@ Whathello I would guess not because then they would be......tourists

I don't think tourism per se is the issue here, but -again in Amsterdam's case- the impact of outfits like AirBnB, whose goal is "maximum liquidity of accommodation for tourists". That's not going to come from hotels, but from taking housing away from inhabitants. And that's what's happening in the centre of Amsterdam. That's only one aspect. Other aspects are that the centre of Amsterdam is now so geared towards tourists that it's becoming uninhabitable for regular Amsterdam inhabitants. This has partly been conscious strategy on the part of the Amsterdam city government who apparently didn't foresee that beyond a certain point such processes acquire a dynamic of their own. So desperate are they now to dilute the flow of tourists to other locations than Amsterdam that they've started marketing the Kaag lakes to the west as "Amsterdam Lakes", to the amusement of the entire country.

There is an infrastructure for tourist accommodations called "hotels". That puts a limit to the number of tourists than can visit a location. AirBnB and in Venice's case, cruise ships, remove that limit.

Tourist dollars have all sorts of consequences. They produce many low paying jobs but it is also good money because they do not use the schools and social services, for example and minimally use fire, sanitation, and police.

It is the transient crowd that is noisome. Many (NOT ALL) use a city, they way most people use a rental car.
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Twice in NY, I have gotten into the strangest arguments with tourists. Once at the coat check line at MoMA, the guy behind me poked me three times at which point I made a comment and he said something to the effect that he heard Ny'ers were rude and his was preemptive strike, even though we never said a word to each other before this.

Another time I was buying bread at Eataly and next to me was a woman and her husband. The woman asked for XYZ bread and I said that bread was terrific and she would enjoy it. The husband thought I was telling her I was next and started an argument.

I told both the same thing. They are guests in our City and act like humans. And take their stereotypes elsewhere.

<i> It is the transient crowd that is noisome. </i>

Don't they wash?

I don't think hotels are a real limit. How many people day tripped to Venice even before the cruise ships? How many people stay in less than ideal locations because they don't want to spend money at central hotels? We get tourists locally that stay at hotels way out because they don't consider the hotel prices reasonable during the summer. They're not hanging out by their hotel. They spend most of their time in the central tourist areas.

A lot of the people I've met who use airbnb now would have rented a house or apartment through an agency before airbnb because they want the kitchen or the "local" lifestyle. It's not like they look at hotel availability and then choose airbnb. It's usually the other way around. I'll agree that cruise ships mean a deluge of visitors on specific dates but again, you see the crowds in specific locations, and that's not a cruise ship problem- that's just a tourist issue.

It is the transient crowd that is noisome.

Don't they wash?
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a : offensive to the senses and especially to the sense of smell noisome garbage

b : highly obnoxious or objectionable noisome habits
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Sometimes the secondary definition is more fitting.

We are all tourists!

Anytime you're away from home you. are. a. tourist! Something some of us fail to understand. Sometimes we are overwhelmed, but that is life. Since I have been alive, the population of the USA is up by 250%, something no one thought about when I was younger. Now it doesn't matter as the world population is, what', nearing 7 billion? People, those with the ability, travel and become tourist. And next year there will be a few more.

A lot of the people I've met who use airbnb now would have rented a house or apartment through an agency before airbnb because they want the kitchen or the "local" lifestyle. It's not like they look at hotel availability and then choose airbnb. It's usually the other way around. I'll agree that cruise ships mean a deluge of visitors on specific dates but again, you see the crowds in specific locations, and that's not a cruise ship problem- that's just a tourist issue.

But already that is a notion that's "sold" by AirBnB, but it isn't true: you'll never live the "local" lifestyle as a tourist. Never ever. There was a time that people accepted that. But now people feel this need to self-actualize through "travel", but it's a marketing lie.

I do see that as a fairly recent development.

There is a great deal of support in Italy for vacation rentals in lieu of hotels. First of all, traveling Italians themselves often prefer them, since they don't particularly like the cost or fuss (and disappointment) of eating in restaurants twice a day. Also, Italians often have multiple properties, some empty most of the time, and if they cannot make money off them then they don't maintain them, which is not a great thing for anybody. It is also a way for young people to have income & maintain a large inherited property, keeping property in Italian hands. For many young families, living in an antique centro storico or village dwelling is totally impractical for modern life -- but that is precisely where tourists want to stay for a vacation, so it is really a happy solution. Italians maintain control of their family home, and stay deeply tied to the local community (as opposed to "investors" coming in to scarf up property to create b&bs, etc). So not all vacation rental situations are at odds with community values.

I want to push back against this idea that "everybody is tourist" and that it is all laughable delusion to think one is "living like a local" if one takes an apartment rather than a hotel. First of all, the preference for a rental very often has to do with cost + dietary needs that make eating in restaurants all the day a nuisance or worse. So people gravitate to apartment living while traveling for all kinds of individual reasons. Secondly, life in a hotel really is a bubble, and often precludes any other type of experience other than feeling like a stranger while traveling.

