Ever since the fall of the Ventian Republic in 1797, locals ahve complained that Venice, its former capital, is being overrun by visitors. Having spent decades trying to attract tourists, the city council is now rethinking its approach. In May it constructed pedestrain gates across the historic neighbourhood's main entrances. When crowds get took thick, the polie will close them, limiting access to locals who possess a special pass.
It is not only Venetians who think there are too many tourists. In Amsterdam locals are fed up with stag parties, unused to mixing alcohol and drugs, leaving a trail of litter and vomit. In July protesters attacked tourist buses in Valencia, Palma de Mallorca and Barcelone. The newest word to enter the travel industry's vocabulary is "overtourism", which was coined to describe the consequences of having too many visitors.
This backlash might seem odd. The World Travel and Tourism Council, a trade body, says that tourism directy accouts for nearly 3% of the world's GDP. The industry employs 5% of the world's workforce. McKinsey, a consultancy, estimates that one in five new jobs is generated by tourism. Policymakers also like economic effects on poorer countries. Whereas oil drilling and mining employ relatively few people, tourism employs armies. And it can help the rest of the economy to develop, since policies designed to attract tourists, such as easy visas and good policing, also attract foreign investors.
The growing backlash against tourism has coincided with extraordinary growth in visitor numbers. According to the World Tourism Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, the number of international visitors making overnight stays grew to 1.3 billion in 2017. That is twice the number in 2000, and more than four times the level in 1980. Even so, the rise in numbers is not the real problem, syas Alex Dichter of McKinsey. "People in 99% of countries in the world are crying out for more, not fewer, tourists," he explains. The problem is that these extra tourists are converging on the same places.
This has surprised many in the travel industry. The spread of the internet was meant to scatter tourists by making less well-known places easier to find. Why had the opposite happened? Analysts at Skift, a travel website, attribute it to the rise of "bucket lists". Popularised by a film of the same name in 2007, which featured a "list of things to do before i kick the bucket", these internet lists direct tourists to the same "must see" places. The desire for the perfect Instagram photo has a similar result. Mr Dichter also points to several other reasons for the shift. When flag carries ran air travel as a cartel, flights cost a fortune-over $230 for the 300-mile trip between London and Dublin in the mid-1980s, for instance. But low-cost carries like Ryanair (whose average fare was $46 last year) have transformed the industry. The rise of services like Airbnb, that allow locals to rent their homes to visitors, means that a place's capacity for overnight stays is no longer limited by the number of hotel rooms.
Partly as a result, the share of tourists who are making their first has soared. Newbies often want to visit famous landmarks. In Amsterdam almost all first-time visitor head for the Van Gogh museum and Anne Frank's house, says Geerte Udo of its authority. Meanwhile tourists from China and India often dislike tanning and therefore skip beach destination, adding to the crowds in a handful of populr cities.
Such overcrowding brings costs, which are borne by local residents. City dwellers find that pavements, roads cycle lanes are jammed. In party towns, like Amsterdam and Prague, residents must put up with late-night hooliganism. Island resorts suffers from garbage-filled beaches and polluted water.
If tourist dollars push up the cost of living, locals may be priced out. Analysts at Islandsbanki, a bank, estimate that 1225 properties in Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, were listed on Airbnb in the peak season of 2017-more than the number of new homes that were built that year. The local population in Venice has roughly halved over the past 30 years. So, over the past two decades, has that of Dubrovnik in Croatia, and old walled city best known as King's Landing in "Game of Thrones". Academics now worry that services for ordinary residents, such as cheap cafes and doctors' surgeries, will collapse if populations continue to fall.
Local authorities are developing strategies hastily to cope. An extreme reaction is to ban tourists entirely or to cap visitor numbers. Many ports, including Venice, limit the number of cruise ships, and there are calls for cities to limit parking spaces for tourist coaches. Both ships and coaches bring tight-fisted visitors. A study in the British city of Cambridge found that the average coach day-tripper spends just $3.5.
A more clever approach is to adjust taxes and charges, so that they better reflect the costs tourists impose. Tourists staying in hotels in central Amsterdam pay a higher tax rate than those staying farther away. In Edinburgh councillors are reportedly considering to tourist tax, revenues from which would be spent on rubbish collection or improving infrastructure.
Thordis Gyfadottir, Iceland's tourist minister, says that another part of answer is to spread visits out. In 2010 half of the country's tourists arrived during the summer. Thanks to marketing campaigns and better in frastructure for travel during winter months, now only a third do. Ms Gylfadottir hopes that new direct flights form Britain to northern Iceland will provide additional relief to Reykjavik and allow undiscovered sites to enjoy welcome tourist revenues.
Venice is currently designing a plan to encourage tourists to stay longer by egging them on to visit more than just the main sights. Another option would be to improve its infrastructure. A study by the University of Venice in 1988 found the city could hold at most 20750 visitors a day. That is around a quater of traffic today. The increased demand has not been met by building better public transport.
