For years, Dubrovnik, Croatia, has been a poster child for excessive, with summer visitors exceeding the local population and the municipal government introducing repeated measures to reduce the size and impact of a flood of tourists who turns a historical center Luckeable parking lots many selfie-snappers.
But you would never know about the negative effects of so many visitors from the recent triumphant announcement by the Ministry of Tourism, noting that arrivals in the city had increased by 9 % in 2024 compared to 2023. Tourism Minister Tonci Glavina said.
If in 2024 it was the year in which concerns about the overdose achieved a critical mass in places around the world, sparking protests from Amsterdam in the Canary Islands and provoked new regulations from Iceland to Indonesia, it was also the year in which It became clear exactly how complicated reduced tourism, once liberated, can be.
This year will see even more locations establish measures, but the evidence of how – or even if – tourism can be limited remains rare. Competitive financial interests have a way of blocking efforts to prevent tourist tide.
“The harsh truth is that as soon as the transcendentalism has arrived,” said Rachel Dodds, a professor of tourism management at the Toronto Metropolitan University, “it is extremely difficult to turn the watch.”
A long -term problem
As early as 2010, tourism experts noticed that some destinations were approaching or surpassing their transport capacity. Through the last decade, cities such as Amsterdam and Barcelona had begun to take trial steps to relieve the impact of tourism on infrastructure, housing, environment and quality of life.
But only after the pandemic, when “revenge trips” brought a larger number of visitors to more destinations, efforts to implement the brakes became more widespread.
This year, travelers will feel the results of these efforts. The new legislation regulating Airbnbs and other short-term rentals come into force in France, the Czech Republic and Greece, where a 24.5 % increase in foreign visitors in 2024 compared to the previous year is also behind increased tax-up to 20 euro per day- for cruise passengers on the islands of Santorini and Mykon.
Ports from Ibiza, Spain, in Juneau, Alaska, limit the number of cruise ships that can be landed simultaneously and in the case of Juneau will reduce the number of passengers allowed every day. Bruges, Belgium, has stopped the new hotel construction and Amsterdam, since it imposes a similar measure in 2024, only to find out that some accommodation was taking advantage of a gap, another measure in November that prevents them from adding more rooms or beds in their offers.
In Italy, tourists will be limited to 20,000 a day in Pompeii, and the new legislation in Florence can prevent tourists from using golf trolleys in tools around.
New Zealand will demand visitors to pay New Zealand $ 100 – About three times higher than it was for most of last year, while the Galapagos islands have doubled its reward at $ 200. In Japan, the Ginzan Oncen Mountain has recently joined the Mount Fuji and some roads in the Kyoto to limit tourist numbers. And in South Korea, authorities have imposed a ban on traffic on a historic Seoul neighborhood to delay tourist excesses.
Will the regulations work?
“The main issue is that for many, many years, we are using an mining model of tourism that says ‘numbers at any cost,’ said Marina Novelli, director of sustainable travel and tourist research center at Nottingham University. We are now in a situation where all these things are applied, such as limiting numbers and tourist taxes as reactionary strategies. “
Either these strategies will work to see. The evidence is spots and suggest that measures take a long time to work. Barcelona, for example, applied its first tourist tax in 2012, began to limit short -term rentals in 2015 and cover the construction of the hotel in 2017. However of the year that the annual rate of arrivals showed a moderate decrease of 0.7 % Over 2023 in Amsterdam, which began to target its excessive 2016, arrivals are expected to rise to 26 million in 2026.
Restriction numbers are not always the primary goal. Covering short -term rentals, for example, is often set as a solution for housing shortages, while tourist taxes may be intended to offset the strain that can be excessive and place resources.
“Some places, such as New Zealand and Hawaii, are trying to make it more than a regenerative or management measure,” Ms Dodds said. “While in others, like Venice, it is punitive, slaps and believing that it will persuade people not to come.”
In an amount of about an equivalent to a coffee and the Cornetto, the Venice 5 euro remuneration, which was introduced last year, was not at all discouraging. Venice seems to have reached the same conclusion: this year, the rate is doubled at 10 euros.
Will it have more impact? According to Ko Koens, Professor of Urban Tourism at Involland University for Applied Sciences, no one knows. “I can definitely tell you that 5 euros would not work,” he said. “But we don’t have enough data to find out how high it should be to work.”
Other measures in Venice have also come to a short time. The city recently began to raise cruise ships from its historic center. While the initiative can reduce environmental damage, it had no distinct effect on passenger numbers. In the fall of 2024, Venice foresaw 9 % for the year over 2023, thanks to its new entrants.
In fact, the restriction of passengers in one area can channel Overtourism to another. “It’s like a water bed,” Mr Koens said. “By spreading people to other places. You may increase the issues of excessive deviation.”
New York began to impose a pre -existing ban on short -term rentals last year. The measure, which some experts associate with the 7 % increase of 2024 in hotel prices in the previous year, sent tourists to surrounding areas where rents are legal. New Jersey has become the fastest growing market for Airbnb demand in the United States, according to Analytics Airdna. However, it does not seem to have reduced the number of tourists in New York itself – the city expects to exceed previous 66.6 million records in 2019 by 1.4 million in 2025.
Dubrovnik and Copenhagen, and resistance to boundaries
The biggest obstacle to resolving excessive character can be the lack of consensus that it is actually a problem. As a source of revenue and employment – worldwide, tourism has set a record of $ 1.6 trillion in 2024 – the journey is an engine for economic growth.
Due to this role, most efforts to limit tourism face the opposition – witnesses to the recent decision to remove Bali’s planned moratorium in the new hotel construction.
Mato Frankovic, the mayor of Dubrovnik, has experienced this resistance. After lowering the number of cruise ships, limited rentals in the Old Town and reduced the number of tables and chairs in outdoor cafes by 30 % and the number of souvenirs are 70 %, international and local businesses rebelled. “The opposition said it was going to destroy the city,” Mr Frankovic said.
He stayed. This year the city will reduce the number of taxis. Enter applications that regulate tourism arrivals and immediate visitors to alternative spaces in cutting -edge times. And to adopt national legislation that requires apartment owners in multi -apartment buildings to receive consent from 80 % of other residents before they can rent their apartment.
However, even when municipal or regional authorities are determined to make changes, they can be found against a national government that prioritizes economic growth.
Take the Copenhagen. The Municipal Council approved a tourist tax in 2024 “as a good way to prevent us from coming up like Barcelona,” said Rasmus Steenberger, a member of the municipal government. However, the National Government – which is currently expanding Copenhagen Airport and recently announced a plan to increase tourism revenue to 200 billion Kronia per year (about $ 28 billion) from $ 152 billion to 2030 – up to 2030 Suggested tourist tax.
Looking for a real solution
This conflict is why many experts believe that it requires deeper changes.
Ms Dodds of the Toronto Metropolitan University, said that a solution requires a review of the definition of success. “The UN tourism is still measuring success from the number of arrivals, which essentially perpetuates the problems of excessive,” he said. “So the discussion must be. How do we change the measurements of success?”
There are indications that new measurements are being displayed. Both Bruges and Norway pulled out the tourism campaigns last year, and some cruise and tour companies have voluntarily scratched Santorini and Mykonos from their 2025 and 2026 routes.
However, with international arrivals expected to rise to 12.4 % in 2025 compared to 2019 levels, Overtourism seems likely to spread. “I’m not sure there is a solution,” said Ms Novelli of the University of Nottingham. “Unless people take responsibility and say, ‘Do you know what? I don’t need to see Venice. I’m not going to go. ”
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