Tourists go home

[Needsomebloodyperspective]

I’ve just read an article about protests on the streets of Palma about tourists. I know there are similar protests going on in Tenerife. I don’t know what to think about this.

There are obviously some tourists who act like absolute revolting pigs on holiday, we know this. On the other side surely the jobs that tourists help create and the tourism industry helps the economy.

Interested to learn other people’s perspectives.

People are just being wound up to blame others for their problems.

It's the same in tourist locations everywhere, UK, Europe and the wider World. Lots of places in the UK where the locals blame tourists for their problems, whether house prices, closure of shops/pubs, lack of jobs etc.

Same with University towns where locals blame the students for everything, i.e. litter, too many pubs/restaurants, closure of shops, lack of housing for locals etc.

See the common theme developing??

The fact is that shop/pub closures are everywhere, housing shortages are everywhere, lack of decent employment is everywhere, whether tourist location or not, whether University town or not, but people are blaming tourists/students rather than the real reasons of overpopulation, globalisation, centralisation, etc.

I'm on a few facebook town groups and the towns with both tourism and universities are absolutely insane - blaming the state of the town centre on both tourists and students! Completely oblivious to how bad other towns are, far worse, who don't have a tourist industry nor uni students!!

Tourists are just scapegoats because the locals just need someone to blame.

I'm.sure if the tourists completely stop holidaying in these locations many of the local businesses will have to close.
Its called cutting your nose off to spite your face

From an article I read earlier in the year its not aimed at the tourists in hotels but those in Air B&B type places where just like in the UK local people in tourist hotspots are being priced out of their areas and can't live and work in their communities and with volcanic islands like Tenerife it is harder to build the infrastructure for new residential estates due to the land and accessibility of water and other resources.

Tourists are just scapegoats because the locals just need someone to blame.

Nonsense. Mass tourism is responsible for enormous problems for the people who are permanent residents.

The same thing is said here eg Cornwall. Its not different when its another country. Yes tourists bring in the money so greedy hotels can pay staff poor wages. & you wouldnt want a load of annoying lewd loud drunks all over the place where you are, so why should locals like it? Im from a country where tourism is quite a big deal and some of the behaviours witnessed are truly disgusting.

When I lived in UK I wouldnt ever take my DCs to home country in tourist season as there were things I didnt want them to witness. Including people who think its cool to strip naked anywhere once the drink hits their brain. You dont see the half of it from your England viewpoint. I wish governments would invest in their own people, put a stop to exploitation so that tourism isnt some kind of holy grail. Brits arent the only tourists so ask yourself why they're the issue.

Edinburgh is doing the same re air bnb

I've recently returned from an independently booked tour of Southern Spain. Prior to my departure my Google newsreel was full of stories about the locals protesting in both Seville and Malaga (both cities I visited). I can honestly say I never saw any evidence of their objection to our presence as tourists. We'd booked apartments on Booking.com and certainly didn't have "tourists go home" notes stuck to our door as the news implied was happening.

I've no doubt there's some element of disquiet over housing issues but surely that's the same in this country in popular areas. In my own local town (which seems to currently appear in many newspapers articles about top places for weekend breaks), locals who rent property close to the town centre are living in constant fear of being evicted by their landlord so the property can be turned into an Airbnb. They are lobbying the Local Authority to crack down on it.
That's not the fault of the tourists, that's down to lack of regulation by the local government. They wanted the tourists, now it's got out of hand they've been to late in bringing in restrictions/limits. Any protests are/should be aimed at the authorities, not the tourists - who provide jobs and income for many locals.

Iin the UK it's those who stay in air b n b, turn up with a car load of food and spend virtually nothing in the area. Or come in campervans, wild camp, empty toilet waste anywhere, block access points and don't understand single track roads with passing places.

Tourism has gone crazy in the last 20 years, places are being overrun.
As pp say, it brings economic benefits but it needs to be kept in balance as it also brings significant stress on local communities as well as ecosystems.
Many tourist sites have just become checklist items for a photo.
We need to rethink the whole purpose and value of constantly visiting ‘sights’.

I live in a national park and many locals moan about grockles (tourists) causing traffic jams and speeding on the forest injuring and killing ponies, cows and pigs who roam free here but the truth is that the locals are often the worst offenders for speeding because they think knowing the road makes it perfectly fine. A friend had a much loved young pony killed in the most horrible way a couple of years ago and the driver was a local well known twat.
I think there are areas of the world where tourism is not well managed and some people behave appallingly with drink, drugs and all that goes with that. I think the places most known for hen and stag weekends are some of the worst. I watched a bbc documentary on ibiza recently and the drug problem there is terrible. I feel sorry for locals whose home has been invaded and degraded like this.
Then of course there is the environmental aspect of tourism which is only beginning to be taken into account.

I don't blame them and I think they have a point and all this 'they need someone to blame and tourists are a scapegoat' is bollocks IMO. If there weren't so many tourists in places like Majorca and Tenerife, Venice and Barcelona, there would be more homes for locals, because there wouldn't be the incentive to turn rental properties into more lucrative Airbnbs. There would be less stress on utilities, particularly things like water, which is a scarce resource on rocky, sunny islands that don't get high rainfall. The streets of their towns would be cleaner and less crowded with fewer people using them, vomiting and pissing on them, there would be more local life, fewer poor-quality restaurants that can only survive because people who are there for a week don't know that they're bad, there would be fewer pickpockets, fewer street sellers spreading out their crappy wares all over the pavement, less noise, less pollution, less traffic clogging up the roads, their police would be able to attend to local issues rather than being tied up dealing with drunk tourists causing mayhem. Need I go on?

