CNN — Protests in the streets. Graffiti warning tourists to go home. Local populations dwindling as short-term rentals mushroom and price residents out.
It feels like this was the year that tourism turned nasty – and local communities started pushing back.
Venice has started charging daytrippers an entry fee, while one busy Swiss town has announced it wants to follow suit. Locals have staged protests in Mallorca and Barcelona.
And while it has come to a head in Europe, this is a global phenomenon. A Japanese town overlooking Mount Fuji erected view-blocking barriers in May (then removed them in August). Bali introduced a tourist entry tax for foreign visitors in February. And US national parks are full to bursting – with 13 million more visits in 2023 than in 2022, according to NPS numbers. In peak season, visitors must book ahead to enter.
Increased enthusiasm doesn’t seem to correlate with increased respect for the landscape, however. During the 35-day government shutdown in 2019, visitors did damage to Joshua National Park that would take centuries to rectify, officials said at the time.
The risk, as professor and environmental specialist Emily Wakild wrote for CNN in 2023, is of “loving a place to death.”
“This isn’t something new, or something which has just happened,” says Noel Josephides, chairman of European tour operator Sunvil.
Josephides thinks the current chaos was predictable years ago. He says he feels “ashamed” of what the industry has done to destinations.
“I’ve lost faith in what our business is about,” he says about the havoc the tourism has wreaked in Europe.
Other veterans agree. The only question is whether we can emerge from it and reset travel to become the beautiful experience we’ve all known and treasured.
R&I – TP
Enterprise7
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/travel/tourism-why-it-went-wrong/index.html