Overtourism

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 10:14PM #1

This is a topic I've been pondering for a while. Last summer, as I was jetting off to Lisbon on honeymoon, stories started to break in the media about an anti-tourism demonstration that was happening in Barcelona. We were travelling at peak season, August, because for various reasons that was the only time that suited us. I had never travelled anywhere in peak season before and I knew it would be busy but I was not at all prepared for exactly how busy it would be. Before I continue, let me acknowledge that I'm part of the problem. I'm not special, I'm a tourist like anyone else. We had to skip some of the sites in Lisbon because we'd have been standing in a queue for up to two hours to get in and I physically can't do that.

When I got back, I read more about the demonstrations in Barcelona. I read that there are five times as many overnight visitors to the city as there was twenty years ago and between 2013 and 2015, the overnight tourist numbers rose by 600,000.

Iceland is another country that has seen tourism take off since 2010 thanks to both a big marketing campaign, cheap flights, Airbnb and the volcanic eruption that piqued people's interest in the country. It has been experiencing some problems because of it, although the country seems mostly happy with the increased tourism as it helped get them out of an economic hole. And, again, I'm part of it because I was there six months ago.

I guess what I've been wondering about is what is the solution here? Certain cities and countries have started to strictly restrict tourist numbers and cap the amount of cruise ships that can dock at their ports. But if everywhere eventually does this, will tourism become an elitist pursuit again? Shouldn't everyone have the right to travel? But as the global population increases will popular tourist areas become overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of tourists and will it mean that the cost of tourism outweighs the benefits to the local economy?

What do people think?

_Brian · 06-03-2018 10:17PM

Allot of the protests were sparked by Air BnB for tourists rather than tourists themselves.
Tourists have shifted away from custom accommodation to Air BnB which has taken much rental stock out of the system, driving up rents and driving people out of city centre living.

Hande hoche! · 06-03-2018 10:19PM

Sure the Portuguese will be happy with more tourists if the Spanish aren't.

Ajsoprano · 06-03-2018 10:23PM

I work on a Dublin building site and witness a lot of cultures everyday. Seen a fella crouch down on his hunkers the other day eating Aldi jarred sausages with one hand and bread with the other. He was making the sandwhich in his mouth. Amazing what you learn.

wakka12 · 06-03-2018 10:24PM

No travel should not be a right . Rights should be for something you cannot live with out or would massively affect quality of life without it.

And well I think its up to the city and its citizens to decide whether to restrict tourism. Its totally up to them. There will always be places to visit even if the current tourist hot spots completely shut down, which won't happen .Maybe people will start to appreciate africa or other less well known tourist spots outside of the traditional tourist cities in europe. There will never be so many tourists that there won't be any places left to travel to relatively cheaply for a holiday
I think barcelona, london , paris and venice should all restrict tourism, even if it meant higher price for me to visit them I think it'd be worth it for us all in the long run as the sheer numbers of tourists ruin those cities to quite a significant extent imo

Theres hundreds of cities in france, italy ,spain, netherlands, england that are just as nice and interesting as their capitals and large cities that attract the vast majority of the country's tourism, many you've probably never even heard of. Much less have so many tourists that they need to ban tourism

Sky King · 06-03-2018 10:31PM

Santorini. It sure is pretty but mother of god...It's like a Greece themed amusement park absolutely rammed with tourists and massive groups of Japanese who are descend on shops and restaurants en masse. No locals... no local flavours in tavernas full of Greeks. Horrible experience. And that was June a couple of years ago apparently it's even worse now.

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 10:41PM

Sky King wrote: »

Santorini. It sure is pretty but mother of god...It's like a Greece themed amusement park absolutely rammed with tourists and massive groups of Japanese who are descend on shops and restaurants en masse. No locals... no local flavours in tavernas full of Greeks. Horrible experience. And that was June a couple of years ago apparently it's even worse now.

Oh yeah, Santorini is actually one of the destinations that has imposed restrictions!

In Lisbon, the real eye-opener for me was seeing a queue snake down the street in Belem in the noon heat for the famous pastelaria there. Insane. Those are the box-ticking tourists, the bucket listers. Meanwhile there was a pastelaria on my hotel’s street that sold pastel de natas that were as highly rated but no queues.

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 10:46PM

Interesting, balanced Financial Times article about Iceland’s tourist boom:

https://www.ft.com/content/44ebbfee-025e-11e7-aa5b-6bb07f5c8e12

Cookie_Monster · 06-03-2018 10:47PM

A lot of NZ has the same issue, Queenstown in particular, the infrastructure just cannot cope with the tourist demand. The council at least have started charging people commercial rate son their properties if they let them on AirBnB for more than a certain number of days per year so it's at least getting something back to fund improve roads, water etc.

