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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[–] 1 point 23 hours ago (1 child)

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.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours 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?

    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.

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