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Can rescinding visa free access curb over tourism? (nord.pub)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by NightOps@nord.pub to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Instead of giving visitors visa free access who hold strong passports, rather make them require a visa prior to entry (meaning they can't just pack their bags and go, now having to pre-plan in advance and line up for getting a visa & paying money for it, they're not alone since hundreds more are doing the same thing. There's also the guarantee whether they'll be eligible or get rejected on the spot).

It may cause strain on visa applications that'll lead to mass rejections due to overload. If I were a country that's suffering over tourism, just rescind visa free access for ALL nationalities (including those who have strong passports like US, UK, DE, FR, AU or CA to name a few) as in when they check visa requirements: it'll be rewritten as "visa required" rather than "visa not required" prior to entry.

Or, they can apply for a tourist visa many times as they'd like but reject them. (Basically a real life travel "shadow ban" if that's the right way to say it), leads to them giving up as they'll know a visa will never be guaranteed regardless of numerous attempts. However, would this move alone reduce over tourism? Since you can't just show up in someone else's nation uninvited (illegal immigration).

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[–] lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 4 days ago

Visa free programms are not just a way to get in more tourists. They are often part of international treaties (which often contain way more things with bigger importance than overtourism) or bilateral agreements, which guarantee the same thing in the other country. If a country limits the entry of citizens from another country, that country probably will alao limit down its own visa free programm for citizens of the first country. The countries suffering from overtourism often don't have the treaty freedom to so this or don't want to limit their own citizens travels.

So Visa agreements are mostly part of international politics. Changing that does change a lot more than just tourism, which is often not worth it.

[–] coolie4@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Tourism brings money into the host country. The people who care about over tourism aren't the same people who control visas.

[–] farmgineer@nord.pub 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It does, but there are also problems where locals start getting priced out of stuff in their own country as businesses go for the higher profits of tourists. This generally makes a few business owners and maybe the tax man happy, but at the expense of many others.

[–] coolie4@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago

Yup, I get it. I'm just saying the governing body that controls visas don't give a shit that locals get priced out, or that a place lost its authentic charm.

[–] Molvorin@feddit.dk 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Assuming you're talking about the USA, visas wont make much of a difference

Most people have given up on USA at least for now

[–] jaxxed@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

It's unlikely a discussipn about the US. I rarely hear about "over-toursm" related to the States.

This sentiment is strong in several European tourism hotspots, and I think in several SE Asian nations.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 4 points 3 days ago

It curbs international tourism, which can help with over tourism. However, it happens at the national or EU level, which makes the impacts of the border restriction far more reaching than other policies.

It also doesn't help if there is a large domestic tourism industry. An EU tourism visa could help filter out some American and British travelers, but you'd still have the Schengen Area tourists to deal with.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 6 points 4 days ago

Probably, but I'd just charge more. More people than Venice wants? Crank up the entry fee. Venice benefits and tourism decreases.

[–] trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

This depends on the location. Within the Schengen zone this would accomplish very little. For other countries it might work, but it would probably be easier to just charge some money for a visa on arrival. Extra costs will make some people stay away and it's a lot less hassle for everyone involved. Also, tourist tax is a thing and could be used better in a lot of places.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago

The short answer to your question is yes.

[–] quarrel4you@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago

Or there is ETIAS or, ESTA, ETA, K-ETA, etc.

[–] Kennystillalive@feddit.org 2 points 4 days ago

Politicians don't care for people in the country suffering. They care about the lobbies opinion and the rising BIP. Which both are happy with free travel. Touriat bring in the money (making the tourism lobby happy and the BIP gets a bumb, so they can say:" see I did bring in money. Ohhh the people living near tourism attractions can't affort living anymore? Who cares. Don't you see the money I brought to the coumtry?"

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

If you want to curb tourism, the only thing you have to do is going after airbnb and the like. And heavily tax (like exponentially tax) each house someone owns after the second. Tourism wasn't a problem when we only had hotels and some eventual Bead and Breakfasts. Tourism became a problem when suddenly everyone could have a room to rent for brief periods.

[–] trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Overtourism has gotten worse, but it existed before airbnb. In some places it was already a problem in the 80s. When a place gets popular suddenly a lot of hotels get build which in turn ruins the place.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, but it's easier to control hotels because you can just limit licenses. Right now, if you have a free house, you have a hotel and, the worst part is that you not only are worsening tourism, you are also screwing people who needs to buy/rent a house to live.

[–] farmgineer@nord.pub 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In some places, one needs licenses similar to or the same as a hotel to run an air bnb. In Tokyo, there have been problems with illegal ones, though.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's problems with illegal bnb's everywhere; because it's really hard to detect them as they are basically private houses with no difference from a non airbnb house.

Hence why I say we should exponentially tax houses after the second one. Owning a second house shouldn't be a problem because I think we should be able to own a house where we like to spend our holidays if we decide to. Owning 3 or more is not needed and should be heavily taxed.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

i wonder how much there are corporate landlords owning airbnb, maybe tax those people harder,

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago

That's my point. You don't need 3 houses, let alone 50. With the first house you don't pay taxes on property (as it's fair because you live there). With the second you should pay the normal tax. The third one should be 10x the normal tax. 4th 100x the normal tax, and so on. Owning more than 2 houses should be expensive AF to discourage hoarders.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

oh yea, you can bring in a very large group of people on a single airbnb property. which was complicated under th hotel system. but that would mean less tourism dollars for a country/region though.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Overtourism kills the cities tho. Sure, you get tourism money, but people leave the cities because they can't live on them, so shops close and get bought by multinationals to make chain stores (and pay way less in taxes than what would pay a traditional store). It also causes the city to degrade in terms of security and livability.