Venice is rebelling against all the cruise ships as well.

Sky King · 06-03-2018 10:51PM

Cruise ships are a bit of a disaster because basically people just want to get off tick a few boxes and get back on again the same day. You really don't have timefor4 considered exploration. You rarely get further than the Port town which is always mobbed with people off the same ship as you!

LirW · 06-03-2018 10:51PM

Dunno, I never see any tourists in our shticks pub, be grand. (I'm the filthy quota foreigner in the village, who am I to judge)

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 10:54PM

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

A lot of NZ has the same issue, Queenstown in particular, the infrastructure just cannot cope with the tourist demand. The council at least have started charging people commercial rate son their properties if they let them on AirBnB for more than a certain number of days per year so it's at least getting something back to fund improve roads, water etc.

Venice is rebelling against all the cruise ships as well.

I think the main gripe with cruise ships is that they bring a lot of people but not much money. The people aren’t staying there so they might buy lunch and a few souvenirs and that’s it. A lot of disruption with little benefit.

Sky King · 06-03-2018 10:56PM

_Dara_ wrote: »

I think the main gripe with cruise ships is that they bring a lot of people but not much money. The people aren’t staying there so they might buy lunch and a few souvenirs and that’s it. A lot of disruption with little benefit.

Yes and a lot of the excursions are run by the cruise ship company and are over the top expensive but really are the only ones that can be availed of easily

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 11:01PM

Having said that, there are some attractions in Dublin that attract huge numbers of tourists but I’ve never felt put out or displaced by tourists in the city. I went to Trinity and would walk past the long queues for the Long Library and Book of Kells but it never bothered me.

RDM_83 again · 06-03-2018 11:01PM

Its one of those things, people complain about extreme levels of migration changing their area or city and its racist uneducated working class hatred.
People complain about mass tourism changing their hidden gems and its hold my Prosseco darling we need to work out a solution!, some reason its a whole different thing even though the change is likely less profound compared to what you see in some parts of England for example.

In short both are rooted in the desire for places to stay the same and retain their character and identity, one good, one bad.

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 11:04PM

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Its one of those things, people complain about extreme levels of migration changing their area or city and its racist uneducated working class hatred.
People complain about mass tourism changing their hidden gems and its hold my Prosseco darling we need to work out a solution!, some reason its a whole different thing even though the change is likely less profound compared to what you see in some parts of England for example.

Yeah, I have to smile at tourists grousing about other tourists. On some travel blogs, I’ve seen writers complain that they had to wait for ages for other tourists to get out of the way so that they could take a shot free of people. No self-awareness there.

wakka12 · 06-03-2018 11:07PM

Apparently dublin has huge numbers of tourists like in the top 10 in european cities but for some reason it just doesnt feel like it. I wonder why you don't have foreign men from north african selling tat on streets in dublin like in london paris venice barecelona and other big tourist cities. I think thats a major reason why dublin doesnt feel quite as touristy tbh

swift18 · 06-03-2018 11:23PM

tourists out
refugees in

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 11:23PM

wakka12 wrote: »

Apparently dublin has huge numbers of tourists like in the top 10 in european cities but for some reason it just doesnt feel like it. I wonder why you don't have foreign men from north african selling tat on streets in dublin like in london paris venice barecelona and other big tourist cities. I think thats a major reason why dublin doesnt feel quite as touristy tbh

Yeah, it doesn’t ever feel overrun. Even when I cut through Templebar to get to the Quays, it doesn’t feel completely thronged. I think that’s why Lisbon was such a surprise to me. But there were places in Lisbon that I loved that were less busy. The Padrão Dos Descobrimentos monument gave an amazing view of the harbour and was a lot less thronged than the other nearby sites and the Museu Colecção Berardo was cool and was an oasis of calm.

The Lisbon Aquarium and the Timeout Market were two of the worst experiences of my life. But I learned a lot from the trip, namely you don’t have to go somewhere just because it’s in a guidebook.

swift18 · 06-03-2018 11:26PM

from berlin

swift18 · 06-03-2018 11:30PM

barcelona

joeysoap · 06-03-2018 11:43PM

2 hour queues outside that pastry shop on a cold October Sunday last year too. Definitely box ticking as the custard tarts (:pac:) are everywhere. Tourism gone mad. Right beside it is a magnificent monastery. Nearly empty.

_Dara_ · 06-03-2018 11:48PM

joeysoap wrote: »

2 hour queues outside that pastry shop on a cold October Sunday last year too. Definitely box ticking as the custard tarts (:pac:) are everywhere. Tourism gone mad. Right beside it is a magnificent monastery. Nearly empty.

