Top world destinations overrun; suggestions for roads not taken
DURING a trip to the Czech Republic this summer, Bret Love desperately wanted to escape the crowds at Prague Castle but couldn’t. He was stuck in a Vltava River of humanity.
“There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people jostling for space,” said the co-founder of Green Global Travel. “You start to feel like cattle being herded.”
No matter what you call it – overtourism, overbooked or a foreign invasion – it’s the same squeeze: A handful of destinations around the world are under siege by too many tourists. The stampede is having a deleterious effect on the culture, environment and spirit of these places. Locals are getting pushed out. Foundations are crumbling. Tourists are complaining about other tourists.
“You try to keep these cities livable for the residents,” said Martha Honey, executive director of the Centre for Responsible Travel, “but overtourism is killing these neighbourhoods and the reasons we go there.”
Former Washington Post reporter Elizabeth Becker examined the consequences of rampant tourism in her expose, “Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism.” The book’s 2013 release coincided with a tourism milestone: For the first time, travellers had logged a billion international trips in one year.
The issue is not the industry itself but the hordes of people who descend on one place during the same time period (often summer). Destinations that are ill- equipped for the masses can’t keep up with the demand, and everyone suffers for it. Becker equates the situation to a dinner party host who plans for 12 guests and 12,000 hungry diners show up.
Travellers can help ease the pressure by tweaking their trips. For instance, visit offseason, book tickets to major attractions in advance and venture beyond the historical core. Becker also recommends longer holidays of two weeks over short getaways of two to five days.
“You are planning your trip in a way that will be the least damaging,” she said. “Your footprint is going to be less.”
To further help beleaguered destinations, we singled out 10 spots buckling under the weight of too many feet and provided alternatives that are similar in all but one category: They could use more – not fewer – tourists.
Overbooked: Venice As if sinking weren’t enough, the Italian city of canals and masquerade balls is drowning in tourists. More than 30 million people visit annually, swamping the local population of 50,000 and causing rifts between the two camps. Several years ago, UNESCO warned Venetian officials that the city could end up on its endangered list of heritage sites if they did not curb their enthusiasm for tourists – an estimated 60,000 a day during peak season.
Officials responded with a raft of initiatives, such as relocating the cruise ship port to the mainland and banning new hotels in the historical city centre. Venice also unveiled an awareness campaign last year
No matter what you call it – overtourism, overbooked or a foreign invasion – it’s the same squeeze: A handful of destinations around the world are under siege by too many tourists.
called # EnjoyRespectVenezia, which encourages responsible behaviour (e.g., do not picnic on church steps) and provides a daily meter of crowds (all red from June through mid-September). The city is also promoting Detourism, a movement that urges visitors to avoid beaten-to-a-pulp routes and to behave like a local.
Overbooked: Barcelona The capital of Catalonia is the most-visited city in Spain, drawing 32 million people, more than 30 times its population. In one municipal survey, residents blasted tourism as the second-worst urban ill after unemployment. Anti-tourist graffiti has started popping up, and locals have protested the loss of their home to foreign invaders.
After the terrorist attack last August, the city experienced a slight dip in tourism, but it wasn’t enough to decongest La Rambla, the nearly mile-long pedestrian boulevard, or the buildings designed by famed Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí.
In addition to land travellers, nearly 3 million passengers arrive by cruise ship annually, a surge officials hope to stem by relocating the port outside the city centre by 2025. The current mayor, Ada Colau, won the election on her proposals to control unchecked tourism. Measures include fining Airbnb.com for renting unlicensed properties, raising the parking rate for coach buses idling at popular tourist spots and slowing the proliferation of hotel rooms, including banning new properties in the city’s congested hub. Overbooked: Mount Everest The world’s tallest mountain, which straddles Nepal and Tibet, suffers from some of the same ills as urban centres: trash and traffic. To reach the summit, trekkers sometimes have to wait in lines as long as those for Disney World’s Space Mountain. Litter, including empty oxygen tanks, clutters the trail, and a stream of waste is threatening to rise up. Base camps can resemble a beach on Independence Day, the brightly coloured tents blanketing the snowpacked ground.
The crowds are endangering the environment as well as themselves: In 2014 and 2015, deadly avalanches took the lives of 16 Sherpas and 19 climbers, respectively. And yet the trekkers still come, including novices with little experience in high altitude adventures. Last year, the government issued a record number of climbing permits, nearly 375 permission slips for 43 international expedition teams. That figure does not include the porters and guides, who more than double the number.
Overlooked: Mount Toubkal The tallest peak in Morocco’s Atlas mountains is a mouse compared with Asia’s lions, but it does dwarf most of the major mountains in the Americas, Europe and Oceana. Plus, it comes with a bonus bragging right: You can tell your ground-level friends that you have climbed the highest point in North Africa.
Lee Thompson, co- founder of Flash Pack, a London-based tour company, says Toubkal is as mentally challenging as the ascent to the Everest base camp but is more accessible to hikers with less experience and more moderate fitness levels. The 13,671foot-tall mountain sits within Toubkal National Park, about 40 miles south of Marrakesh.
The climb takes about two days, and halfway up the mountain, you can carb- and mint tea-load in Sidi Chamharouch, a Berber settlement with a Muslim shrine. On summit day, you’ll wake with the roosters and trek 10 hours to reach your crowning achievement. You have earned that hammam.
St. Cuthbert’s Cross symbols, takes four to six days to complete. For the final leg across the Pilgrims Path sands or the island causeway, check the tide charts in advance or you will be praying for a miracle. Depending on the season, you might see more baby animals than people. Watch for breeding birds from April through June, newborn lambs from March through May, and calves in spring and autumn.
Overbooked: Amsterdam Tourists outnumber residents by double- digit millions, so it’s no wonder the high of tourism has worn off. To reclaim the Dutch capital, officials are mulling or have executed several laws, such as doubling the tax on hotel rooms and banning short-term Airbnb rentals and souvenir shops in the historical centre.
They are also considering relocating the cruise- ship berth and passenger terminal away from the middle of the action, a move that will affect cruisers on more than 2,000 ocean liners and riverboats. In the red-light district, law enforcement officers have started ticketing bad behavior such as public drinking and littering. A new color- coded system will monitor crowds; a red signal could result in street closures, for example.
To lure visitors out of the choked centre, the tourism organization responsible for the City Card expanded benefits to include day trips outside the city, such as to Haarlem, Zaanse Schans and Keukenhof, where you can tiptoe through the tulip fields. — WPBloomberg