It's good in the short term, but awful in the long term.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Has over tourism killed a city that wouldn't have otherwise slowly died due to economic stagnation? Tourism obviously has negative externalities, but it also provides economic activity to places which otherwise would probably need to make other tradeoffs to prevent economic collapse.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I recommend you to visit Florence or Venice. To name a couple cities in which to see the effects of overtourism.

They are theme parks for tourists nowadays. If you see the cities some years ago and now, you see how they are a shadow of what they were. Tons of traditional shops closed to be bought by shitty chains that sell the typical stuff you see everywhere else. Restaurants closed so a mcdonald could open, traditional shops closed so a zara could open... and so on.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I did.

In regards to Venice, what would the city look like without tourism? What economy would there be for a city out in the middle of a lagoon after all industry moved out? Yeah, it is a fucking theme park. But is that worse than a ruin?

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I never said I didn't want tourism. I specifically talked about overtourism. I'm not against tourism, I'm agaisnt having BnB's by the thousands in a city as small as Florence.

I'm talking about living in an appartment block where there is a BnB (or three). I talk about trying to rent a house to live there when nobody will rent you because they make in a week of tourist rentals more than they make in a month or two of normal rental. Tourism is fine. Overtourism kills cities.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And my response back is asking what would happen with that pullback. What happens to the economy when you kill hotels and AirBnB's?

What generally happens is that either the local population gets pushed out anyway as a haven for the rich or the economy withers and vacancies rise.

You can keep repeating that over tourism kills cities, but so does other issues like economic stagnation.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If you read my comments, I said I'm against overtourism, because with hotels you can control the amount of tourism a city gets. I'm not against tourism nor against hotels. I'm against BnB's.

And about what would happen? I don't know, we'd get to see cities like they were 15 years ago? I've seen Florence before the BnB boom. It was a lively town, the city centre was inhabited by locals and there was tourism, but streets were lively and full of people that lived there. The city wasn't dying, if anything, it was alive!

Now, if you go to the city centre, it's just a theme park for tourists, barely any locals live there and the few that do, if you talk with them, they hate it. Most of their residents have moved to other places because their city is not welcoming anymore.

Overtourism only benefits rich people who end up hoarding houses and big chains who end up buying all shops to open their shitty stores. That's it. To be fair, it doesn't even benefit tourists because who the hell enjoys a 3 hours queue to see the Brunelleschi dome? I want to go to a city to see its shops, its restaurants, its unique attractions, not to see the uptenth McDonalds, or another FiveGuys, or the new Starbucks.

And no, stagnation only comes if you focus your city on tourism and nothing else, but if you focus on other things, like industry (and I can assure you Tuscany has a lot of that), you don't have to see cities dying. What you'll see is rich people not coming to screw around.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Moving from Venice to Florence as the city to discuss, what would keep the city center for the locals if tourism wasn't the main driver passing people out?

We're seeing a lot of cities seeing an influx of "expats" seeking lower cost of living areas to work from. Florence has a beautiful city center with a nearby high speed rail train station and decent airport connections. There wouldn't be anything stopping the locals from getting pushed out by digital nomads and trust fund kids who want a year abroad.

Yes, over tourism is what is currently changing the city, but I'm not sure that the same thing wouldn't happen anyway, but with the rich guests staying for a few years instead of a few weeks.

[–] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 1 points 2 days ago

Moving from Venice to Florence as the city to discuss, what would keep the city center for the locals if tourism wasn’t the main driver passing people out?

I'm not moving the city to discuss, I spoke of both cities as an example of overtourism. I simply used Florence in later examples because I know the city better than Venice.

We’re seeing a lot of cities seeing an influx of “expats” seeking lower cost of living areas to work from. Florence has a beautiful city center with a nearby high speed rail train station and decent airport connections. There wouldn’t be anything stopping the locals from getting pushed out by digital nomads and trust fund kids who want a year abroad.

You still don't understand how different is to have someone living in a city for a year and someone living in a city for a few days? The scenario you are painting is way better than the overtourism because someone living in a city for a year still needs a supermarket. A tourist doesn't. Just to name an example.

Yes, over tourism is what is currently changing the city, but I’m not sure that the same thing wouldn’t happen anyway, but with the rich guests staying for a few years instead of a few weeks.

Someone living for a few years in a city needs services that a tourist visiting for a couple days doesn't. And, most important, keeps rent available and at a affordable prices. Someone living for a whole year will occupy a house for the whole year, so they'll get a normal rent. That means the rest of renters will have to keep prices the same. Also, someone living for a year there, will need to declare residence if they want to use services like, for example, doctors. That also means they'll have to pay taxes which, in turn, are used to improve the city. A tourist does nothing of that. And since 2-days rentals are so popular, nobody will rent their house to someone living a year when in a couple of months of BnB they'll make the same money; driving most of them out of the long-term rental and making the few remaining raise prices absurdly.

On top of that, there's the question of the general degradation for the city that overtourism brings. Pickpocketers, scammers... they are all lured by tourists, so the more tourists, the more of these. I know, I was here before the boom, and things weren't nearly as bad. Overtourism also bring a category of tourist that's rarely careful or considerate with both the place and the locals because for them it's all a theme park and, since they come for just a couple of days, they don't even care about littering or about local customs...