Green/Sustainable Tourism v Overtourism

 Real cost of cruises series
The Cruise Industry Is On a Course For Climate Disaster

Travel & Tourism Development Index 2024

21 May 2024
Protecting the magic of travel – and local economies
Overcrowding at popular tourist destinations leads to clogged streets, pedestrian accidents and challenges for small businesses and makes travel less enjoyable.
Responding to a growing demand for sustainable travel options can support local economies and ensure that tourism dollars benefit local communities.
Expanding tourism offerings to include diverse and lesser-known destinations can help mitigate overcrowding and promote sustainability.
(WEF) Each month tens of millions of global tourists come to Dumbo, Brooklyn – many of them to take photos of themselves at the intersection where the Manhattan Bridge frames the Empire State Building. It’s a view that’s made this one of the most Instagrammed spots in New York City – a feat for a location that wasn’t even mentioned in guidebooks a few years ago.
Dumbo’s success has led to clogged streets, an uptick in pedestrian accidents and challenges for small businesses who struggle to operate amongst the crowds. It’s a problem seen in over-crowded spots around the globe – from the streets of Tenerife to Machu Picchu’s temples to Bali’s holy springs and more. This tourism challenge brings congestion, pollution and even the destruction of historic sites.
As travellers embark on what’s forecast to be the biggest travel season yet, destinations must consider how to improve and protect experiences for travellers and locals. If they do this, it will mean meaningful destination stewardship practices that diversify offerings and embrace authenticity in different communities while tackling overcrowding head-on. That can lead to new business opportunities, tapping new markets and consumers interested in the kaleidoscope of human perspectives they can experience in a country.
…expanding the travel product will require investing in infrastructure to ensure that roads, accommodations, services, activities, food, and beverages can safely accommodate an influx of travellers. This capacity must be prioritized, with the voice and input of local people and public and private partnerships. To this point, locals are critical to a place’s authenticity and the lifeblood of tourism’s evolution.

10 October
‘It gets a bit dirty after 2am’: overtourism debate centre stage as Abta meets in Mallorca
Home to Magaluf, a major draw for boozed-up Britain, the island has become emblematic of the most heated debate in travel
A decade-long strategy in Palma has massively increased its stock of small upmarket hotels for year-round breaks; it is bidding to become Spain’s next European capital of culture. Calvía and Magaluf have been following on a similar path: 80% of the hotels are now four or five star. Tens of millions of euros have been invested in cleaning up and improving the beach. And, as Calvía’s mayor Juan Antonio Amengual Guasp proudly told the auditorium, Magaluf now hosts a literary festival.
It is a difficult balance for a place reliant on tourist income, with expats also a significant population; Amengual says Magaluf has “achieved a harmonious relationship between tourists and residents over the decades, and that has not changed.” But, he concedes, local discontent with tourism was “a reality” worldwide.

21 September
Can the Galápagos Adapt to Airbnb?
The islands that Charles Darwin made famous have become more accessible. Too accessible, say some residents and researchers, who fear nature is imperiled.
(NYT) Tensions between Airbnb and communities have become common in recent years, from Barcelona to Beverly Hills, with criticism of rent increases for locals and environmental damage from crowds.
But advocates for the Galápagos, a province of Ecuador, say overtourism is especially harmful there. After all, where else does a community include sea lions sleeping at bus stops and birds so tame you can touch them?
Hotel owners, naturalists and other critics say the explosion of short-term rentals here alters the very ecosystem that those thousands of visitors have come to see. (Most rentals are posted on Airbnb, but platforms like Vrbo, Booking.com and Expedia are also in the mix.) Many blame these new short-term rentals for attracting travelers who don’t know that 97 percent of this archipelago is a protected national park, and fail to respect wildlife in this UNESCO World Heritage site.
With visitors regularly chasing animals, drinking, and trashing beaches, many residents fear these islands are becoming the overrun Venice of the natural world.

9 September
Amid influx of tourists, Greenland’s capital sees strained infrastructure
Nuuk’s new airport has been plagued by problems this summer, causing stranded passengers to contend with fully booked hotels. An influx of visitors is helping tourism revenue in Greenland, but it’s also straining local businesses.
(The World) More tourists have been drawn to Nuuk since a new international airport opened there in November, allowing direct flights to the capital from the US East Coast and Europe. But problems have plagued the airport in its first year of operation. And although the influx of visitors is helping tourism revenue, it’s also straining local businesses and infrastructure in a city of just 20,000 people.

1 September
Sir Richard Branson visits Halifax on new cruise ship Brilliant Lady
Virgin Voyages is the adults-only destination for anyone seeking a restorative, luxurious, and award-winning vacation at sea.
(CTV) The Brilliant Lady officially sets sail in September, welcoming public sailors. Considered a mid-sized ship, it can hold about 2,500 people. Saverimuttu says it’s meant to feel like a boutique hotel.
The ship’s first voyage, which the team calls the ‘MerMaiden,’ is on Sept. 5 out of New York City. During the New York season, Saverimuttu says the ship will be back to Halifax a few times.

