Overtourism remains a major problem for popular tourist destinations. While there’s no quick and easy solution, travellers can help mitigate this tourism-created problem by not contributing to overtourism simply by making more responsible choices about when, where and how you travel. As you’re planning your upcoming summer/winter high season trips, consider these ways in which you can help fix this global problem.
It’s that time of year when monsoon will soon end in Asia, and with the end of rainy season and start of the dry season, the tourist high season will begin. Travellers are working their way through their Asia trip planning checklists and if they don’t yet have flights booked are taking advantage of airline sales to fill empty seats — as many Australians did this week when cheap Japan fares were announced.
Seeing the visitor site stats to this local guide to Japan in winter by Hakuba residents and insider guide to things to do in winter in Japan a few days ago, I knew there must have been a Japan flight sale before I even read the travel news. Japan is the top destination for Australians, who have been travelling in record numbers to Japan. Overtourism in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka prompted Japan tourism boss Naoki Kitazawa, who said travelling responsibly was “more important than ever”, to urge Aussies to travel to lesser-known places and consider shoulder seasons.
It was a reminder that it’s not only Europe that suffers from overtourism, and that despite the many measures adopted by authorities to reduce tourist numbers, from introducing city entry fees to banning cruise ships from city centre ports, overtourism remains a major problem. And it’s a tourism-created problem that tourists can help fix or, at the very least, not contribute to, simply by making more responsible choices about when, where and how they travel.
Before we share our advice on how you can avoid contributing to overtourism, we have a favour to ask. Grantourismo is reader-supported. If you’ve found our advice helpful in planning trips, please use our links to buy travel insurance, book flights with CheapOair, Kiwi.com or Etihad; book transfers, accommodation and car rentals on Agoda, Expedia, Wotif, lastminute.com, ebookers, or Trip.com; book a beautiful apartment or home on PLUM; book tickets, activities and tours on Get Your Guide, train tickets on RailEurope, bus and train tickets on 12Go; or book a cooking class or meal with locals on EatWith.
Overtourism and How to Help Fix this Tourism Created Problem
Here are some ways in which you can avoid contributing to overtourism but also tips to how you can help fix this problem that tourism has created.
Travel in Low Season and Shoulder Seasons
One of the easiest ways to avoid contributing to overtourism is to travel in low season and the shoulder seasons — the periods between high season and low season — which means winter instead of the peak summer period, along with the spring and autumn seasons.
Keep in mind, of course, that some places get busy during spring and autumn, such as Japan during the spring cherry blossom season, and parts of the USA during for autumn leaf-peeping, when people travel to take in the fall foliage. Spring wildflower spotting increasingly entices travellers to Western Australia.
Shoulder seasons have long been the preferred travel periods of more affluent travellers and retirees, especially grey nomads, who have more freedom as to when they can travel. However, shoulder seasons are becoming more appealing as blazing temperatures in hotspots such as Greece and Spain deter tourists.
Locals in European cities suffering from overtourism such as Barcelona, Venice and Amsterdam don’t want more tourists in summer. But they’ll welcome you with open arms in the quieter winter periods, when all of those cities are wonderfully moody and infinitely more walkable.
Stay in Hotels and Serviced Apartments in Overtouristed Cities
We were the first travel writers to dedicate a blog to slow, local and experiential travel when we launched Grantourismo in 2010, yet local travel and all involved for us — connecting with locals, exploring local neighbourhoods, settling into places for longer in rentals to live like locals — has contributed to overtourism in places. Not all places, of course.
Barcelona is the city that has suffered the most from travellers renting apartments. Parts of the old city has completely given over to tourism, with entire buildings of private residences transformed into apartment rentals, pricing out locals, contributing to housing shortages, and transforming the local character that drew us to the neighbourhoods in the first place.
We still believe there’s no more immersive way of travelling than renting an apartment or house to settle in for a while, meet locals, learn some of the local language, explore a place more deeply, learn to cook the local food, and so on. It’s obviously our preferred way of travelling and living, having been expats for 27 years.
