Tourists Go Home! Fed Up With Over-tourism, European Hotspots Impose Bans, Fines, Taxes And Traps
In Nice, on the French Riviera, with the deep blue waters of the Cote d’Azur at its feet, unusual pieces of street art were recently installed at places highly frequented by tourists: giant rat traps “to eradicate and eliminate the tourist pest” with a giant ice cream as bait. “To curb mass tourism, street artist ‘TooLate’ offers a radical solution” writes FranceInfo.
The giant traps are a humorous approach but also a clear display of the city’s feelings toward excessive tourism.
Sorry, lost some context as I couldn’t include the video (too big), and it’s an Instagram story so will disappear tomorrow. The video showed that Arisa was taking the photo from the other side of the street (the ‘back’), as were most people who respect the space of the Geiko and Maiko. The tourons in question were crowding the entrance to get closeups of them going into the restaurant to perform - an absolute no-no and extremely disrespectful.
ETA: I guess ‘further back’ would have been a better description…
Can confirm. You’re almost never out of earshot of a church in where they chime the hour and the quarter hours. When I woke up in the night there I always knew what time it was…
That’s the classic move up in the wilder parts of Ontario . Someone brings their city dog camping and it tries to chase a bear, then runs back to camp after the bear turns, bringing its new friend with it.
Again reporting from local news in Barcelona (cannot put link this time, as I got it on paper). A “neighbours union” in El Carmelo (a traditionally lower working class neighborhood in my city) has staged a protest because the town council wanted to transform an empty lot into a very much needed green space.
Reasons put forward is that making the neighbourhood nicer will attract tourists and spike up the price of rent, which already has due to the proximity of tourist spots like Güell Park or the bunkers.
We are so afraid of gentrification that we prefer to cripple our quality of life.
And in other news, speculators are hiking up so much the prices of the famous Mercat de la Boquería that some of the stores remain closed even after 10 years. The market, near the emblematic Rambles is a very popular tourist spot - that has caused some issues with the neighbours which used to depend on this market for groceries, as there is no space big enough for supermarkets - so rampant speculation ensued on the stalls that are not family owned - more than half of the stalls in the market are, I actually did some work for one of the stalls to make a webpage explaining the history of it - and that has caused the progressive replacement of basic stores into gourmet stores, and those into food stalls catering to the tourists. But even those have issues paying the high rent that some of the big owners demand, thus the actual situation.
That is all from way too hot Barcelona. Please enjoy your stay… responsibly!
Edit:
Found a photo of the protest. Signs say “El Carmel for the neighbours, not the tourists”; “No to the touristification”.
An American tourist filled up a fog machine with marijuana and blasted a street with smoke at a popular tourist destination in Thailand to promote his marijuana business back home, according to the Phuket Provincial Police.
where they chime the hour and the quarter hours. When I woke up in the night there I always knew what time it was… 
. Someone brings their city dog camping and it tries to chase a bear, then runs back to camp after the bear turns, bringing its new friend with it.