6 August
Copenhagen’s guide to sustainable tourism
Every destination city can easily come up with its own innovative ideas to draw visitors who bring a helping hand as well as their cash.
(Politico Eu) For many locals the world over, this summer — just like every summer and, indeed, every month — tourism brings misery rather than enjoyment. In Barcelona, locals fed up with overtourism took to the streets in protest. In Genoa, Lisbon and the Canary Islands, they did the same. And in Venice, locals were enraged their city had to play backdrop to tech billionaire Jeff Bezos’s wedding party.
Copenhagen, however, has turned the tourism curse on its head, inviting visitors to do good deeds for the city and be rewarded for it in return. And it’s time other cities got similarly creative.
Last year, the Danish capital launched CopenPay, a scheme that invites tourists to do good deeds for the city — and get rewarded. “All you need to do is, for instance, bike instead of drive, help maintain the city, work in an urban garden or take the train to Copenhagen instead of flying, stay longer at the destination,” CopenPay explains.
The initiative was launched as a four-week pilot program last year, and this summer it expanded to nine weeks, with 100 attractions participating — a fourfold increase.
… tourism isn’t just a burden to locals, it’s a burden on our planet. It emits some 8 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide and is 20 percent more carbon-intensive than the average for the global economy.
Offering tourists the opportunity to pick up litter as they explore local waterways may not work for every town and city, but each destination can easily come up with its own innovative ideas. Just imagine cities full of visitors who bring a helping hand as well as their cash. That ought to be tourism we can live with.

7 July
Are Tourists Ruining Europe? How Locals Are Pushing Back
Governments love the income from tourism, but it’s getting too much for people living in the most popular destinations
By Feargus O’Sullivan
(Bloomberg CityLab) Summer 2025 may go down in history as the season when Europe turned against tourism. Locals unable to walk through Barcelona’s clogged streets sprayed visitors with water guns. Thousands marched to demand an end to mass tourism on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Residents of Genoa paraded a cardboard ocean liner through the Italian city’s narrow alleyways to protest against its seasonal flooding by cruise goers. In Paris, a protest by Louvre staff against overcrowding in the museum’s galleries saw throngs of frustrated visitors locked out. Jeff Bezos’ main wedding reception was moved out of the heart of Venice after demonstrators carrying “Save Venice from Bezos” placards complained that the Amazon boss’s mega-nuptials to Lauren Sanchez were taking over the city.
Tourists bring in money and create jobs. They also cause intense congestion and pollution, pressure on basic services and housing shortages. The rise of short-stay platforms such as Airbnb, VRBO and Wimdu means swathes of accommodation are disappearing from the long-term rental market to become short-stay vacation lets. Locals who do find an affordable place to rent can find themselves living cheek-by-jowl with visitors partying through the night. As local businesses chase tourist euros, gift shops and ice cream parlors replace the stores needed by residents. High-spending visitors push up prices to the point at which locals can no longer afford a vacation in their own country. In beach destinations, the annual influx of sunseekers threatens the environment and puts a strain on resources such as water. The entire Cyclades island chain in Greece was placed on a Heritage-in-Danger list in 2024 due to the impact of tourism development on the local landscape and culture. …
Governments are attempting to better manage tourist numbers by promoting alternative destinations. Some city authorities have moved to prevent long-term rental apartments turning into full-time Airbnbs by capping the number of nights a unit can be rented for annually — 90 days annually in London and Paris, for example. In Scotland and many areas of California, hosts are being forced to apply for a controlled number of short-let licenses. There are also outright bans: New York prohibits letting apartments for stays of fewer than 30 days, while Barcelona has stopped issuing licenses, meaning that legal short-stay lets will disappear after 2028.
Taxation is another way to deter visitors, or at least to gain more income to mitigate their negative effects. Venice has been charging an entry fee (€5 up to four days before arrival, €10 thereafter) on the 54 busiest days of the year, while New Zealand levies a substantial one-off arrival fee (from which Australians are exempted) of $100 NZD ($59 USD).

29 – 30 June
Now, Cannes Joins Venice, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Nice in Taking Action Against Overtourism: Cruise Ship Restrictions to Protect Local Culture And Environment
The French Riviera city of Cannes is set to introduce a significant change in its tourism regulations, as the city council has decided to ban cruise ships carrying more than 1,000 passengers from docking at its harbor starting in January 2026. This move is part of a global push to combat overtourism, which has led to increasing dissatisfaction in many popular tourist destinations. Cannes’ new regulations aim to reduce the environmental impact of tourism while managing overcrowding, following recent protests against overtourism in cities like Venice, Barcelona, and protests in Spain, as well as a strike at the Louvre Museum.
New Regulations for Cruise Ships in Cannes
Cannes aims to reduce the environmental damage caused by large cruise ships and better manage tourism congestion. The city’s policy, voted on last Friday, will allow only cruise ships with fewer than 1,000 passengers to dock. Additionally, a cap of 6,000 passengers disembarking per day will be enforced. Larger ships will be required to transfer passengers to smaller boats to enter the city.
The tourist flood in the Mediterranean: can it be stemmed?
Finger-pointing at Airbnb or hotel owners obscures the root cause of overtourism in holiday hotspots: unmanageable demand
(The Week) Cities such as Lisbon and Barcelona have become unaffordable. Rents are soaring: their cafés and bistros are being replaced by souvenir shops, burger joints and “bubble tea” spots. And one organisation in particular gets the blame: Airbnb. Last month, Madrid ordered the online platform to delist nearly 66,000 rental properties held to be breaking local rules; Airbnb’s appeal against that order was rejected by a Spanish court last week. Meanwhile, Barcelona has decided not to renew the licences of 10,000 holiday homes set to expire by the end of 2028.

26 June
Venice Faces Major Tourist Disruptions as Jeff Bezos’ Exclusive Wedding Causes Chaos:
Venice, Italy, renowned for its iconic canals and rich history, has found itself at the heart of international headlines for all the wrong reasons. In recent days, the city’s cobblestone streets and historic landmarks have been unexpectedly disrupted as the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos takes center stage. As one of the most high-profile celebrity weddings of the year, Bezos’ nuptials have caused a significant disturbance to both locals and tourists in Venice, resulting in rerouted paths, traffic delays, and general inconvenience for travelers.
The lavish event, which is being hosted at one of Venice’s most exclusive venues, is causing a ripple effect that has impacted tourism across the city. Known for its serene atmosphere and timeless architecture, Venice has become temporarily inaccessible for many. From re-routed vaporetto (water bus) services to roadblocks in certain districts, the influx of security personnel and the coordination of an exclusive event like this have left many tourists stranded or facing unanticipated delays.

