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.

I think traditionally we penalised (taxed) choices rather than rewarding them.
There should be payouts for people who don't holiday abroad, don't have kids, don't have a spare room, don't have a car

My local airport doesn't fly to many places outside of the summer months so you physically can't get there off peak. If I wanted to go to Barcelona in winter I expect I'd have to go to Manchester airport which is a few hours away and costs a lot to get to on the train or parking.

Surely it’s still cheaper to travel to Manchester and park than it is to go in the summer - and you get the bonus of going somewhere when it’s quiet and more pleasant.

@Dramatico it wouldn't take ages to build clean energy sources. You could knock a nuclear plant up in 5 years easy. People don't want them beside them because they live in a world where they've been told Nuclear Power is terrible. It isn't. Its the future of constant energy needs.
Germany built an LPG plant in under a year after the Russian Invasion. Political will. That's all that's needed. Politicians in almost every country won't do what's needed because they are a bunch of panderers, pandering to generally ill informed populations who don't have the requisite knowledge or rational thought to make global decisions. Build more nuclear.

The easiest way would be to make internal travel cheaper and easier. It would cost me £190 return to go from Scotland to London. Or £600 1st class. For a free coffee and a muffin. In what normal country would that be acceptable? Our foreign state owned rail companies are subsidising travel in their own country by making us pay through the nose. Our government encourages this.
I could drive the family to London for £60 of petrol. Or pay £600 for the train. What a weird situation.

Fully agree with nuclear but that won't sort air travel. Basically the only two options for air travel are SAF or hydrogen. Batteries not possible because the size of the battery required for a short haul flight would be too heavy for the plane to take off. SAF - we're looking at at least 15 years until mass production. IAG has offtake agreements but only for a tiny part of their jet fuel usages. Other airlines recently announced investment in hydrogen but that technology is decades off tbh; scientists are still arguing over whether grey, green or blue hydrogen should be prioritised.

I therefore feel that taking a draconian approach to making air travel as undesirable (ie expensive) an option as possible is really the only way. I wouldn't want that, I don't think anyone would want that but if Greta Thunberg, Just Stop Oil and the WEF are all correct and we are now in global boiling, then we require such drastic action I guess?

You can still go you just pay what it costs

No way you can limit people flying, that just isn't feasible

Agreed that people need to be informed of different destinations rather than the same old NYC/Greece/Venice etc

Of course it's feasible to limit flying

And just telling people to go elsewhere or at other times. doesn't seem to help - it's just grows the problem in other places - thanks but no thanks I don't want to see more places hollowed out for tourism - first it was Cornwall and Norfolk then people discovered Northumberland and the north coast of Scotland , so now all those places suffer

You've a fat chance of making a rule to limit people to one flight a year after the experience of lockdown, when the country found out that the people making draconian rules for the little people were ignoring them, just like they'd ignore or find a way round this one. People are much more cynical now.

I was booked on a train from Paris to Milan. Business class, 120 euros, very excited.

Then a few days before I was due to travel there was a landslide that blocked the track & trains were cancelled so I had to scramble round getting a flight. About the same price & not nearly as much fun as the train would have been 🙄.

I think that just limiting flights for people in the UK wouldn’t help and there are always going to be special cases - I’d consider my trip a special case, since it’s the first time I’ve flown since Covid and I had to change plans last minute. You’d need other countries buying in too. Yes to making them less attractive & improving the alternatives though.

I would make it much more expensive for the second (or more) return flight anyone makes in a year. Not making an annual holiday more expensive, but hiking up the cost of hen/stag dos abroad, so-called 'big birthdays', and other such short breaks.

Staggering school holidays would be good in principle, but no-one would ever want to have the earlier slot as it were, and you'd have the issue of people who had children in different schools that cross a county border.

As for some places in the UK, an end to holiday lets, or at least no new ones.

I'm not quite sure about the argument that tourism helps the locals.

for years (20 +) I stayed on a small island in Greece for two months a year (I know, lucky me 😁) . I had a conversation with a bar owner about the recent influx of day trippers. His view was it was bad for business. He had to employ extra staff to serve The day trippers, but he didn't need them, come 4:00 pm when the ferry took them away. And the tourists who were staying on the island just didn't visit the taverns and bars during the hours of 10:30 until 4:00. So he gained some business, but lost other businesses, and what he made in profit, he paid out in wages.

