Summer is here and crowds are getting ⁠booed ⁠in some places in the world. ⁠Ciara Lee looks at the economic ⁠trade-offs⁠ at play in mass tourism as backlash grows in places like Spain and Japan.

Park Güell

Cities such as Barcelona and Tokyo are experiencing a surge in local opposition to overtourism, with residents taking steps to limit visitor numbers and reduce the strain on infrastructure. Measures include removing bus routes to popular attractions, restricting short-term rentals, and introducing tourist taxes. 

The economic benefits of tourism are significant, supporting millions of jobs and contributing to national growth. However, concerns over cultural friction, infrastructure stress, and the distribution of tourism revenue have prompted calls for more balanced policies. Authorities are now seeking ways to manage tourism sustainably while ensuring that local communities benefit from the industry.

What's driving the overtourism backlash?

Lisbon. Barcelona. Popular tourist destinations have been hit by demonstrations in recent months over what's been described as over-tourism. But what are the economic principles behind this phenomenon? Because it's more than just tourism demand exceeding local supply or capacity. It's also about economic trade-offs. Less tourism means less tax revenue. With growing discontent, residents in some locations have even been taking matters into their own hands. Charlie Devereux is lead writer for Reuters in Iberia. They removed the bus routes from going to Parc Güell, which is this famous park. They got Google Maps to remove it from Google Maps so that when tourists were saying, how do we get to Parc Güell, it didn't appear. Over-tourism occurs when too many visitors flock to a destination. It's something that's really grabbed headlines in the post-pandemic travel boom. But really, it's not a new thing. Visitors have been crowding picturesque places like Venice for centuries. And its causes, an oversupply of humans, inadequate capital investment in housing and infrastructure, are also problems affecting cities dealing with inward migration. It's just that over-tourism is a problem concentrated on particular places at particular times, usually the sweatiest months of the year. Spain is one of those countries we associate most with over-tourism. You could argue that Spain kind of invented mass tourism, you know, at least in Europe in the 60s when it opened up. And I think the pandemic kind of flicked a switch in people. Maybe they had an opportunity to see what their cities, their towns look like without lots of tourists around. There have been growing rumblings of discontent in hotspots in Japan too. John Geddy is Reuters' lead writer in Tokyo. Statistics show that last year Japan was the most visited destination by tourists in Asia. It's creating kind of similar stresses, I think, to what was described in Spain in terms of impacts on public infrastructure. I think the other thing that sort of creates tension in Japan is that there's very strict accepted social etiquette of how people should behave in public. That has created a lot of kind of cultural friction. Spain received 94 million visitors last year, and that figure is expected to exceed 100 million this year. It employs three million people, the industry. And, you know, Spain has been absolutely booming the last two or three years, the fastest growing country in the OECD, the fastest growing developed country. Calls for over-tourism action are mounting. Barcelona is planning on cutting down on short-term rentals by 2028, as well as limiting the number of cruise liners docking up. Tourist taxes are already in place in locations like Venice. The over-tourism issue, as well as debate over how best to handle it, though, is tricky. Millions of people depend on the industry for their livelihoods, so policy needs to be balanced carefully. There are also questions about what happens to the levies and tourist taxes being applied, and whether the money actually goes back into the communities that have been affected.

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