I live in London. The weekends here are a certifiable nightmare now. Not because there's more people, it's a metropolis... that's a given. But the sheer amount of people who do not follow...
I live in London. The weekends here are a certifiable nightmare now.
Not because there's more people, it's a metropolis... that's a given. But the sheer amount of people who do not follow instructions or just outright disregard them. Then there's folks who just flat out disregard basic critical thinking, or are just bastards for the sake of it.
Top of the elevator? Better whack open my phone and stop exactly where I am.
Stairs in a busy tube station? better stop for a 23 person group selfie!
Fancy a laugh? Hit the energency stop at TCR and watch people have to walk up the esclators in rush hour.
Recently had a run in with a group of tourists who think "Me on first, you off second" on the tube. I'm a rather tall and broad mid-30's fella... That went down well.
It's not my imagination, but much of the over-tourism anger from natives also comes from them being disregarded in favour of instagram-esque demands for perfect photos.
I enjoy tourism, I love going places. I visited Australia for the first time earlier this year and went to Katoomba in NSW and it's absolutely stunning as an area. There's a viewing platform where you can see this gorgeous valley, some outcroppings and other cool stuff that nature provides us to stare at lovingly. But this viewing platform was RAMMED with people of all ages, all fighting to get 'best picture' of the area, or the best family selfie and stand there for twenty minutes until they did. It looked exhausting.
Eventually my father-in-law remarked something along the lines of "In my day, we went to nice places and sometimes took a photo of them. Now people dress up nice to take photos of themselves, sometimes in nice places" and it had me laughing for a while. I know it's glib and "lulz, social media = evil" meme. But I really do detest what Social Media has done to people's behaviour and wants in life. If you didn't get a selfie doing it... did you really do it?
That's not even to remark on the environmental pressures these things put on the local area. We got the train into and out of Katoomba. But the highway on either side was rammed with people desperately trying to get somewhere faster than others.
Kate Leahy With visitor numbers around the world increasing towards pre-pandemic levels, the issue of overtourism is once again rearing its head. Effects Crowding Local issues Avoiding Curbs
Kate Leahy
With visitor numbers around the world increasing towards pre-pandemic levels, the issue of overtourism is once again rearing its head.
When locals in the charming Austrian lakeside village of Hallstatt staged a blockade of the main access tunnel, brandishing placards asking visitors to ‘think of the children’, it highlighted what can happen when places start to feel overrun by tourists.
The term ‘overtourism’ is relatively new, having been coined over a decade ago to highlight the spiralling numbers of visitors taking a toll on cities, landmarks and landscapes.
Effects
There are the wide-reaching effects, such as climate change. Coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef and Maya Bay, Thailand, made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Beach, are being degraded from visitors snorkelling, diving and touching the corals, as well as tour boats anchoring in the waters.
And 2030 transport-related carbon emissions from tourism are expected to grow 25% from 2016 levels, representing an increase from 5% to 5.3% of all man-made emissions, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).
Crowding
A French start up, Murmuration, which monitors the environmental impact of tourism by using satellite data, states that 80% of travellers visit just 10% of the world's tourism destinations, meaning bigger crowds in fewer spots.
Justin Francis, co-founder and CEO of Responsible Travel, a tour operator that focuses on more sustainable travel, says “Social media has concentrated tourism in hotspots and exacerbated the problem, and tourist numbers globally are increasing while destinations have a finite capacity. Until local people are properly consulted about what they want and don’t want from tourism, we’ll see more protests.”
Local issues
More localised issues are affecting locals, too. Renters are being evicted by landlords in favour of turning properties into holiday lets, and house prices are escalating as a result. As visitors and rental properties outnumber local residents, communities are being lost. And, skyrocketing prices, excessive queues, crowded beaches, exorbitant noise levels, damage at historical sites and the ramifications to nature as people overwhelm or stray from official paths are also reasons the positives of tourism can have a negative impact.
Avoiding
In a 2022 survey by Booking.com, 64% of the people asked said they would be prepared to stay away from busy tourist sites to avoid adding to congestion.
Harold Goodwin, emeritus professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, says, “Overtourism is a function of visitor volumes, but also of conflicting behaviours, crowding in inappropriate places and privacy. Social anthropologists talk about frontstage and backstage spaces. Tourists are rarely welcome in backstage spaces."
Curbs
While many destinations, reliant on the income that tourism brings, are still keen for arrivals, a handful of major cities and sites are now imposing bans, fines, taxes and time-slot systems, and, in some cases, even launching campaigns of discouragement in a bid to curb tourist numbers.
City taxes have become increasingly popular, with Barcelona increasing its nightly levy in April 2023
In Amsterdam this summer, the city council voted to ban cruise ships, while the mayor, Femke Halsema, commissioned a campaign of discouragement, asking young British men who planned to have a 'vacation from morals’ to stay away.
In Rome, sitting at popular sites, such as the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, has been restricted by the authorities.
And in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, meanwhile, the Narok County governor has introduced on-the-spot fines for off-roading. He also plans to double nightly park fees in peak season.
While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, a range of measures are clearly an option depending on the scale of the problem.
I live in London. The weekends here are a certifiable nightmare now.
Not because there's more people, it's a metropolis... that's a given. But the sheer amount of people who do not follow instructions or just outright disregard them. Then there's folks who just flat out disregard basic critical thinking, or are just bastards for the sake of it.
Top of the elevator? Better whack open my phone and stop exactly where I am.
Stairs in a busy tube station? better stop for a 23 person group selfie!
Fancy a laugh? Hit the energency stop at TCR and watch people have to walk up the esclators in rush hour.
Recently had a run in with a group of tourists who think "Me on first, you off second" on the tube. I'm a rather tall and broad mid-30's fella... That went down well.
It's not my imagination, but much of the over-tourism anger from natives also comes from them being disregarded in favour of instagram-esque demands for perfect photos.
I enjoy tourism, I love going places. I visited Australia for the first time earlier this year and went to Katoomba in NSW and it's absolutely stunning as an area. There's a viewing platform where you can see this gorgeous valley, some outcroppings and other cool stuff that nature provides us to stare at lovingly. But this viewing platform was RAMMED with people of all ages, all fighting to get 'best picture' of the area, or the best family selfie and stand there for twenty minutes until they did. It looked exhausting.
Eventually my father-in-law remarked something along the lines of "In my day, we went to nice places and sometimes took a photo of them. Now people dress up nice to take photos of themselves, sometimes in nice places" and it had me laughing for a while. I know it's glib and "lulz, social media = evil" meme. But I really do detest what Social Media has done to people's behaviour and wants in life. If you didn't get a selfie doing it... did you really do it?
That's not even to remark on the environmental pressures these things put on the local area. We got the train into and out of Katoomba. But the highway on either side was rammed with people desperately trying to get somewhere faster than others.
Kate Leahy
With visitor numbers around the world increasing towards pre-pandemic levels, the issue of overtourism is once again rearing its head.
Effects
Crowding
Local issues
Avoiding
Curbs