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Comment by titzer | Hacker News Reader

> Nature tourism needs to be scaled horizontally.

Fuck no. Tourism is a vampiric money-making enterprise that absolutely ruins that which it attempts to make accessible.

I'm gonna have to disagree, I live in East Tennessee and Dolly Parton opening Dollywood right outside Great Smoky Mountain National Park created a booming tourism economy here when we used to be one of the poorest places of the country. And now Big Moonshine, who got big on a lot of those tourism dollars in the past decade or so, is turning around and dumping money into revitalizing lots of East TN cities that used to be total dumps (who knew Johnson City could be so cute?!), as well as pouring tons of money into boosting Knoxville's already strong arts and crafts scene. Tourism has absolutely been East Tennessee's salvation. All you gotta do to see that is cross the border into eastern Kentucky, left behind and still one of the poorest parts of this country.

Sure, tourism ruins a lot of shit, but tourist dollars have improved the quality of life for millions and millions of people all over the world.

Sure, some of the money from tourism helps local economies, if there are already local economies that can provide, e.g. food and hotels and such. But in Third World countries, which wasn't clear from my OP, tourism has annihilated people's way of life and thrown millions of people off their native lands--in particular in island countries where beachfront property brings in tons of rich westerners who end up creating an over-economy where the vast majority of money stays in an upper class. Sure, there are middle-class jobs then available, like cleaning toilets and stocking hotel rooms. But fisherman, mom-and-pop shops, farmers, all of them, kicked out and their lands taken over because it is just too damn profitable to turn into resorts and such. Sad.

Enterprise or not, people like novelties, want to experience other places, wonders of the world, etc.

And of course since we specialize, it's not surprising that this too became something that produces a surplus.

It's up to society and culture as a whole to protect and preserve said wonders. (From park rangers to laws and entrance limits and lotteries.)

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