This is a dramatic generalisation.

There are plenty of tourist destinations that people love because they are over-run with tourists - the very antithesis of your comment.

I’m not really sure how tourists are ruining the housing market on mount everest. As an aside, I suspect the locals are generally pretty happy with the tourism industry on and around mount everest.

Of course there are examples of tourism disaffecting locals, but these cases are really limited. In general, tourism is a great industry for regional centres.

I’m hard pressed to think of a place which has had it’s character extracted.

Sure, tourism can change places, excessive tourism can harm the culture of a place, but in all but extreme cases I think that’s a pretty hollow argument - culture is always transient. Conservatives always argue against change and external influences.

Whataboutism is to suggest that thing A isn’t really a problem because thing B has other similar characteristics. However, an assertion that A through Z all share the same characteristics is to suggest that an argument against the existence of thing A on those grounds is absurd.

This comment was written by someone who doesn’t like the vibe but doesn’t have a rebuttal.

Weird take.

How is tourism extractive like mining? What is extracted?

You could make the same complaints of any primary industry.

If you think of inflows and outflows to and from a small local economy, in an era where almost every purchase is an outflow to Amazon et al, tourism is an important inflow. Locals cant just keep passing the same $1 around until someone spends it online, you need money coming in.

You can call it “trickle down” economics if you like, but i dont think thats a fair summation. In a small coffee shop, there’s no fat cat corporate owner, but a half dozen people with jobs.

Its absolutely true that in some places airbnb has reduced the number of homes available to locals, but thats not generally true of all tourist destinations. Most jurisdictions where this is / was a significant problem have enacted appropriate laws to mitigate it.

Its not about crooked politicians and their rich friends. A reasonable level of tourism is good for everyone, but too much can obviously cause problems.

You buy your watery chicken by weight.