When Too Much Tourism Is Simply Too Much
Francesco Russo is a native of Venice who makes his living selling Venetian glass from a small store on one of the winding lanes that surround the Doge’s Palace. He has a prime seat from which to observe the hundreds of thousands of selfie – posing, ice cream licking tourists who pass his shop each and every day.
Even though his business relies on the hordes who clog the streets, even he has to admit that the sheer weight of numbers is bordering on the ludicrous. “There are too many,” he says with a shrug, “our city which is one of the most beautiful in Europe, is now just a theme park”
That’s a sentiment echoing across a number of European cities which, until a decade ago made up the gems that constituted the “grand tour’ or were stops on the package tours so popular in the 19th century. Since 2000 the sheer number of people now visiting these self-same cities has not so much grown, as exploded into a human tide that ios overrunning the central areas of several cities.
In 2017, more than 87 million tourists visited France, 54 million descended on Italy and even the tiny Netherlands received in excess of 18 million visitors. This bonanza is not only restricted to Europe as the tourism sector is now booming all over the world. Asia experienced a staggering 9% increase in international arrivals in 2017 while visitors to Latin American countries have pushed up the average GDP by almost 4%.
But it is Europe which is bearing the brunt of this human avalanche. Of the 1.3 billion arrivals as tracked by the U.N., 600 million of those visited Europe, an increase of 8% over the year before.
With numbers for 2018 expected to break all records, many residents in some European cities feel they have become victims of this unstoppable deluge and are taking matters into their own hands. From Madrid to Munich it is not unusual to see signs and wholesale graffiti adorning the sides of buildings with slogans such as, ', tourists go home' or “F%#k” Air B&B.
In short, they have had enough.
On a recent trip to Barcelona, I was able to witness for myself just how prevalent the crowds actually are. At 9.am on a Tuesday morning, tickets to visit Barcelona’s emblematic Sagrada Família Basilica have already sold out. Just a few years ago, one could simply turn up at the turnstiles, buy a ticket and wander the cathedral in relative peace, but these days, with the explosion of visitors to the city ( expected to exceed 30 million this year) arriving without a prepaid ticket will result in disappointment.
La Rambla is Barcelona’s most famous street but these days it is the least loved by residents, fed up with having to compete with crowds clogging the wide boulevard. It so crowded in summer as to be virtually impassable during the high season.
Along each side of this wonderful avenue, there is nothing but tacky souvenir shops, mediocre buskers, existing cheek by jowl with McDonald’s stores and shabby restaurants serving kebabs and paella that would arouse the suspicions of any food safety official anywhere. Barcelona is on the cusp of losing its identity and in doing so is becoming like everywhere else, in other words, like Venice, an overcrowded theme park.
The reasons are perhaps many but, fueling the growth are the low-cost carriers who ferry millions of passengers across the continent at prices so low that it is almost free. Ryanair, EasyJet and Vueling are continually adding new planes to their fleet to cater to the ever-growing market, eager to take advantage of the rock bottom prices on offer.
It is not only air travellers adding to the numbers.
The cruise ship industry in Europe grew by a whopping 51% over an eight-year period since 2007. Each day, in cities like Lisbon or Porto it is not unusual to see three or four of these gargantuan structures tie up at the docks and promptly vomit out up to 10,000-day trippers. Again, given the competitive nature of the cruise industry, it is now affordable for most people to take an all-inclusive European cruise at prices that were unheard of a few years ago.
Then, of course, there is Air B&B which only launched in 2008 and is now is one of the largest accommodation sectors across the globe.
A major factor driving the tourism sector is rising prosperity in China and India which has created almost a billion middle-class families who all seem and want to be avid travellers, eager to experience the charms of other countries.
Love it or hate it, tourism has been an economic lifesaver for many of the countries hit the hardest by the Global Financial Crisis as in 2016, international tourism generated over $321 billion for the EU and now employs in excess of 12 million people.
Even with this financial windfall, city fathers are trying to curb the numbers arriving or at least channel the hordes that throng the streets and turn their precious monuments into no-go zones. But, as they are discovering it is a lot harder to stem the tide than it was to attract them to their cities in the first place.
However, authorities are clamping down in cities like Copenhagen whose government issued a new law limiting the number of days per year where owners can rent out their rooms or apartments. Barcelona too has targeted Air B& B, forcing the company to share its data to curb the renting out of unlicensed apartments.
t’s a fine balancing act as imposing too many restrictions risks alienating residents who have now become reliant on the tourist dollar. A recent attempt by the city authorities in Venice to charge visitors a fee to access San Marco Square was shot down by shop owners and restaurateurs who maintained that tourists were their only source of income as local residents no longer visit the world famous site.
Many of the residents of cities overrun by tourism are leaving in droves, seeking a quieter existence in smaller towns or even moving countries. The upshot of this relocation is that essential services such as, dentists, doctors and pharmacies are slowly moving out the city centres which, in turn, leaves their vacant space to be filled with even more restaurants, fast food outlets and cheap souvenir stores.
While in Porto recently I overheard a couple talking while taking pictures from one of the many bridges that cross Duomo. “It really is amazing,” said the woman gazing at the scene, “but you know what? I wouldn’t come back. There are far to many tourists.”
Enough said.
