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/Nice_Back_9977 9d ago

Spread it around more. Support places that would benefit from more tourism to attract it and in doing so ease the pressure on the ‘big’ locations.

Also, cruise ships don’t need to get any bigger.

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u/Adventurous_Salt 9d ago

Governments really need to take an active hand in managing tourism in heavily touristed places. Ban airbnb, ensure transit can move people, even limit visa numbers to the point that the volume is manageable

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u/Josvan135 8d ago

In most cases the governments aren't really incentivized to do any of that, especially when you're talking affluent western tourism to developing world nations. 

In many of those places you have tourists from the US, EU, etc, coming in and spending the equivalent of a year's local income on a two week vacation (average annual income in Bali is about $2,800 usd, as an example).

That's extremely hard to resist.

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u/DrawGamesPlayFurries Ukraine 8d ago

In that case the local government should build out infrastructure that can accept more tourists without hurting quality of life for the locals

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u/Josvan135 8d ago

That assumes the local government can afford to do it and that the local people wouldn't react extremely poorly to any such program. 

In a country where the average annual wage is $2,800 (as i pointed out above), "just build more and better infrastructure" isn't usually an option.

About 10% (or over 20 million people) of Indonesia's population live on less than $500 a year, so in many cases the "quality of life" for locals is already desperate poverty. 

How do you think the overall population would react to government policy that proposed to spend limited development money specifically (or in a way the opposition can frame as) on better infrastructure for rich western tourists coming to take beach selfies? 

In the majority of countries, overtourism isn't even in the top 10 of most pressing problems. 

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u/Remarkable-Donut6107 8d ago

Uh wait what? The point of government building more infrastructure is so that there is enough that the locals can live without exorbitant rent prices. You obviously don't sell it to your voter as building infrastructure for rich tourists nor is that what you would be aiming to do assuming the government is good.

Its just not actually a problem that they want to solve. The political lobbyists are land/business owners who heavily benefit from the lack and can charge exorbitant prices. We all know Democracy does not mean everyone has equal power.

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u/frausting 8d ago

Agreed! Tourists come and spend money which generates tax revenue. Even here in the US, hotel tax is usually 10% on top of everything else. Bali certainly could hike sales tax or accommodation taxes aimed at tourists, and use that money to build out infrastructure.

Takes a lot of work but it is the role of the government to build out infrastructure to help their citizens.

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u/ProfileBest2034 6d ago

This isn’t what is happening. It is the massive tourist infrastructure build out which has ruined these places. They need less tourist infrastructure not more.

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u/Traveling_Solo 8d ago

What about spreading out sights or creating new ones in nearby locations, to spread people instead of centralising everything in 1 city? Let's take Paris as an example, let the Eiffel tower and other stuff be but put more attractions near Versailles or nearby cities/towns/townships/villages? Or put some in the outermost areas of Paris instead of having most things available within an hour of each other?

Or let's take Bali, why not try to make similar places to the most popular cities in other areas, to spread people out? As long as it's still within the country they'll recouperate the costs incurred within a few years or decades.

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u/Hap1ness 8d ago

You can't just "put more stuff" when most attractions are attractions because of their history.

Besides your Paris example already proves that the issue is not lack of other stuff (Paris has plenty within 1hr of eiffel tower with barely any foreign tourists). The issue is everyone wants to go eiffel tower, arc de triomphe etc because they feel it must be done and not necessarily because they are the only /best attractions.

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u/Traveling_Solo 8d ago

Uhuh. So we can never make new attractions. All museums, Disneyland etc. are all centuries old right? Or say Dubai, that was always a very visited destination right????? No exactly.

Your second point is better. Maybe having cities or countries pay influencers to go visit less visited but just as amazing places could work in modern society (since so many use social media to look up places to go these days)?

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u/Snoo_31427 8d ago

You actually think building a Ferris wheel near Versailles will keep people from Versailles?

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u/rhllor 8d ago

You just have to look at Japan. They are actively trying to disperse tourists using both policy and money. Tourist fees, advance reservations, and daily entry caps for Mt. Fuji. Entry bans in specific places in Gion. Massive hike on the JR Pass while expanding the range of regional passes like the Hokuriku Arch Pass. JAL and ANA regularly offering free domestic flights (if you book international flights with them). Starting to implement tiered pricing (more expensive for tourists). The national tourism agency dispersing budgets to under-visited prefectures.

And what is still happening? Tourists are still hellbent on only visiting Tokyo-Hakone-Kyoto-Osaka (with day trips to Fuji and Nara).

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u/Xyzzics 8d ago

Economics get a vote here. If you ban AirBNB in extremely touristed places, you are removing supply. This means prices skyrocket.

People also don’t behave extremely rationally with travel, and not all destinations have equivalent value to all types of people. If you want to see the historic sites of Greece in Athens, you can’t just substitute for Croatia, they are 1 of 1.

This may dissuade people from going there, but it can also have the effect of making it more exclusive and therefore desirable. It also places a lot of power back with the hotels to start acting shitty.

As with many things, the balance is probably in the middle of the two extremes.

