“You’re not stuck in traffic: you’re the traffic.”
I can’t remember where I first heard this or if it makes sense even if you’re not into urban planning, but it illustrates how a slight shift in perspective can change the way we see a problem. Instead of viewing traffic as something happening to you, it encourages you to recognize that you’re an active participant in the slowdown: traffic isn’t just something you suffer through, it’s something you’re actually contributing to.
Similarly, overtourism is often talked about as if it’s an external problem: it’s a phenomenon we can observe and see happening to popular destinations. But just like traffic, overtourism doesn’t just happen on its own. It is something we collectively contribute to every time we choose to visit the same popular places. And among the millions of people making overtourism happen, I don’t know how many would admit they might be part of the problem.
Mea culpa
My logbook says that 2016 was the year when I travelled the most in my life. I went on 14 trips and boarded 31 flights, for a total distance flown of 68,636km. I was flying out somewhere every 3.7 weeks on average. The second worst year in my record was 2019 (25 flights across 9 trips, total distance of 55,346km). Here’s something more recent to help you put these numbers into perspective: last year’s full trip to Asia “only” added 40,016km to my record, including the flights to get there and back.
It might sound useless, but keeping tabs on my personal travels actually gives shape to something that can be very abstract. I can’t really reply to “how much travel is too much” (even though flying out more than once a month probably is), but these numbers serve as a personal reminder that overtourism is something that I’ve been actively contributing to, whether I want it or not.
We can’t truly shame someone going on holiday once a year, even if it’s the most overcrowded destination in the world. Fast and frequent travelers are the problem. Even if I believe that all of these decisions are right, I can’t honestly hide behind flying a little less, travelling in the off-season, visiting alternative destinations, or not using social media for recommendations anymore. You can blame me any day of the week, and you should.
In addition to being a fast and frequent traveler, I’ve also had firsthand experience working in the industry, which gave me valuable insights into how the sector operates behind the scenes. I’ve seen how destinations are marketed, how travel demand is managed (or unmanaged, in certain cases), and how much effort goes into making sure the operation is beneficial (although “profitable” might be a more accurate word, most of the time) to all parties involved.
From where I used to sit, it was easy to think about the industry as numbers. Just numbers and percentages. Tours, options, bookings, tickets available, sold or remaining, sell-out rates, time slots, vehicles, seats, guests, passengers, cancellation rates, commission rates... My position wasn’t directly and explicitely tied to all these operational figures, but I was very aware of the direction they were moving in, on a regular basis.
I honestly didn’t think too much about mass tourism or overtourism while I was there. My memories may be a little distorted, but I believe I was thinking about all of that under the banner “travel”, and not “tourism”. Whenever someone asked, my reply was that I was working in the travel industry. Never the tourism industry. Now that I stepped back and left the industry, I can see how wrong I was.
At this point I have to wonder if being a frequent traveller working in the tourism industry means that I was actually the villain this entire time?
Now flip it
Talking about overtourism at the first person also means that I can tell you what it looks like from Berlin, which is actually very relevant in this discussion (3rd most visited city in Europe, after London and Paris). I’ve lived here for more than ten years, and I’ve seen the city evolving right in front of my eyes, and sometimes right at my doorstep (figuratively and literally, if you know where I live). And before I moved to the German capital, Paris was my home for seven years. I basically lived my entire adult life in cities absolutely loved by tourists.
This 2011 article from spiegel describes what my current neighborhood thought about the groups of tourists coming to the city, years before I moved in. Having visited Berlin twice before moving there, I feel like this article actually describes me: someone in his twenties coming here on a cheap EasyJet flight on a friday night, only to party and leave before tuesday. The article concludes:
Some Kreuzbergers are remaining relaxed about the situation, however. The district may be popular at the moment, says one pensioner. "But the tourists will move on at some point and look for new places to stay."
In my case, I didn’t look for a new place to stay and even chose to make it my home, but that’s a story for another time. Lots have changed since, but as far as I can tell, Kreuzberg is still as popular as it was back then, and maybe even more today (the article mentions 9M visits and 20.8M overnight stays in 2010, we’re at 12M visits and 29.6M overnight stays in 2023). I talked to people as far as Bangkok, Seoul and Kyoto who heard about, or have been to Kreuzberg.
Do I hear the public opinion and see “Tourists go home” graffitis in my neighborhood? Yes. Do I agree with it? Probably not. But that’s just one of the many things I’m still confused about, and trying to fully form an opinion on.
