Overtourism: The Growing Dilemma

Overtourism, or the overcrowding of cities by visitors is an issue many nations are facing. Countries such as Iceland and Thailand are seeing it as well as cities such as Barcelona, Venice, Ibiza, and more. Local residents are upset because local property and everyday goods have increased in cost. Contributing factors to overtourism include increased cost effective accommodation for travel such as the “home share” concept executed by Airbnb, as well as low cost flights to the destination by low cost carriers, or in the case of Iceland, government subsidized tickets which reflects low cost tickets. Iceland is an example of a nation that went from less than half a million tourists in 2010, to over 2 million in 2017. This was due to the government’s push to attract economic opportunity, they offered low cost flights to attract travelers. Now, the issue they have run into is that they don’t have the infrastructure to support the inflow of all these tourists, as Iceland's population is just 334,000. In the case of cities such as Barcelona and Ibiza, residents have protested regarding the oversaturation of tourists in their backyard. Communities claim they cannot enjoy their neighborhoods because of the mass tourism.

The solution to all of this is far from simple and it is not a one size fits all answer. For example, in the case of Barcelona, I believe that in order to lower their number of yearly tourists, they have to stop promoting themselves as the beach destination for the rest of Europe and instead promote themselves as a Luxury destination, therefore they get the same output without the same negative impact. In the case of Iceland, I think the government should launch a joint initiative on responsible tourism with like minded destinations educating potential travelers when is the best time to travel, what alternative cities can tourists visit, and how the overvisit of tourists affects local communities. Responsible tourism is educating how to maximize positive impacts and mitigate the negative ones. There are many cities within countries such as Spain and Italy that are not Barcelona or Venice. There are cities that are in need of tourism to support their local economy. Making potential visitors aware of these locations is the responsibility of each government.

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