25 June
How Lisbon made itself irresistible to tourists – and became the least affordable city in Europe
Agustín Cocola-Gant
In this series, writers discuss the causes of – and solutions to – the housing crisis in key European cities
(The Guardian) Tourists stay in short-term rentals and foreigners buy second homes, while residents of the city rent rooms, not apartments

24 June
Jeff Bezos alters Venice wedding plans after threat of inflatable crocodiles
Amazon founder reportedly forced to change venue for his wedding celebrations in Italian city

Sold to the Trump family: one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean
By Marzio Mian
Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner have spent more than $1bn on an Albanian island that will be a luxury resort – once the unexploded ordnance has been removed
(The Guardian) On Sazan, a small island off the coast of Albania, the landscape is Jurassic. Ferns, giant lavender, plumbago, rosemary, broom and laurels grow on the mountain at its centre. The view from the top, with its dramatic sunsets, is dizzyingly beautiful.
Albanians call Sazan Ishulli i Trumpëve – Trump Island.
Until now mostly untrammelled by development, it is on the verge of becoming a mecca for ultra-luxury tourism, another addition to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s real-estate portfolio.

22 June
Surging travel in Europe spikes concerns overtourism’s drawbacks
(AP) — Suitcases rattle against cobblestones. Selfie-snappers jostle for the same shot. Ice cream shops are everywhere. Europe has been called the world’s museum, but its record numbers of visitors have also made it ground zero for concerns about overtourism.
Last year, 747 million international travelers visited the continent, far outnumbering any other region in the world, according to the U.N.’s World Tourism Barometer. Southern and Western Europe welcomed more than 70% of them.
As the growing tide of travelers strains housing, water and the most Instagrammable hotspots in the region, protests and measures to lessen the effects of overtourism have proliferated.
What’s causing overtourism
Among factors driving the record numbers are cheap flights, social media, the ease of travel planning using artificial intelligence and what U.N. tourism officials call a strong economic outlook for many rich countries that send tourists despite some geopolitical and economic tensions.

16 June
Overwhelmed Louvre workers strike to protest overtourism, shutting down world’s most-visited museum
A spontaneous strike at the Louvre shut down the world’s most-visited museum on Monday after workers refused to take up their posts in frustration with what they described as “untenable” working conditions and chronic overtourism.
(France 24) The Louvre has become a bellwether of global overtourism – overwhelmed by its own popularity. As tourism magnets from Venice to the Acropolis scramble to cap crowds, the world’s most iconic museum is reaching a reckoning of its own.
…the disruption comes just months after President Emmanuel Macron unveiled a sweeping decade-long plan to rescue the Louvre from precisely the problems now boiling over – water leaks, dangerous temperature swings, outdated infrastructure, and foot traffic far beyond what the museum can handle.
29 January
The ‘Mona Lisa’ will get its own room under a major renovation of the Louvre
Emmanuel Macron made a visit on Tuesday to the “bedside” of an ailling museum. The biggest and most visited museum in the world, according to a leaked memo from the museum’s director to the culture minister, is falling into disrepair. The president put a positive spin on it on Tuesday, announcing a vast renovation project, for a new and improved Louvre.

Southern Europeans protest overtourism with water pistols
Hundreds of demonstrators marched through Barcelona, Lisbon, Venice and other European cities over the weekend, protesting the negative effects of overtourism.
(WaPo) The protests reflect a growing unease among some residents of southern Europe about the impact of tourism; similar demonstrations were coordinated last summer. In Barcelona, where the water pistol has become a symbol of the protests, stickers bearing illustrations of water guns were plastered on storefronts.
How the humble water gun became the symbol of Barcelona’s anti-tourism movement
(AP) The phenomenon started last July, when a fringe, left-wing activist group based in Barcelona that promotes the “degrowth” of the city’s successful tourism sector held its first successful rally. Some brought water guns to shoot one another and stay cool in the summer heat.

14 June
‘Venice is worn out’: locals see Jeff Bezos wedding as symbol of city’s ills
City leaders claim days-long event will bring in riches but opponents say it will not benefit ordinary Venetians
The days-long shindig, expected to begin from 24 June, will be the biggest wedding held in Venice since George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin.
While Venice residents mostly embraced the Clooneys’ fairytale big day, ( George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin tie the knot in Venice wedding – Hollywood star marries British lawyer in private ceremony and celebrates with host of celebrity friends and A-listers), the Bezos wedding has been met with much more antipathy. As soon as Venice’s millionaire mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, confirmed in March that the couple would be getting married in the city, activists mobilised their “No space for Bezos” campaign.

15 April
The Race to Build the Biggest Cruise Ship: A New Era of Mega-Vessels
(Travel Daily)  The cruise industry is in the midst of a thrilling competition, with shipbuilders and cruise lines vying to create the largest, most luxurious vessels ever seen. As passenger expectations grow, so do the ships themselves, with each new launch pushing the boundaries of engineering, design, and onboard experiences. Let’s dive into the race to build the biggest cruise ships, featuring Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, Princess Cruises’ Star Princess, and MSC Cruises’ World America.

