That is, according to morons in legacy media, the tourism cartel, and local gov'ts who seek to grow int'l mass tourism while regimenting it to a degree un-imaginable by historical standards
Tourism to an area or nation moves in cycles: fads, really. Right now, it's Northern Europe. If it lasts, we're looking at 3-5 years of increased tourism (not counting Nordics going to neighbouring nations) from Southern and Eastern climes.
(The war with Russia going from proxy to official would change that of course; I mention it because Russia is currently performing obvious preparations for attacks on Finland and the Baltic state. Not defense prep, but the ones you do before an assault.)
Typically, after the initial year of a fad private interests start clamouring for state subsidies/investments in tourism-critical infrastructure (since capitalists never wants to pay for the requisites for their ability to do business themselves). After another year, the politicians get wise to this and start preparing projects and earmarking resources. Another and the projects starts...
...and then the fad ends, leaving lots of towns and counties in debt for having taken out loans towards foture profits to be able to quickly invest.
That should be a real concern for Norway, since Sweden is now debating charging a hefty fee for all the heavy traffic using our toll-free road system to evade the Norwegian tolls. The trucks roll ashore in Gothenburg, then drive to the closest border crossing to their target, unload and re-load and drive back to Gothenburg via Sweden. Causing heavy wear and tear on roads not made for heavy traffic, and other related problems. Imagine a 30% increase of 30-meter length trucks on the roads.
I think India is being targeted especially this time; they do have multi-millionaires in the tens of millions if not more. And for a nation that was (and in large parts still is) decidedly a third world literal shithole, it must feel great to come West and lavish money onto the fawning former colonist occupiers (because to them we're all "English"; meaning Whites) - it's a large-scale version of the Norwegian "oil-sheik" coming to Sweden to put one over ole' Big Brother. As the brother of a friend who owns a border-shop (he was one of the first to realise the potential over 20 years ago, to sell cheap consumer goods to Norwegians, and is a self-made multi-millionaire thanks to it) says:
"Let them! As long as they are willing to pay!"
Anyway, expect headlines about the need to invest in infrastructure crucial to tourism any week now.
PS: Did you see the headline in Berlingske Tidender (DK) the other day? It stated flat out that "foreigners out!" must become a total political policy in Denmark as soon as possible (they mean draksins, everyone understands that). As it is the leading daily, the one all movers and shakers reads and cares about, it's a real tell-tale sign of the tide maybe turning.
Exactly, although not all such municipal infrastructure spending is useless: in my neck of the woods, the municipaluty built a public toilet next to a popular sight, if only because masses of tourists defecated all over farmers' fields and meadows...
Hahaha, that's true - I was thinking on a slightly larger scale:
In Sälen, there's a push for re-building and improving what's left of the railroad and to connect it to the airport and the Norwegian rail system.
It would in fact benefit the entire region, on both sides of the border (I think Trysil is the largest and closest community on the Norwegian side), and there's a military-strategic aspect to it too, and it would lead to a push on the Swedish side for re-establishing the local railroad-net which would remove a lot of logging trucks (64tons on wheels doing 90kmh), but:
The ones pushing for it is Skistar, the multi-billion resort company, who argues "the state" ought to pick up the bill and hire local contractors. Said bill being well over ten billion Crowns.
On the other hand, Stockholm city has spent ten years and several billions on /not/ creating a functioning app for the school system of the entire Greater Stockholm region...
I understood your point, though, and the insane amount of spending on infrastructure projects--it's irrelevant if we're talking sewers, (light) rail expansion, or other things (e.g., subsidised housing): literally everything is oversized given future demographics; all of this is financed with long-term bonds, hence there's a huge question mark hanging over virtually all infrastructure projects to be paid 30 years hence.
As to the Nordic peculiarities, well, if you think Skistar is a Swedish thing, well, we've got plenty of that kind of nonsense in Norway, too. Plus the 'digital solutions' of school districts and governments in Norway are legion: we're talking data breaches, privacy concerns, and troubles deriving from, say, kindergarten/primary school apps that don't keep up with divorce rates.
Fun fact on this app nonsense: for each message sent via the app ('Visma', in case you're asking), I always receive two emails: one informing me that the content is 'sensitive' and hence 'protected' by the EU GDPR, which 'invites' me to log in. The other email is a text-only version of all the content of the app-based, 'sensitive' and 'protected' message.