I actually live a pretty quiet life in a lively part of Kreuzberg, and I’m more than fine, by all measures. I understand how tourism simultaneously helps and hurts a community, and in the case of Berlin (which does not exclusively rely on revenue from tourism, like some other cities), I’m personally fine with groups of tourists partying on my sidewalk, as long as I can still go around and do my stuff while they’re still recovering from their night out. I don’t have anything against tourists coming here. Likely because I was one, not so long ago.
Right now
Let’s look at this two-week itinerary, which is the top result when searching “two week Italy itinerary”: Rome, Pompeii and Amalfi Coast, Capri, Florence, Pisa, Cinque Terre, Milan, Venice. Nine stops in fourteen days. Sounds lovely on the surface, but my internal dialogue just says “what the actual fuck”.
My small Italian adventure was also roughly two weeks long. After a few days around Bari and Monopoli, I headed west and stayed in Naples. I skipped Capri, Pompeii, Rome, Pisa and Florence, stayed in Bologne, skipped Cinque Terre, Venice and Milan, and I am now writing from Turin. My five-stop itinerary hasn’t been the absolute prettiest and most instagrammable, and would actually score very low on the social media hype scale, but it’s mine. I like having traveled to the places I was curious about, and not to the places a stranger suggested I shouldn’t miss.
I get the value of following an itinerary optimized for maximum amazement when you’re constrained by time, but I strongly disagree with it. I like taking naps during the day, sitting in a café for an entire afternoon, watching people and writing stuff like this post you’re reading. I’ve had very basic coffees that felt more luxurious than the most perfectly scheduled private visit of a historical monument, but I understand that my definition of quality time isn’t the same as yours. Slowing down may not be “the” answer, but I genuinely think it’s worth trying.
Someone speedrunning through all of Italy’s landmarks in two weeks would barely have enough time to appreciate or enjoy any of the items on their checklist, let alone enough time to notice the problem with doing so. Slowing down makes you look around more carefully. Slowing down will help you notice all the subtle signs pointing out that you are, in fact, part of the problem. Like it did for me.
So… what now?
My thought process is very incomplete. I’m still not sure about where I stand on many of the sub-issues of overtourism. I don’t know if the way I travel is actually more sustainable than the ways I criticize. I just thought that speaking about it subjectively would be worth it, even if it meant exposing how much I’ve been contributing to the problem.
Overtourism is a difficult problem to talk about, because it’s a difficult problem to solve, made of many layers on top of each other. We’re living in a time when layered thinking and nuances don’t really do well in mainstream conversations.
There’s no blanket, or one-size-fits-all solution. The potential solutions for dense cities partially relying on tourism income will not be the same as the solutions for remote locations fully relying on tourism for survival. What would work in Venice can’t be copy-pasted in Berlin, Amsterdam, Phuket, or Kyoto.
Here’s what Italy’s thinking about, in this article titled “Is Italy breaking up with you?”:
[…] The first and most common idea is to regulate the flux of visitors and redirect them so they are not all crammed in Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre and Rome […]
This makes sense and there are ways to make this happen. The bad news is that this change involves so many parties that you can be sure it won’t happen overnight. I can’t read into the future but I’m pretty confident that this statement about these locations will still be true a few years from now, because I don’t see the industry changing any time soon.
[…] And finally, Gasparetti wishes that visitors wouldn't just come to look at monuments, but actually try to understand, respect and ultimately fall in love with the soul and culture of his city […]
This makes sense and there are ways to make this happen. The good news is that this one is completely up to us - the tourists.
Sources:
Tourism in Berlin, Facts and Figures - visitberlin
Berlin Neighborhood Fights Invasion of the EasyJet Set - spiegel, Mar 16, 2011
Is Italy breaking up with you? - BBC, May 29, 2024
“Short and sweet” by Martin Parr - Museu Civico Archeologico, Bologna, Sep 12th 2024 - Jan 6th 2025
It's a cost versus reward situation. If you take more than you give to the places you visit, you're part of the problem. A simple scorecard can clarify this: Renting a place that could house a local family? That's a -1. Dining at a restaurant that sources from local farms? +1. Buying a cheap plastic umbrella from an unlicensed street vendor when it rains? -1. Having your morning coffee at a local spot? +1, and +2 if you order in the local language. Addressing this issue means cities will have to eliminate behaviors that score negatively, which could make these places less affordable. At a time when tourism offices are competing and likely incentivized by the number of visitors they attract, this won’t be popular. We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube—too many people, including ourselves, feel entitled to travel anywhere, anytime. I still remember when traveling was more exclusive and required significant preparation and a readiness for adventure. Too many have forgotten that.