July 11, 2025 • 9 mins
A surge in visitor numbers to top European destinations has sparked protests from residents, many of whom feel they've reached a tipping point into overtourism. How can towns and cities strike a balance between the economic benefits of tourism, and the drawbacks? Feargus O'Sullivan from Bloomberg CityLab joins host Stephen Carroll to discuss.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Stephen Carroll and this is Here's Why, where we
take one new story and explain it in just a
few minutes with our experts here at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
These record numbers in terms of tourism also post challenges
and we need to deal with those challenges also for
our own population. What we see when looking at the
outlook for tourism this year is that we manage reached
a one hundred million We are our forty nine million
inhabitants country.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The sound of some of the anti tourism protests in
European towns and cities in recent months and reaction from
Spain's Economy Minister Carlos Corpo, what large numbers of visitors
took places like Barcelona, Paris or Venice are nothing new.
The resurgence in travel after the COVID pandemic has come
with more forceful opposition from residents. In twenty twenty four,
(01:06):
European countries hosted over seven hundred and fifty million tourists,
up almost fifty million on the previous year. In many places,
that's meant a tipping point into over tourism where daily
life becomes unbearable for locals. So here's why summer hotspots
are turning against tourists. Fergus O Sullivan from Bloomberg City
(01:28):
Lab joins me now for more. Fergus Everyone loves to
complain about tourists in their city. But how bad is
the problem of over tourism in Europe.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Well, it's certainly bad enough that now people in tourists
destinations across Europe are taking to the streets to protest.
It's bad enough that museum workers in Paris at the
Louver have gone on strike to protest conditions because they
say the young overcrowding is unmanageable. It's also got bad
enough that tourist numbers have gone up compared to previous years.
(01:59):
Was a forty percent jump in arrivals in Europe between
twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four. So certainly people
aren't just imagining this, and it's certainly true that it's
become a kind of a pressure cooker.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
It should be said.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That this resentment over tourism may be driven as much
by exhaustion as by increases, because while tourist numbers are
projected to grow sharply, ongoing many places are actually only
reaching the visitor levels they experienced before the pandemic now,
so it's really as much that people can't take it
(02:35):
anymore than suddenly they're being flooded.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Ah, that's an interesting point. Just give us an idea
of what sort of places are we talking about where
we've seen the most resistance to this.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
The worst place is for over tourism. I'd say fall
into three categories. So there are Mediterranean beach resorts with
the side order of the Canary Islands, Alpine ski villages,
and high profile historic cities, places like Barcelona, Paris. Now,
in terms of the places that are suffering most, I
suppose the place with the highest number of visitors to
(03:08):
residents is the Greek island of Zacinthos in the Ionian Islands,
and that last year got one hundred and fifty visitors
for every individual resident, which is a huge number. However,
it could be skewed because of course holiday islands tend
to have low year round populations because people who were
born there often go to the mainland to get work.
(03:29):
You could argue that places like Paris maybe have it
even worse because just the sheer concentrations they have there
So in twenty twenty four, Paris got four hundred thousand
tourists per square kinimeter, which is places it far far
ahead of other cities that have had similar problem concentrations,
such as Athens and Copenhagen. So I suppose those are
(03:52):
the places that are the worst. So places that are
seeing these issues. What are authorities doing about us? Well,
there are a lots of things that cities and local
governments are doing that might help to bring the situation
under control. They're various things. One big one is airbnb bands.
In Barcelona there will be no single legal airbnb from
(04:17):
twenty twenty eight, that's when the last legal license runs out,
and there are also many other cities. There've been caps
on rentable nights, which means you can't rent out a
flat on Airbnb or window or verbo for more than
the fixed number of nights. That's supposed to stop those
flats disappearing from the long term rental market, which is
(04:39):
a big problem. So that's been happening. There's also been
things like cruise chip bands. Cruise ships are particularly resented
in many cities because not only do they disgorge a
very large number of visitors all in one go. They
do so for people that have already been fed and
have somewhere to sleep for the night. So actually, in
terms of congestion versus hassle, they are particularly strong offenders.
