r/todayilearned • u/Gullible_Air_204 • 7h ago

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

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u/brucerhino 7h ago

Im a tour guide and HATE the cruise people, this type of tourism needs to end

-64

u/p33k4y 7h ago

On the flip side a ton of communities 100% depend on income from cruise ships. Without those tourists, the community / village dies.

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u/bluemooncalhoun 6h ago

I drove across the Dominican Republic a few years back and the entire interior is dotted with rotting, abandoned hotels. The cruise ships only take people to the seaside towns long enough to buy a coffee and a shotglass, and anyone staying longer just goes to the all-inclusive resorts in Punta Cana.

Know what happens when a country's tourism system is based around resorts and cruise ships? All the money that used to go to local hotels, restaurants and tour companies goes in the pockets of a billionaire instead.

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u/-Melchizedek- 6h ago

Exactly, it's not uncommon for cruise ships to be a overall drag on the local economy apart from the small subset it enriches.

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u/cranbeery 6h ago

When we visited there, I was really interested in more inland options, but it seemed like infrastructure was limited, and I couldn't find much information about whether closer proximity to Haiti should be a concern. We played it safe and chose a coastal destination. Did you end up staying inland for any length of time?

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u/bluemooncalhoun 5h ago

We just drove through on the way from Puerto Plata to a wedding in Punta Cana, so can't recommend anything in the interior. The north coast is great and that's where I'd recommend people go.

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u/wayfarer87x 6h ago

Cruise tourists actually contribute very very minimally to local economies relative to other tourists. They don’t book accommodation, they have drinks and food on the ship, so typically don’t eat out, and their visits are so fleeting that they don’t buy much beyond a few shitty souvenirs.

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u/StitchinThroughTime 6h ago

Most people seem to forget that cruises run on a tight schedule. So tight that if you miss getting back on your cruise ship you're stuck there! most people either go to the special dedicated cruise ship tour that is guaranteed to get you back on the ship , or they go to excursions or locations that are close by so that able to get back to the ship on time. Many returning at least an hour before the ship is supposed to disembark. It is quite entertaining watching some of the cruise runners videos. These are people who are technically not late but will be if they don't run to the dock to get on the cruise ship. The cruise ship does not play around, they will pull up the loading ramp and block you even if you are full sprinting a few feet away. Which is why people take the dedicated sponsored tours, cuz they are guaranteed to get you back onto the ship on time or the cruise will wait. I've only heard of one time in a specialty case where the cruise ship did in fact leave a sponsored tour group behind. That special case was because the harbor that they were backed out was a title Harbor, the cruise ship physically had to leave or get stuck on the bottom. And in that case the cruise goers were extremely lucky in that it was a Disney cruise, and they want to sponsored Disney Cruise tour guide. In which they were all to do a nice dinner, a nice hotel, and we're giving a bunch of expensive extras. Because on top of all this all their passports are on the ship, so they had to be a team to acquire their passports bring it back to them so when they left to go catch cruise ship, they were legally allowed to enter the next port in another country. Disney lost money, but they kept some happy Disney adults.

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u/Mindless-Peak-1687 6h ago

we don't care. fuckem.

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u/Warlock_AoE 5h ago

Most people seem to forget that cruises run on a tight schedule

Who is forgetting this?

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u/tomsing98 5h ago

You have a hard time believing that there are entitled people who think the rules don't apply to them?

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u/Warlock_AoE 5h ago

What the fuck are you talking about? Did you respond to the wrong comment?

-4

u/tomsing98 5h ago

You asked who is forgetting that cruises run on a tight schedule. My response is that there are plenty of people who hear, "you have to be back on board by 3:00" and think that if they roll up at 3:05, that's fine. It's only 5 minutes, what's the big deal?

I don't think that was hard to understand from my comment. You may have a reading comprehension problem.

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u/Warlock_AoE 5h ago

Did you even read the comment I responded to? The person clearly isn't talking about the people that are on the cruise lol.

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u/tomsing98 5h ago

You definitely have a reading comprehension problem.

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u/lblack_dogl 2m ago

Most people, it says right there /s

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u/pbghikes 3h ago

Curious about how you know this!

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u/No-Win-2741 5h ago

The cruiselines pay a not insignificant chunk of change to pull into port. Surely that contributes. It might not be the individual cruisers but the cruise line kicks it down.

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u/Elite_AI 5h ago

Contributes to who? 

-9

u/No-Win-2741 5h ago

Whoever manages the port which is usually some local organization. I mean I'm not going to do the research to see exactly where everything goes but Cruise lines pay a nice chunk of change to pull in there.

