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The pay in tourism is terrible, usually minimum wage, except for the owners of capital, who gain enormous returns on investing in hotels / airbnbs / tourist aimed businesses. That means it has an awful return for the ones most in need which are the poor. It’s not a distributive industry. On top of that, it can cause a “resource curse” type phenomenon where great beaches or some other attraction causes enormous amounts of investment in tourist infrastructure leading to a lack of opportunity for other businesses which could thrive with investment. Tourist gives you such great returns on investment it doesn’t make sense to do anything else if you have capital





Tourist gives you such great returns on investment it doesn’t make sense to do anything else if you have capital

Yep, I'm considering buying a vacation home to Airbnb for this reason. I have mixed feelings about it though, because I don't want to be part of the problem. But I live in NYC and I can't move (shared custody), nor can I buy a suitable home in the city, meanwhile the national housing market is exploding. I need some way to hedge for real estate inflation, and vacation rentals have better ROI.


I can’t blame you. Sometimes we know our individual choice is suboptimal but the system in place gives us no option.

I would keep looking. If you feel like it’s an ethically compromised decision, perhaps you’ll have a hard time to live with it in the end.


There should be easier ways to hedge real estate inflation than owning an airbnb.

Wouldnt a residential reit work for that? Bonus points for your risk being spread out over multiple properties.

I'm all ears.



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