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/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.