[imagesource:Diego Delso]

Protests fill the streets, and graffiti warns tourists to “Go home.” Local communities are shrinking as short-term rentals surge, driving up prices and pushing residents out.

This year, it seems tourism has taken a troubling turn, and locals are starting to push back.

While locals have been protesting against tourists in Mallorca and Barcelona, squirting them with water guns and telling them to go home, Venice has started charging daytrippers an entry fee, while one busy Swiss town has announced it wants to follow suit.

Though it’s most visible in Europe, this is a global issue. In Japan, a town overlooking Mount Fuji put up barriers to block the view in May, only to take them down by August. Bali introduced a tourist entry tax for foreigners in February. Meanwhile, US national parks are overwhelmed, with 13 million more visits in 2023 than the year before, according to NPS data. During peak season, visitors now have to book in advance just to get in.

Here in Cape Town, too, locals are starting to feel panic over the soaring prices left in the wake of the tourist flood, who visit with their superior currencies and deep pockets too tempting for short-term rental landlords and restauranteurs to ignore.

Besides the issue of tourists pricing locals out, there is also the devastating environmental impact, as if increased enthusiasm for travel doesn’t correlate with increased respect for the landscape. 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.”

Worse still, “This isn’t something new, or something which has just happened,” says Noel Josephides, chairman of European tour operator Sunvil, adding that 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 seasoned travellers share the sentiment. Overtourism to the same destinations and the same locations is making places such as Santorini a “living hell”.

The real question now is whether we can find a way through this and reshape travel into the beautiful experience we’ve always cherished.

Justin Francis, who has spent his life feeling the uncomfortable effects of mass tourism in the UK’s most visited city, Bath, says that the tourism industry has forgotten about its most precious asset: “the goodwill of locals.”

“The edifice collapses without that. It’s been lost in many places and will be hard to win back.”

Francis attributes it to a mix of factors: the rise of low-cost airlines, the surge in vacation rentals, social media driving crowds to hotspots, and growing economies that enable more people to afford travel.

Now, he says, we’re left with the “stark realization that tourism is an aggressive industry like most others, and needs regulating and controlling.”

Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the Travel Foundation doesn’t think overtourism is the root cause but a symptom – “we’re out of balance,” he says.

“You can host lots of people if you’re intentional about how they flow through. But just one person coming at the wrong time and wrong place will outstrip the available resources.”

Jaume Bauza, the Balearics’ minister of tourism, culture and sports, tells CNN that the government has created a committee “aimed at developing a social and political blueprint for sustainable tourism.”

“Residents’ concerns are a key priority for us. We cannot forget that tourism is the main economic source for our community, but we must put locals first, and not forget their demands and concern,” he says.

Experts say that accommodation plays a significant role in shaping how locals perceive tourism.

“When you ask locals about their biggest frustrations, it’s mainly ‘I can’t afford to live here,’ says Francis. “Holiday rentals have taken way places people could have rented or bought.”

In Venice, a major tourist hot spot, there are over 8,000 properties listed on Airbnb alone, according to data from Inside Airbnb, compared to under 50,000 residents. Cape Town, in comparison, has 23,564 properties listed – more than popular holiday destinations like Amsterdam, San Francisco and the city-state of Singapore combined.

Residents might demand changes, but those changes will not come without a solid economy coming from the tourism sector that can drive improvement and modernisation of social systems and infrastructures.

Change can only really happen at the governmental level.

“There has to be a collaboration between the sending and receiving countries – the power shouldn’t be in the hands of [the industry],” says Noel Josephides, chairman of European tour operator Sunvil.

“In 10 years time there’ll be destinations that have got it right and those that are past the point of no return.”

Sampson reckons this means a fast switch from encouraging tourism to “balancing” it.

[source:cnn]