- Joined
- Aug 19, 2022
I can't find it now of course, but I read a good article about this effect. It used to be that you only knew about actual tourist locations, from guides, word of mouth, or advertisements by the actual tourist sites or the government or whatever. But with the rise of social media, things like a mural on a certain wall or a certain photogenic tree go viral and people travel out to take their picture in that exact same location.
And because the tiny park with that photogenic tree isn't and was never designed for random foreign tourists, it gets trashed. The path leading up to it turns into mud, people litter everywhere, and it doesn't really inject money into the local economy like you'd think- because sometimes these photogenic spots aren't even in public parks or whatever- it's someone's private property. (Archive) (This is not the article I remember reading.)
And because the tiny park with that photogenic tree isn't and was never designed for random foreign tourists, it gets trashed. The path leading up to it turns into mud, people litter everywhere, and it doesn't really inject money into the local economy like you'd think- because sometimes these photogenic spots aren't even in public parks or whatever- it's someone's private property. (Archive) (This is not the article I remember reading.)