Barcelona, Venice and Amsterdam are among Europe’s favourite travel destinations and benefit greatly from tourism. However, the massive influx of visitors places a considerable burden on the cities and their inhabitants.
To counteract the negative effects of overtourism, these cities are taking decisive action. Following public protests, no new hotels may be built in Venice and cruise ships will have to use other moorings in future. Amsterdam has banned guided tours of its famous red light district in order to protect local residents. Paris is planning to ban coaches from the city centre in order to improve the quality of life. Other overcrowded cities are also trying to control the situation through various methods.
Do you think that overtourism is a serious problem in Europe?
Sources: National Statistics Offices, Statista, Le Monde, Forbes
Pehaps, and I might be crazy, but hear me out, there just might be some room between absolutely no tourists at all ever and being flooded by literal millions?
Are you really being flooded by “literal millions”? Most of these places will have in the tens to hundreds of thousands of tourists at any one time. That’s no different from having that many residents, only they’re spending a lot more money.
You can’t afford to live there, but that’s not the fault of tourists or the immigrants or the landlords any of the other things you choose to blame. It’s because you’ve decided to pointlessly centralise your economy into a select few physical locations. Why do you want to live there? Why are you contributing to the problem? It’s not always somebody else’s fault.
You’re not in traffic. You are traffic.