12 March
Private Islands and Beach Clubs: The Newest Cruise Offerings Are on Dry Land
Following the success of its Bahamian island, CocoCay, Royal Caribbean is opening an exclusive beach club a stone’s throw from Nassau, with promises of new opportunities for local tourism. Some islanders are alarmed.
(NYT) Opposite the bustling Nassau Bahamas Cruise Terminal, where it is not unusual to see four or five passenger ships docked at once, is a slice of tropical paradise with miles of white-sand beaches and turquoise water.
Once dotted with mansions, the 17-acre expanse on the western end of the Bahamas’ Paradise Island, has been acquired by an unlikely developer: the Royal Caribbean cruise line.
After the success of its Bahamian private island, CocoCay, the company is expanding its land-based offerings with a beach club scheduled to open in December. The projected $165 million project will have three swimming pools, the world’s largest swim-up bar and themed beach zones.

2024

15 December
In some port towns, it’s residents vs. cruises: ‘We’re going to eradicate them’
From Alaska to Maine to Virginia, residents are using their voices and the law to preserve their communities.
(WaPo) … The cruise industry says it forges symbiotic relationships with communities and brings economic boon to ports, with some industry estimates claiming passengers spend about $100 on average at each stop.
Around the world, from Venice to Juneau, Alaska, to Bar Harbor, Maine, residents are rising up against what they consider a scourge on their communities. They fear the vessels that they say pollute their air and water, drain the local economy and dispatch overwhelming crowds that diminish their quality of life. In Bar Harbor, for example, locals have described chaotic cruise days as packed as Times Square.
Marcie Keever, the San Francisco-based director of the oceans and vessels program at Friends of the Earth, said the grassroots movement is gaining momentum — and purchase. Cruise opponents are employing an array of strategies to curtail the industry, such as limiting the size of the ships or the number of passengers permitted onshore.
They are pushing for gambling bans or environmental regulations. They are prohibiting the cruise lines from using their public piers or security operations. As the public opinion of tourism has soured overseas in cities already besieged by foreign visitors, destinations such as Venice and Amsterdam are banning the vessels from their central districts.

4 December
How to cope with the wrong kind of tourists
By Mark Faithfull
In October, Prague city councillors confirmed that they had banned night-time pub crawls organised by travel agencies because the city wanted to target “more cultured” tourists. It was a widely-expected move to bar guided tours between 10pm and 6am, with deputy mayor Jri Pospisil stating that Prague city hall was “seeking a more cultured, wealthier tourist…not one who comes for a short time only to get drunk”.
Prague is not the first European capital to start trying to influence the type of tourist visiting in a strategy that is increasingly prioritising a perceived quality over quantity approach that is also aiming to balance the economic benefits of tourism with city livability.
Amsterdam last year launched a campaign of ‘stay away’ adverts aimed at young British men, which was triggered by search terms such as ‘stag party Amsterdam’, ‘cheap hotel Amsterdam’ and ‘pub crawl Amsterdam’ and also follows a city crackdown on its notorious Red Light District.

28 November
Can you take a clean cruise holiday and which vessels are the worst emitters?
In a booming sector where the biggest ships have doubled in size since 2000, pressure is growing to make cruising a greener, more sustainable way to travel
… Critics say the cruising boom – ships have soared in number from 21 in the 1970s to 515 today and the world’s biggest have doubled in size since 2000 – dwarfs decarbonisation efforts by individual lines and vessels. A study commissioned by the high level panel for a sustainable ocean economy concluded that the 2% annual improvements in carbon intensity reported by two leading cruise lines in recent years is “cancelled out many times over” by an expected 6% to 7% rise in passenger traffic.
Dublin down: Is the city really experiencing overtourism?

25 November
THE FUTURE OF CRUISE TOURISM IS THREATENED BY OVERTOURISM
(Tourism Review) The Overexploitation of Cruise Destinations
In recent years, many iconic destinations have had to implement drastic measures to limit the number of tourists arriving by cruise ship. Venice, one of the most famous cities in the world, has banned large passenger ships from docking in its port due to environmental concerns and the saturation of its historic center. Although cruise lines have redirected their itineraries to nearby ports such as Trieste and Ravenna, the situation remains unacceptable for many local communities.
Other locations, such as the Greek island of Santorini and the city of Juneau in Alaska, are experiencing similar challenges. Santorini, which sees many cruise passengers exceeding its population capacity, has imposed limits on the number of ships that can dock each day. Meanwhile, Juneau faces an influx of 1.6 million visitors annually, prompting authorities to plan a cap on the number of daily passengers starting in 2026.
The discomfort and tensions are not confined to the Mediterranean islands or Alaskan ports. In cities like Barcelona and Amsterdam, residents have actively demonstrated against overcrowding and the environmental impact of cruise tourism, even blocking the passage of cruise ships in protest.
The Environmental Impact of Cruise Ships
The environmental damage caused by cruise ships extends beyond just tourist congestion. For years, the industry has faced criticism for its high carbon emissions and the destruction of marine ecosystems. Large ships carrying thousands of passengers consume vast amounts of fossil fuel, contributing significantly to climate change. Their passage through the waters also impacts marine ecosystems and coral reefs, altering the areas’ biodiversity.

