anymore

can’t handle the tourists anymore

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A few years ago the inhabitants of Fujiyoshidaa city in the Yamanashi prefecture, in Japan, realized that they were missing out on a tourist treasure. The town is just a couple of hours by train from the capital and enjoys privileged views of one of the country’s great icons: Mount Fuji. With those wickers and taking advantage of their own landscapes, in 2016 Local authorities promoted a festival focused on the flowering of cherry trees. Now Fujiyoshida has a problem: his plan to attract visitors has worked surprisingly well. So much so that has decided to cancel it. What has happened? That at Fujiyoshida they have encountered a curious problem. In 2016, the authorities promoted an initiative to attract visitors from the rest of Japan and other countries. Now, ten years later, the plan is working so well that its proponents have backed down. In fact they have canceled it. The reason is simple: Fujiyoshida has become a very popular destination among foreign travelers, which in turn translates into the arrival of millions of yen. The problem is that its neighbors have concluded that even that flow of money does not compensate for the inconvenience of being invaded by hordes of tourists. But what about that… why? Basically because Fujiyoshida has ended up becoming a huge photocall outdoors. The city is very close to Fuji and also has large areas of cherry trees that become a real spectacle during the spring, during the flowering season. In 2016, those in charge decided to add both ingredients (the views of Fuji and the traditional Sakuracherry blossom) and promote a festival in Arakuyama Sengen Park. There, tourists will find cherry trees, a pagoda and, above all, impressive views of Fujiyoshida with Fuji in the background. everyone’s dream instagramer who wants to brag about their trip to Japan. What is the problem? That Fujiyoshida hit the nail on the head. Their festival was a success. Tremendous. According to precise According to the Kyodo News agency, during the cherry blossom season the city welcomes more than 10,000 visitors a day. Throughout the year the total count is around 200,000 tourists. Not bad for a population that in 2020 did not exceed 50,000 residents. The avalanche of tourists is so brutal that, despite its enormous economic impact, the city has decided to cancel the festival this year for the sake of something more important: preserving “the quiet life” of its residents, now “threatened”. Is it that serious? It seems so. At least if we pay attention to the local and international press. The BBC speaks from traffic jams, garbage problems and challenges directly related to bad visitor behavior. To be more precise, he cites cases in which tourists have sneaked into houses to use the bathrooms or even defecated in gardens. “We have an intense feeling of crisis,” confess the mayor of the city. From looking for a way to attract visitors, Fujiyoshida has become “overwhelmed” and saturated by an “excess of tourism” that “seriously impacts” the daily lives of its neighbors. And what is he going to do? The authorities have decided cancel the festival this year, although they are aware that after a decade of tradition it is likely that tourists will continue to arrive during the months of April and May to enjoy the views from Arakuyama Sengen Park. Hence they have decided to reinforce security and deploy extra measuressuch as installing portable toilets, strengthening security and establishing a system of temporary parking. Whatever it takes to control the congestion of tourists around the park and prevent the avalanche of visits from altering the lives of the neighbors. Is it a specific problem? No. And that is why the Fujiyoshida case is so interesting. The general recovery of international tourism after the pandemic, the yen weakness and above all the popularity it has gained on the networks has made Japan a coveted destination for tourists from half the planet. In 2025 the country will receive 42.7 million of foreign visitors, almost 16% more than in 2024 and well above the 31.9 million before the pandemic. This boom has not always been easy to digest in the busiest areas, such as in Kyoto, where there have been problems with tourists that harass the geishas. Probably the most popular case is Fujikawaguchiko’sa town that even installed a large screen that blocked the views of Mount Fuji. The objective was the same: to remove the attractiveness of a place that had become a hotbed of tourists. Beyond Japan, other countries such as Italy either even Spain They have moved to protect themselves from the avalanche of tourists and their impact. Images | Giuseppe Milo (Flickr) and Olivier Bruchez (Flickr) In Xataka | Japan has found the three most serious problems with the massive arrival of tourists. And none of it has to do with tourists.

