Tourist-bashing turns ugly in Berlin

[Deleted]

www.cnbc.com/id/49063805

BERLIN (Reuters) - Tourism to Berlin is booming as never before and filling the debt-ridden city's coffers with much-needed cash, but not all Berliners are cheering the influx of visitors.

Some blame the tourists, especially the young 20-something "Easyjet set" who ride the budget airline to party through the night in the uber-cool, hedonistic German capital, for a host of ills from rising rents to noise pollution.

"Noisy tourists go home!" reads one hostile sign in the eastern district of Friedrichshain. "Berlin doesn't love you," say stickers plastering traffic lights in nearby Kreuzberg.

A gallery in an area known for its trendy bars featured for months a scrawled sign in the window: "Sorry, no entry for hipsters from the U.S."

"We've seen people insulted for looking like tourists or get disparaging looks," said David Schuster, an activist for a local leftist group that has launched a tourist-friendly awareness drive.

"There's some resentment that tourists party loudly or throw up on the streets," Schuster said. "I think many Berliners do too, but they feel entitled to act that way."

Berlin, now Europe's third most visited city after the more established magnets London and Paris, can ill afford to scare away the tourists.

Tourism generated gross revenues of 10.3 billion euros last year, equal to nearly 10 percent of the city budget, a recent study by the Berlin government said. That is more than either real estate or consumer goods production, two other expanding branches of Berlin's otherwise plodding economy, it showed.

Nine new hotels are set to open by 2013.

Yet this summer, visiting investors at a business convention were attacked by some hundred demonstrators and a newly opened "organic hotel" was vandalized by anti-gentrification activists.

These protests represent those of a small minority, said Burkhardt Kieker, director of VisitBerlin, the city's main tourist service agency.

"Berlin is regaining the status of a world city. We are becoming a mass tour destination. The average Berliner is honored by the tourists," he said.

"Paris and London have had hundreds of years to get used to their many visitors. We've only had 20 so far," he said, referring to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The fall led to the reunification of Germany, the reinstatement of Berlin as the German capital and some glittering restorations, which have made the city an attractive destination for tourists.

[meshaliuknits]

Further proof that no one likes hipsters.

[Deleted]

I didn't realize that Berlin was the 3rd most visited European city! I totally would have expected it to be Rome, Athens, maybe even Prague.

Now i want to go! I totally don't look like a hipster so hopefully I wont get denied entrance anywhere

[msmerymac]

Sept 17, 2012 18:21:58 GMT -5 @lauriergirl28 said:

I didn't realize that Berlin was the 3rd most visited European city! I totally would have expected it to be Rome, Athens, maybe even Prague.

Now i want to go! I totally don't look like a hipster so hopefully I wont get denied entrance anywhere

I was there 4 years ago and really love it.

[cattledogkisses]

As someone who also lives in a major tourist area I sympathize, but I also recognize that tourists bring a lot of revenue with them, so I grudgingly accept them.

[basilosaurus]

Sept 17, 2012 18:52:28 GMT -5 cattledogkisses said:

As someone who also lives in a major tourist area I sympathize, but I also recognize that tourists bring a lot of revenue with them, so I grudgingly accept them.

Yeah, this is how I (usually) feel.

At least the majority of my tourists are Japanese, so they're quiet, and their fashion makes me giggle. Plus I have tons of ramen shops nearby.

I'm not as kindly disposed to the slow American tourists. Sidewalks are for walking. Not for standing 4 abreast, meandering. Move!

[aMrsin09]

I've lived all of my adult life in major tourist cities.
I find the tourists to be OK, but the buses that bring them, omg those effing buses ...
And the end of year 6th grade class trips. 80 12 year olds in neon shirts with 6 parents. ::shudder::

Where I am now we have no children just Japanese and Chinese tourists. I must be in 100s of family vacation photos because they take pictures of themselves paying me for the coffee!

[basilosaurus]

I love the pictures! I really wanted to start a blog on Japanese fashion on vacation. They would pose I'm sure.

I'm not in as many photos as my dog. I had literally about 20 people ask to take a picture of my dog while she was outside of her crate outside the Tokyo airport. No picture of me with the dog, they wanted to pose with her. It was kind of hilarious.

