popular demand
What’s the solution to the masses snarling traffic in the world’s most stunning places?
Tourism is great, except when it’s not. From Bali to Dubrovnik, popular destinations are straining to cope with increasing numbers of visitors, all seeking the same experience.
Dubrovnik is in the news. Croatia’s walled medieval city has become a magnet for mass tourism, fuelled by an onslaught of cruise ships, the success of Game of Thrones — Dubrovnik is a key location — and countless articles by travel writers detailing its many wonders. The result today is crowds so thick you can’t see feet for cobblestone.
The infrastructure is choked and there’s notorious price gauging, increased pollution, and Disneyland-esque lineups outside attractions and businesses barely able to cope. This is the curse of overtourism, a word travellers will likely hear more often in the coming years.
Tourism is an industry of growth. More tourists equals more hotels equals more restaurants equals more tour operators equals more money — and therefore, a better economy.
Rampant growth has little concern if roads or sewer pipes or the food supply chain or ports or museums or hotels or attractions were never designed to accommodate it. Hence, Venice is a disaster each summer. Hence, the reality of Paris is so shocking to Japanese tourists seduced by its image that they can have psychotic breaks (Google “Paris Syndrome”).
Hence, available accommodation is limited, Airbnb has soaked up what’s left and locals can’t afford to rent a place in their own city. Hence, finding and keeping talented staff is impossible, and transient employees are exploited under the table.
I encountered this end game on full display in high-season Bali, where crowded beaches were covered in garbage and the roads were choked with snarling traffic.
I encountered it in the Masai Mara with Land Rover traffic jams and aggressive guides dangerously jostling for position to get a glimpse of a lion, the beast quickly retreating from the cacophony of camera clicks.
Of course, you won’t see this reality in the marketing paraphernalia produced by agencies for tourism promotional boards. Videos and brochures depict dreamy sunsets and isolated beaches, candlelit restaurants and goosebump-inducing landscapes, miraculously captured just out of view of the tour buses and lineups, the pushy hawkers and the tourists bewildered by ticket prices.
With cheaper flights, online tools and the growth of personal wealth, more than a billion people travel abroad each year. The masses are inspired by advertising, by television shows, by books, by online Top 10s and by travel writers promoting bucket lists.
Oh yes, they’re inspired by people just like me, enthusiastically promoting destinations and activities that make life worth living. A destination’s prosperity brings more exposure, which brings more inbound tourism and the developers to build resorts and hotels to accommodate them.
We may as well stick in a zipline, a waterpark or an open-top bus tour and let the good times roll. And indeed, they have. Mass tourism has been a boon for everyone. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, tourism generates more than 10 per cent of the world’s total GDP, supporting more than 10 per cent all the jobs in the world economy.
Beyond the economic benefits, travel brings people together, inspires, enlightens, informs. I don’t need to write about why travel is good. Yet, when tourism is allowed to grow unchecked, when greed and profit drive growth, there is an end game.
All those tourists want to see the same show at sunset at the same temple. And all those taxi drivers know they can feast on post-show “I just want to get back to the hotel” desperation like overfed hyenas on the Serengeti. All those buses have to use the same narrow road.
The end game of overtourism is not a pretty place. It keeps us behind the safe walls of the resorts that protect us from the mayhem and ensures we will never go back. It inhibits meaningful cultural interactions. It rewards the unscrupulous, the unethical and the corrupt. And it sends tourists packing for somewhere new.
Overtourism has been on my mind because of the jarring contrasts between Bali and Hoi An, Vietnam. After five weeks renting a villa in Bali, my family couldn’t wait to leave, but after five weeks renting a villa in Hoi An, we didn’t want to say goodbye.
Oh, tourism is exploding there, too. The word is out: Hoi An represents a country and its people at its most loveliest: welcoming, beautiful, friendly, affordable. And yet I’m hesitant to spread that news. Because not 45 minutes away from our villa, they’re building dozens of mega resorts all along the coast to Danang. One resort has more than 8,000 rooms, built to serve one exploding market in particular — China.
And all these tourists will want to experience Hoi An like we did, and how could this small ancient town not become a Dubrovnik? And still, how could I not rave about this wonderful destination without contributing in no short part to the overtourism problem?
Overtourism is changing and will continue to change the world of tourism. Some authorities are dealing with it, making world headlines in the process. In Thailand, they recently closed Maya Beach for six months to allow the famous cove — the setting of the film The Beach — to recover from years of tourist onslaught. After assessing the extent of the damage, they closed the beach indefinitely.
It’s great for the environment and its surroundings, but terrible if you own a local business and need tourists to put food on the table. With overtourism, by the time you recognize the problem, it’s too late. When an experience eventually becomes so negative that tourists shift their focus somewhere new — a new ancient city, a new island, a new beach — they leave a path of environmental and economic devastation in their wake.
Will Dubrovnik shut its ports to turn down the millions of dollars cruise ships inject into the economy? Would Vancouver? Not likely. Will I stop writing about inspiring places, which puts food on my table, too? Not likely either. And therein lies the rub. To stop the grotesque trend of overtourism, great sacrifices will need to be made.
Profits need to be pushed aside and the greater good must be pursued with longterm vision. Apply the same approach to the myriad of issues facing the planet, and then look at the leaders who have been elected to face them. It’s not very promising, is it?
I probably sound jaded, the dreaded word that haunts any self-respecting travel writer. Because as much as overtourism is a thing, so is Responsible Travel. We can choose to travel with companies operating with sound ethics and impressive policies, and visit places where people genuinely appreciate our interest.
When authorities do use quotas and restrictions, as with gorilla encounters in Central Africa or in Peru’s Machu Picchu, we can respect them as opposed to putting our own interests above all else. Give Iceland or Barcelona a break, and consider Finland and Lisbon.