“You can’t trust your eyes to know what’s real anymore.” Instagram CEO announces that the feed is dead

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That the Internet as we knew it no longer exists is not a surprise: it has been filled with search results generated by artificial intelligence and from ‘slop‘. The consequences are already visible: clicks have been reduced by halfwhich is catastrophic for the media. But not only the text is suffering from this barrage of AI that blurs everything: already We do not know how to distinguish if an image is real or notwe have gone from document our life on social networks to the era of influencer content favored by the algorithm to videos and images that are not real, but can pass as such. There are no longer four fingers that are worth it. Instagrammers, the feed is dead. And this is also going to take its toll on social networks. Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, closed 2025 with a publication in the form of a presentation of 20 images where he reflected in depth on what is coming: “the era of infinite synthetic content”, the antithesis of a more personal Instagram that has been dead for years. For Mosseri, AI has turned the carefully maintained grid with its algorithm into something of the past: “Unless you are under 25 years old and use Instagram, you probably think of the app as a feed of square photos. The aesthetics are careful: a lot of makeup, skin softening, high-contrast photography, beautiful landscapes,” Mosseri’s sentence falls like a stone on this millennial, who still uses Instagram as a kind of photo album. “That feed is dead. People largely stopped sharing personal moments on the feed years ago.” Tap to go to the post In search of something real. Mosseri explains that now its users keep their contacts up to date on their personal lives with “improvised photos of unflattering shoes and poses” shared via DM. And this also affects content creators: the omnipresence of images made by AI is going to bring a change: goodbye to those pro-looking photographs in favor of a more real and improvised aesthetic: “Flattering images are cheap to produce and boring to consume. People want content that feels real.” In fact, the CEO of Instagram points to manufacturers, applicable to cameras and mobile phones, who he says are making a mistake by democratizing the ability to “look like a professional photographer from 2015.” Because RAW images with defects are still a sign of reality until AI is able to copy them. But what is real? The time has come to unlearn to believe what our eyes see, something we have been doing all our lives. Javier Lacort explained that our entire epistemology (ranging from court testimony to photo albums) is based on the fact that seeing is a way of knowing. If you see a tiger, there is a tiger. If you see a photo of a tiger, someone has been close to one. This no longer applies: the era of uncover organized fake news has made way for anyone with Nano Banana Pro can get such an absurdly realistic image with a basic prompt in just a few seconds. Now creating a deepfake is trivial. Adam Mosseri think equal. “For most of my life I was able to safely assume that photographs or videos were largely faithful captures of moments that actually happened. That’s clearly no longer the case, and it’s going to take years to adjust. We’re going to go from defaulting to assuming that what we see is real to starting from skepticism. To paying attention to who’s sharing something and why. This will be uncomfortable: we’re genetically predisposed to believe our eyes.” If you can’t beat them… The paradigm shift has already occurred, so now Instagram and other platforms have to adapt to this new reality: “we have to build the best creative tools. Label AI-generated content and verify authentic content. Show credibility signals about who is posting. Continue to improve the ranking of originality.” It is the apocalypse of what is a photo that we have been predicting for years. Focusing on Instagram, Mosseri talks about how “we like to complain about ‘AI junk content,’ but there is a lot of amazing content created with AI.” He doesn’t give concrete examples or talk about Meta tools to make this possible, but Meta has already added AI tools on Instagram and Facebook. Without going any further, his AI Studio allows you to create personalized chatbots to deal with your followers. New times, new identification measures. It is increasingly difficult to identify content in AI, so it proposes fingerprints and cryptographic signatures in cameras to identify real content, forgetting about labels or watermarks. In any case, it advocates greater transparency about who publishes on the platform and improve creativity so that its human users can compete with content made in AI. In Xataka | The future of the Internet is to be flooded with AI. And there are those who have already seen a business niche: content made by humans In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were.