Do your research and only stay in apartments and holiday rentals in lesser-visited places and/or off-season where you’ll be welcomed by locals. In cities suffering from overtourism, stay in hotels or, if you’re like us and love a kitchen, in serviced apartments that aren’t taking accommodation away from locals.
Avoid Popular Sights at Peak Times
One summer we rented a tiny palazzo apartment in Venice tucked down an alleyway off one of the main arteries that connected San Marco to Rialto. Yet we rarely got stuck in the stream of tourists that congested the streets as we watched what Venetians did, when they went out and how they negotiated their city, and adopted the same habits.
Terence jogged through Venice’s empty alleyways soon after sunrise and we shopped the Rialto Markets with the old Venetian ladies early in the morning — long before the monumental cruise ships disgorged their many thousands of passengers into the poor city.
As a result we got to see San Marco’s famous piazza when it was empty and the Rialto Markets when they were bustling with locals rather than busy with tourists. During the day we ate at restaurants hidden down alleyways, far from the Grand Canal, and at night we ate late when Venice’s locals did, taking slow moonlit strolls home through the silent streets after dinner.
As most tourists want to sleep in a little, rush around sightseeing during the day, and, utterly exhausted, eat early, if you visit popular sights like Las Ramblas or San Marco early in the morning or late in the evening, you’ll be doing so with locals rather than tourists.
Explore Local Neighbourhoods Respectfully
Settling into local neighbourhoods and getting out of the tourist zone to wander areas where real people live are the biggest appeals of local travel for us, especially in cities such as Amsterdam, Krakow, Bangkok, Brussels, and Buenos Aires where we rented apartments for weeks and months to write.
In megacities such as Bangkok and Buenos Aires, where local residents far outnumber tourists, and you’ll never find yourself caught in a crush as you might on Barcelona’s Las Ramblas, Venice’s San Marco or Dubrovnik’s Stradun, you can still rent apartments and won’t be resented by your neighbours.
And there are many neighbourhoods you can still explore in Amsterdam, Barcelona and Venice where locals will still greet you politely and be up for a chat. It’s all about how you behave: conduct yourself with civility and explore neighbourhoods respectfully, and you’ll be welcomed. See our tips to how to meet locals when you travel.
In other words: act like a local, not a tourist. Admire architecture, but don’t stare into people’s homes, or, heaven forbid, put your hands up against a window pane! Speak quietly, don’t be that loud tourist. Put your phone/camera away, be present, and absorb the atmosphere rather than photograph everything.
Don’t crowd footpaths or get in the way and step aside if local residents are hurrying to work or to catch a bus or train. Head to local markets to shop rather than gawk and take photos. Don’t eat takeaway food on the steps of bridges or other arteries. Seek out a local park to enjoy a picnic instead.
Avoid Residential Neighbourhoods After Hours
Explore local neighbourhoods during the day when residents are at work, studying or shopping, and let people enjoy their peace and quiet in the evenings and on weekends. Avoid local areas after dark, especially if you’re travelling with group of friends or family, and particularly if you’re on your way home from drinks.
One of the biggest problems with overtourism for local residents in Amsterdam and Barcelona has been backpackers partying in the streets, loud drunks staggering down the lanes after a late night out, and groups of friends renting apartments in residential buildings to party, especially on bucks’ and hens’ weekends.
Stay home instead — or if you must travel with a group of friends, rent a beach house in a seaside holiday town well-used to tourists or a house in the countryside, bush or mountains with some distance between the neighbours. Start your drinks early so you’re not partying late keeping the neighbours awake.
Get Off the Beaten Track and Visit Lesser Known Places
The major problem with overtourism is the congestion that masses of tourists create, so it should be obvious that getting off the tourist trail and heading to lesser-known places would be a big help. You’ll be far more welcome by locals and have a much better time as a result, than if you focus your time on popular destinations that don’t want more tourists.
And Japan is a great example. It’s not that the Japanese don’t want you to experience their country, they’d just prefer that you do it in the low season and not contribute to the congestion in Kyoto, Osaka and parts of Tokyo. The Japan Tourism website has lots of suggestions for getting off the beaten track in Japan.
If you have any tips to how travellers can avoid contributing to overtourism, we’d love to hear from you in the comments below.
