Destinations fight overtourism as visitor numbers ramp up

Japan has set up a new administrative body to dampen the effects of overtourism after it welcomed a record 36.8 million visitors in 2024.

So what?

Reports of the death of mass international tourism were greatly exaggerated. Traveller numbers plummeted to nearly zero during the pandemic, a trend some thought was there to stay. But in 2024 some 1.4 billion tourists ventured abroad, roughly the same as in 2019.

Old woes

Locals who saw their town centres drained of tourists during Covid are now grumbling about congestion again, and politicians eager to curry favour with voters are listening. A slew of destinations that once welcomed visitors with open arms have introduced measures to curb the number of tourists.

• Venice has limited tour groups to 25 people, put up gates at the entrance of popular streets and slapped a €5 tax on day trippers.

• Amsterdam has moved its cruise ship terminal away from the city centre, reduced the number of hotel rooms and ramped up hotel taxes.

• At Mount Fuji a fence has been erected to spoil a famous view of its snow-capped peak.

Agitators

Spain has seen the biggest backlash to tourism this summer. In June protesters in Barcelona squirted tourists with water pistols and told them to go home. Similar demonstrations have taken place there before. The city has 1.6 million inhabitants but received 26 million tourists last year. Locals say they can’t find places to live because of the proliferation of Airbnb rentals.

Common theme

These complaints are shared by residents of other hotspots. People in Athens have held funerals for their “dead” neighbourhoods, for example. In general, those who want fewer tourists say they:

• drive up rents for locals, making housing unaffordable;

• overwhelm roads, public transport systems and water supplies;

• divert spending away from things like schools and hospitals; and

• pollute beaches, natural parks and cultural sites by leaving rubbish.

The Instagram effect

Social media is making things worse. Tourists are flocking to sites they have seen online, determined to get snaps of their own. This is true of well-known landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower or Machu Picchu. But the places hardest hit are hidden gems that are now inundated after being “discovered” by influencers. These include:

• Trolltunga, a remote viewpoint overlooking a fjord in south-eastern Norway;

• Big Major Cay in the Bahamas, home to a white sand beach of swimming pigs, seven of which were found dead in 2017. Their owner blamed tourists who gave them beer and rum; and

• the Fairy Pools in Scotland’s Isle of Skye.

Backfired

Some social media campaigns have proved too successful. In May, Spain’s Balearic Islands said it would stop paying influencers to promote some of its lesser-known sites after they were flooded with “selfie tourists”.

After an influencer recommended visiting Caló des Moro, a cove in Mallorca with space for 100 people at a time, 4,000 people a day started showing up. The local mayor ended up begging journalists not to mention its name and images of the cove were removed from the area’s official website.

Uneven

The case captures the dynamic at the heart of overtourism: there aren’t too many tourists, but many want to go to the same places.

Indeed, countries like Ethiopia are crying out for more international visitors as a source of valuable foreign currency for its cash-strapped economy. India also wants to boost its number of visitors: international tourism is growing there, with visitor numbers increasing by 2.3 million between 2019 and 2024.

Off the beaten track

That said, some tourists are adventuring down paths less travelled. According to the UN’s tourism body, half of the 10 countries that saw the biggest increases in arrivals in the first quarter of 2024 compared with five years previously were in emerging markets:

• Albania saw arrivals increase by 121%;

• Visitors to Saudi Arabia doubled

• the number of people holidaying in the Dominican Republic grew by a quarter.

Growth

Tourism isn’t all bad. The sector accounts for about 10% of global GDP, more than agriculture (4%). Spain has very strong GDP growth because of tourism. The industry requires large numbers of workers to wait tables, guide tours and staff hotels, employing 357 million people worldwide, directly or indirectly – one in every 10 jobs.

Hey, small spender

Officials don’t want to do away with tourism altogether. Instead, they want to attract a smaller number of high-spending visitors, rather than throngs on budget breaks.

A particular target is cruise ships. Many vessels carry thousands of sightseers, who can descend en masse and don’t contribute very much to local economies. Having forked out for all-inclusive packages, few are inclined to dine onshore.

In Norway’s Bergen cruise, tourists spend less than £18 a day, compared with hotel guests who spend four times that – not including the price of their rooms.

Enemy number two

Airbnb is also in the crosshairs. The site was designed for people to rent spare rooms for a couple of nights, but activists say landlords have evicted residents from flats to turn them into lucrative holiday lets on the site. Some cities are hitting back:

• Lisbon suspended new short-term rental licences;

• Athens has introduced a similar one-year ban; and

• Spain has ordered Airbnb to remove 66,000 rentals for violating regulations, mostly in Madrid, Barcelona and the Balearics.

Airbnb says it is being scapegoated and blames hotels for overtourism.

Bigger picture

These draconian measures are popular with the public. But cities could also do more to alleviate housing shortages by building better tourism infrastructure and encouraging more housebuilding.

After all… the number of people in search of the perfect holiday snap shows no sign of dipping.

Photograph by AFP via Getty