Frequently when I have rented apartments in residential neighbourhoods, even in cities as large as Paris or Palermo, when I frequent the same cafe every morning, or buy from the same shop, locals come to recognise me and treat me accordingly. But more importantly, I get to observe a lot more details about social interactions in that city, I see the inside of a home (the one I am renting) and how it functions, take the bus, overhear some arguments, eat at the cheap local place rather than the "safe" guidebook recommended place, and also have a place to "escape" the commercialised side of tourism. If I want to sit and rest and drink coffee & eat cake, I don't have to sit in a public space and pay for it if I can go back to the rental and make it for myself.

You can say "but you are still a tourist doing all that!" but that seems to take what it means to be a tourist out of its normal context and to belittle a valuable aspect of traveling for no good reason (other than to be dogmatic and difficult).

I have to say that I spent most of my adult life in New York & San Francisco and never felt "at home" in either place. I always felt I was only there temporarily until something better turned up. (Despite being born in NYC!) Where one feels "at home" is more than just one's long time address. I've actually felt more "at home" in European mountains, or on the Isle of Skye, or dining outdoors in Italy than a lot of places I lived for years.

First of all, the preference for a rental very often has to do with cost + dietary needs that make eating in restaurants all the day a nuisance or worse. So people gravitate to apartment living while traveling for all kinds of individual reasons. Secondly, life in a hotel really is a bubble, and often precludes any other type of experience other than feeling like a stranger while traveling.

«Frequently when I have rented apartments in residential neighbourhoods, even in cities as large as Paris or Palermo, when I frequent the same cafe every morning, or buy from the same shop, locals come to recognise me and treat me accordingly. But more importantly, I get to observe a lot more details about social interactions in that city, I see the inside of a home (the one I am renting) and how it functions, take the bus, overhear some arguments, eat at the cheap local place rather than the "safe" guidebook recommended place, and also have a place to "escape" the commercialised side of tourism. If I want to sit and rest and drink coffee & eat cake, I don't have to sit in a public space and pay for it if I can go back to the rental and make it for myself.»
Here, here, massimop. My reasons for renting an apartment also. I have fond memories of apartment experiences that I would never have had from hotel living.

What is good for dying Italian villages, and what is good for cities like Paris are two very different things.

A family renting out one house part time and an entrepreneur turning multiple units into short term rentals are also two very different things.

The apartment rental situation ten years ago, when it was a niche market, and today's AirBnB situation are also very different. The practice did not scale well.

I completely agree with massimop and quiltingmama, this reflects my experience renting apartments on vacation.

The "live like a local" motto has gotten a bad rap because of airbnb. It has become a corporate slogan, and some people on this message board and elsewhere try to persuade us that living like a local would mean getting a job, going to the doctor, shopping for necessities, doing all the boring things that people everywhere do.

But I don't understand the concept with that degree of literalism. Having experienced vacation rentals in the US and abroad for over thirty years, I see a huge difference in experience between staying in a hotel and staying in a house or apartment where I participate in some of those aspects of local life that are unique to that area or at least different than they are where I live.

This does not address the question of whether the vacation rental market is damaging to the local environment, just the experience for the vacationer. Although it is interesting to read massimop's description of the Italians' use of vacation rentals to keep their own properties viable. This is representative of the motives of owners of apartments I have rented in Paris and elsewhere.

I was typing while thursdaysd was posting. I agree that the vacation rental practice didn't scale well. Perhaps a solution is to limit it to owners of single properties rather than allowing corporate investors to buy up large numbers of apartments for short term rentals.

Flanner....
I wanted to post exactly the same and managed to refrain.

“Luminous beings are we…not this crude matter.” The Empire Strikes Back - Yoda.

So, was there a post made between Nikki and Flanner that is now removed? I can't see the original post that was quoted.

If you want to live like a local, go and buy some toilet paper, make a doctor's appointment, and get into a fight with your boss.

Certainly not Nikki.
But yes I had seen the post and it has gone.

Quiltingmamma, Flanner was quoting from the third paragraph of pgriffin's original post.

I've bought toilet paper in short-term apartment rentals, gone to the doctor in quite a few foreign countries & and likewise kept in touch with my boss quite a bit (can't remember if we argued). So living like a local isn't the exotic aspiration some here want to make it out to be -- for reasons that are bewildering. What is this resentment? It is a perfectly valid travel aspiration to try to live more like a resident than a tourist when visiting a foreign culture. Certainly as valid as gawking at locals, taking snaps all day, going on pilgrimage walks, or religous services or military parades, etc etc.

There are a zillion motives for traveling. I get it that some people have given up on the idea that it broadens the mind and prefer to be irredeemably narrow-minded: "I'm a tourist, I'm a tourist, I'm a tourist, that's my attitude and if you have a different approach, you're a liar!" Wow. Amazing how some people can cross an ocean & visit places where a completely different culture exiss & still never learn travelers are delightfully different in fashioning schemes to make themselves happy, and that what's delusional is this "I'm better than you -- superior, I say!" that some people cling to.