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Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Tourists slam world's most overcrowded city which is 'wall to wall people'
Phuket in Thailand has been named as the world's most overcrowded travel hotspot, with 118 tourists for every single local resident, and one traveller said you'd be faced with 'wall to wall people' Tourists are growing tired of a holiday hotspot that has become too popular for its own good. The issue of over-tourism has become a pressing concern in the travel industry, especially after the post- Covid resurgence led to an exceptionally bustling summer as holidaymakers, previously confined by lockdowns, finally embarked on their long-awaited journeys. Last year Venice launched a day-trip tourist tax aimed at reducing the influx of visitors to the City of Water. It's far from being the first popular destination to implement such a measure, with numerous other cities and countries already striving to curb tourist numbers. In the UK, Brighton is considering whether to introduce such a measure, in a bid to swell the council's coffers while controlling the impact of tourism. Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@ Thailand is one place that has recently introduced a similar levy, and for good reason. Phuket, an island in the country, has been deemed the world's most overcrowded destination. A study from found that that this Thai gem has a staggering 118 tourists for every local inhabitant. Phuket boasts some of the world's top coastal spots, including Kata and Karon. As Thailand's largest island, it offers around 90 miles of coastline. However, experiences on the island can vary greatly. Patong, one of Phuket's most renowned resorts, is famed for its vibrant nightlife, rows of beach deckchairs, and hordes of tourists. In contrast, the north and east sides of the island offer tranquil seaside spots and more authentic, affordable Thai cuisine. A disgruntled traveller took to Tripadvisor to share their disillusionment with Phuket, recounting their experiences from the 70s to a visit seven years ago. "I made my first trip to Phuket in the mid 70's and have returned many times since, the latest around seven years ago," they began. "Needless to say there have been huge changes over the years and I expected to see a lot more people there during our visit. However, nothing could have prepared me for the hordes of people crowding the island, the beaches and the day tours to outlying islands." They expressed dismay at the influx of new visitors: "A crush of new tourists are arriving and often on non-stop, wide bodied flights. This is on top of an already large number of tourists visiting from other countries and from within Thailand itself, and my perception is that the sheer number of bodies is overwhelming the place. Fortunately we had a nice resort away from the crowds so the visit was not a total loss. If you love wall to wall people, go to Phuket, but if not, I suggest you look for some less crowded places in the region." As Thailand grapples with a tumultuous travel industry that saw visitor numbers plummet from 40 million in 2019 to a mere 200,000 in 2020, only to surge dramatically as borders reopened, the country implemented a tourist tax in April last year. Now, all airfares into the country include an additional £6.60 charge. If you fancy experiencing Thailand when it's less crowded, it would be prudent to avoid the peak season between November and March. Although temperatures might be slightly cooler, they'll still hover around the 30C mark in many areas. "I just feel like everyone tries to do something different, but you always wind up doing the same damn thing," exclaims Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Danny Boyle's The Beach. His words are prophetic in both the film and real life. The success of the movie would sound a death knell for the pristine, idyllic beach that gives the flick its name. More and more people travelled to Maya Bay where it was shot, to bask in its impossibly blue waters and sunbathe on the golden sands. Get holiday recommendations straight to your WhatsApp! In need of a holiday? With the summer in full swing, the Mirror has launched its very own Travel WhatsApp community where you'll get all the latest holiday recommendations from our travel experts straight to your WhatsApp. We'll send you the latest breaking updates and exclusives all directly to your phone. Users must download or already have WhatsApp on their phones to join in. All you have to do to join is click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! We may also send you stories from other titles across the Reach group. We will also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose Exit group. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Today, the reality of the Thai destination could not be further from the slice of paradise at the heart of the film. Boats are banned from motoring into the bay as their presence was cluttering up the waters and chasing away the 40 blacktip reef sharks who usually cruise there out of the cyan shallows. Tourists must buy a 400baht (£8) ticket to step onto the beach, only to be shepherded out again after an hour. Swimming is banned to protect the fragile reef system there. Officials decided to shut the bay - on Phi Phi Leh island in the Andaman Sea - first for four months and then several years from 2018, it finally opening up again in 2022. One recent visitor to Maya Bay likened it to "Times Square in New York", such is the hustle, bustle and density of the crowds found there. If you're planning to visit Thailand, check out our guide on the quieter, less overcrowded beaches you can visit instead.