Prickly pears are at risk of becoming extinct because no one wants to be a prickly pear anymore. Castilla y León wants to remedy it

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His image is iconic, unmistakable. Capes, doublets, ribbons and patches, with guitars and bands in their hands and setting the rhythm around the campuses. The university prickly pears are part of the cultural heritage of Spain and as such the Junta de Castilla y León wants to protect them, which just declared tradition an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) of an intangible nature. The measure comes at a particularly delicate moment: with the prickly pear Vivabut stalked by “threats”. What has happened? That Castilla y León has just declared the university prickly pears Asset of Intangible Cultural Interest. In reality, the regional Government Council made the decision several weeks ago, November 27but it had not been consolidated until now, with your publication in it Official State Gazette. Why is it important? To begin with, because it represents public recognition of a cultural tradition that dates back centuries and will now have a new institutional veneer. Among other issues, the BIC label should make it easier for groups to promote themselves. The declaration as immaterial BIC also places the focus on another fundamental issue: the state of health of university students in Spain. At the end of the day, the Junta de Castilla y León itself recognize that one of the objectives of the measure is to “protect the uniqueness” of a tradition that, he insists, remains “alive” and “integrated” on the campuses. Not everyone shares his optimism. From Culture they warned not long ago that the prickly pears face “threats”. Why declare it BIC? The Castilian Government is clear about it: claims “the roots” of the prickly pear in the region and remembers that the tradition arose in the heat of some of its first universities, such as that of Palencia, Salamanca either Valladolidwhich trace their origins to the 13th century. “This has allowed the tradition to take deep roots in the region from an early date,” collects the BOE announcementin which he presents Salamanca as the “cradle of the prickly pear.” Since then the groups have gone through multiple ups and downs. The prickly pears started among the humblest university students of the late Middle Ages, young people who played in exchange for food or a few coins, and remained active throughout the following centuries. In the 19th century they were on the brink of disappearance, but they gained renewed momentum thanks to the Romantic movement. The Civil War threatened its survival again, but the tradition was reinforced during the 40s, 50s and especially between the 60s and 70s, when Spain opened up to tourism that found in those young people who dedicated themselves to singing dressed in capes and ribbons a “picturesque symbol of Spanish student folklore.” Already in the 1980s and 1990s the first female groups were consolidated. And how are they now? The Board assures that “the presence of university prickly pears” covers the entire region, giving shape to “a living mosaic.” “Castilla y León is home to between 20 and 30 active or recently active university tunas, distributed throughout all its provinces,” celebrate the Castilian-Leonese Government before specifying that this estimate includes all types of groups, male, female and those known as fortiesformed by ancient tunos. How are your health? It depends on the source we consult. In June, Ernest Urtasun’s department published a report in which, after emphasizing the cultural and historical interest of these groups, he issues a warning to sailors: “The university prickly pear faces risks and threats derived above all from the aging of its members due to the lack of incorporation of new members in the existing groups, which results in a decrease in their number.” The comment is actually included in an official file which aims to declare the prickly pear “representative manifestation of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.” What are the prickly pears like today? That’s the key. The Country concrete that of the 150 musicians that make up the Law tuna of the Complutense University, only 15 are under 30 years old. “In the end it is a tradition that is championed by people who are not university students,” recognize one of its members. Another veteran of a prickly pear in Valladolid admits that “many fewer performances” are carried out than before. “There is no longer so much influx of people who want to join, whether due to musical tastes, the loss of economic support, fashions or the appearance of other groups, such as charangas,” reflect. “What I am clear about is that tuna continues to be a way to meet with friends who share a taste for music, creating bonds that can last a lifetime.” The situation also varies from one area to another in Spain. four years ago The Galician Post explained that in Santiago de Compostela, another of the main university cities in the country, only one prickly pear remained intact (there are other initiatives), that of Law. Of course, based on musicians who for the most part were no longer linked to the university. The Galician newspaper pointed out, however, that the trend was somewhat different in the southern half of the peninsula. Images | University of Salamanca 1 and 2 and University of Seville In Xataka | The ringing of Spanish bells is a language in itself. And now also a World Heritage Site

A tiny Spanish town with 13 houses can’t take it anymore. A murder has turned it into the capital of crime tourism