(05:02):
So Amsterdam is moving its cruise terminal out of town.
Venice has banned them from coming into the canals, so
that's another one. Finally, you'd say there were fees and taxes,
so Venice now actually charges on over one hundred and
fifty days a year for day trippers to come into
the city as a way of maybe managing that flow.
(05:24):
Amsterdam is one of the other places that charges a
nightly tax on accommodation that's twelve point five percent on
top of your hotel bill, so that's another thing. Finally,
there's a more of a promotional approach, which is just
to spread visitors away from hotspots, to encourage them to
go to less obvious places. Amsterdam again, for example, if
you go onto their main tourist website, I Amsterdam Now,
(05:48):
then their top ten sites they'll recommend would include places
that you haven't necessarily heard of, breweries that don't brew Heineken,
a castle in the suburbs, various places that they're trying
to get people to go that aren't you know, flower
market or around Frank's house.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So providing inspiration perhaps rather than persuasion from some of
those authorities. I mean, the big question here is, of course,
a lot of these places benefit massively economically from having
a lot of tourists. So where does the balance lie
between the money that you make from having people come
and visit where you live and the sort of problems
that we've talked about that that sort of tourism can create.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, that's a very good question. I'm not sure anyone
has yet been able to answer that fully. For a start,
most of these measures that are supposed to control tourism,
they may have some positive for benefits, but they don't
reduce visitor numbers, and they aren't reducing the growth of tourism.
So it's difficult to say if anyone's going too far,
(06:44):
if anyone's not going far enough. Because this whole area
is kind of in its infancy. It is a course
true on the most basic level, most of us, if
we can afford to go on holiday, we love going
on holiday. There is a potential for mutually beneficial cultural
exchange between people who host some people who visit. This
is also vital income for many many places, especially places
(07:08):
along them in Southern Europe, for example, where governments may
be quite heavily indebted and they need the extra tax income.
A lot of people rely on places such as the
Greek Islands, which are suffering under strain, for their livelihood
and to just pump stuff generally into the economy. So
of course there is value for this. There is value
(07:29):
to tourism, and there is people appreciate the income. Finding
that balance, I'm not sure where they're with a fixed
formula it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So we've talked about the problem, we've talked about some
of the solutions or the steps that authorities are taking.
Do we have or is there a place that has
a good recipe for how to manage tourism.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I have to say that having a researched this myself,
I could not yet find anywhere that has truly managed
to create the right balance, partly because the demand for
tourism is so high and the income to be gained
from tourism is so high that most of the measures
designed to control it a really piecemeal. So, for example,
(08:11):
capping nights on Airbnb, that's very, very hard to police,
again in Barcelona, they're actually banning airbnb. That only is
really going to come into effect in twenty twenty eight.
There isn't yet evidence that it's necessarily easing the housing
crisis in the city, which of course has many many causes,
and tourism might be just one of them, And actually
(08:32):
just getting rid of tourism isn't necessarily going to sort that.
So entry fees into places like Venice, tourist taxes they
are maybe helping in that they allow governments to get
extra income to manage the effects of tourism, but they
don't necessarily do anything to reduce the volume of people coming.
There's an estimate from some research actually, I think Amsterdam
(08:54):
commissioned itself that for their overnight hotel tax to genuine
be a deterrent, it would need to be three times higher.
So there are problems with that. I know I'm finding
like I'm really bashing hard on these people at the moment,
But spreading visitors away from hotspots, there is evidence that
if you promote places that are less obvious destinations, numbers
(09:15):
will rise in those destinations, which could be a good thing.
What doesn't happen is that numbers then fall in the
places that are oversubscribed, so spreading people simply allows space
for more tourists to come and fill their place.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
AH A tricky recipe indeed. Fergus O Sullivan from Bloomberg
City Lab thank you very much. For more explanations like
this from our team of three thousand journalists and analysts
around the world, go to Bloomberg dot com slash explainers.