Scoop
5 days ago
- Business
- Scoop
Chainsaw Use By Woman Revs Right Up: More Women Making The Cut… With Caution
Press Release – STIHL Shop The countrys leading battery-powered chainsaw retailer STIHL NZ says it has especially noticed a major boost in female customers buying chainsaws – coinciding with the proliferation of light, manoeuvrable and much quieter battery chainsaws to market. Female customers buying chainsaws increase 30% Chainsaw-related ACC claims by females increase 26% Overall cost of ACC claims for chainsaw accidents up 75% A significant increase in Kiwi's buying chainsaws aligns strongly with the latest chainsaw-related ACC claims. The country's leading battery-powered chainsaw retailer STIHL NZ says it has especially noticed a major boost in female customers buying chainsaws – coinciding with the proliferation of light, manoeuvrable and much quieter battery chainsaws to market. STIHL NZ marketing manager, Stace Hall, says annual brand awareness surveys and data from their more than 100 retail stores shows the split of female/male customers for battery chainsaws has increased dramatically in the last four years from a 20:80 female/male chainsaw-buyer split to now being 50:50. 'The continuing trend from the post Covid period has seen more and more people spending greater amounts of time in their backyards or even relocating to much bigger ones from the suburban backyard to lifestyle blocks etc.' A corresponding increase in ACC chainsaw-related claims amongst women especially reflects the increased popularity and usage of chainsaws. 2020 – 2024: ACC chainsaw related claims by females increased 26% (243 claims to 306) Chainsaw related claims by males showed a small decrease during this same period (2431 to 2311) 2020 – 2024: Overall cost of ACC claims for chainsaw accidents increased 75% ($4.1m to $7.2m) Hall says although chainsaws are very safe when used correctly, STIHL constantly reminds its new cohort of battery chainsaw buyers that despite the machines being much lighter, quieter and easier to use, they are still very powerful and to therefore always use protective chaps, goggles, ear muffs and gloves.
Scoop
5 days ago
- Automotive
- Scoop
Chainsaw Use By Woman Revs Right Up: More Women Making The Cut... With Caution
Female customers buying chainsaws increase 30% Chainsaw-related ACC claims by females increase 26% Overall cost of ACC claims for chainsaw accidents up 75% A significant increase in Kiwi's buying chainsaws aligns strongly with the latest chainsaw-related ACC claims. The country's leading battery-powered chainsaw retailer STIHL NZ says it has especially noticed a major boost in female customers buying chainsaws - coinciding with the proliferation of light, manoeuvrable and much quieter battery chainsaws to market. STIHL NZ marketing manager, Stace Hall, says annual brand awareness surveys and data from their more than 100 retail stores shows the split of female/male customers for battery chainsaws has increased dramatically in the last four years from a 20:80 female/male chainsaw-buyer split to now being 50:50. 'The continuing trend from the post Covid period has seen more and more people spending greater amounts of time in their backyards or even relocating to much bigger ones from the suburban backyard to lifestyle blocks etc.' A corresponding increase in ACC chainsaw-related claims amongst women especially reflects the increased popularity and usage of chainsaws. 2020 – 2024: ACC chainsaw related claims by females increased 26% (243 claims to 306) Chainsaw related claims by males showed a small decrease during this same period (2431 to 2311) 2020 – 2024: Overall cost of ACC claims for chainsaw accidents increased 75% ($4.1m to $7.2m) Hall says although chainsaws are very safe when used correctly, STIHL constantly reminds its new cohort of battery chainsaw buyers that despite the machines being much lighter, quieter and easier to use, they are still very powerful and to therefore always use protective chaps, goggles, ear muffs and gloves.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Does Donald Trump Know He Has Lost His Trade War?
