VENICE, Italy (AP) — Tourists wait more than two hours to visit the Acropolis in Athens, taxi lines are just as long at Rome’s central station, and crowds are so thronging St. Mark’s Square in Venice that even on weekdays people are stuck trying to cross the bridge.
After three years of pandemic restrictions, some of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations are expected to surpass 2019 records this summer, from Barcelona, Rome, Athens and Venice to the picturesque islands of Santorini in Greece, Capri in Italy and Mallorca in Spain.
European tourists led the travel industry’s recovery last year, but this summer’s rise is driven mostly by Americans, fueled by a strong dollar and pandemic savings. Many are motivated by “revenge tourism” — eager to travel again, despite soaring airfares and hotel prices.
Lauren Gonzalez, 25, arrived in Rome this week with four high school and college friends after a three-year break from the United States for a 16-day whirlwind trip around the Italian capital, Florence and the coast. They’re not worried about high prices or crowds.
“We’ve saved up and we know this is a meaningful trip,” said Gonzalez, who works for a marketing company. “We’re all in our mid-20s. This is a life-changing moment. … This is special. We don’t mind crowds. We live in Florida. We’ve been to Disney World in the heat. We’re all in good spirits.”
Tourists visit the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Friday, June 30, 2023. Major attractions such as the Colosseum, the Louvre and the Acropolis have drawn large crowds, with visitor numbers surpassing 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. While European visitors helped fuel the tourism industry’s recovery last year, this summer’s rise was driven mostly by Americans, fueled by a stronger dollar and increased pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Americans seem similarly unfazed by the recent riots in Paris and other French cities. Flight bookings are down slightly, but that’s mostly for domestic travel.
“Some of my friends said, ‘It’s a little crowded right now,’ but I thought summer would be a good time to go, so I’m going to be cautious,” Joan Titus, 38, from Maryland, said as she strolled the famous Champs-Elysees shopping district.
The return of mass tourism is a boon for hotels and restaurants battered by coronavirus restrictions, but it also has downsides, with pledges to rethink tourism to make it more sustainable being largely ignored.
“The pandemic should have taught us a lesson,” said Alessandra Priante, the U.N. World Tourism Organization’s regional director for Europe.
Instead, the mindset is to “get cash back,” she said. “It’s all about the bottom line, what’s here and now.”
“Prices at the moment are unsustainable so we’ll have to wait and see what happens in two to three years,” she said.
A tourist is stabbed behind a fence at the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. Crowds have flocked to major attractions such as the Colosseum, the Louvre and the Acropolis, and visitor numbers in some of Europe’s most popular destinations have surpassed 2019 records. European visitors helped the tourism industry recover last year, but this summer’s economic recovery has been driven mainly by Americans, fueled in some cases by a strong dollar and pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
The mayor of Florence is blocking new short-term rental apartments in its historic center, protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site, while mayors of other Italian art cities are calling for national legislation to govern the sector.
Elsewhere, anti-mass tourism protests that were active before the pandemic have not reignited, but battlefields remain drawn: In Barcelona, graffiti has wrongly driven tourists away from Gaudí-designed Park Güell instead of towards it;
Despite some expected over-tourism, travel to and within Europe is 10% lower than in 2019, according to the World Tourism Organization, partly due to fewer people visiting countries such as Lithuania, Finland, Moldova and Poland that are close to the Ukraine conflict.
Moreover, Chinese tourists have not fully returned, with air travel from China and other Asia-Pacific countries down 45% compared to 2019, according to travel data firm ForwardKeys.
Tourism-dependent Greece expects visitor numbers to reach 30 million this year, below the record 34 million in 2019. Still, flight numbers have risen so far, hurting tourist destinations.
The Culture Ministry will introduce a new ticketing system at the Acropolis this month, giving visitors hourly entry slots to ease crowding, but no improvements are being considered for busy morning queues when cruise ships dock in Mykonos and Santorini.
