Tourists gather at Barceloneta Beach in Barcelona, Spain
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Fed up with housing shortages, traffic congestion, noise, pollution and litter, many popular European destinations are swapping “come here” tourism campaigns for “don’t come” anti-tourism strategies. Some of the measures to keep tourists away can be quite draconian.
Literally overwhelmed by tourists, many of the most iconic destinations have become uninhabitable for locals and overcrowded, dangerous and inhospitable for tourists. Many of Europe’s most rural and popular destinations are too beautiful, quiet and rustic to withstand the annual visits of millions of tourists.
While it has not yet risen to the level of a formal issue for European Union governments, discussions have begun about how to handle the tourist influx. The sheer numbers of visitors that were once the gold standard for these hotspots are the very source of the current backlash.
ForbesSummer in Europe? Experts reveal anti-tourist and over-tourist destinations By Cecilia Rodriguez
“Overtourism is already so severe that popular destinations are now doing the unthinkable: actively discouraging or blocking visitors,” The Guardian wrote. “The world’s most perfect places are being transformed into backdrops for tourist selfies. Mass tourism is turning destinations into the polar opposite of what they once were.”
A typical summer day on the legendary Damrak street in central Amsterdam
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Across the continent, especially in popular cities and towns, locals say they can no longer tolerate the devastating effects of overtourism. Venice, for example, has been so overwhelmed by tourists that it has introduced entrance fees of 3 to 10 euros for the city and islands. Greece has introduced time-scheduled visits to the Acropolis to manage crowds.
And for the tourists themselves, they don’t enjoy the crowds that force them to stand in long lines just to get onto a sidewalk, buy a drink, get into a restaurant, or board a train, plane, or bus. Natural and man-made wonders, and even churches, are being monetized.
“Tourists are waiting more than two hours to visit the Acropolis in Athens,” The Associated Press recently reported, “and taxi lines are just as long at Rome’s central station. And tourists are so swarming St. Mark’s Square in Venice that crowds clog bridges even on weekdays.”
Pristine forests, beaches, and quaint small towns can sometimes be so packed with people that visitors have no choice but to follow the direction of the crowds. Museums can get so crowded that you have to book months in advance to see popular exhibits. And even then, there are so many people around the artworks that it can be difficult to appreciate them.
The World Tourism Organization predicts that international tourist numbers will exceed a staggering 2 billion by the end of the century.
Local and national governments have been under pressure to find solutions to the mass tourism boom, and some have recently imposed restrictions.
The Millennium, one of the world’s largest cruise ships, arrives at Amsterdam port.
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Amsterdam
Amsterdam voted to ban cruise ships from its main port on the heels of a broader crackdown that city officials are calling a “deterrence campaign,” which includes banning outdoor marijuana smoking in entertainment districts and an official digital and poster campaign targeting young British men to “stay away.”
As Mayor Femke Halsema explained, the measures are aimed at discouraging tourists from “taking a vacation away from morality” and controlling the influx of tourists and the chaos they bring to this beautiful city with its picturesque architecture, unparalleled museums, tranquil canals, and even a red-light district and marijuana-selling coffee shops.
Amsterdam has a population of just under one million, but on average it receives over one million tourists each month.
Despite the debate over the cruise ship ban, the government explained that megaships in the city centre were “not fit for the task of countering mass tourism, nor in line with the city’s sustainable ambitions”.
Amsterdam is praised as a very tolerant and liberal city, but according to Lonely Planet, it has “become increasingly strict in recent years.” City authorities say they make no moral judgments in curbing the disproportionate number of “18-35 year old men who just come to party and make their mark on the city,” city spokeswoman Karina Noordervliet told the guide. “The curb campaign is aimed at people who generally don’t contribute to the city in a positive way.”
The street signs are part of a “Keep Away” campaign to keep rowdy visitors out of Amsterdam. [+] “Don’t drink alcohol on the street,” “Don’t buy drugs from street dealers. It’s illegal,” and “Drugs may be poisonous.”
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Italy
Italy has banned large cruise ships from sailing in Venice’s historic lagoon from 2021, and Rome has implemented measures to limit access to the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps, and also started charging admission to the Pantheon to control crowds and protect the famous architectural wonder.
This week the United Nations cultural agency warned of the dangers facing the city of Venice from mass tourism and climate change, and recommended that the city be added to the list of World Heritage Sites in Danger.
Since June, the city of Florence has banned new short-term rentals in its historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In Portofino, one of Italy’s most charming seaside towns on the Italian Riviera, the local government has introduced a law to stop tourists lingering to take selfies in “no-waiting zones” that include some of the most photogenic spots. Fines of up to 275 euros are possible, the BBC reports.
