This almost reads like a parody - could it be that the author really doesn't get it?
I visited this weekend / and we wanted to bike through some of the islands to the mainland of Finland. The only problem? Their anti-growth state of mind which makes it hard for tourism to shine. / I can understand wanting to keep housing prices low but if demand is great, just build more like they do everywhere that is popular? / What I cannot understand is a fee to simply pass through. It is just super anti-growth. / We will not exactly recommend people going there because it's kind of boring for a tourist.
That's the whole point. They don't want tourists, and they don't want tourism based growth, or any other kind of growth for that matter, any more than a person would want an actual growth on their body!
Maybe but I do think it makes the life there more miserable for both inhabitants and those visiting.
I have lived on Gotland as mentioned in the article and it is similar in many ways but life on Gotland is way more interesting due to the tourism. You still have the calm life of the country side except that during the summer there is a little more people there.
Those people enhance the lives on Gotland because it makes life on Gotland possible for many instead for only a few. Personally I think the anti-tourism mindset is stupid and that is what I was trying to convey in the text. Of course you can think differently but that still doesn't invalidate my points.
>life on Gotland is way more interesting due to the tourism
Perhaps those people don't want "a little more people there", and think their life is enough interesting as it is?
>Personally I think the anti-tourism mindset is stupid and that is what I was trying to convey in the text.
Try living in some places burnened by tourism and see how bad it gets. And consider how Gotland might be in a trajectory to get in that list, as welcoming tourists can easily cascade to further tourism and changing the local economy, and then it's a race to the bottom.
There are tourists there. Waiting some tourists doesn't have to mean wanting any and all.
On the island where I was born (not Åland), they recently placed some large boulders to block access to a beach where penny-pinchers liked to park their camper vans for free. Good riddance.
I visited this weekend / and we wanted to bike through some of the islands to the mainland of Finland. The only problem? Their anti-growth state of mind which makes it hard for tourism to shine. / I can understand wanting to keep housing prices low but if demand is great, just build more like they do everywhere that is popular? / What I cannot understand is a fee to simply pass through. It is just super anti-growth. / We will not exactly recommend people going there because it's kind of boring for a tourist.
That's the whole point. They don't want tourists, and they don't want tourism based growth, or any other kind of growth for that matter, any more than a person would want an actual growth on their body!