I'm Stephen Carroll. This is here's why. I'll be back
next week with more. Thanks for listening.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm Stephen Carroll and this is Here's Why, where we
take one new story and explain it in just a
few minutes with our experts here at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
These record numbers in terms of tourism also post challenges
and we need to deal with those challenges also for
our own population. What we see when looking at the
outlook for tourism this year is that we manage reached
a one hundred million We are our forty nine million
inhabitants country.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
The sound of some of the anti tourism protests in
European towns and cities in recent months and reaction from
Spain's Economy Minister Carlos Corpo, what large numbers of visitors
took places like Barcelona, Paris or Venice are nothing new.
The resurgence in travel after the COVID pandemic has come
with more forceful opposition from residents. In twenty twenty four,
(01:06):
European countries hosted over seven hundred and fifty million tourists,
up almost fifty million on the previous year. In many places,
that's meant a tipping point into over tourism where daily
life becomes unbearable for locals. So here's why summer hotspots
are turning against tourists. Fergus O Sullivan from Bloomberg City
(01:28):
Lab joins me now for more. Fergus Everyone loves to
complain about tourists in their city. But how bad is
the problem of over tourism in Europe.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Well, it's certainly bad enough that now people in tourists
destinations across Europe are taking to the streets to protest.
It's bad enough that museum workers in Paris at the
Louver have gone on strike to protest conditions because they
say the young overcrowding is unmanageable. It's also got bad
enough that tourist numbers have gone up compared to previous years.
(01:59):
Was a forty percent jump in arrivals in Europe between
twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four. So certainly people
aren't just imagining this, and it's certainly true that it's
become a kind of a pressure cooker.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
It should be said.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That this resentment over tourism may be driven as much
by exhaustion as by increases, because while tourist numbers are
projected to grow sharply, ongoing many places are actually only
reaching the visitor levels they experienced before the pandemic now,
so it's really as much that people can't take it
(02:35):
anymore than suddenly they're being flooded.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Ah, that's an interesting point. Just give us an idea
of what sort of places are we talking about where
we've seen the most resistance to this.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
The worst place is for over tourism. I'd say fall
into three categories. So there are Mediterranean beach resorts with
the side order of the Canary Islands, Alpine ski villages,
and high profile historic cities, places like Barcelona, Paris. Now,
in terms of the places that are suffering most, I
suppose the place with the highest number of visitors to
(03:08):
residents is the Greek island of Zacinthos in the Ionian Islands,
and that last year got one hundred and fifty visitors
for every individual resident, which is a huge number. However,
it could be skewed because of course holiday islands tend
to have low year round populations because people who were
born there often go to the mainland to get work.
(03:29):
You could argue that places like Paris maybe have it
even worse because just the sheer concentrations they have there
So in twenty twenty four, Paris got four hundred thousand
tourists per square kinimeter, which is places it far far
ahead of other cities that have had similar problem concentrations,
such as Athens and Copenhagen. So I suppose those are
(03:52):
the places that are the worst. So places that are
seeing these issues. What are authorities doing about us? Well,
there are a lots of things that cities and local
governments are doing that might help to bring the situation
under control. They're various things. One big one is airbnb bands.
In Barcelona there will be no single legal airbnb from
(04:17):
twenty twenty eight, that's when the last legal license runs out,
and there are also many other cities. There've been caps
on rentable nights, which means you can't rent out a
flat on Airbnb or window or verbo for more than
the fixed number of nights. That's supposed to stop those
flats disappearing from the long term rental market, which is
(04:39):
a big problem. So that's been happening. There's also been
things like cruise chip bands. Cruise ships are particularly resented
in many cities because not only do they disgorge a
very large number of visitors all in one go. They
do so for people that have already been fed and
have somewhere to sleep for the night. So actually, in
terms of congestion versus hassle, they are particularly strong offenders.
(05:02):
So Amsterdam is moving its cruise terminal out of town.
