@AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social

Post #2194429

2026-04-25 14:32 UTC

I'd really love you to try and live in one of those cities. Not just spend some days there, but actually live there. Housing prices, thanks to fucking airbnb are the highest of your country so buying a house is impossible, but even renting is nearly impossible because nobody wants to rent to a local when they can earn 3x or more by scamming tourists. Want to work here? You either work in services (bars, restaurants, or other kind of touristic slavery) or need to look for work out of the city. You might be lucky enough to work in something that's not tourism related, but it's pure luck to find one. The city centre? Yeah... Don't go there, you're not gonna find other than a tourist theme park. Tons of shops created exclusively with the tourist in mind and don't you dare trying to look for something to eat. All you'll find are tourist traps. I've seen this city become the shithole it is today thanks to tourism.

Replies (4)

@Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-04-25 16:45

And this is before considering the side effects. The high real-estate prices and high cost of living mean high business costs and high personnel costs, so Tourism will actually push out or kill other Industries, even the kind that employs highly qualified people. Choosing Tourism as the backbone of a country or city is choosing a 2nd World status of having a low value added Economy that employs only people with little or no specialization or formal Education (about 4 of years of high-school is enough to qualify for even a customer facing job in a non-English language country) - in other words, eternal mediocrity. That might be a dream come true if you're a dirt poor place whose only product is natural beauty and were people were just fishermen or doing subsistence agriculture, but for a 1st World nation betting on Tourism as a pillar of one's Economy is choosing to become worse rather than better. To add insult to injury, Tourism is a highly variably industry prone to massive and very fast crashes - all it takes is some volcano to start spewing dust in the the athmosphere and stop flights, a Terrorist attack or just an Economic downturn and suddenly the number of tourists coming in collapse to near zero.

Open ##2194507
@baines@lemmy.cafe 2026-04-25 15:55

this is the truth right here

Open ##2194508
@flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 2026-04-25 14:46

Yeah, but blame capitalism not tourists.

Open ##2264079
@Agent641@lemmy.world 2026-04-25 16:12

If it wasn't for tourists I would have nobody to sell Quokka eggs to.

Open ##2264080