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What destinations are experiencing "undertourism"? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/19371857

I'm curious to learn about places around the globe that have a significant amount of underutilized tourism infrastructure. In many cases, I suspect that governments are propping up unsustainable tourism operators or investing in tourism with a "build it and they will come" mentality.

Here are a few examples that I'm aware of:

Qatar - The country has an oversupply of hotels relative to the number of visitors, and its tourism economy heavily relies on layover tours due to the strength of Qatar Airways' network.

Saudi Arabia - In an effort to diversify its economy away from oil, the country is pushing a massive tourism development agenda, despite having many factors that make it less appealing to visitors. Religious tourism seems to be a primary focus.

North Korea - For obvious reasons... For example, only a few floors of the Ryugyong Hotel are ever occupied.

Northern Japan (Aomori, Akita, Sendai) - These places are heavily fueled by domestic tourism, and are basically deserted for half of the year (despite attractions and so on still functioning).

To clarify, I'm not looking for hidden gems or places that are simply underrated travel destinations. Instead, I'm interested in learning about locations where there is a clear mismatch between the available tourism infrastructure and the actual number of visitors.

I want to find places where I might end up being the only visitor to a museum or one of few tourists on an airport bus. The fact that these museums and airport limo buses even exist is where the question stems from.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago

While this is no longer current information, I feel inspired to share about the situation in Aruba during the pandemic.

My wife and I visited and we heard a sobering story from a bus driver of how desperate the situation became due to lack of tourism. The economy is very dependent on visitors, and he spoke of suicides, out of despair of course when people feel they have no options.

You may find that many small islands are tourism hopefuls though not well known as travel destinations. When the economy is already very small, even a little investment in tourism could be disproportionate. As a tiny example, try Malapascua in the Philippines. It is so very small and access is challenging due to strong currents. I know it well because I’m a direct descendent of the natives who lived on this microscopic island.