Travel will become more expensive and mandatory reservations will come, says the expert. Venice or Santorini are overwhelmed by overtourism.
Long queues and constant reminders that someone is standing in someone else's way to take a lucrative shot. These are some of the accompanying phenomena of a summer stay in the most famous tourist spots. A minor difficulty for tourists, however, is a long-term frustration for locals who are starting to revolt due to the influx of tourists. Although on one side there are revenues from tourism, against them stands the threat of sharp price increases and limited resources, such as drinking water. Mass tourism has its limits.
During the restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it might have seemed that mass tourism would never return to the days of its greatest glory. People began to avoid cross-border tourism, and the decline in these trips, for example from the Czech Republic, reached 85% in 2021. But now everything is forgotten and people have decided to catch up in this regard.
At the beginning of the holiday season, the tourist rush made itself known in an unexpected place. In the heart of domestic air traffic, when the distribution of checked luggage collapsed at Prague Airport, mainly due to the enormous interest in charter flights. However, with the continuing summer, nervousness is increasing in tourist destinations about the flow of tourists and people are beginning to revolt against them. The symbol of the protests was an attack with water squirters on tourists in Barcelona on July 6.
Traveling has become a lifestyle, simply it cannot go on like this anymore
Spain is the center of these protests. It's no surprise. Although in our country nearby Croatia dominates foreign popularity, the country on the Iberian Peninsula is at the forefront of global tourism popularity (closely behind the first France).
The Mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, recently announced that he wants to increase the tourist tax for some passengers on cruise ships. The tax is defined by the length of stay in the city and concerns tourists who visit the city for less than 12 hours, and cause additional crowding at major attractions such as the Sagrada Familia, pedestrian promenade Las Ramblas in the Gothic Quarter and Gaudí's park. It is precisely the ship tourists who exhibit this behaviour.
The current tourist tax is the third largest source of funds for Barcelona, which last year earned approximately 100 million euros (about 2.5 billion CZK) from passengers on cruise ships, who pay 6.25 euros (about 160 CZK) for entering the city, and other visitors who stay in hotels and other tourist accommodation facilities (so-called air accommodations).
Mayor Collboni also intends to terminate the validity of licenses for about 10,000 flats which are currently approved for short-term rentals. Real estate prices are one of the main accelerators of recurring Spanish protests, their prices are quickly increasing and locals struggle to afford their own housing.
"Tourism currently has a completely different character than it was 10-15 years ago. Services have become accessible to the masses, there are disproportionately more hotels, summer and winter resorts, air space is bursting at the seams - and all this leads to people wanting to travel more. After all, it is good manners in conversation or on networks, who has been where, what they saw, where they are going next,"
explained the phenomenon behind overtourism, travel expert Nora Dolanská for LP-Life.cz.
Venice or Santorini are limiting tourism, travel entrepreneurs are against it
The overload of visitors is not only a problem in Spain. The pioneers of tourist restrictions are primarily the Italian Venice. The city has already adopted an entry fee, restrictions for tourist groups are newly in force. These groups can only have 25 participants and the use of megaphones, typical for large tourist groups, is forbidden.
Another popular destination collapsing under the onslaught of tourists is the Greek island of Santorini. There are 15 thousand people living there, but during the season 3.5 million visitors arrive. Drinking water is starting to run out on the spot and the transport infrastructure is completely congested. From sidewalks, through narrow roads flooded with buses to congestion with cruise ships. Local authorities want to limit the number of tourists on the island to half, but representatives of the tourist business are against it.
Tourism increasingly contributes to the Czech GDP and its restriction would not benefit the country with long-term economic problems in this regard. The influx of tourists is currently increasing and Greek earnings from this sector increased by 16 %.
"In the future, it is necessary to steer these efforts in several ways - by increasing financial burdens (increasing prices of admission, tickets, rentals, etc.), technical restrictions (mandatory reservations, limiting visitor capacities at a certain time, ordering systems, etc.) and finally the most difficult - convincing. We need to think more about when and where we want to go, how we will least burden the local environment where others are home, and how to ensure that we are not perceived as intruders, but nice guests,"
Dolanská concluded that current trends in mass tourism are not sustainable and will have to go through a series of changes.
Sources: ČT, cnn.com, bestdiplomats.com, csas.cz, srovnejto.cz, aktualne.cz, own questioning, author's article