3 November
Is the future of cruising threatened by overtourism? Navigating the industry’s troubled waters
Cruise ships banned from dozens of overwhelmed destinations
(Euro news) The cruise industry travels to every part of the world, including Antarctica.
However, some ports have responded to cruise guests by implementing tourist fees, limiting the number of ships in port, or prohibiting ships from docking altogether.
Venice banned cruise ships from docking at its port. Many cruise lines still offer ‘Venice’ itineraries, but they now dock in nearby cities, such as Trieste or Ravenna, and bus passengers into the city.
The cruise industry travels to every part of the world, including Antarctica.
However, some ports have responded to cruise guests by implementing tourist fees, limiting the number of ships in port, or prohibiting ships from docking altogether.
Venice banned cruise ships from docking at its port. Many cruise lines still offer ‘Venice’ itineraries, but they now dock in nearby cities, such as Trieste or Ravenna, and bus passengers into the city.
The Alaskan capital Juneau faces overwhelming cruise traffic during its short season. Welcoming 1.6 million visitors annually, the city plans to limit daily cruise passengers in 2026.
… Some cruise lines purchase islands and incorporate those stops into their most popular itineraries.
Some of the most popular private island experiences are in the Bahamas, where cruisers enjoy crystal-clear water and powdery white sand.
Disney now owns two private stops: Castaway Cay and Lookout Cay at Lighthouse Point.
Carnival Corporation has Half Moon Cay and Princess Cay, and plans to open Celebration Key in July 2025.
Royal Caribbean offers its popular private island, Perfect Day at Coco Cay, on most Bahamas itineraries. It’s a favourite stop for cruisers – and some passengers select their itineraries specifically so they can visit it.
Virgin Voyages, the adults-only cruise line owned by Richard Branson, doesn’t have an entire island but instead offers a beach club option in Bimini, a chain of Bahamian islands east of Miami.

15 October
Venice introduces new measures to curb overtourism
By Edward Robertson
In the fourth part in our series on overtourism, we’re taking a look at one of the destinations that has become synonymous with the issue: Venice. If you missed the previous articles, you can catch-up here.
(Hospitality Investor) If the war against overtourism is just heating up in Mallorca, authorities in Venice have long been trying to deal with the problem with various measures introduced in recent years.
In April this year, authorities ran a 29-day pilot scheme called the Venice Access Fee which saw day trippers to the city charged €5 per head in a bid to help the city’s 55-000 strong population cope with the annual 20 million visitors.
Although the charge proved to be controversial, nearly €2.5 million was raised from the 485,062 people who paid it and authorities are said to be planning to double it when they reintroduce it later this year.
More recently, in August this year new rules were imposed on the city’s tour guides, limiting the size of groups to 25 people while the use of loudspeakers has also been banned with fines of up to €500 levied on those who break it.

17 September
Overtourism Index – New Tool To Fight Destination Overload.
Nik Fes |
(Tourism Review) Overtourism, the excessive growth of visitor numbers in a given area, has undeniably profound effects. These effects include damaged natural spaces, poorer quality of life for local populations, endless waiting times to visit popular attractions, and a deteriorated travel experience for tourists.
However, the phenomenon is difficult to measure. The first Overtourism Index, developed by Evaneos and the management consultancy Roland Berger, aims to eliminate subjective impressions and enable an objective approach to this modern tourism issue.

6 September
Rome May Start Charging Entry to the Trevi Fountain
The world-famous Baroque monument is getting swamped with increasingly ill-behaved tourists, the city says. Their fix: an access fee for non-residents.

2 September
Beautiful Greek Santorini Island, Another European Paradise Lost To Overtourism
(Forbes) Santorini, along with Barcelona, Venice and many other European spots, represents one of the starkest examples of the impact of hoards of visitors.
There’s no avoiding the reality: For 25,000 permanent residents, the once idyllic island of quaint villages and pristine beaches has been ruined by mass tourism.
The mayor of the island, one of the first government officials to speak out publicly about the overtourism crisis, has warned that the island will fail to “save itself” if controls are not immediately instituted.
“Tourism has hijacked Santorini’s wine production as agricultural land becomes exorbitant while visitor numbers continue to climb,” writes Fortune.
“Santorini is expensive, overdeveloped, and crowded because of its notoriety as a port for cruise ships and attraction as a Instagram-worthy destination,” according to National Geographic.
For the mayor, Nikos Zorzos, the millions of visitors are putting pressure on the outdated infrastructure while pricing islanders out of the housing market.
Zorzos says that he has been pushing national officials for years not to allow any more extra beds on the island and has proposed a cap of 8,000 on the number of passengers the gargantuan cruise ships can deliver per day. Right now that number is more than double: 17,000 thousand passengers every day.
“Santorini received 11,000 cruise passengers in a single day on 23 July, yet a 2018 study by the University of the Aegean concluded that the island can at most welcome 8,000 tourists per day sustainably,” reports Rebecca Ann Hughes in a Forbes article on the controls planned by the mayor.
Italy plans tourist tax of up to €25 a night to tackle overcrowding in cities like Florence and Rome
(The Independent UK) The Italian government is considering the €25 (£21) tax – currently between €1 and €5 per night in cities such as Venice – to make tourists “more responsible” and help financially disadvantaged areas fund services like refuse collections.
With almost 60 million international visitors in 2023, some of Italy’s holiday hotspots are plagued with congestion from cruise day trippers and overnight visitors during peak season.

1 September
‘Hawaii of Europe’: Azores seek to avoid pitfalls of mass tourism
(France24) This summer, many towns in Europe protested the arrival of tourists. In Spain, some locals even sprayed water guns to deter visitors. But one gem, dubbed the “Hawaii of Europe”, has taken drastic measures to avoid overtourism. Faial Island, in the heart of Portugal’s Azores archipelago, is a lush tropical landscape, home to a variety of species. For a long time, this volcanic island has remained a secret, but with its growing popularity, authorities are keen to keep it protected from the dangers of mass tourism.

