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- cross-posted to:
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Barcelona, Venice and Amsterdam are among Europe’s favourite travel destinations and benefit greatly from tourism. However, the massive influx of visitors places a considerable burden on the cities and their inhabitants.
To counteract the negative effects of overtourism, these cities are taking decisive action. Following public protests, no new hotels may be built in Venice and cruise ships will have to use other moorings in future. Amsterdam has banned guided tours of its famous red light district in order to protect local residents. Paris is planning to ban coaches from the city centre in order to improve the quality of life. Other overcrowded cities are also trying to control the situation through various methods.
Do you think that overtourism is a serious problem in Europe?
Sources: National Statistics Offices, Statista, Le Monde, Forbes
Yeah it’s a bit silly to compare a number of permanent residents to a yearly supply of tourists. To get some fair comparison you should get the average stay duration (which I’m guessing would be <2 days on average and <1 day for many) and then divide that by 365.
Not to say that any number that comes out of that (even if it’s not as drastic) is something that residents should be forced to be ok with. (Local) Governments (municipalities?) exist for a reason and it’s their responsibility to ensure their localities are not taken advantage of. I appreciate this is a bit of a “rose tinted glasses” point of view, but it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s somewhat of a new problem and these outdated structures that have been in place for a long time may not be prepared to deal with it yet.
P.s. fuck Airbnb and all the rest of them taking advantage of “governmental inefficiencies”
Tourism also comes in seasons - a ski resort will be crowded in winter, but empty when the snow melts. A beach town is empty in the winter, but busy in the summer. Some cities are getting a huge influx of tourists for specific events, like Munich for the Oktoberfest. So your calculation won’t be accurate to measure the impact of tourism.
The sensible visualization is a line graph showing resident population and tourists over time. There’s places where residents would shift as well - here in south Florida we have “snowbirds” who spend six-ish months elsewhere.