Tourists exodus today relieved

[justasking111]

Well it's over today the tsunami of tourists will be gone.

We have never experienced such, rudeness, aggressive behaviour from them as we have this summer. Our businesses have limped along short staffed, been abused, threatened as have locals. The littering has been something else.

I know everyone has had a bad year but so have the Welsh our lockdowns harder and longer than others.

We still wear masks in shops fgs

So hopefully you all had good holidays but glad of a bit of peace now

@bumblingbovine49

The issue is that it is not a tiny minority who are causing issues. It is a significant minority for some factors. The sheer amount of litter left locally, for example, means it cannot be put down to only a very few idiots. I do accept that there is never zero litter, but it is significantly worse here over the last few holiday seasons. I suspect not just here- I have a friend who works in Loch Lomond national park- they collected over 1000 large bags of rubbish in the space of a few weeks. Clearing is costing tens of thousands of pounds. That is not being caused by one or two people dropping litter, is it? That is a significant proportion of visitors contributing to the problem.

I would agree we tend to remember the bad more than the good- but I genuinely believe the issue is more complicated than just larger numbers of visitors. I think it’s people partly that people are angrier/less tolerant/more frazzled due to covid, people who might not normally chose to come to a rural area on holiday and who may not have done all the research into what to expect/what they should and should not do (e.g. driving camper vans on single track roads, where you can and cannot park up- but they should not need to be told not to drop litter, by comparison), and problems in short staffing in hospitality etc meaning more waiting/less efficient service etc causing frustration.

Everest base camp is treated like a landfill site. If some of the most incredible places on this planet are treated with such contempt, what hope is there for a Welsh or Cornish beach? There is severe disconnect between most people and our natural world; the relationship is nothing but exploitative and abusive. Until we being to understand the reasons behind this disconnect and being to repair it our war against each other will intensify. We need to find a way back to each other and the world we are all a part of.

@CHIRIBAYA

Everest base camp is treated like a landfill site. If some of the most incredible places on this planet are treated with such contempt, what hope is there for a Welsh or Cornish beach? There is severe disconnect between most people and our natural world; the relationship is nothing but exploitative and abusive. Until we being to understand the reasons behind this disconnect and being to repair it our war against each other will intensify. We need to find a way back to each other and the world we are all a part of.

Our village has a beauty spot at the top of the hill overlooking the winding river and a castle. The locals collect fast food containers, cans, daily

Our council released figures of rubbish collected over whit weekend when we reopened it had quadrupled from usual Bank holiday figures

@CHIRIBAYA

Everest base camp is treated like a landfill site. If some of the most incredible places on this planet are treated with such contempt, what hope is there for a Welsh or Cornish beach? There is severe disconnect between most people and our natural world; the relationship is nothing but exploitative and abusive. Until we being to understand the reasons behind this disconnect and being to repair it our war against each other will intensify. We need to find a way back to each other and the world we are all a part of.

Great post. We can tut and talk about ignorance all we like, but that won't change anything. Just means more exasperated volunteers on beaches and at beauty spots clearing up everyone else's shit.

Our village has a beauty spot at the top of the hill overlooking the winding river and a castle. The locals collect fast food containers, cans, daily

Unless labelled “eaten and dumped by a tourist” how can you be sure not that a local teen / child / person!

Unless labelled “eaten and dumped by a tourist” how can you be sure not that a local teen / child / person!
Well, you can't be sure.
But when you live in a rural community, you recognise a lot of people and expect to see people you know pretty much wherever you go in the locality. You recognise cars, and parked bikes, and straying dogs. So it's a fair bet that locals walking their dogs past the beauty spot will have clocked that it's non-locals up there.

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman

Unless labelled “eaten and dumped by a tourist” how can you be sure not that a local teen / child / person! Well, you can't be sure. But when you live in a rural community, you recognise a lot of people and expect to see people you know pretty much wherever you go in the locality. You recognise cars, and parked bikes, and straying dogs. So it's a fair bet that locals walking their dogs past the beauty spot will have clocked that it's non-locals up there.

Perhaps if you live in a hamlet But a village / small town - with a shop/shops / school / library / church / pub

Do you really keep track of the locals to that extent?!

We live in a rural area and have problems with locals leaving litter on a particular stretch of road. I've also been a tourist on a night out in London and was shocked at the amount of litter flying around in the early morning. The problem is people, not tourists. No one has a right to live in a quiet area unfortunately, there's just too many of us.

@Marni83

*Our village has a beauty spot at the top of the hill overlooking the winding river and a castle. The locals collect fast food containers, cans, daily*

Unless labelled “eaten and dumped by a tourist” how can you be sure not that a local teen / child / person!

It's usually pretty obvious when the mess happens during tourist season, isn't it...

@Marni83

*Our village has a beauty spot at the top of the hill overlooking the winding river and a castle. The locals collect fast food containers, cans, daily*

Unless labelled “eaten and dumped by a tourist” how can you be sure not that a local teen / child / person!

Are there bins and are they emptied regularly? We get lots of moaning about "fly tipping" in our area. Some of it is fly tipping - dumping a mattress in a country lane, for example. But I don't class some of it as fly tipping - for example at a recycing centre at a supermarket you get people leaving their books or clothes on top of or around the relevant container because it's full. It's not very nice, but I can understand why people don't want to drive their rubbish around until the council condescends to empty the bins and containers.

However, the British do seem to have a major litter problem (Bill Bryson has alluded to it in his books) and there's never any excuse for just dumping stuff. We also need a national litter and waste strategy to make sure bins are emptied promptly and as much as possible is recycled. Sorry going off topic a bit!

No one has a right to live in a quiet area unfortunately, there's just too many of us

Do you mean quiet as in not busy or quiet as in quiet. I do think we have a right to not be bothered by noise actually, but again that's probably for another thread! But yes you are right there are too many of us.

Do you really keep track of the locals to that extent?!
Um, it's not keeping track, it's just seeing who you know out and about. I know literally hundreds of people in my own area, by name and where they live (and usually other stuff as well) and further hundreds by face plus name/ job/ who their kids are/ whatever. And I'm not the only one - I started a new job locally and was immediately spotted by someone I didn't know who knew who I was.

And we have shops, plural, and schools, plural.

@Marni83

*Our village has a beauty spot at the top of the hill overlooking the winding river and a castle. The locals collect fast food containers, cans, daily*

Unless labelled “eaten and dumped by a tourist” how can you be sure not that a local teen / child / person!

Because if that place managed to stay clean all through the winter when there were only locals around, and then on one bank holiday weekend turns into Staten Island, it's pretty obvious who dropped it.

Finally went to Anglesey yesterday our first visit since lockdown lifted, we had left it for the tourists until now. Went to an old favourite restaurant pub. Chatting to a waitress asking how their season had gone she admitted it had been hard. The abuse the staff had received was unprecedented, check trip advisor she said.

So last night I did, checked out establishments that we knew were good to excellent . I was shocked at the sheer venom and nastiness of the posts, people being abusive and leaving bad reviews because of staff shortages, limited menus, being fully booked. One person even left a bad review because they were not allowed to put their campervan in the car park of a restaurant overnight for FREE because they didn't want to pay to stay on the island.

To be fair some nasty reviews were locals who were fed up with the roolz regarding table service rather than sitting at the bar.

We have our own oiks 🙄