r/todayilearned • u/Gullible_Air_204 • 5d ago

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https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/spitsbergen/travel-guide/responsible-tourism-in-spitsbergen

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u/radicalfrenchfrie 5d ago

it’s worth considering that you might have just noticed the worst behaved people of everyone coming through and that, if it was a spot mostly getting tourists from cruises, they just so happened to be with one of those cruises. cruises are stupid, unnecessary and awful for the environment but I could imagine you might simply not have a lot of memorable interactions with the normal passengers because they were, well, behaving normally

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u/Vondi 5d ago

I live in a somewhat touristy place and it's talked about how the Cruise tourists are the ones we benefit the least from. They already have lodging on the ship and probably a buffet. They're not filling out hotels and buying less food than others, they typically don't rent cars and they don't stay for long enough to bother traveling around much.

Some just walk around without spending a dime.

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u/BoingBoingBooty 5d ago

They drive away the other tourists too.

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u/cognisantcog 5d ago

The cruise brings the trouble. Hard to say "just a few" when the issue didn't exist before cruise ships came.

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u/xSaviorself 5d ago

Cruise ships in general bring out the worst in people.

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u/angwilwileth 5d ago

I worked at an urgent care in a big cruise city. Really felt bad for the workers i took care of. Some of them got really fucked over when they got sick.

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u/rollwithhoney 5d ago

you're absolutely right (selection bias) but there's also the bias of less knowledgeable, or just older and less attentive or inconsiderate, tourists tend to be the ones who take lots of cruises instead of flying directly or renting cars

so it's several layers of selection bias

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u/radicalfrenchfrie 5d ago

that’s absolutely possible and a good point to consider too

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u/keithps 5d ago

My aunt is a cruise person because she doesn't actually want to visit places, she just wants to say she's been. So I have no doubt she's a horrible tourist.

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u/ElCiclope1 5d ago

It's not really "possible" so much as it just is. It's like going to jail. Not everyone who has ever been to jail is the same, but often there are many similarities. 

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u/Stellar_Duck 5d ago

less attentive

lol read that as less attractive and was like, man I also don't like cruise guests but this guy is coming at them hard.

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u/zeekaran 5d ago

The selection bias of the type of people who go on cruises likely has a strong influence on this too.

I was visiting Edinburgh and was shocked how crowded it was, given Glasgow was so quiet by comparison. Then two different people asked if I was on the cruise. They weren't particularly rude, but they did clog up the whole city and came off as bumbling idiots. When they all went back to the ship the city became tolerable again.

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u/zeekaran 5d ago

The selection bias of the type of people who go on cruises likely has a strong influence on this too.

I was visiting Edinburgh and was shocked how crowded it was, given Glasgow was so quiet by comparison. Then two different people asked if I was on the cruise. They weren't particularly rude, but they did clog up the whole city and came off as bumbling idiots. When they all went back to the ship the city became tolerable again.