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High in the Catalan Pyrenees, among clouds, forests and cows grazing in the rain, Tor risesa village of just thirteen houses where three decades ago a crime occurred that forever marked its inhabitants. In 1995 appeared the body of Josep Montanéknown as Sansa, with an electric cable around his neck and the corpse dragged to his kitchen. It was the third murder in fifteen years in a place too small for so many deaths. Today it seems the decoration of the mythical “A crime has been written”. National myth. History recovered this weekend the new york times as an example of a type of tourism which has been added in parallel to that of sun and beach. What seemed like a rural reckoning became, over time, a a national story about greed, secrets and institutional abandonment. the mountain, shared since 1896 by the town’s families under an ancestral agreement, had become the object of dispute between those who dreamed of a lucrative ski resort and those who wanted to preserve their peasant life. The conflict, fueled by smuggling interests and disputes over ownership, culminated in the judicial grant of the mountain to Sansa and, five months later, in her death. Then came the cultural phenomenon. From tragedy to true crime. The Catalan journalist Carles Porta, then a young reporter, was the one who turned the Tor crime into a media obsession. It started with a television report In 1997, he continued with a book in 2005, a podcast very successful in 2018 and a documentary series in 2023 that transformed the small town into the epicenter of Spanish “true crime.” Porta, fascinated by Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, found his own Holcomb in that Pyrenean valley and turned the story in an industry. Over the years, the public’s fascination with unsolved crimes attracted visitors from all over the country: curious people, mystery fans and hikers who wanted walk the stage of the murder, staying at Sansa’s old house or posing in the places where the police found evidence. Some even recreated the crime scene. with cables around the necka morbid parody that the neighbors watch with a mixture of bewilderment and resignation. Tor Municipality Crime tourism. The Times remembered that media notoriety brought money, but also disfigured life in Tor. In summer, the streets are filled of cars, the houses become scenery and the neighbors become involuntary characters in a story that never ends. In the Alins family hostel, at the foot of the mountain, phrases by Porta and bottles of liquor with quotes from his book hang, while the visitors ask relentlessly “who killed Sansa.” Merce Turallols, who was a girl when the body appeared, admits that fame has benefited the family business, but he confesses that the residents can no longer stand the circus: in the busiest months, you can’t even park and eccentric tourists tour the town disguised as victims. And more. “One arrived with a rope around his neck,” they remembered in the report. Porta himself, now producer of documentaries for Disney Regarding other cases, he recognizes that Tor’s has become his personal legacy, a phenomenon without end. The man assures have new clues (a possible hitman who lives in Miami) and the intention to close the case with a fiction series, but the people, who never saw justice or rest, feel that the journalist has exploded its tragedy to the limit. Town turned into a stage. Thus, going through Tor today is like going through a museum of rural crime: the local guide point out the places where the body was dragged, the house where a hippie committed suicide, the abandoned car of some smugglers, the meadows where neighbors charged tolls to those who crossed with goods from Andorra. Everything has become anecdote for visitors who seek excitement, while local people demand something as simple as mobile coverage or tranquility. Pilar Tomàs, who lives across the street from Sansa’s old house and was the one who found him dead, serves homemade food in her restaurant full of strangers. He appreciates the increase in clients, but would like a life without cameras nor curious. He joked in the media that if Porta has benefited so much from the case, he could donate at least enough for a telephone antenna. The rise of crime tourism. The call “dark tourism”sordid or thanatotourism has ceased to be a rarity and has consolidated itself as a global trend that turns tragedy into destiny. From the streets of Barcelona’s Raval, where the crimes of Enriqueta Martí either of the “Arropiero”even the towns devastated by the civil war like Belchitethe tourism industry has been able to capitalize on human fascination with death and evil, an interest as old as the shows of the Roman circus. According to the criminologist Vicente Garridothis attraction responds to the mixture of fear and curiosity in the face of the unknown, but today it takes the form of guided routes, theatrical visits and immersive experiences where the visitor seeks to understand (or feel) the echo of horror. New narratives to enhance it. Series and podcasts true crime have reinforced this phenomenon, generating a media aesthetic that romanticizes murder and transforms the victims and executioners into cultural characters. In Spain, theplaces like Torwith their story of unresolved deaths, symbolize that dilemma between memory and commodification: what for some is an economic opportunity and visibility, for others is the trivialization of a tragedy that is still alive. He crime tourism It grows, and with it the ethical question that accompanies it: how much knowledge and how much morbidity there is in looking head-on at the scenes of horror. Image | jqmj (Queralt) In Xataka | Sordid tourism: 17 places for those who travel looking for horror In Xataka | Italy’s tourism has a challenge worse than massification: mafia souvenirs. has started to ban them