Are you serious? That’s mad, I was thinking it was just because it was August. Absolute madness. I mean, pastel de natas are nice but seriously, lads, they’re just custard and pastry. We gawped at the queue in disbelief as we walked past. Though on the monastery: that’s one place we didn’t get to go because of the crazy queues. It was peak tour bus season.

joeysoap · 07-03-2018 12:14AM

Few Japanese busses but bar that......cold and windy, there was nobody going to the Monastery. We caught a tram back to the city a few hours later, the queues to the bun shop were still there.

PowerToWait · 07-03-2018 12:17AM

Ajsoprano wrote: »

I work on a Dublin building site and witness a lot of cultures everyday. Seen a fella crouch down on his hunkers the other day eating Aldi jarred sausages with one hand and bread with the other. He was making the sandwhich in his mouth. Amazing what you learn.

I found that very funny.

07-03-2018 12:19AM

I try to avoid the big touristy areas. Sounds wankerish but I hate being surrounded by tourists. I go somewhere cheap where it'll be warm and I can sit drinking beer for a quid a go and reading and can tip a guy half a day's wages for less than the cost of 2 pints here and just have the beer flowing. :P I'll go for a walk for an hour or two and take in some sights or go on a boat for a tenner. God I love being on my own. :P

Franz Von Peppercorn · 07-03-2018 12:19AM

RDM_83 again wrote: »

Its one of those things, people complain about extreme levels of migration changing their area or city and its racist uneducated working class hatred.
People complain about mass tourism changing their hidden gems and its hold my Prosseco darling we need to work out a solution!, some reason its a whole different thing even though the change is likely less profound compared to what you see in some parts of England for example.

In short both are rooted in the desire for places to stay the same and retain their character and identity, one good, one bad.

So true. Interesting that people believe that countries can’t control migration but cities can control tourism - which is temporary migration.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 07-03-2018 12:23AM

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

A lot of NZ has the same issue, Queenstown in particular, the infrastructure just cannot cope with the tourist demand. The council at least have started charging people commercial rate son their properties if they let them on AirBnB for more than a certain number of days per year so it's at least getting something back to fund improve roads, water etc.

Venice is rebelling against all the cruise ships as well.

NZ gets pretty low tourism relative to is size. Both islands are bigger than Ireland and the country gets one third of our numbers.

Relative to their size European countries get huge number of tourists. France gets 70-80M. Italy about 60M.

Relative to population we get a lot - about 10M (all Ireland figures). One place in Dublin that feels over touristy is Howth midsummer when warm. Weekends particularly.

wakka12 · 07-03-2018 12:30AM

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

NZ gets pretty low tourism relative to is size. Both islands are bigger than Ireland and the country gets one third of our numbers.

Relative to their size European countries get huge number of tourists. Italy gets 70-80M.

https://www.travelagentcentral.com/running-your-business/stats-europe-was-most-visited-continent-2016

58% of the entire planets tourists visit europe,less than 10% of the worlds population is european(figure would be even more dramatic if only western europe was counted, Id say close to 80% of them visit western europe). and Im sure a large amount of that group only visit a number of major tourists cities within europe

http://europolitan.org/europes-visited-cities/

There were approx 600 million tourist visits to europe in 2016.
Of those 600 million, around 100 million tourists visited just 14 cities. Paris, London,Istanbul, Barcelona, amsterdam,milan ,rome, vienna,prague, dublin, madrid, munich and berlin

This means dublin is a seriously important city globally in terms of tourist numbers which is interesting

metaoblivia · 07-03-2018 12:33AM

That's funny because I just planned a trip that includes stays in Lisbon and Barcelona for later this year. I don't think late November is the high tourist season though, so hopefully I don't run into too many angry Barcelonans.

In San Francisco, they've passed some local laws to help curtail the crowds in some areas. For example, Lombard Street, "the windiest street in the world " (it's not) is a huge draw for tourists. But it's also a residential area with some very wealthy inhabitants who don't like people clogging up their street during the high season. They've restricted tourist bus access to the area (some other areas of SF have done this too) and they've floated ideas like closing the street down completely to all non local traffic (including pedestrians) during certain hours, charging tourists to walk/drive the street, having parking and police attendants present to monitor crowd sizes, etc. In this way, San Francisco isn't limiting the amount of tourists who come into the city, but they are pinpointing certain spots where it's become a problem for the residents and have taken steps to make it more inconvenient for tourists.

I think restricting the number of cruise ships can help because like others have pointed out, the city isn't really benefiting from those tourists in the way they are from tourists who stay in the city.

_Dara_ · 07-03-2018 12:36AM

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

One place in Dublin that feels over touristy is Howth midsummer when warm. Weekends particularly.

YES. Fuck yes. I forgot about Howth. It is awful on any sunny, even remotely warm day.

Iceland has a more stark ratio: 2,000,000 people visited in 2017. Pop: 300,000.

Overtourism

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