I'll come back and comment more in this later, but just to mention from the post above...
We lived in a tourism heavy area in Spain, pretty much every local we knew drunk-drove because they new the police were unlikely to stop them as they made enough arrest/fines by just pulling tourists in obvious hire cars and left the locals be 🤷

That's hardly a positive though, is it @SuperSharpShooter?

I'm currently on the Isle of Man. The island is filling up rapidly for the TT Races...locals couldn't be happier and more welcoming, speaking to you and welcoming you, all over the place, and with genuine warmth and friendliness

But what would all these "locals" do in a place like Venice if there was no tourism and therefore no jobs?

One of the local police is having to live in his car as he can't afford to rent I read - can't remember if it was Mallorca or Ibiza. These small islands are seeing hotels built everywhere, houses and flats rented out on AirBnB and nowhere for locals to live. This from the current protests:

“We want the authorities to stop people who have not lived here more than five years from buying properties and to put more controls on holiday accommodation,” said Carme Reines, from a collective which organised the protest in Palma de Mallorca.
Javier Carbonell, a real estate agent, said over half of rental properties were used for holiday rents and were not affordable for locals.
“We want less mass tourism and more sustainable tourism,” Carbonell said.

It's about the amount of tourism and the fact that some places have been totally overwhelmed. Have you seen recent photos of Venice? From Easter to Autumn there are huge crowds of people filling the city every day. I lived in another very touristy city for six months and I can tell you that it's really difficult to do things like get to work and go shopping when every narrow street is clogged with thousands of dawdling tourists. And the shops that cater to locals (supermarkets, bakeries, hardwares, etc) get pushed out and turned into souvenir shops and restaurants, which makes it very hard to live there. Tourists are noisy too - they drag wheely suitcases through the streets 24/7, they yell and laugh and make noise late night, clattering up and down stairs as they arrive and leave again. Tourist destinations need to manage the number of tourists better - yes - but I don't blame the locals for being fed up. I don't blame them one bit.

We want the authorities to stop people who have not lived here more than five years from buying properties and to put more controls on holiday accommodation,” said Carme Reines, from a collective which organised the protest in Palma de Mallorca.
Javier Carbonell, a real estate agent, said over half of rental properties were used for holiday rents and were not affordable for locals.
“We want less mass tourism and more sustainable tourism,” Carbonell said

This I agree with.

What do all the locals do if they can't afford to live somewhere? A poorly paid, seasonal job in tourism is no good to someone who can't afford a place to live. People want sustainable tourism. Most people who work in Venice don't live there because they can't afford to.

Some of these view points are clearly from people who haven't had to live with some tourists. Even the best are still a bit of a nuisance. I live in Devon, the summer holidays are a nightmare. Double the time of every journey because of traffic. Every year we have a crash on the M5 about once a week which just brings everything to a standstill. They don't stay on the road and think we have caused this mess better not make it worse for the locals. They come off the main road and try to use the country lanes which they can't drive on and the amount of traffic just makes the problem worse. They rent all the houses so we can't find somewhere to live. They leave rubbish in places like Dartmoor. They just have a massive lack of respect for the place they are. Every year you hear about people getting in trouble at the water because they try and swim in places they shouldn't. Do they pay for the life boats? No! They put a strain on our local NHS. The wait time doubles in the summer. I have no benefits from tourists.

Move back to Venice I expect. Fewer and fewer venicians actually live on venice island, because they can't afford to, many have had to move to the mainland.

Tourism has gone way beyond being sustainable. The protesters should be aiming their fire at the various governments for allowing properties to be bought up by investors for air bnbs etc.

I live in an Italian city that is always being recommended for holidays on mumsnet 😂. In the last 20 years we have gone from hardly any tourists to loads. Locals can't afford to live here, students at the University travel hours to get here because they can't find rentals - they've become Air BNBs. Yes, tourists do bring money but actually it was already thriving before. I don't know what the answer is.

I completely agree that apart from specific holiday complexes, properties to buy or rent t should be for those planning to live and work (unless retired) there. No issues with people moving to where I live, I moved here, but second homes empty most the winter and noisy airbnbs are an issue here in the UK too

I live in a UK tourist destination and it's very much a two edged sword. I used to say that I lived just outside the holiday area but in recent years everything seems to have spread and now there are lots of second homes, Airbnbs etc in our village.
There are significant negative effects for the community, most of which have already been discussed so I won't repeat, but everyone is also aware of how much our area relies on tourism economically. And it's a lovely place so I quite understand why people want to visit. I love travelling and enjoy my holidays too, it's natural that people want to take breaks in nice places. Stopping tourism altogether would help nobody, but I do think there needs to be more control.
I have a lot of sympathy for local people in tourist hot spots abroad. At least the kind of visitors where I live are mainly fairly well behaved - families and outdoor activity enthusiasts. Parking is the biggest issue really as you do get idiots who don't seem to consider the possibility that emergency vehicles might need to get down narrow roads or that residents might want to access or leave their houses during the hours they've dumped their car somewhere stupid whilst they go for a walk. But we don't really get drunkeness, fighting, vomiting in the streets etc like the residents of some resorts have to put up with on a regular basis. We got a bit of that during the lockdowns when the population seemed to lose its collective mind somewhat and that was bad enough, but I think I would be pretty pissed off if I had to put up with that kind of behaviour all the time. I can quite understand the stance that residents in some resorts are taking. Yes they may rely on tourism for their income but that doesn't give tourists the right to behave like wild animals. (Sorry to any wild animals reading, that's probably an unfair comparison!)

@ladybirdsanchez not saying it is 😁