However, being a crafty business man, he solved this conundrum by having a three layer pricing policy. One price for locals (after about my fifth year I qualified!) One for tourists staying in the island, and one for day trippers.

I honestly think mass tourism is ruining the nice corners of the world. Part of the problem is that sense of entitlement that people carry with them nowadays - take take take and give nothing in return. If people choose to visit a place they should somehow do it so that their impact is less visible - scaling down these monstrously big cruise ships would be a start, rationing and giving people allowances for tourist travel so some greedy beggars don’t spend half the year cruising around, caring not a jot for the local places they are visiting.

How about encouraging people who visit a local community to get involved in some way with that community for a percentage of their time there so they give back and contribute to life there rather than just expecting the community to adapt and fit around them? This would discourage a load of tourists straightaway - the ones who don’t want to really have to put any thought into their time visiting somewhere. They just want the insta shots or the endless cruises. And the “oh yes, we’ve been to Brazil 8 times already this year.”

Have a scheme that demands people return favours in a localised way, perhaps pairing visitors with a local family for a day or whatever. Helping them cook a traditional evening meal, getting involved in tidying up all the shit that tourists like them left on the beach - revering the natural beauty of the area and helping locals preserve it. Bet this would sort the wheat from the chaff and help tourists change their mindset and the culture around world travel.

I think tourism of course can bring benefits to a local community but in much much smaller doses and at present there’s no expectation for them to be a part of what they’re seeing. It would make them appreciate it more as well

Tourist tax definitely and a clamp down on AirBNB. Cruise Liners are the locusts of the travel industry - the passengers descend on a place, causing havoc, disrupting the infrastructure for everyone else and then maybe buy a bit of lunch. Then leave. My hatred for them knows no bounds. And on MN they are the answer to every travel dilemma. And they build these massive monstrosities these days which to me look like disease pits of terror. Staggering school holidays like they do in France and Netherlands? Places like the Cinque Terre now charge for people to do the walks between the villages as Social Media has bigged them up so much. I'd love to google a place and not find a pic of a woman wearing a hat (artfully from the back) and her fucking blog.

Mine too. Very few people genuinely need to fly multiple times a year.

The problem with rationing is, do you apply this to everything? So, does the person who loves travel but doesn’t drive or buy fast fashion get treated the same as someone who chooses to drive a big polluting car long distances and shops ant PLT every week?
I think you’d almost have to bring in a “carbon economy” for everything and then these units could be bought and sold. For example, personally I live in Aus and want to see family in the U.K., but I drive an electric car and not that often, and I never buy fast fashion, in fact I barely buy clothes at all.

How would we go about attributing value to all the different things that we do?

@Ozgirl75 exactly. So does a non driver get more flights per year, or someone without children, vegans, people without pets? Because they should.
Just tax the super rich more. Get rid of Air Bnb. Pay more or give better tax deals to landlords who offer accommodation long term to locals rather than short term to tourists. Give discounts for longer breaks to avoid five mini breaks a year. Develop more accessible eco tourism. That's what the social media generation wants, experiences which are unique and to feel more in touch with local communities. No one WANTS to be a tourist or to be seen as one, so if you aim hotels, restaurants, day trips at making people feel like locals, you'll be successful.

Tower Hamlets is in Central London. Most people who live in London are not rich.

There was talk on news today about stopping VAT for tourists which used to be the case but why shouldn't they pay it

I don't agree with it though because when I went to the USA I had to pay their state tax

Have a scheme that demands people return favours in a localised way, perhaps pairing visitors with a local family for a day or whatever. Helping them cook a traditional evening meal, getting involved in tidying up all the shit that tourists like them left on the beach - revering the natural beauty of the area and helping locals preserve it. Bet this would sort the wheat from the chaff and help tourists change their mindset and the culture around world travel.

It’s an interesting idea. Would you make it universal - visitors to London or Cornwall meeting local families & doing litter picks in the parks, for instance? Or just for certain countries?

I got the impression that that was the initial plan for Air B&B - people staying with locals & feeling more like part of the community.

VAT is a regressive tax, nobody should have to pay it. If the tax take from VAT were shifted onto income tax most of us would have more money to make better travel choices.

A lot of comments complaining about litter, so how about anyone caught littering gets their passport confiscated for the rest of the year?

Visiting sick family isn't leisure.