The U.S. has already lost Donald Trump's trade war. It's now up to the president to decide how disastrous that loss will be. The best-case scenario for the U.S. economy right now is the Trump administration fully backing down and acknowledging this loss, and quickly. Each day that passes locks in more economic damage. Like a recalcitrant general, Trump doesn't appear ready to surrender, saying Friday that he wants to reinstate the tariffs he put in place in early April and paused shortly thereafter. 'We have, at the same time, 150 countries that want to make a deal, but you're not able to see that many countries,' he said Friday in Abu Dhabi. 'So at a certain point, over the next two to three weeks, I think [Treasury Secretary] Scott [Bessent] and [Commerce Secretary] Howard [Lutnick] will be sending letters out, essentially telling people ― we'll be very fair ― but we'll be telling people what they'll be paying to do business in the United States.' That is an economically ominous statement. If Trump is buoyed by how the stock market has recovered from its Trump-tariff induced dive, he's ignoring the mounting tolls elsewhere. His trade war has already created something akin to the largest tax hike in post-war U.S. history, according to J.P. Morgan analysis. Even after the rollbacks and pauses, economists at the bank wrote in a briefing to clients that 'the trade war shock is still material... we now estimate an effective ex-ante tariff rate of 14.4%. This is akin to a $475bn tax hike on US households and businesses, worth 1.6% of GDP (still sitting close to the largest tax hike in the post WWII period).' Not only has a massive effective tax hike been put in place, but government spending is dropping, and the U.S. economy shrank 0.3% in the first quarter of the year. The tariffs against China caused a more than 60% decline in ocean container bookings from China to the U.S. Now that the U.S.'s punitive Chinese tariffs have been largely paused, there's such a rush to book space on American-bound ships from China that capacity will sell out, leading to a backlog, Flexport's chief executive Ryan Petersen said earlier this week. This kind of import-export whiplash, with weeks of incoming goods lost sitting on foreign docks, can destroy the ability of a business to plan and manage inventory, cause shortages, and lead to price increases. Indeed, Walmart said Thursday morning that tariff-induced price hikes will start hitting their stores in just a few weeks. As Paul Krugman, a Nobel-winning trade economist, pointed out Friday, the trade war never ended: 'Even after Trump's 'climbdown' we're still looking at a shock to the economy 7 or 8 times as big as Smoot-Hawley, the previous poster child for destructive tariff policy.' At its current 30% tariff rate, Krugman estimates that trade with China will drop by 65%. Trump is now saying he wants to take a policy and make it more economically destructive. The 'announce, cave, tough statement, re-announce' cycle has been a constant of this administration's trade policy. After Trump's initial announcement of massive tariffs on April 2, the Trump administration struggled to find a consistent message to explain the point of the crippling charges on trade with Europe, China and global industrial powerhouses like Madagascar. Was it a bold negotiating gambit that would force world leaders to the table to strike trade deals that were favorable to the United States? Or was this, in fact, the true, optimal trade policy that the president had been working diligently to craft, backing down from which would be a betrayal? 'I don't think there's any chance that President Trump's going to back off his tariffs,' Lutnick said the day after they were announced. 'The tariffs are coming,' he told CBS' 'Face the Nation'. 'He announced it and he wasn't kidding,' a senior administration official told Axios. 'No. No, no, no,' was Bessent's response when asked on 'Meet the Press' if the president was going to negotiate with countries to reduce tariffs. Then Trump posted that 'negotiations with other countries... will begin taking place immediately.' The same day, Trump's trade advisor, Peter Navarro, published an op-ed in the Financial Times, writing that 'this is not a negotiation. For the US, it is a national emergency triggered by trade deficits caused by a rigged system.' Bessent then told CNBC that the plan had been to wait for other countries to think the U.S. was serious in order to kickstart negotiations. Then, before any of those negotiations had actually been conducted, Trump got spooked to some extent by sliding stocks but particularly by cratering demand for U.S. government debt, and paused the tariffs he had imposed. The U.S. and the United Kingdom proceeded to announce a bilateral trade deal. The deal, however, wasn't a formal trade deal and didn't change much about the U.S.'s economic relationship with a relatively small trading partner. As the BBC put it, the informal agreement with America's eighth-largest trading partner 'did not appear to meaningfully alter the terms of trade between the countries, as they stood before the changes introduced by Trump this year.' Meanwhile, the U.S.'s third largest trading partner, China, effectively negotiated with the Trump administration by refusing to do anything and getting pretty much everything they wanted from the U.S. After the Trump administration ratcheted up to a 145% tariff on most Chinese imports, the U.S.