31 August
Influencers hyped the Amalfi Coast for years. Now it’s a ‘theme park.’
In southern Italy, TikTok vs. reality pits a cliffside paradise against endless climbs, bus lines and traffic jams.
(WaPo) The causes of overtourism are complex, but affected destinations can point to at least one overriding factor. Santorini, Greece, has a crush of cruise ships; Dubrovnik, Croatia, attracts rabid “Game of Throne” fans. The Amalfi Coast suffers from overexposure on social media. Search “Amalfi Coast” on TikTok, and you will be bombarded with serene videos of pastel-colored villages wedged into the cliffside like Jenga pieces.

21 August
The ugly legacy of tourism in Bali: thousands of tons of plastic waste wash up on beaches
Bali’s beaches are among the most beautiful in the world. In 2023, more than 5 million people descended on this Indonesia resort. But behind the picture-perfect image is an ugly legacy of overtourism – a yearly haul of 300,000 tons of plastic waste.

8 August
11,000 passenger strong mega cruise ships heading for Palma
‘Cruisezillas’ are getting larger and more numerous
Mallorca town is the “most overcrowded tourist destination in Spain”

13 June
Italian authorities seek to combat over-tourism on Amalfi Coast (video)

21 May
6 years to the Global Goals – here’s how tourism can help get us there
Tourism is a significant economic force that has returned close to pre-pandemic figures, with 1.3 billion international travellers and tourism exports valued at approximately $1.6 trillion in 2023.
The tourism sector must adopt sustainable practices in response to climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.
Inclusive governance and community engagement in tourism planning and management are key to ensuring the sector’s support to local identity, rights and well-being.
(WEF) Tourism can help deliver a better future, and with less than six years to go, it must unleash its full power to achieve this.

13 May
Which European cities are trying to cut back the number of cruise ship visits?
(Euro news) Destinations struggling with overtourism are putting a stop to ships that bring toxic emissions and millions of passengers.
Every year, more than 20 million passengers take a cruise.
Before the pandemic, that number was even higher sitting at around 30 million.
As passenger numbers look to breach this pre-pandemic number once again, many European ports where these ships drop anchor are re-evaluating their presence. Some are looking to ban them altogether, citing environmental, social and economic concerns.
The 218 cruise ships operating in Europe in 2022 emitted over four times more sulphur oxides than all of the continent’s cars, according to Transport & Environment. The NGO found back in June last year that these toxic air pollutants from ships are now higher than they were before COVID-19.

23 February
What Europe’s Busiest Cities Are Doing To Combat Overtourism In 2024
(Forbes) As worldwide tourist numbers continue to rise, major European destinations are making big moves to get mass tourism and its impact under control.
Tourist taxes are one tool being introduced or extended in the cities that struggle the most with runaway visitor numbers. Charges for overnight stays and cruise ship arrivals are set to become the norm, driving up the cost of international travel.
Following a more than doubling of global tourism numbers between 2000 and 2019, the UN’s World Tourism Organization said this year could set new records for international arrivals worldwide.
Overtourism leads to many issues, from visible problems including overcrowding in the streets and on public transit, to longer-term issues for locals.
In cities such as Amsterdam and Barcelona, the popularity of buy-to-let property and vacation rentals has created housing shortages and driven up rental prices, forcing out long-term residents in some cases.

2023

18 April 2017 – Last update: 13 June 2023
Angkor water crisis
(UNESCO) Angkor, one of the world’s most fascinating collection of monuments and temple ruins, is spread over 400 square kilometres within the UNESCO-protected Angkor archaeological park. It has attracted a growing number of tourists since it opened up less than 25 years ago. More than four million visitors – 2.5 million of them foreign tourists – flocked to this unique medieval settlement last year, putting tremendous strain on the area’s scarce water resources.
The Angkor complex, which harbours 112 villages and forests within its boundaries, and the burgeoning town of Siem Reap, a relatively recent development to cater to the booming tourism industry, are in danger of becoming victims of their own success.
Siem Reap province has a deficit of about 300 million cubic metres of water per year. To compensate for the unbridled development and water shortages, the Siem Reap Water Supply Authority draws about 27,900 cubic metres of groundwater per day for domestic use. Groundwater levels are further impacted by hotels and other businesses, many of whom have sunk thousands of illegal private wells and pumps across the city to meet their water needs.
In Siem Reap, the groundwater is about five metres below the ground surface, and therefore easy to access. This illicit use of water, for which no statistics are available, threatens the stability of the temples and towers of Angkor. The archaeological treasures have been designed to sit on a base of sand, kept in place by a constant supply of groundwater, which rises and falls depending on the season.

19 January
Canada’s Crowded Banff Confronts Its Overtourism Problem
Every year, the startlingly beautiful resort town of Banff in western Canada receives more than four million visitors. In July alone, Banff National Park saw a total of 694,127 independent visitors, the most it had seen for the month since 2013. Parks Canada, the government agency managing national parks, said traffic flaggers were required 24 hours a day in 2022 in response to demand for access to Moraine Lake. The parking lot also remained full for nearly 24 hours a day at the peak of summer.
… Finally, Banff is addressing these problems of overtourism.

2020

1 November
Securing the Lost City of Machu Picchu
In 1983, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared Machu Picchu a World Heritage Site—dubbing it the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu. Twenty-four years later, millions of people around the world cast votes to name Machu Picchu one of the seven wonders of the modern world.
Due to these designations, its unique beauty, and history, thousands of people pass through the small city of Aguas Calientes, Peru, at the foot of the mountain and hike or take the train to Machu Picchu every day. And while they are mostly there to admire and appreciate the UNESCO site, they also pose a security risk.
Threats to the Sanctuary
Machu Picchu faces a variety of threats: excessive tourism, which is especially hard on the fragile site; the generation of solid waste; unsustainable agriculture practices; overgrazing and forest fires; aggravating erosion; landslides; mineral extraction; and the introduction of exotic plants.

