[maxxxxx]

Our whole society is based on trying to make things easy and convenient. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people have the same attitude towards traveling and nature. Iceland could fix this easily by making places less accessible but then the tourist money would stop flowing. In the end they have to make a choice. Limit accessibility or number of tourists and lose some money or accept the negative consequences and keep the money flowing.

[ksec]

Slightly Off topic ( Not relating to nature and bad behaviour ). We have far too many tourist problem everywhere, and some locals aren't too happy with it. Its not that they don't like tourist, there are just far too many.

I have been wondering, if there are any bills, tax or something in similar effort to bring the cost up, like any market would do with high demand. In ways that government can collect and ( in theory ) redistribute back to local via benefits or subsidies?

Taxing on hotel, flight?

[bhelkey]

Tourism represented 42.0% of the export of goods and services in Iceland [1]. I suspect that if the number of tourists fell significantly, they would be greatly missed by the locals.

[1] https://www.ferdamalastofa.is/en/recearch-and-statistics/tou...

[maxxxxx]

A lot of places have permissions you need to buy. If these are more expensive you get less people but I am not sure where the sweet spot is between less people and still making money.

[spaceribs]

If carbon emissions get taxed higher between now and 2050, expect the cost of airplane tickets to go up substantially.

[spaceribs]

what about stepping up enforcement and fines though? If the rangers of these parks are overstretched, it seems reasonable to re-invest some of that park money towards more staff and fines that effectively offset the damage being done.

[maxxxxx]

They could do that. But that also costs money and it doesn’t solve overcrowding.

[mistermann]

It could largely fix the negative consequences though.

[magduf]

Maybe they should just forbid or discourage tourists from countries that cause the most problems, such as Britain and the US. I'm sure Japanese tourists never litter there.

[whatevertrevor]

I don't think blanket bans are a good idea, there are good and bad people everywhere. Hefty fines enforced during peak season would be a nice start.

[maxxxxx]

Don’t do that. People in high enough quantities are a problem no matter where they are coming from.

[klyrs]

Problem being that tourism is one of Iceland's biggest sources of income. Selling out sucks, but starving is worse

[magduf]

What they really need to do is come up with a "preferred tourist visa", where people (regardless of national origin) are only able to get this after being interviewed to make sure they're properly respectful of the local culture and environment, and if they get caught doing something wrong (like littering, going into off-limits areas or past safety barriers, etc.), get their good-tourist visa revoked. Interested countries like Iceland can then only allow people with this visa to travel there.

[maxxxxx]

You could build this on China's social credit system...

[magduf]

It would be similar. Any "vouching" system is kinda like this, and how useful the system is depends on how much you trust the entity that does the vouching.

If you don't like China's social credit system, what do you think of America's "TSA PreCheck" system? It doesn't bar people from traveling, but it does give special privileges to some.

I honestly don't see a problem if some countries decided to cooperate and implement their own "tourist blacklist" system to keep out tourists who have proven to cause problems: it's their right to refuse entry to any non-citizen they wish.