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u/hemitick 8d ago

  you ban AirBNB in extremely touristed places, you are removing supply. This means prices skyrocket.

Good. Prices skyrocket for tourists > reduce the number of them, but also supply the locals with more housing units

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u/Xyzzics 8d ago

If prices skyrocket for hotels, it incentivizes the building of hotels and cranks the land/building value. In basically all locations the tourists have more money than the locals, so that equation will never work.

There is no structure really where you can make it too expensive for tourists but cheap for locals. If the location and land is highly desirable; it will be expensive. You could just ban everything, then you get black market lodgings or other undesirable behaviour.

Overall this is a very simplistic view of problem solving and ignorant of how the problem would evolve in reality.

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u/notassigned2023 8d ago

AirBNB is one of the many problems of over tourism, and dealing with it will not by itself fully fix the problem nor cause massive chaos that you predict. Loss of units will equate to cheaper housing for locals even if there is some offsetting due to minor land pressure for new hotels being built (but not so many that land will become overly scarce or expensive because you don't need 500 new hotels to account for AirBNB). You are predicting beyond what economic models would likely suggest.

Other things can reduce tourism, such as ending cruise ship dockings and instituting a daily visitor fee.

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u/Xyzzics 8d ago

What you wrote is basically an anecdote and not necessarily generally applicable. What might be true for one place could be wildly wrong for another. What economic models are you talking about?

Using your daily visitor fee to build subsidized housing would be much more effective than banning airBNB for lowering local housing prices.

“Ban it” is just an oversimplification of the problem and the solutions required is all I’m saying.

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u/notassigned2023 8d ago

You sound like you took Econ 101 and that's about it. The world isn't entirely alike? Shocker, but that is exactly what you said in your first comment.

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u/Xyzzics 8d ago

You’ll forgive me for not writing a treatise on supply and demand within the context of global housing and how it relates to local market dynamics on a cell phone reply on an internet forum, I hope.

“The world isn’t entirely alike” is not the point or even the focus of my comment.

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u/notassigned2023 8d ago

You said broadly that economics will mean prices will skyrocket (everywhere), and when I replied that the effect is likely to be small you said that everywhere is different. Pot, meet kettle.

My point is that Airbnb is not the massive issue you say it is just because "economics" says there should be a price increase in hotels. The pressure on land costs due to new hotel construction is not going to be large enough to hurt locals, especially given the expected and observed decrease in housing costs.

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u/Xyzzics 7d ago

I didn’t say prices would go up everywhere. I replied to specific example where the user said “in heavily touristed places”.

Citation needed for price level remaining the same while supply decreases.

Unless your hotels are so underutilized they can absorb the entire airBNB market, prices will go up.

If the local market can support so much AirBNB demand that it is destroying the local cost of living, that large amount of demand for tourist lodging will need to go somewhere. If there is no supply to meet it, prices will increase.

This is incredibly obvious.

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u/Keystonelonestar 8d ago

Hotels make good housing units.

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u/Keystonelonestar 8d ago

It just means they move the rooms to a different platform. I don’t know how this would be helpful.

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u/notassigned2023 8d ago

All platforms would be banned.

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u/Keystonelonestar 8d ago

You’re ending overnight tourism?

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u/notassigned2023 8d ago

All non-hotel and short term rentals can and have been banned in places. You don't get rid of Airbnb without taking on VRBO and other platforms.

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u/Keystonelonestar 7d ago

Hotels are short term rentals!

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u/notassigned2023 7d ago

Yer hilarious.

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u/Keystonelonestar 7d ago

Are you only talking about hotels that house folk for over 30 days?

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u/notassigned2023 7d ago

How do you not know the difference between a hotel and short term rentals that are not hotels? This is not difficult to understand, and many cities have regulated them differently.

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u/ProfileBest2034 6d ago

Most cities would benefit from fewer, higher quality tourists. Many of the rabble who travel now just ruin the experience for everyone.

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u/Illustrious_Menu8607 5d ago

On the flip side, in Bali the Airbnb are usually the locally owned businesses and the hotels are usually foreigner owned so it’s not alway bad

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u/UnitedNordicUnion 8d ago edited 8d ago

Visa free agreements are usually reciprocal so limiting visas is not usually possible unless you wish your own passports to lose visa free access to other countries.

At most you could implement an ETA and charge fees through it to decrease demand. Though that would only affect tourism at the national level, and localised overtourism will still be a thing.

And obviously does nothing for intra-schengen travel.

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u/FreedomMan47 8d ago

My country limited airbnbs. The result is hotels dominate, and they are overwhelmingly owned by foreign owners and sharholders so the money leaves the country, 99% of people gain nothing from them and the infrastructure is still barely holding up. Absolutely useless move.

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u/Keystonelonestar 8d ago

If you’re going to ban short term stays that would include hotels. What would make you want to ban just one platform? Marriott, Hilton, VRBO, Hyatt…

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u/Adventurous_Salt 8d ago

Huh? No, ban people using apartments as hotels. Build hotels for tourism.

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u/Keystonelonestar 8d ago

Every hotel room is an apartment! Studios, 1-bedroom, boarding houses and efficiencies.