Tourism is probably the largest industry in the world. In 2019, it accounted for 10.4% of the global economy and employed 10.5% of all workers on Earth, according to the organization that represents the industry, the World Travel & Tourism Council. After a hiatus due to the pandemic, the machine is back in motion at high speed.
An all-time record will be recorded this year, predicts the World Tourism Organization, a United Nations agency. The total number of international arrivals worldwide, estimated at 1.3 billion last year, is expected to increase by 2% in 2024, surpassing the record level of 2019.
Tourism is a blessing for most countries. For many of them, it is the main source of wealth which allows the improvement of the living conditions of the population.
But tourists are becoming a curse for a growing number of countries. Several of the most popular cities have long tried to stem an ever-increasing flow of tourists.
Amsterdam, for example, has limited the number of visitors to 20 million overnight stays per year and banned the construction of new hotels. Venice, for its part, has banned large cruise ships from its port and limited groups of visitors to a maximum of 25 people.
So that visitors… visit elsewhere
While some cities spend fortunes to attract tourists, others try to scare them away. Kyoto, Japan, wants to ban the alleys of its oldest district from tourists who chase geishas there to take photos of them.
Mount Fuji, another tourist hotspot in this country, is subject to special measures. Access to its trails is now prohibited at night and the number of climbers is limited to 4,000 per day.
A small town that has the misfortune of offering a picturesque view of Mount Fuji, with a very typical Japanese convenience store in the foreground, has been invaded by image hunters.
The rush was such and the inconvenience so great for the local population that a net 2.5 m high and 20 m wide was installed to block this view, which was too alluring for tourists. And too bad for the local population who benefited from it every day just by passing by.
ARCHIVED KYODO NEWS PHOTO, PROVIDED BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
View of Mount Fuji…and a convenience store…through a hole…in a net, in Fujikawaguchiko
Where should we go to find a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of mass tourism? Not in Greece anyway. Greece is one of those countries that relies heavily on tourism. A quarter of its economy depends on it and its government is delighted with this influx of visitors, whose number reached 33 million last year.
Despite this, the country has had to limit the number of people who can visit its main tourist attraction, the Acropolis in Athens.
PHOTO LOUIZA VRADI, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Tourists visit the famous Parthenon, at the top of the Acropolis.
He also wants to privatize the places during the most popular periods, i.e. at sunrise and sunset. These two time slots will be reserved for groups of tourists of 5 people or less who agree to pay 5,000 euros for this privilege that the local population will not be able to afford.
Travel has long been reserved for the wealthiest in society. It has become democratized, for better and for worse. And the worst is certainly increasing.
In a growing number of countries and regions around the world, people are seeing price increases and the disappearance of available housing that is being rented out on a day-to-day basis.
The biggest negative impact of increasing tourist numbers around the world is less visible and air travel is to blame. The planes that transport all these people are a source of greenhouse gas emissions estimated at 3% of total emissions and no lull is in sight on this front, quite the contrary. The whole planet is affected.