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2012 18:52:28 GMT -5 cattledogkisses said:

As someone who also lives in a major tourist area I sympathize, but I also recognize that tourists bring a lot of revenue with them, so I grudgingly accept them.

I grew up in a major tourist town (well, major for Ontario) and it was so annoying to drive in the summer because we had some weird streets, then put foreigners on them and was just a disaster.

Although I worked in the restaurant industry, which was amazing since I wouldn't have had those jobs without the tourists.

[aMrsin09]

Sept 17, 2012 19:46:54 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

I'm not in as many photos as my dog. I had literally about 20 people ask to take a picture of my dog while she was outside of her crate outside the Tokyo airport. No picture of me with the dog, they wanted to pose with her. It was kind of hilarious.

Oh yes. Our dog is 52 kg. She is bigger than may of the tourists themselves. We always joke that I'm going to sit there with a hat and a sign - "$5.00 for picture with BIG dog".

[runforrest]

Sept 17, 2012 18:06:58 GMT -5 @mx said:

Ha. As someone living in a heavily touristed place, I have sympathy. Tourists are great for the economy, but it doesn't mean they aren't ever annoying!

We definitely have a vomiting in the street problem, but I blame it on college students and suburbanites

Hahaha! So true. I avoid Michigan Ave. at all costs on the weekends because tourists will just stop in the middle of the damn sidewalk to take a picture of something completely random like "oooh, look! A large Crate and Barrel!" Gah.

[marie427]

I don't mind all the NYC tourists even though they walk painfully slow and have no clue how to use revolving doors. They spends lots of money here and that's a good thing. Berliners have the right to be annoyed but this is extreme.

However, the tourists who overrun my workplace and have no respect for its purpose can go eff themselves. People use this place for peace and quiet, not to hear noisy adults, screaming kids, and not to get distracted by flash photography (which is strictly prohibited and there are signs indicated that, but they don't pay attention).

[Norticprincess]

Sept 17, 2012 20:04:33 GMT -5 aMrsin09 said:

Sept 17, 2012 19:46:54 GMT -5 basilosaurus said:

I'm not in as many photos as my dog. I had literally about 20 people ask to take a picture of my dog while she was outside of her crate outside the Tokyo airport. No picture of me with the dog, they wanted to pose with her. It was kind of hilarious.

Oh yes. Our dog is 52 kg. She is bigger than may of the tourists themselves. We always joke that I'm going to sit there with a hat and a sign - "$5.00 for picture with BIG dog".

We took our mastiff out to walk around the Tidal Basin in DC one year during Cherry Blossoms - I should have charged.

My sister and her mastiff (even more so if she takes our parents' male is who is 250 lbs vs her 180lb puppy) get stopped all the time by the tourists in our home town when she gets him ice cream (Civil war land)

My siblings and I are in countless Japanese photos from the 80s in Hawaii - blonde children on beach would be the title of most of the photos.

I love Berlin. I didn't notice this much hate in 2007 the last time I was there, but I don't go out and get drunk. I was there for a conference.

The civil war tourists (tiny town, with 1- 3 million visitors a year depending on the source)- I avoid the main town near my parents' from May to Nov if possible or take the bypass instead of going through town if I need to cross town. Next year I'll just avoid it at all with it being the 150th anniversary. Working there sure paid off during HS/College breaks - the jobs wouldn't have been there without the tourists. The vast majority of them were great, it was just a few that really ruin the opinion on all of them. They locals would get upset about bike week - but they were the most polite out of all of the tourists (at least during the day) The college kids cause more problems day to day than the tourists.

[msmerymac]

Sept 17, 2012 19:41:19 GMT -5 aMrsin09 said:

I've lived all of my adult life in major tourist cities.
I find the tourists to be OK, but the buses that bring them, omg those effing buses ...
And the end of year 6th grade class trips. 80 12 year olds in neon shirts with 6 parents. ::shudder::

Where I am now we have no children just Japanese and Chinese tourists. I must be in 100s of family vacation photos because they take pictures of themselves paying me for the coffee!

My trainer runs a Saturday bootcamp outside a local work out gear store. We once had Japanese tourists who were walking through the area take pictures of us. It was sooo weird.

[Deleted]

this is exactly why berlin is so popular. it's playing hard to get.