2019

9 September
Overtourism still threatens Angkor Wat
(Phnompenh Post) Tourism has taken a heavy toll on the temple complex.
This year, Responsible Travel released a map documenting more than 90 destinations in 60 countries suffering from the strain of overtourism.
Angkor Wat is on that map, and for good reason.
Fewer tourists may have visited Angkor Wat this year than last, but overtourism still threatens its very foundations.
… More than 10 years ago, the World Bank warned that temples such as Bayon were sinking into their foun-dations as nearby hotels drained underground reservoirs.
In her 2013 book Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, journalist Elizabeth Becker called Cambodia “a model of tourism gone wrong”, arguing that “the splendid sacred spaces [of Angkor] are lost in a scrum of foreigners”.
Two years ago, the Apsara National Authority instituted a limit of 300 people at the top of Phnom Bakheng because the number of sunset-seekers threatened to damage the temple there.
While a good start, this came nowhere close to stemming the tide of overtourism that threatens the entire temple complex.

30 April
Sinking city: how Venice is managing Europe’s worst tourism crisis
Venice’s booming tourism industry is threatening the city’s very survival. But grassroots initiatives are making a difference – and may even help other cities
Paula Hardy
(The Guardian) Friday 15 March was a rare day in Venice: … Young Venetians had skipped school to join the global youth climate strike, holding placards with statements such as “If climate was a bank, you’d save it.” The movement is especially relevant in Venice, since a 50cm rise in sea levels could see the city vanish beneath the waves.
Critical as the climate crisis is, the city faces a more immediate risk: the rising tide of tourists, presently estimated at 25 million a year and projected to reach 38 million by 2025.
Europe, already the world’s largest tourism market, received 713 million international visitors in 2018, an 8% increase on the previous year, according to the UN World Tourism Organization. But, in European cities, the increase is far greater: since 2008, overnight stays have jumped 57%. While tourism provides significant economic benefit – contributing €2bn annually in gross revenue to Venice alone – overtourism is causing cities like Barcelona, Amsterdam, Dubrovnik and others to make international headlines on issues ranging from housing affordability, environmental degradation and the destruction of local life.
In 2016 in Dubrovnik, residents were outraged when the mayor asked them to stay home to avoid the dangerous levels of crowds disembarking from multiple cruise ships. The new mayor, Mato Frankovic, has since capped the number of cruise ships that can dock in the city at two per day, cut souvenir stalls by 80% and cut restaurant seating in public spaces by 30%. But similar issues of overcrowding in Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastián, Prague and Salzburg have brought locals out into the streets in increasingly impassioned protests.
One of the most dramatic was Venice’s 2016 No Grandi Navi (“No Big Ships”) protest, when locals took to the Giudecca Canal in small fishing boats to block the passage of six colossal cruise ships. And, although plans have been announced this year to reroute the largest ships to a new dock in Marghera (still to be built), campaigners still argue for a dock outside the lagoon at the Lido, where heavy cargo ships historically unloaded.