Venice has banned them from coming into the canals, so
that's another one. Finally, you'd say there were fees and taxes,
so Venice now actually charges on over one hundred and
fifty days a year for day trippers to come into
the city as a way of maybe managing that flow.
(05:24):
Amsterdam is one of the other places that charges a
nightly tax on accommodation that's twelve point five percent on
top of your hotel bill, so that's another thing. Finally,
there's a more of a promotional approach, which is just
to spread visitors away from hotspots, to encourage them to
go to less obvious places. Amsterdam again, for example, if
you go onto their main tourist website, I Amsterdam Now,
(05:48):
then their top ten sites they'll recommend would include places
that you haven't necessarily heard of, breweries that don't brew Heineken,
a castle in the suburbs, various places that they're trying
to get people to go that aren't you know, flower
market or around Frank's house.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So providing inspiration perhaps rather than persuasion from some of
those authorities. I mean, the big question here is, of course,
a lot of these places benefit massively economically from having
a lot of tourists. So where does the balance lie
between the money that you make from having people come
and visit where you live and the sort of problems
that we've talked about that that sort of tourism can create.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, that's a very good question. I'm not sure anyone
has yet been able to answer that fully. For a start,
most of these measures that are supposed to control tourism,
they may have some positive for benefits, but they don't
reduce visitor numbers, and they aren't reducing the growth of tourism.
So it's difficult to say if anyone's going too far,
(06:44):
if anyone's not going far enough. Because this whole area
is kind of in its infancy. It is a course
true on the most basic level, most of us, if
we can afford to go on holiday, we love going
on holiday. There is a potential for mutually beneficial cultural
exchange between people who host some people who visit. This
is also vital income for many many places, especially places
(07:08):
along them in Southern Europe, for example, where governments may
be quite heavily indebted and they need the extra tax income.
A lot of people rely on places such as the
Greek Islands, which are suffering under strain, for their livelihood
and to just pump stuff generally into the economy. So
of course there is value for this. There is value
(07:29):
to tourism, and there is people appreciate the income. Finding
that balance, I'm not sure where they're with a fixed
formula it.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So we've talked about the problem, we've talked about some
of the solutions or the steps that authorities are taking.
Do we have or is there a place that has
a good recipe for how to manage tourism.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I have to say that having a researched this myself,
I could not yet find anywhere that has truly managed
to create the right balance, partly because the demand for
tourism is so high and the income to be gained
from tourism is so high that most of the measures
designed to control it a really piecemeal. So, for example,
(08:11):
capping nights on Airbnb, that's very, very hard to police,
again in Barcelona, they're actually banning airbnb. That only is
really going to come into effect in twenty twenty eight.
There isn't yet evidence that it's necessarily easing the housing
crisis in the city, which of course has many many causes,
and tourism might be just one of them, And actually
(08:32):
just getting rid of tourism isn't necessarily going to sort that.
So entry fees into places like Venice, tourist taxes they
are maybe helping in that they allow governments to get
extra income to manage the effects of tourism, but they
don't necessarily do anything to reduce the volume of people coming.
There's an estimate from some research actually, I think Amsterdam
(08:54):
commissioned itself that for their overnight hotel tax to genuine
be a deterrent, it would need to be three times higher.
So there are problems with that. I know I'm finding
like I'm really bashing hard on these people at the moment,
But spreading visitors away from hotspots, there is evidence that
if you promote places that are less obvious destinations, numbers
(09:15):
will rise in those destinations, which could be a good thing.
What doesn't happen is that numbers then fall in the
places that are oversubscribed, so spreading people simply allows space
for more tourists to come and fill their place.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
AH A tricky recipe indeed. Fergus O Sullivan from Bloomberg
City Lab thank you very much. For more explanations like
this from our team of three thousand journalists and analysts
around the world, go to Bloomberg dot com slash explainers.
I'm Stephen Carroll. This is here's why. I'll be back
next week with more. Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.