If you don’t want your pet anymore, eat it your lions

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The Aalborg Zoo, in Northern Denmark, has launched an unusual and controversial call on their social networks: asks the owners of domestic animals to donate them as food for predators of the enclosure, such as European lynx, lions, tigers and African wild dogs. The proposal, Posted on your Facebook pagehas generated an intense debate in both Denmark and internationally. Is it a practice consistent with nature? Or is it an unacceptable cost of pets? What exactly ask for? The process is regulated and explained in detail in The Zoo’s own website. Anyone can donate up to four small animals – as rabbits, chickens or guinea pigs. In the case of horses, specific requirements are required: the animal must have a passport, not having received medication and going through a previous evaluation. It is also indicated that there could be waiting list, since the zoo needs vary during the year. Nowhere do they talk about dogs or cats. In fact, they have nuanced that all animals are “soft” euthanized by trained personnel, and are then used as food. As they have clarified in the Facebook post: “In this way, nothing is wasted, and we ensure the natural behavior, nutrition and well -being of our predators.” Is there no other method? As explained from the institution, the initiative seeks to recreate a food chain as close as possible to nature. The Zoo Deputy Director, Pia Nielsen, has declared The Guardian: “When raising carnivores, it is necessary to provide meat, preferably with hair, bones … to have a diet as natural as possible.” The case of the European lynx is especially illustrative: this species requires entire dams, as similar as possible to those that would hunt. Therefore, the zoo justifies that this type of food favors its well -being, stimulates natural behaviors and prevents the use of processed or frozen meats. As has detailed in Euronews The scientific head of the zoo, Anette Sofie Warncke Nutzhorn: “We have always done it, and we see it as something very natural. We prefer this to bury animals and waste the meat.” And an inevitable question. Is it legal to donate live animals to be used as food? The answer is yes, it is legal in Denmark under certain conditions. The 2013 Animal Welfare Law It requires that animals should be treated with respect, with adequate conditions of care and without suffering unnecessary pain. In this context, the sacrifice of animals donated to the zoo is allowed if it is ethically justified and carried out by professionals. In addition, Denmark counts With a B rating in the animal protection index of World Animal Protectionwhich means that it has moderately strong legislation regarding the rights and well -being of animals. In contrast, in countries such as Spain or Germany this practice would be hardly socially accepted, although not always illegal, depending on the destination of the animal and the sacrifice process. The controversy explodes. The Facebook publication caused an avalanche of reactions. Some users considered it a “sickly” proposal or a “terrible trend of indifference with animals.” However, others defended it firmly, arguing that it is better for animals to serve to feed others instead of being buried or discarded. It should be noted that a user wrote sarcastically in the comments: “What if you have tired of some of your children these holidays?” To which the zoo responded with humor: “Your children are very welcome in the zoo, but not as food … here we only accept animals with feathers or skin” On the other hand, some people shared their positive experiences. A woman, Signe Flyvholm, He has commented to New York Times who thought of donating her horse to the zoo: “She could make a difference being used as food.” However, due to its size, it ended up donating it to an organization that made it biofuel and fertilizer. It is not the first time. As Euronews has pointed outrecalls the known case occurred in 2014, when the Copenhagen Zoological Euthanasio to a healthy giraffe called Marius, whose genetics was already overrepresented. The animal was then publicly dissected and fed to the lions. Shortly after, four lions were also sacrificed to avoid territorial conflicts. Just a year ago, a zoo in Nuremberg, Germany, caused another scandal by sacrificing 12 healthy baboons for lack of space and feeding the lions, in front of the public. Activists protested even chaining the tickets. Does the end justify the media? The case of the Aalborg Zoo opens a complex and urgent issue on the limits between animal welfare, ecological ethics and human sensitivity. Is it more respectful to allow a dead animal to feed another? Or is it an unjustifiable reification of domestic animals? The practice may seem brutal in the eyes of many, but reflects a logic consistent with biology and wildlife management in captivity. Even so, it is not exempt from controversy, especially when what is put into play are pets, animals traditionally loved by people. Be that as it may, the debate is open. And the Aalborg Zoo, voluntarily or involuntarily, has revealed a moral fracture that divides not only Denmark, but the entire world. Image | Unspash and Unspash Xataka | If Spain believes that velutinas are a problem is because it does not know what the US has found: radioactive wasps

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