2007

23 June 2007
Green to go
Everyone is getting on the green-travel bandwagon, but which choices truly make a difference?
HANNAH HOAG
(Globe & Mail) Travel guidebooks are asking their readers not to fly, hotels are building compost bins, car-rental companies are adding hybrids to their fleets, ski hills are building wind generators and switching to biodiesel, and airlines are offering customers the chance to buy carbon offsets.
As public concern over global warming grows, travel companies are scrambling to embrace environmentally responsible practices to satisfy the growing number of tourists who are making travel choices weighed on a green scale.
The current green-travel movement evolved out of several trends – ecotourism, sustainable tourism, nature tourism – that emerged well before Kyoto became more than just another travel destination.
Ecotourism and nature tourism are growing at three times the rate of traditional tourism, according to the International Ecotourism Society. The World Travel Organization estimates that ecotourism captures 7 per cent of the international market.
Here are some options to help you stay on the green side of life:
Fly Less
Travel can have an enormous environmental cost. International air travel releases more than 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually – about the same as 158 million cars driving 14,000 kilometres annually. Controversial British writer George Monbiot has said that taking responsibility for climate change means avoiding air travel.
Because takeoff and landing require more fuel than cruising, a series of short-haul flights can cause more damage than a non-stop flight over the same distance. “Basically that means the best option for a shorter-haul flight is an alternate form of transportation,” says Zoë Chafe, a research associate at the Worldwatch Institute and a contributor to WorldChanging, an online publication.
The publishers of Rough Guides and Lonely Planet are asking readers to think twice before they travel. “Fly less, stay longer” has become the Rough Guides mantra. Their guidebooks now offer tips for fighting climate change, such as reducing air travel and opting for night flights.
“We travel by land when our schedule allows it,” Richard Gregory says in an e-mail from Don Khong, an island in the Si Phan Don region of southern Laos. Gregory, 34, and Joanne Minns, 35, have been travelling through Asia and Australia since they left Montreal last summer. The couple recently opted to make a 160-kilometre trip from the Thai border to Siem Reap, Cambodia, by bus. It took six hours. “Travelling by land ends up costing about one-quarter of the price of flying, but you have to have the time,” he writes.
Offset your trip
When travelling by land or water isn’t an option, Chafe recommends offsetting the carbon emissions produced by the flight. Zerofootprint (http://www.zerofootprint.net), Offsetters (http://www.offsetters.ca), My Climate (http://www.myclimate.org) and Atmosfair (http://www.atmosfair.de) are among the many vendors to choose from. Zerofootprint, a Toronto-based not-for-profit program, announced in May that it had teamed up with Air Canada to offer passengers the chance to purchase carbon offsets for their trip when buying tickets online. By their calculations, a flight from Montreal to London generates the equivalent of 3.13 tonnes of carbon dioxide, about the same as driving a 2005 Honda Civic 20,000 kilometres.
Except for 10 per cent covering overhead, “all of the money goes toward a tree-planting initiative near Vancouver,” says Deborah Kaplan, Zerofootprint’s executive director. The program is restoring forest on degraded land. Hundreds of offsets were sold in the first three weeks of the Air Canada program.
Canadians are evidently willing to pay for their travel sins. The Conference Board of Canada reports that seven out of 10 Canadians said they were willing to pay $10 for every $1,000 in airfare on government-approved forms of green energy in Canada.
Still, many travellers aren’t so sure. “I’ve thought about buying them, but I just don’t know enough about them to invest wisely,” Australian Malinda Wink writes in an e-mail from Sanliurfa, Turkey.
The David Suzuki Foundation offers some advice: invest with companies that offer “additionality” – projects that wouldn’t have happened without your money. There is also Gold Standard, a Swiss non-profit foundation that invests in energy-efficiency and renewable-energy carbon-offset projects (but not tree planting) that have been verified by an independent third party.
Ask questions
To confuse matters, many not-so-green businesses are jumping on the bandwagon for economic benefit, duping good-hearted tourists with their murky promises. Separating the green from the green-washed can be a challenge.
There are stories of wilderness ecolodges accessible only by helicopter, tour guides who buzz wildlife with motorboats, and developers who evict indigenous communities to set up sustainable tourism sites. The best way to avoid green washing is to look for tours and lodging certified by a reputable program such as Green Globe 21, Blue Flag International and Costa Rica’s Certification for Sustainable Travel.
Unlike timber products, which have the Forest Stewardship Council to ensure the wood has come from a well-managed forest, the tourism industry lacks a common set of standards. The Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council (http://www.stscouncil.org) could be the beacon in this green fog. Led by the Rainforest Alliance and the International Ecotourism Society, the proposed council will accredit the certification programs, providing a global mark that travellers can trust everywhere in the world.
And a little more than a year ago, the Rainforest Alliance launched Eco-Index Sustainable Tourism (eco-indextourism.org), a database of tourism businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean that have earned a stamp of approval from an ecotourism certification program or reputable environmental group.
Other safe bets are established conservation groups such as WWF-Canada (http://www.wwf.ca) and the Nature Conservancy (http://www.nature.org) that offer trips to natural areas. Working with the tour company Horizon & Co., WWF-Canada has developed three-to-11-day ecotours to draw attention to some of its conservation programs.
Lisa di Piera, senior manager of major gifts at WWF-Canada, visited the marshes and mangroves of Cuba’s Zapata Wetlands and snorkelled in search of endangered hawksbill turtles on one such trip in April, 2005. “While we didn’t see turtles that day, we were out with one of the professors from the university and got the inside scoop on what was happening there from local professionals,” she says.
When done right, green travel can be good for communities and the planet. As a program leader at Global Routes, a Massachusetts-based non-profit organization that sends high school and college students abroad to do community service, Shanna Brownstein searched carefully for the perfect travel reward for her group at the end of their service.
“We always tried to stay in places that were eco-friendly and tied to the local community,” she says. That search strategy led her to Los Pueblos Mancomunados, an ecotourism project in the Sierra Norte mountain range near Oaxaca, Mexico.
On that trip, Brownstein, now 28 and a graduate student in public administration at Columbia University in New York, and her group hiked from village to village through the tropical forests and slept in sustainable lodges outfitted with composting toilets. Their guides came from the communities and could tell the teenagers about the local flora and environment while they hiked.
“All of the money stayed in the community … and I liked the idea of these communities maintaining their cultural identity and the environment,” Brownstein says.
She was successful because she asked the right questions. Los Pueblos Mancomunados met the key criteria for eco-friendly tourism: it offered environmental protection and community benefits, and it provided the chance to connect with the region and the people.

2020

20 February
The Problem with “Overtourism”
Tourism brings both economic benefits and costs to destinations, including for residents in the location. The Travel & Tourism sector contributes around 10% to global GDP and supports 325 million jobs. The costs are much more difficult to measure (as is the case with most industries), but we can broadly identify them as potentially raising living costs for residents and businesses, increasing congestion, and facilitating damage to the natural or built environment. The increase in concerns about ‘overtourism’ in Europe likely reflects the perception that the costs and benefits of the industry have become mismatched – in other words, the costs are incurred by different people than those who receive the benefits, and/or have increased in recent years.
The Problem with ‘Overtourism’
Michael Shoory, Senior Economist; David Goodger,Managing Director, Tourism Economics, EMEA
-Concerns about ‘overtourism’ have grown in recent years, especially in European destinations. There is no widely accepted definition of ‘overtourism’, though recent
attention is based on the perception that the costs and benefits of tourism have
become unbalanced. An increase in anti-tourist sentiment has perhaps been most
notable in Barcelona and Venice.
-The economic benefit of the Travel & Tourism sector is significant, contributing around
10% of global GDP in 2019 and supporting 325 million jobs (including 37 million in
Europe). Some European countries are heavily reliant on tourism, including Iceland
(32% contribution to GDP), Croatia (25%) and Greece (21%).
-The costs associated with tourism, like those for many industries, are difficult to
measure. These generally reflect the impact on living or operating costs for residents
and businesses, and concerns about damage to the natural or built environment.
Costs vary by destination and the type of tourism

25 January
Overtourism in Europe’s historic cities sparks backlash
Angry protests from residents in popular areas force city hall officials to take action