I want to visit Iceland some day and I’d rather pay their tax than pay to visit a tourist clogged Venice. So I’m not put off. Unless it’s incredibly expensive.
Think this is more about taxing companies who have been having it good with the current tax system, the tourist that are planing to come will come.
Iceland is already a pretty expensive place to visit and it's honestly not that amazing (it's beautiful for sure, but it didn't stand out to me). Everywhere you go you have to pay to park and pay to camp. The food, drink, lodging, and transportation is super expensive already and a major part of their economy is built on tourist dollars. I'm curious to see how much the tax would be and how much of it goes to actually protecting their environment.
Everywhere you go you have to pay to park and pay to camp.
Whew, thanks for letting me know that.
Now I will never be going there with my own money.
Iceland is quite beautiful, I didn't camp but I recall the park areas being quite fierce about not venturing off of walking paths to protect sensitive things like moss that take forever to grow. That may be a reason why they don't allow dispersed camping. I'd say still go, it was beautiful in the winter and I didn't find it too crowded or unbearably cold.
I'd like to, but I'll just go somewhere else beautiful that doesn't try to gouge me at every turn.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In an interview with news agency Bloomberg last week, Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said that a tourism tax could help combat the impact visitors have on the country’s climate and environment.
Companies in country’s the tourism sector are also improving sustainability, for example by utilising the circular economy and using electric vehicles, Jakobsdóttir added.
Tourism tax can both help these places to cope with the burden of tourists and discourage visitors to limit crowding.
It can be used to fund public transport infrastructure, reverse damage done by crowds, and support sustainability initiatives.
Such schemes are already common across Europe with levies in place in major cities like Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Rome.
Venice in Italy has long teased a visitor fee and recently set a launch date of summer 2024.
The original article contains 355 words, the summary contains 131 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Good, tourism is way too cheap for the environmental impact, the less people travel the better for the environment.
That is somewhat true but what this also causes is that poorer people have a harder time travelling and visiting other countries while rich people are unnaffected
The common good and environment of a nation has priority over cheap tourism, so I don't necessarily see that as a problem. Especially when the number of annual tourists exceeds the population by a factor of five in the case of Iceland, I can understand why some residents would like to reduce it.
I’m not against reducing tourism. But it’s possible to do it in a way that is less elitist
Could you elaborate on the possible ways to do that?
I'm sure the entire government of Iceland, including any departments dedicated specifically to, and with decades of experience in tourism, could figure it out if they really wanted. But just charging a tax is easier, so here we are.
Considering the climate crisis we're facing I don't care, anything to reduce air travel. All countries should turn non-local private jets around too.
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/