In several popular tourist resorts in Europe, residents are protesting. Venice There have even been apartment squats – citizens see their city flooded with tourists, often without housing themselves. Around 49,000 people are permanent residents of the historic centre of Venice. According to various estimates, however, the city welcomes more than 20 million tourists per year. The daily life of some is transformed into a tourist product for others.
Europe is the continent with the most tourists in the world, and Venice is just one of the European cities suffering from overtourism. During this period, there are increasing reports of protests in Barcelona and other Spanish cities. In Lisbon, Prague and Amsterdam, mass tourism is causing increasing tensions between tourists and permanent residents.
The reasons are the same everywhere: rising rents, astronomical real estate prices and the question of who ultimately gets the available resources.
Tourism as a source of income… but for whom?
Tourism is the main source of income for many European cities. In the European Union, it accounts for about 10% of economic output. According to EU estimates, about 12.3 million people are employed in the tourism sector.
“These are summaries,” says Sebastian Zenker of Copenhagen Business School. According to Zenker, this does not necessarily benefit residents: rents continue to rise, homes become an unaffordable luxury, and restaurants charge prices that only tourists can afford.
So where does all this money that all the tourists spend in the Mediterranean go? A lot depends on the airline industry, the big hotel chains, international companies and the cruise industry, says Paul Peters, who studies the dimensions of sustainable tourism at the University of Breda in the Netherlands.
The environmental footprint of the tourist
The determining factor is who travels and how. Cruise tourists, for example, sleep and eat on board. Package tourists usually get a package deal including flights, hotel and meals from major travel agencies. As a result, they also spend very little at their destination.
But at the same time, all these tourists contribute to air pollution and overconsumption of water, which is a burden on the inhabitants of their respective tourist destinations. This reinforces inequalities and fuels tensions between locals and tourists.
“Everyone wants to be preferred by tourists. The question is in which direction and towards which type of tourism they move,” sums up Sebastian Zenker from Copenhagen.