Tourists visit the ancient hill of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. Major attractions like the Colosseum, the Louvre and the Acropolis are packed with people, with visitor numbers surpassing 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. European visitors helped the tourism industry recover last year, but this summer’s rise is mostly driven by Americans, buoyed by a stronger dollar and pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
People, mostly tourists, watch a bullfight from a balcony during the San Fermin festival in Pamplona, Spain, Saturday, July 8, 2023. Major attractions like the Colosseum, the Louvre and the Acropolis are packed with people, and visitor numbers in some of Europe’s most popular destinations have surpassed 2019 records. European visitors helped the tourism industry recover last year, but this summer’s rise is mainly driven by Americans, fueled in part by a stronger dollar and pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Alvaro Barrientos)
Spain’s Tourism Minister Hector Gomez called it a “historic summer for tourism” after 8.2 million tourists arrived in May alone, a second consecutive month of record numbers, but some hotel groups said soaring flight and room prices had slowed bookings in the first weeks of summer.
According to ForwardKeys, air travel from the U.S. to Europe is 2% higher than in 2019, which is driving up costs.
“The increased demand for long-haul travel from the US is the result of a continuing boom in ‘revenge travel’ sparked by pandemic lockdowns,” said Tim Henschel, CEO of booking site Hotel Planner. “Big cities in these popular European countries will undoubtedly be busier in the summer.”
Italian hotel association Federalberghi says Americans have helped drive visitor numbers to Italy’s must-see destinations, including Rome, Florence, Venice and Capri, above pre-pandemic levels.
The latest for Thursday, July 13: New attack in Kyiv, Ukraine; two firefighters shot in Birmingham, Alabama; tornadoes hit Chicago area; U.S. heat wave shows no signs of abating.
That brings in a lot of potential purchasing power: American tourists to Italy spent 74% more on duty-free luxury goods in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2019.
“There are also areas in the rest of Italy that depend on Italian and European tourism to survive, which at the moment is still below 2019 levels,” Federal Berghi president Bernabo Bocca said.
He expects a full recovery will take another year. The slowing economy has made Germans less willing to travel, and Italians “are less willing to spend this year,” he said.
And people are likely to spend more: Hotel prices in Florence are up 53 percent from last year, according to Italian consumer group Codacons, compared with 25 percent in Venice and 21 percent in Rome.
Gelato prices will also be 21% higher than last year due to rising sugar and milk prices.
Perhaps nothing has driven more tourism to prime locations than the explosion of short-term apartment rentals, which Federale Berghi’s Bocca blames for Rome’s congestion, even as the number of hotel rooms remains constant: taxi lines get longer and crosswalks get so clogged that city buses can’t run.
Tourists sail on a boat on the Seine River in Paris, France, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. Major attractions such as the Colosseum, the Louvre and the Acropolis have drawn large crowds, with visitor numbers surpassing 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations. European tourists helped fuel the industry’s recovery last year, but this summer’s rise is largely driven by Americans, fueled in some cases by a stronger dollar and pandemic savings. (AP Photo/Christophe Haena)
In Rome or Florence, “you walk down the street and tourists with suitcases come out of every door,” he says.
Florence’s mayor has limited the number of short-term rentals in its historic center to 8,000, but nothing has been done in Venice, where the city’s canal-filled historic center is home to 49,432 residents and 49,272 tourist accommodation units, almost half of which are apartments available for short-term rental.
Giacomo Salerno, a tourism studies student at Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, said inconvenience was “the norm”.
He said it was difficult to walk through crowded tourist streets or ride public water buses “full of tourists with suitcases.”
Students have difficulty finding affordable housing because landlords prefer to make money from vacation rentals, and the decline in resident numbers, driven largely by tourist demand and a rise in the cost of living, means a lack of services, such as a shortage of family doctors.
Venice has postponed plans to impose an admission tax on day-trippers to curb the influx of tourists, but activists like Salerno say this will not solve the problem of a declining population and rising tourism, but will instead cement the city’s fate as an amusement park.
“That’s like saying the only use of this city is tourism,” Salerno said.
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Associated Press writers Aritz Parra in Rome, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Ciaran Gilles in Madrid, Angela Charlton in Paris and Kelvin Chan in London contributed.
