Europe has long been home to destinations that supply people every kind of tourism experiences – from adventures to beach holidays to historical tours.
This has made it a world museum, attracting visitors from everywhere in the world at a rate that, aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, has increased relatively steadily.
Now we live in a time when overtourism has hit Europe’s hottest cities. In recent weeks, Spain has seen anti-tourism protests, with activists taking to the streets and spraying visitors with water pistols.
Does this come as a surprise? Perhaps to some, because it remains to be relatively unusual for locals to take to the streets to protest against tourism. However, scientists predicted that tourism would reach this point long before it made headlines.
One of the primary models to clarify this was developed by George Doxey, who developed the so-called “Irritation index” (or “Irridex”) model in 1975. He assumed that a spot initially welcomes tourists with euphoria, but that this mood turns to apathy and irritation as their numbers increase. The final stage – the signs of which we are actually seeing – is hostility towards tourists.
Sentiment turns negative when locals’ quality of life deteriorates, reminiscent of when inexpensive housing becomes unaffordable. City authorities are responding by subtly restricting tourist traffic through additional fees and caps on short-term rentals, because the number of tourists has skyrocketed since restrictions were eased resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
This approach was reactive slightly than preventive. This also applies to cities that when wanted tourists but didn’t know learn how to restrict them when that happened. Barcelona, for instance, didn’t appear on the map until the Nineties, when it the Summer OlympicsIt is now one of the visited cities in Europe and is the place where the recent backlash against tourism is concentrated.
“The main reason for this is that the places that suffer from overtourism are places where no measures were taken to prevent it many years ago,” says Richard Butler, emeritus professor of hotel and tourism management on the University of Strathclyde, who has studied tourism trends in Europe.
Of course, mass tourism just isn’t just the fault of the authorities, visitors or aid services. It has been made possible by inexpensive travel and is a force ceaselessly by creating jobs, promoting cultural exchange and generating revenue for local authorities.
“One thing that is often forgotten in all the noise of overtourism is that the locals are part of it. They participated in it voluntarily at some point,” he said. Assets“That doesn’t mean that they need to take all the rubbish, the rubbish, [and] Noise pollution that they are actually experiencing. But they usually are not entirely innocent.”
Butler believes that the sentiments of locals can’t be categorized into a selected type, as their emotions may vary depending on their contact with tourists. For example, the owner of a souvenir shop may feel in another way about tourism than the residents of a preferred neighborhood.
“There are people who hate tourism and want to get rid of it altogether. There are people who want more tourism. And then there is the mass in the middle who are a bit pissed off by some aspects of tourism but see that it has value and brings in money,” he said.
A model he developed, Butler’s Life Cycle, examines the impact of tourism on a destination in numerous Stages. When tourists discover a spot, it begins to develop and grow to accommodate many visitors. Eventually, it reaches a stagnation point as tourist numbers have peaked. From this point, it’s as much as town to find out the way in which forward, which is able to either result in a decline in tourism or rejuvenation with more investment and attractions.
“What we are seeing now is not so much that tourists are not going because it is crowded, but that locals are refusing to go because it is too crowded. They are crossing the ‘line’,” he said.
Does that mean tourism must stop growing altogether? Not really. In fact, a halt would likely be seen as a sort of “warning,” Butler says. Instead, more dialogue must happen to search out a balance between the sort of tourists that residents accept and the way in which they proceed to usher in money for local businesses and the tourism industry.
“Tourism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it brings in a lot of money, but on the other hand, it causes unrest,” says Butler.