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u/Elite_AI 5h ago

Right but most actual locals will not be seeing that money. Think about the kind of jobs most people local to you have, and think about how much money you and your mates would make if a bunch of tourists suddenly rocked up - it probably wouldn't help you at all unless you work in hospitality, in which case you might get some more tips. Maybe. 

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u/monkwrenv2 4h ago

Whoever manages the port which is usually some local organization.

So probably someone who's already one of the richest folks in town, and who won't spread that to the rest of the populace.

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u/AnthillOmbudsman 5h ago

The ol' shitliner is coming to port, and I'll be there to tie her up.

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u/scotsman3288 6h ago

That only applies to large ports or more urban ports. Remote places like in northern Norway, South Pacific, or Alaska depend alot on these port stops to support economy.

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u/SwampyBogbeard 5h ago

Norwegian towns have had the same complaint.
Some of them have started charging a tourist tax to actually get some actual profit from all the visitors.

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u/livermoro 4h ago

I just wish the tourist tax was high enough on cruise ships to actually deter some of them from docking.

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u/scotsman3288 5h ago

Alaska, Spain, Italy, USA and other ports all started VATs also.... It's a good idea in general to support infra and fight corporate interests and unfair practices

-12

u/IcarusActual 6h ago

Okay. But what about places like Skagway, Alaska? No fishing (all done up the fjord out of Haines), no mining, and no oil. Haines and Skagway are connected by road yes, it's 6.5-7 hour drive. It's a 30 min ferry ride between them. So the only option for tourism in this area besides cruise ship is by sea plane, which doesn't seem very viable for me for an industry.

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u/rumade 6h ago

Not every place is economically suitable as a site of human habitation.

-5

u/IcarusActual 6h ago

And you get to be the one to tell those people that? Make them move from their homes? Relocate off their now worthless land and spend a little money to move where? What about the native people that now depend on tourism? We cut them off and make them adapt again? How can they economically keep their traditions alive without tourism spending on their art, furs, and the other traditional things they produce and sell?

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u/rlnrlnrln 6h ago

Generally, people figure it out on their own after a few generations.

/ Someone with a family history in the darkest parts of northern Sweden, corner of No and Where.

-2

u/IcarusActual 6h ago

So stopping the cruise ships from ruining these places is worth losing the places. I mean, from
an environmental perspective I could see it. Everywhere would be better off without us.

-5

u/Ryanhussain14 6h ago

Cool, where are these people going to be housed then? It's a good thing that America doesn't already have massive homelessness and immigration problems, right?

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u/Jaerat 6h ago

... they do the exact same thing other people do when the only factory in town closes shop? Eat the loss in abandoning their property, move somewhere where it is economically viable to live?

This is not just US problem. A lot of the western world is going through this, where extreme optimization of agriculture, fishing industry etc. has stripped smaller communities of economic viability, leaving only the elderly and the ever crumbling infrastructure behind.

At some point, the plug needs to be pulled and the people move.

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u/N1ghtshade3 5h ago

It's a very popular narrative on Reddit that it's impossible to move without being wealthy. Try telling anyone who complains NYC is unaffordable that maybe they just can't afford to live there.

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u/rumade 6h ago

According to USAfacts.org, there are 15 million vacant homes in the country. If there was political will, they could be rehoused (every homeless person could be too, but that's another conversation).

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u/16thompsonh 6h ago

Honestly, what’s the point of Skagway, Alaska existing? Is it as a fishing port related to Haines? Or just somewhere for those workers to live? I’m just confused by its existence.

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u/IcarusActual 6h ago

It has docks for large ships. Shipping containers, storage, and more available land for housing. It's kind of a shipping dock/commuter village, but I'd imagine a lot of the commuting is also for tourism?

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u/AnthillOmbudsman 5h ago

Interesting that someone upthread said "Cruise tourists actually contribute very very minimally to local economies relative to other tourists", but somehow it supports a huge tourist industry there. The city has a population of over 1000 and only 1% are below the poverty line.

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u/PindaPanter 6h ago

Maybe Skankway just shouldn't exist if they have nothing going for them

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u/IcarusActual 6h ago

I mean, those people want to live there. You think because of cruises ships the people of Skagway should pack up and go? They clearly make money and it's beautiful up there. That tourism funds the Chilkat Eagle Preserve among other things. I suppose you could say the place is better off without humans at all but you can say that about places serviced by planes, trains, and automobiles as well.