Tourism to an area or nation moves in cycles: fads, really. Right now, it's Northern Europe. If it lasts, we're looking at 3-5 years of increased tourism (not counting Nordics going to neighbouring nations) from Southern and Eastern climes.
(The war with Russia going from proxy to official would change that of course; I mention it because Russia is currently performing obvious preparations for attacks on Finland and the Baltic state. Not defense prep, but the ones you do before an assault.)
Typically, after the initial year of a fad private interests start clamouring for state subsidies/investments in tourism-critical infrastructure (since capitalists never wants to pay for the requisites for their ability to do business themselves). After another year, the politicians get wise to this and start preparing projects and earmarking resources. Another and the projects starts...
...and then the fad ends, leaving lots of towns and counties in debt for having taken out loans towards foture profits to be able to quickly invest.
That should be a real concern for Norway, since Sweden is now debating charging a hefty fee for all the heavy traffic using our toll-free road system to evade the Norwegian tolls. The trucks roll ashore in Gothenburg, then drive to the closest border crossing to their target, unload and re-load and drive back to Gothenburg via Sweden. Causing heavy wear and tear on roads not made for heavy traffic, and other related problems. Imagine a 30% increase of 30-meter length trucks on the roads.
I think India is being targeted especially this time; they do have multi-millionaires in the tens of millions if not more. And for a nation that was (and in large parts still is) decidedly a third world literal shithole, it must feel great to come West and lavish money onto the fawning former colonist occupiers (because to them we're all "English"; meaning Whites) - it's a large-scale version of the Norwegian "oil-sheik" coming to Sweden to put one over ole' Big Brother. As the brother of a friend who owns a border-shop (he was one of the first to realise the potential over 20 years ago, to sell cheap consumer goods to Norwegians, and is a self-made multi-millionaire thanks to it) says:
"Let them! As long as they are willing to pay!"
Anyway, expect headlines about the need to invest in infrastructure crucial to tourism any week now.
PS: Did you see the headline in Berlingske Tidender (DK) the other day? It stated flat out that "foreigners out!" must become a total political policy in Denmark as soon as possible (they mean draksins, everyone understands that). As it is the leading daily, the one all movers and shakers reads and cares about, it's a real tell-tale sign of the tide maybe turning.
Exactly, although not all such municipal infrastructure spending is useless: in my neck of the woods, the municipaluty built a public toilet next to a popular sight, if only because masses of tourists defecated all over farmers' fields and meadows...
Hahaha, that's true - I was thinking on a slightly larger scale:
In Sälen, there's a push for re-building and improving what's left of the railroad and to connect it to the airport and the Norwegian rail system.
It would in fact benefit the entire region, on both sides of the border (I think Trysil is the largest and closest community on the Norwegian side), and there's a military-strategic aspect to it too, and it would lead to a push on the Swedish side for re-establishing the local railroad-net which would remove a lot of logging trucks (64tons on wheels doing 90kmh), but:
The ones pushing for it is Skistar, the multi-billion resort company, who argues "the state" ought to pick up the bill and hire local contractors. Said bill being well over ten billion Crowns.
On the other hand, Stockholm city has spent ten years and several billions on /not/ creating a functioning app for the school system of the entire Greater Stockholm region...
I understood your point, though, and the insane amount of spending on infrastructure projects--it's irrelevant if we're talking sewers, (light) rail expansion, or other things (e.g., subsidised housing): literally everything is oversized given future demographics; all of this is financed with long-term bonds, hence there's a huge question mark hanging over virtually all infrastructure projects to be paid 30 years hence.
As to the Nordic peculiarities, well, if you think Skistar is a Swedish thing, well, we've got plenty of that kind of nonsense in Norway, too. Plus the 'digital solutions' of school districts and governments in Norway are legion: we're talking data breaches, privacy concerns, and troubles deriving from, say, kindergarten/primary school apps that don't keep up with divorce rates.
Fun fact on this app nonsense: for each message sent via the app ('Visma', in case you're asking), I always receive two emails: one informing me that the content is 'sensitive' and hence 'protected' by the EU GDPR, which 'invites' me to log in. The other email is a text-only version of all the content of the app-based, 'sensitive' and 'protected' message.