-China deal pauses almost all of the recent, punitive tariffs the two countries placed on one another for 90 days. To get back to that status quo, Chinese negotiators only had to roll back the tariffs they had put in place in response to U.S. tariffs. 'It's clear that Trump wants to ease the tariffs, not increase them,' AGF Investments' Greg Valliere wrote of the deal. 'The Trump Administration has blinked, big time.' No wonder The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping feels vindicated and triumphant. Bloomberg summed up the outcome with the headline: 'Xi Defiance Pays Off As Trump Meets Most Chinese Trade Demands.' Not surprisingly, neither the European Union nor Japan is in a hurry to strike a deal with the U.S: Why do that when you can get a great deal by just waiting and letting the Trump administration negotiate with itself? Trump Says He Will Call Putin On Monday To Discuss The War In Ukraine Larry Summers Says 'It's Very Clear' Who Blinked On U.S.-China Trade War Trump Retreats On His Trade War's Chinese Front, Claims Big Victory
Daily Record
15-05-2025
- Daily Record
The Scottish new town that was called 'most miserable place to live'
One visitor stated that they "loathe the place". Scotland features countless towns and villages that are beloved by locals and tourists alike. Every place in the country has its fans. However, on the other hand, there are some settlements in Scotland have received less-than-stellar feedback from Scots. The Daily Record previously reported on one village near Glasgow that was described as the "worst village ever". Elsewhere, one Fife town has previously been described as Scotland's "most miserable" place. One visitor even said they "loathe the place". One Scot took to social media to ask other residents what they believed to be the most unhappy city, town, or village in the country. Posting on Reddit, they questioned: "What's the most miserable place in Scotland you've ever been to?" The top comment on the post stated that Glenrothes was the "most miserable" place in Scotland. The comment received 64 'upvotes'. Glenrothes is a post- World World Two new town located in the heart of Fife, around seven miles from the coast. Planned in the 1940s, it has a population of around 38,000. In response to the comment, one Reddit user replied: "Yass the town I grew up in. Defo a boring ****hole. "Although it does have some hidden posh areas. I didn't live in any of them mind." A second responded: "Yeah I ended up there for two nights because the missus had a skydive. Never ever again." Another echoed: "This is definitely it. Fucking loathe the place." Meanwhile, somebody else commented: "The most depressed I have ever felt in life was walking through Glenrothes bus station hungover. It was total opposite compared to the day after when I had a good cycle around Loch Leven in Kinross." Despite the negative reviews from some locals and visitors, Glenrothes has plenty to offer. In particular, the town is renowned for its recreational facilities and green spaces. The town's largest park is Riverside Park, which straddles the River Leven. It features plenty of peaceful woodland and riverside walks, with views out to the Lomond Hills. Riverside Park also offers a number of playgrounds, a skate park, and a pond. There are even floral gardens, an arboretum, and an orchard for nature lovers. Another popular park in the area is Balbirnie Park, which lies to the north of Glenrothes. It is comprised of 416 acres of scenic woodland, and is also home to a renowned rhododendron collection. Glenrothes is also a great destination for food lovers. There are plenty of popular restaurants to choose from, as well as cafés and pubs. One of the top eateries in the town is Handi Restaurant. The Indian restaurant offers regional Indian cuisine, including street food, vegetable specials, fragrant curries, and tandoor-grilled meats. Elsewhere, another popular venue in Glenrothes is The Fettykil Fob country pub. Featuring a stylish brick and tile interior, the pub serves up cask ales and a varied food menu that includes everything from lamb shank to katsu curry. More information about what you can get up to around Glenrothes can be found on VisitScotland.
