Some of the issues in places like Barcelona, Palma, Italian Riviera etc can be attributed to the mega cruise ships. Some of them hold 7k people (plus crew) and it’s not unusual to have 5-8 cruise ships docking on the same day, week in, week out. That’s tens of thousands of additional people, who also don’t bring a massive amount of financial benefits with them as they’ll be eating on the ships and not shopping as much as longer term tourists.
Add into that the cheap Whizz/Ryanair/Easyjet fares and the growth of AirBnB and budget hotels and you’ve got loads more tourists.
And that’s without taking into account the traditional package holidays and domestic tourism.
Locally, and domestically, another problem is the people that have bought properties to do AirBnB and other holiday lets. It’s meant that young people who have been born in these towns, and whose families have been living here for generations have been priced out of the property market and can’t stay here and raise their own families. Look at the Cotswolds, for example.
My parents live in a town which was very much full of elderly people and their families, upper middle class or working class people whose families had been here for hundreds of years.It’s a beautiful town, scenic, sleepy, close knit, beautiful walks, independent shops (locals would still visit the grocers, butchers, fishmongers, cheese shop etc), traditional events happening frequently (street parades, fetes, outdoor concerts). It wasn’t a well known place at all but really really lovely and the UK equivalent of a US Hallmark movie location.
In lockdown it got popular with tourists and day visitors. Then rich Londoners bought second properties here as they’d enjoyed their lockdown visits so much and AirBnB took off too. And then all of those people told their friends about the beautiful little town. Then the #vanlife and motorhome community descended. And it seems like every second person brings their small children who can only get around on scooters and about 5 dogs.
My parents both use walking sticks. Most of the elderly people now can’t get out to those lovely little shops anymore because, with the one Main Street and narrow pavements, it’s crammed like sardines and so many of them have been knocked over, ran into by kids on scooters or bikes on their “great British vacations” or they’ve tripped over small dogs and their leads. Every few days there’s another post on FB about how dangerous the town has got for its residents. We have a big family birthday coming up and we can’t visit any of the lovely venues we’d usually go to because it’s school holidays and that means a manic, sardine like, rushed experience that just wasn’t the case in 2019. Some local businesses have suffered as now the corporations have moved in and the tourists are going to Starbucks and Seasalt rather than the independent coffee shops and clothes boutiques and the local patrons no longer feel safe or comfortable on the Main Street. Uber drivers from bigger neighbouring towns have put the local cabbies out of business. There have been massive losses to the town in the way of business that were at least 3 generations old but whose owners feel it’s not worth it staying open anymore due to how stressful it’s got and the entitlement of tourists bringing dogs and kids in scooters in and not paying for the resulting breakages and damage that often happens, as well as having to deal with all the day drinkers and groups of bored teenagers who trash things and break shop windows for fun because their parents idea of a Famous Five Style Great British Staycation isn’t working so well.
The town just doesn’t have the infrastructure to cope with this and the quaint little town that people came to visit to peer at and admire the laid back, peacefulness of no longer exists and it’s completely down to tourists. The majority of the shops are tiny and they can’t cope with 50 people trying to get in at once so there ends up being big overspills onto the pavement and people jostling about and arguing with each other, being rude and impatient to the older people who are naturally slower physically and who might want to enjoy a quick chat with the shopkeepers they’ve known for decades, as was always perfectly acceptable to do before the tourists descended.
It’s heartbreaking that my parents and their friends don’t feel able to walk down their high street anymore and enjoy their last bit of independence in their later years but they literally can’t move once they step out the front door. Then there are all the tourists who are too cheap to pay for parking so they park on the residential streets for up to a mile away which means that the community nurses and carers and ambulances can’t find a park for love nor money which would allow them to get round their patients in time. Tourism has ruined this lovely little town and I’ve changed my own retirement plans to go back to my childhood hometown as a result.
But according to them, we’ve got to be grateful for all the money they are bringing in, eh?