2024-09-26 15:47:31
The summer of 2024 was marked by protests in some of Europe’s popular travel destinations, with residents resenting over-tourism. What will the summer of 2025 be like?
The message was clear this year: travel is back. But while European tourism reached new heights in 2024, not everyone was happy about it. In April, tens of thousands of people gathered in the Canary Islands to protest the negative effects of mass tourism, while separate anti-tourism rallies took place across Europe this summer.
Locals sprayed tourists with water guns in Barcelona, while in Majorca, residents huddled on beach towels to show how they felt about their beaches being overrun by tourists. Travelers have been subjected to a raft of new regulations, including rules about where they can and can’t take selfies, fees for visiting cities, fines for walking in flip-flops and even mayors of popular holiday destinations asking travelers to stay away .
Why are Spain’s beaches disappearing?
Fear also for winter destinations
As the peak summer tourist season draws to a close, it is clear that the issue is far from over. Last month in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland in northern Finland, a tourism protest sought to draw attention to the effects mass tourism is having on winter destinations as well.
Unless something important changes, a repeat of this summer’s problems is likely to continue next year. Spanish tourism alone is expected to grow by 5% in 2025, with more than 90 million visits from overseas tourists – while France looks set to remain the world’s most visited country in 2025.
Another approach to tourism
Jeremy Sampson, chief executive of The Travel Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to ensure that tourism has a positive impact on destinations, has been working since 2003 to move the industry towards a more balanced model that would benefit both local as well as the environment. “This is not the first time that hypertourism has appeared,” he tells the BBC. “Just before Covid in 2019, the issue had started to reach crescendo proportions. Communities had become disenchanted with tourism and destinations had lost control.”
However, he doesn’t think overtourism is the real problem. Instead, he says, we need to address the root cause, which is “bad, unbalanced design. Tourism is complex to regulate and needs to be an aligned ecosystem of people – that comes from the destination first.”
Indeed, this is something that many cities and countries are trying to achieve. Barcelona has just updated its tourism campaign slogan from ‘Visit Barcelona’ to ‘This is Barcelona’ in a bid to soften the call to visit, while Visit Norway has withdrawn a proposed campaign promoting the country as an outdoor destination to address questions about tourism management in sensitive environments.
Other places are trying to better manage incoming tourists, hoping to find mutual benefits for travelers, locals and destinations. Copenhagen has announced that the city’s CopenPay pilot program, which offered free entry to cultural centers and museums to travelers who demonstrated sustainable behaviors, will be expanded in 2025. The groundbreaking program has also had multiplier effects, according to Rikke Holm Petersen, director of communications of Visit Copenhagen: “As a result of CopenPay, we have held meetings and been approached by a wide range of tourism organizations worldwide, including the European Commission, VisitBerlin, the Government of Zurich, the Tokyo Municipal Government and Tourisme Montreal.”
Are you planning to visit Copenhagen? If you take part in environmentally friendly actions, you will have benefits
Travelers should expect prices to rise
Another way cities and countries adjust the numbers is through tourism taxes, and travelers are going to see more and more of those if this summer’s pilots are anything to go by. Venice’s tourist tax, which was tested this year by requiring day-trippers to register and pay €5 to enter, will be extended to a second trial phase next year, possibly with higher fees and a longer duration.
Elsewhere in Italy, Rome’s tourism vice-mayor, Alessandro Onorato, wants to introduce a ticketing system for the Trevi Fountain, with tourists paying €2, which will go towards protecting the iconic monument. While these cities only add a handful of euros to the cost of a holiday, elsewhere in the world, heavier fees are used as a barrier to entry. Bhutan is considering raising its daily fee to up to $200 in response to rising tourism demand, with the fee going towards developing sustainable tourism. In New Zealand, meanwhile, the entry tax for foreign tourists is set to nearly triple from NZ$35 to NZ$100 on October 1, while cruise-related fees in the country are also set to rise dramatically. Both are part of New Zealand’s strategy to attract “high value” travelers and deter those on a lower budget.
Elsewhere in the cruise industry, Greece is debating imposing a cruise fee of €20 per passenger on ships calling at its most popular islands, Santorini and Mykonos. Santorini has previously welcomed more than 10,000 passengers a day – the additional fee may act as a deterrent to large cruise ships, which have been criticized for their role in ‘hit and run’ tourism.
It will be harder to find cheap rentals
Residents of popular destinations have complained about short-term rentals, which they see as affecting the housing market and housing supply overall. And the authorities are taking note, with destinations such as central Athens and Majorca planning to reduce the number available.
With New York already outlawing short-term rentals, Barcelona banning them until 2029, and Edinburgh’s new regulatory system cracking down on them, it looks more likely that, in the future, more of us will be staying in hotels than in central short-term leases.
Consider alternative destinations
While some parts of Europe are creaking under the pressure of tourism, other regions are open for business and welcoming travelers. Second cities, third cities and less visited destinations are getting more attention – all of which is good news for travelers.
This year, instead of sending out a list of hyped destinations that people should go to, fueling hyper-tourism, tour operator Intrepid has instituted a “Not Hot” list, highlighting less popular destinations that deserve the spotlight. Their goal is to transfer the positive benefits of tourism to places that need it. It’s a good guide for anyone planning their trip next year.
The question is, do people want to give up their travel dreams – the classic travel destinations – to go somewhere different? Samira Holma, a place development and destination marketing specialist who works with destinations from Brazil to Spain, with a particular focus on sustainable tourism, sees this as a complex issue. “For now, more people who have already been and are well-travelled will start to explore beyond that, but many first-time visitors continue to go to the hotspots,” he says. “As slow journeys become more common, people will add other stops to the itinerary that may be less well known. But I still think it will take time before we see many first-time visitors skipping the more iconic places.”
With information from the BBC