Across Europe, where visitors can outnumber residents in the summer months, the complaints have started. Last week, in Barcelona, an open-top bus was spray-painted across its windscreen with the words “Tourism Kills Neighbourhoods”. The message is clear: such cities are under pressure. In tourists and residents' battle for shared spaces, local authorities are uncomfortably in the middle. The tourism is one of the largest employers in the world, with one new job created for every 30 new visitors to a destination—but at what cost to locals' quality of life?
More people are travelling than ever before, and lower barriers to entry and falling costs mean they are doing so for shorter periods. The rise of “city breaks”—48-hour bursts of foreign cultures—has increased tourist numbers. “Too many people do the same thing at the exact same time,” says Xavier Font, a professor at the University of Surrey, “For locals, the city no longer belongs to them.”
Compounding the problem is Airbnb, which has made tourists more casual in their approach to international travel, but added to residents' headaches. Those permanent citizens who share their apartment blocks with Airbnb hosts have lost their patience, “No longer do we have to share the streets with tourists, we have to share our own buildings!” To ease the congestion around the main attractions, many cities are taking immediate action. Venice is proposing a new concept of “detourism”: sustainable travel tips and alternative routes for exploring a different Venice. A greater variety of guidance for future visitors—ideas for what to do in off-peak seasons, for example, —can guide them from overcrowded landmarks. Repeat visitors have a better sense of the culture and it is much easier to integrate their behaviour with residents of the cities.
“But the locals should learn to take tourists as a part of urban life. Tourists do not have to be considered passive players, but rather as visitors with rights and duties,” says Font, “Everyone has a part to play in promoting that change.”