“Portofino Mayor Matteo Viacava said tourists stopping to take photos had created “chaos” and led to massive traffic jams and road closures.”
As The Guardian explains, these measures “are among the latest in a series of draconian decisions adopted by Italy’s parliament to deal with throngs of holidaymakers, with fines of up to 2,500 euros being imposed for walking the paths above Cinque Terre (a group of five villages in Liguria) in flip-flops or sandals, eating snacks outdoors being banned in central Venice and four central streets of Florence, and a 250 euro fine for simply sitting on the Spanish Steps in Rome.”
One beach in Eraclea has banned the building of sandcastles, labelling them an “unnecessary obstruction”, with fines of up to 250 euros.
A typical summer day in Florence
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France
In Nice, on the French Riviera, where the deep blue waters of the Cote d’Azur stretch, an unusual piece of street art was recently installed in a location frequented by tourists: a giant mousetrap with a giant ice cream as bait to “eradicate and eliminate tourist pests.” “To curb mass tourism, street artist ‘TooLate’ proposes a radical solution,” writes FranceInfo.
The giant trap is a humorous approach but clearly expresses the city’s feelings about over-tourism.
At the government level, a plan was announced last month to “better regulate tourist flows and support local authorities hit by sudden increases in visitor numbers.” Le Monde reports that “the French Tourism Federation, which brings together companies in the tourism industry, pointed to “France’s delayed awareness” and said the country was now one of the destinations hit by “overtourism.”
The government will aggregate information through a digital platform on best practices, regulations, guides and observation decks, as well as launch a 1 million euro campaign in March 2024 to encourage domestic and international tourists to “adjust their travel choices and schedules.”
Spain
One of the most popular pilgrimage destinations, Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, plans to introduce a tourist tax as a measure to combat overcrowding. “In a city that receives more than 300,000 tourists and pilgrims every year, the authorities no longer want to turn Santiago de Compostela into a ‘theme park,'” Schengen Visa reports.
Local authorities also plan to limit the number of tourists in the city’s historic center.
Mallorca, the Balearic islands’ hotspot after crowded Ibiza, is becoming a hotbed of anti-tourist protests.
“Mallorca hits rock bottom!” wrote the Mallorca Daily Bulletin in a story about locals’ anger at nearly naked tourists roaming the shops and streets of the picturesque town.
“Calvia city ordinances now prohibit walking ‘nude or semi-nude’ in the streets. The same applies to Palma (the capital of Majorca) and Playa de Palma, and fines have been repeatedly handed out in other resorts such as Magaluf in recent years,” the paper wrote.
Similar measures have already been introduced in Barcelona, where a recent local graffiti campaign has led to tourists staying away from the crowded Gaudi-designed Park Güell.
Levante Beach in Benidorm, a seaside resort town on Spain’s east coast that is part of Valencia. [+] The region’s famous Costa Blanca (Photo: José Jordan/AFP via Getty Images)
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In Ibiza this month, a group of Futuro Vegetal activists targeted a €300 million superyacht. They sprayed red paint on the megayacht Chaos, owned by Walmart billionaire heiress Nancy Walton Lawley.
They also smeared black paint over the Cherry at the famous Pacha disco, stormed into the exclusive Blue Marlin beach club in Cala Jondal with a banner, targeted a private jet at Ibiza airport and spray-painted a Lamborghini.
Portugal
In Portugal, playing loud music on many popular beaches carries a fine ranging from 200 to 36,000 euros. For example, the Algarve coast alone sees more than one million mostly British tourists in peak season. Fines range from 200 to 4,000 euros for individuals and 2,000 to 36,000 euros for groups.
The list of prohibitions and restrictions that tourists may face on Portugal’s beaches includes playing ball games, camping outside campsites, fishing at beaches and flying below an altitude of 1,000 feet except for aircraft conducting surveillance or rescue missions.
The old town in central Dubrovnik, Croatia, is packed with tourists
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Croatia
As part of its “Respect the City” campaign, the hugely popular city of Dubrovnik has introduced a luggage storage system to minimise the noise made by wheeled suitcases on the cobbled streets of its storybook city centre. According to SchengenVisaInfo, “From November, city authorities will install mandatory lockers in several locations around the city and will ban travelling with luggage.”
New measures to curb overtourism also include bans on sleeping in public, urinating in public, climbing to the top of monuments, drunken behaviour, drinking alcohol near protected public places like schools and drug-related offences, all of which are punishable by heavy fines and/or prison time.
Dubrovnik has already recorded 289,000 tourists and 763,500 overnight stays so far this year.
