[lmm]

> No, it's the opposite. Places which are already at capacity (like Venice, Mallorca, Santorini, etc) then receive multiple cruise ships a day which dump thousands more people into the system.

Right, so if the cruises weren't there they would look to increase that "capacity" to accommodate that demand - which would likely mean building giant hotels.

> I think most locals would prefer hotels which at least contribute to the economy.

The kind of person who wants a cruise would probably favour a resort-style hotel, so it would be the same thing in terms of not eating at local restaurants, crowding into the same places, and the like. Hotels provide some employment but not particularly high quality employment (it's mostly precarious minimum wage jobs, no?), and meanwhile their existence pushes up land/building prices. Hotels might pay direct taxes, but cruise ships can be made to do the same.

[joshvm]

In some places there's literally no space - Venice for example, land is expensive and it's such a historic city that you can't just build a skyscraper (nobody would give you permission). This is the point about them being at capacity. In summer everywhere is booked. The argument is that lack of beds stifles demand, but then you can barely walk round Venice in high season. It's not about hotel capacity, it's the capacity of the city infrastructure itself. Venice has no land for hotels, or anything else!

Resort style hotels tend to be sited elsewhere with space for pools and recreation, and people don't leave (or they do so on a couple of tour coaches a day). Though look at Oxford or Cambridge in summer to understand how busy "the odd coach" can make a city centre.

Cruise ships are also full of mostly low-paid, high-turnover jobs (often seasonal). Hotels confine people which means they then go and spend time (and money) in the city. They might go for an early breakfast, eat out, see some museums.

[lmm]

> In some places there's literally no space - Venice for example, land is expensive and it's such a historic city that you can't just build a skyscraper (nobody would give you permission). This is the point about them being at capacity. In summer everywhere is booked. The argument is that lack of beds stifles demand, but then you can barely walk round Venice in high season. It's not about hotel capacity, it's the capacity of the city infrastructure itself. Venice has no land for hotels, or anything else!

In an efficient market everything operates at capacity. That doesn't mean there's no ability to adjust. In the absence of the cruise ships there'd be more demand for hotels, driving up prices; land values would go up, pricing more of the locals out. Restaurants and homes would be converted into tourist accommodation. Pressure would mount to relax the building regulations - not around the unique tourist attractions, but in the backstreets where it could be argued that there wasn't such unique architectural merit. And most important of all, fewer people would get to see Venice.