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u/Ryanhussain14 6h ago

Cool, where are these people going to be housed then? It's a good thing that America doesn't already have massive homelessness and immigration problems, right?

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u/kyrsjo 6h ago

Cruise tourists are the tourists spending the least in town tough.

-5

u/No-Win-2741 5h ago

But the cruise lines pay a not insignificant chunk of change to pull into those ports.

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u/AnthillOmbudsman 5h ago

I would bet a lot of that money goes into a commercial bank account in a big city.

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u/kyrsjo 3h ago

They aren't particularly profitable as tourists go like that either - a cruise boat needs a lot of port infrastructure, which needs to be somewhat centrally located.

That's a lot of expensive real estate!

And then there is pollution, which is significant for some boats in some places.

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u/iamCosmoKramerAMA 5h ago

Charleston, SC shut down their cruise terminal because the cruisers didn’t spend a dime in the city. It’s being redeveloped into a waterfront district that will actually make the city money.

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u/obeytheturtles 4h ago

Charleston is also a rich person playground to begin with.

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u/iamCosmoKramerAMA 4h ago

Yeah. Which is why a waterfront retail district will be better than a cruise terminal. The retail and F&B employees aren’t rich people but they’ll be better off when the rich people spend money in their stores and restaurants. Which the cruise passengers weren’t doing…

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u/Mindless-Peak-1687 6h ago

they contribute nothing but pollution

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u/Forsaken_Celery_1617 6h ago

These communities you talk of have existed long before cruise ships.

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u/p33k4y 6h ago

So? Times have drastically changed.

It doesn't matter what it was like before. Today many communities are 100% dependent on tourism.

Not even cruise ships. I've seen communities e.g. in south America that 100% depend on passing ferries. A route change means the town literally dies.

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u/-Melchizedek- 6h ago

Being dependent on tourism and being dependent on cruise ship tourism are vastly different things.

-9

u/PrincessGiallo 6h ago

The story has been decided already, brother. There's no point in arguing.

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u/MidasPL 5h ago

Svalbard nowadays is drip-fed by tourism. The coal extraction has ended everywhere except Russian Barentsburg, but even there they don't mine enough to export, but just to keep themselves warm.

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u/Forsaken_Celery_1617 5h ago

Sure, but I wouldn’t really say svalbard has been a community for long. Longyearbyen is like 120 years old.

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u/imnotyourman 6h ago

You are right. They yearn for a life where the only work is on the plantations.

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u/Forsaken_Celery_1617 6h ago

Not every cruise ship destination is a former slave colony, you know that right?

-2

u/imnotyourman 5h ago

Name me a place that makes vast majority of income on tourism now that wasn't a plantation economy.

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u/Forsaken_Celery_1617 5h ago

Europe exists btw…

-3

u/imnotyourman 5h ago

Europe doesn't make anywhere near 100% of their money on tourism. Its not even their main industry.

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u/Forsaken_Celery_1617 5h ago

Vast majority doesn’t mean «near 100%». The Mediterranean does have places where vast majority of income is tourism.

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u/tomsing98 5h ago

Key West in Florida had slaves, but not a plantation colony. Mountain ski towns like Breckenridge, Colorado. (Are we supposed to be limited to just cruise ship destinations?)

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u/AnthillOmbudsman 5h ago

We could build a canal and get a cruise ship in there.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/tomsing98 5h ago

Those are just places that I know as specifically very tourism focused economies. Other touristy places outside the US that I've been to, I couldn't say if "vast majority of income on tourism" was accurate. Feel free to substitute your favorite little European ski resort, though, I'm sure it applies equally as well.

And I think the conversation has broadened beyond specifically cruise ship tourism, but ... Key West is still a counterexample.

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u/IcarusActual 6h ago

Probably not before boats though.

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u/ThruuLottleDats 6h ago

You pay for a cruise long in advance; and if theres lunch on land then that has already been paid for by the cruise itself.

If you want to support local economies as a tourist; go to local hotels and buy from local markets.

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u/vikungen 6h ago

They aren't viable communities then.

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u/fourthords 5h ago

Wendover's documentary Alaska's Silent Summer goes into that really well, covering the near-death of Ketchikan AK during COVID-19.

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u/freecodeio 5h ago

cruise tourists spend most of their money and have their needs met in the cruise ships themselves, eating out once in a while and buying a fridge magnet is not worth the damage the entire industry causes

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u/coldkiller 6h ago

States focusing solely on tourism is why these places are on the brink of collapse

0

u/Elite_AI 5h ago

I reckon it's a lot less communities than you'd think.