train would have cost over £300 for three of us (I took my children) and flying cost £200 and took half the time (well except I was there when there were the huge problems last week!).

*"So the only option as I see it is to STOP as much fossil fuel use as possible, asap. We obviously need to prioritise things like power supplies to hospitals and other things that are required to sustain life. So that means that anything that is not necessary to life has to go.

I don't think it will be pleasant and it will involve a drastic life change for everyone in the country but given where we are and that it is a matter of life or detah, I reckon I could give up flying more than once a year, couldn't you?"**
*
No government will ever do this though.

There was a great speech at Oxford that said even if Britain took all these radical actions the impact on global
Climate change would be negligible. Our way out of the climate crisis has to be global & technologically driven.

It's worth a watch.

And even the most passionate environmentalists (ER leaders etc) take overseas holidays, wear fast fashion, and buy their grapes packaged in single use plastics.

@reyran236 yes we're we're in Italy & it was v v busy. But at least it wasn't hot!

When I read the “overrated” thread and so many people saying Dubai or Vegas were tacky and it’s like, wow all those wasted carbon miles for something that is blindingly fucking obvious. Or people saying “well I went to Venice and it was so packed so I hated it” and it’s like, why are we travelling to places without doing even a tiny bit of research?

And even the most passionate environmentalists (ER leaders etc) take overseas holidays, wear fast fashion

https://www.oneplanetnetwork.org/knowledge-centre/resources/fossil-fashion-hidden-reliance-fast-fashion-fossil-fuels

I'm sure Dramatico wouldn't mind being issued with a ration card so they can buy one item of clothing a year to cut down on fossil fuels use. After all, who really needs to buy clothes more than once a year?