[xiphias2]

Tourists from cruise ships destroy nice vacactions.

Many hundreds of people come on the streets in groups, go throught the streets loudly and fast to take photos, than go back to the ship.

People who really go to these places and spend money for staying and try to blend in to have a peaceful vacation can't.

[Cthulhu_]

Interestingly, the city of Amsterdam is trying to reduce the amount of tourists they get; one measure they've taken is closing the cruise ship port close to the city center.

[xiphias2]

That's great!

I have seen videos of how they're also reducing the usage of cars to make it a walkable/bicyclable city, I would love to see Amsterdam some time (probably not this year due to coronavirus though :( )

[busterarm]

And municipalities let them come because volume, volume, volume. Those tourist destinations cater to them more than they cater to you.

[Sholmesy]

This isn't true, specifically of places like Venice, where they are actively trying to curtail cruise ship traffic.

[busterarm]

Some.

[Tade0]

Venice a prime example of this problem.

[Bnshsysjab]

Your comment seems like the statement of someone with an axe to grind rather and lacks factual evidence.

[lb1lf]

-I used to live in a small town (Aalesund, Norway, pop. of town centre - 10,000 or so).

It is a popular port for cruise ships doing the Norwegian coast. I assure you, during summer season one could have 2-4 vessels in port - effectively a DoS attack on town.

Getting from A to B on foot was nearly impossible, forget any shopping or café visits - a town built for 10,000 suddenly had twice as many people in the streets. Go figure.

While the cruise tourists leave a little cash behind, it is much less per head than, say, camper van tourists do.

I didn't mind all that much - but I can see valid reasons for not wishing to have a cruise entourage come crashing down on your hometown on a regular basis.

[xiphias2]

That's true. But the number of upvotes are evidence that I'm not the only person experiencing this.

I love to travel, but I try to stay at least 10 days on any place I go to and learn a bit of the local language and customs.

For that I really need the airlines to work, but if they get more expensive, I understand, and will just make longer vacations at less places.

[bluntfang]

>People who really go to these places

did you just no true scottsman vacations?

[enriquto]

Of all the really bad things that can be said about cruise ships you have chosen one that is 100% identical with airlines. Moreover, it has a certain air of "gatekeeping" that is fairly ridiculous.

It is impossible to "blend" somewhere in vacation. You have to live many years somewhere to blend. You are exactly like the cruise ship tourists if you stay for a few weeks.

[alkonaut]

Few people fly in and flood the streets of tourist hotspot cities for just a couple of hours and then disappear again without spending any money on hotels, and often not even restaurants.

You can do that as a plane tourist too, but it's far less common.

As soon as you stay even one night you are NOT like cruise tourists. You probably had at least one dinner and one hotel stay. Good tourist.

[lmm]

Why are the hotels a worthy way to spend the money? They push up the house prices for those who actually live there. Someone who isn't taking up a bed that a local could sleep in is being a better tourist IMO.

[alkonaut]

Yours is an argument against tourism. Sure a lot of people dislike tourism but it’s a major source of income in many places where there are few other industries. When people pay local businesses then at least money stays where they are spent, helping locals who don’t work in the tourist industry by providing funding for services etc. Thats why hotels and restaurants are a good way to spend money.

Cruise tourism usually pays very little to local business but the crowds and pollution is there anyway.

[lmm]

I believe in the greatest happiness of the greatest number, so I'm in favour of making sure as many people as possible get to experience these places - Venice, Everest, Jamaica, wherever people want to go - with the minimum disruption to others. Cruises seem like the best way to minimise the per-person "footprint" of visiting a place - just as container ships are the most efficient way of transporting goods.

[c22]

I went on a Caribbean cruise once (the trip was bought for me, I would never have paid for it). The thing I found most striking was the same-ness of every stop. We stopped in Jamaica, but it felt the same as every single other stop: Busy "shopping area" right near the cruise terminal, with many of the exact same stores as the last stop. A variety of the same tired cruise-approved "activities" ("touch a dolphin", "ride a zipline through the forest", "snorkel adventure!") available with just a 1-2 hour cramped bus ride. And, in my experience, not enough time at each stop to actually see much or any of the place we'd landed. The boat stopped in Belize, so I guess I can stick that pin up on my big world-map. Except the "island" we stopped at was wholly-owned by the cruise line and we were only there for four hours, so we mostly gained the experience of buying the same overpriced drinks they had available on the boat, but out of a coconut.

I disagree that cruises are an effective way to visit a place at all, let alone on a low footprint.

[lentil_soup]

in reality is the opposite, the footprint is huge in terms of environmental impact, the cruises pollute the air of the city. Also, cruise visitors use the city's facilities (roads, trash collection, beaches, etc) but don't leave much money behind to compensate. Sure we maximize the amount of people that get to visit the place, but they leave locals worse off as they have to foot the bill

[michaelt]

If the aim of supporting tourism is to "bring money into the local economy" then hotel rooms are one of the biggest ticket items when booking a holiday. Almost always the biggest when you ignore flights, which don't contribute directly to the local economy anyway.

[xiphias2]

If you look at Santorini for example, all of the revenue of locals is from tourism. Actually many of the people don't have jobs during winter, so they have to close the restaurants and the hotels when they are out of season.

[namdnay]

That's a bit unfair, when you fly somehwere you sleep there, you eat there, you spend there. Whereas on a cruise ship the tourist is spending 99% of their money on the ship, and 1% in the city that they're flooding

[sytelus]

Not true. Cruise passengers practically run the economy of many cities around the world including US. For example, a lot of towns in Alaska basically live off of cruise ship docking there. If they stop, many of them flat out collapse. I don't have actual data but my anecdata from several cruise ship regulars is that they spend at least as much on "excursions" and touring the ports as on cruise ship ticket.

[namdnay]

Sorry maybe that's true, I was thinking of European/Mediterranean cruises, and the impact they have on Venice, Dubrovnik etc