Will coronavirus change tourism in Europe’s cities?
PARIS/BARCELONA From Venice to Barcelona, Europe’s top tourist destinations are bracing for their worst-ever summer as they emerge from lockdown, but many residents are delighted to have a break from the hordes of visitors that now blight their home cities.
“We need to put the people who live in Venice first,” said Marco Gasparinetti, spokesman of Gruppo 25 Aprile, an organization urging a radical rethink on tourism in the Italian lagoon city.
He and others see the crisis as a chance to tackle “overtourism,” which they say has wreaked environmental havoc and ruined neighbourhoods as landlords turn rental properties into holiday lets, pricing out residents.
“We cannot go back to the previous system as if nothing had happened, destroying the city with mass tourism,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A booming global middle class and proliferation of budget airlines have seen some of Europe’s most stunning cities become overrun with tourists.
In some places the problem has been exacerbated by the massive increase in the number and size of cruise ships. With cruises suspended, Venetians say, the lagoon is looking cleaner than it has for decades. Cormorants and crabs were even spotted in St Mark’s Square during lockdown.
In Barcelona, Iria Mon said the break in tourism means she can finally enjoy trips with her children to attractions like Park Guell.
Designed by Barcelona’s celebrated architect Antoni Gaudi, the park has become so rammed with visitors in recent years that many locals were put off using it.
Desperate not to lose the summer, Italy cautiously reopened its borders on June 2, with Spain set to follow on June 21. But no one expects mass tourism to resume overnight. In Venice, the city layout with its narrow alleys and bridges will make it particularly difficult to impose social distancing if large numbers return. The Dutch canal city of Amsterdam faces similar problems.
Gruppo 25 Aprile’s plans for Venice are inspired by the efforts of Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau to tame rampant tourism in Spain’s second city. Her deputy Janet Sanz said the pandemic provided “an opportunity to rethink the city.”
A major problem in many European hot spots has been the success of holiday rental platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com.
Sanz is urging landlords to let their apartments to locals again, and has said the economic fallout from the pandemic may help.