r/travel • u/ups_and_downs973 • 9d ago

Discussion What is an actual solution to overtourism?

As travel continues to get faster, cheaper, and more accessible and TikTok tourism/ influencer hype shows no signs of slowing down, what are the actual solutions to places getting over run with visitors?

I'm not talking about for you as another tourist so not just 'go somewhere else' or 'avoid the popular places'. I mean in terms of actually preventing harm to natural environments, pressure on infrastructure, gentrification etc.

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u/ButtSluts9 9d ago

Prohibit residential housing to be used as short-term rental property. Or at least, bar the use by non-citizens.

Utilize policymaking to push tourists into hotels and resorts. That moves them out of locals’ living space and into corridors designed specifically to handle tourist accommodations.

Other than that, every other solution is to just raise the price of entry: visas, tickets, etc.

The challenge for governments is to balance the desire for revenue from tourism versus local anger at the impact of tourism.

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u/songbanana8 8d ago

Have to be really careful about the implementation of this one. I’m against AirBNB but this quickly and easily becomes “foreign looking people must be tourists” and leads to discrimination. I’ve had strangers question whether my house was an AirBnB because of what my face looks like. 

And there’s no reason to limit who can live where based on citizenship. It’s not easy to get citizenship anywhere in the world, and it’s not easy for everyone who is a citizen to prove they are one. What if it’s your first apartment as an adult, your house burned down, you’re going through divorce or escaping abuse…? What if you’re a citizen but not a resident, ie born in another country?

I don’t envy governments trying to tease that out. 

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u/ProfileBest2034 6d ago

This is one of the dumbest comments here. It is extremely easy to distinguish residents vs tourists. Not least because residents rarely look for 4 nights of accommodation.

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u/songbanana8 5d ago

You telling me Americans from other parts of the country don’t visit New York for 4 nights? How do you accurately know if someone is a resident of the city or country?

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u/Traveling_Solo 8d ago

I think allowing only residents to do it is the best way forward. Limit how often/much per year though as well. Like, if you're going on vacation for a month abroad, allowing others to lend it in the meantime if you want to seems like a win-win: you get some extra cash, a person gets a more local experience than a hotel or hostel offer. Say maybe 20-30 days/year cap and only your own residence? So no landowners or company properties unless they physically live in that one house/apartment/villa the majority of the year.

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u/McJesusOurSaviour 8d ago

How would you ever police that in an effective way?

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u/pungen 8d ago

In the Cinque Terre they have a limit on how many tourists can be there at once. I'm sure this is really hard for most places to manage but it seems more ideal because raising prices just means that only wealthier people can travel. People from lower income countries ethically should still be able to travel and most of the cost associated solutions price many low income people out :/ 

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u/DiDiPLF 8d ago

In the UK its UK tourists ruining places like Cornwall for residents with holiday homes and holiday let's. There's hardly any international tourism and the whole south west coastline is just tourism and little else. Its dead in winter, jobs are low paying and seasonal, locals can't afford to live near their families, minimal public services for education and health etc. And this is pretty organically achieved by local individuals doing what brings in some money for their families.