From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   The European Hot Spots Struggling With the Tourist Masses   
   By Eric Sylvers, July 2, 2023, WSJ   
      
   “Tourism is necessary, it’s almost all we have here, but it’s too   
   much,” said Angela Costa, a longtime Cinque Terre resident.   
      
   Italy’s tourist season started with a record number of visitors over Easter.   
   In the Cinque Terre, the congestion was so bad that local officials made the   
   area’s famous hiking trails one-way on the busiest days. The situation   
   repeated itself over    
   several weekends in May and June.   
      
   “Easter was crazy, and now it’s ramping up again,” said David   
   Cefaliello, who works in a cafe in Corniglia, another of the five Cinque Terre   
   villages. “We aren’t at pre-Covid levels yet, but I suspect that will   
   change in a few weeks.”   
      
   Millions of Europeans and Americans are engaging in so-called revenge tourism,   
   making up for lost travel time during the pandemic-affected years of 2020-22.   
   Millions of Chinese tourists are expected to visit Europe this summer and fall   
   after the    
   elimination of China’s travel restrictions.   
      
   Italy is likely to surpass the record number of tourists and overnight stays   
   set in 2019, before Covid struck, according to market research firm   
   Demoskopika. Arrivals in the period from June to Sept are expected to be 3.7%   
   higher than the same period in    
   2019 and 30% more than a decade ago. Italy’s Tourism Ministry has also said   
   it expects a record year, as have Spanish and Greek officials.   
      
   All those visitors are giving a welcome boost to Southern Europe’s   
   economies, which depend heavily on tourism. In Italy, more than 10% of the   
   economy is linked to travel and tourism, compared with 15% in Spain and 19% in   
   Greece, according to the World    
   Travel and Tourism Council. In France and the U.S., the level is around 9%.   
      
   But locals are increasingly asking how much the Cinque Terre, Barcelona and   
   Athens can take. Discontent is also rising in some places, spurring local   
   efforts to rein in the tourist hordes.   
      
   In Portofino, a small upscale village on the Italian Riviera popular with the   
   international jet set, police are fining people who block foot traffic to take   
   selfies.    
      
   In 2024, Venice plans to introduce an entry fee to the city on the busiest   
   days of the year, according to the mayor’s office.    
      
   In Barcelona, locals hang signs saying “tourists are terrorists,” while in   
   Athens, residents complain about how the spread of Airbnb rentals for tourists   
   is driving up rents and displacing Greeks from the city center.    
      
   In May, about 10,000 short-term rental properties were available in Athens,   
   almost a 1/4 more than in May 2018, according to market-research firm AirDNA.   
   Demand for short-term rentals in Greece increased 62% in May compared with the   
   same month last year,    
   the firm said.   
      
   The Italian Alpine region of Alto Adige has capped the number of beds   
   available for tourists in private properties to fight the proliferation of   
   short-term rentals.    
      
   The crowds are spreading far beyond the Mediterranean. On the coast of   
   Normandy in northern France, authorities have turned people away from Mont   
   Saint-Michel, the tidal island topped with an abbey. The Louvre museum in   
   Paris has put a daily limit on the    
   number of visitors.    
      
   The French govt is planning an advertising campaign to encourage people to   
   travel at different times of the year and to consider less-famous destinations.   
      
   The flow of tourists to France has held strong even as the country has been   
   racked with protests, including months of demonstrations over President   
   Macron’s decision to raise the age of retirement. Now the country is   
   grappling with nightly riots    
   following the shooting of a teenager by police.   
      
   Luxury hotels in Europe are enjoying the boom, but many are looking for new   
   ways to keep their high-paying clients happy despite the masses of tourists.   
      
   “We are always looking for something we can offer that will avoid the   
   crowds, like hiking trails that are less well known, a private boat trip to   
   Capri or a wine-tasting tour,” said Pietro Monti, head of marketing at the   
   five-star Hotel Mediterraneo    
   near the Amalfi coast, where rooms cost an average of about $1,200 a night.   
   “But when it’s the high season, especially a record year like this, some   
   crowding is inevitable.”   
      
   Crowds are hard to avoid in Vernazza, the Cinque Terre village that sits just   
   south of Monterosso. On the rocks surrounding the small port, sunbathers   
   battle for space with kids kicking a soccer ball and people jumping into the   
   sea. The crush on the    
   rocks grows when boats arrive from one of the nearby towns.    
      
   Juli Eger, who was sipping wine and eating focaccia on a recent morning in   
   Monterosso, while ignoring the crowds around her, finds her own workarounds.    
      
   “We were just in Venice and if you walk around very early in the morning,   
   you only have to share the city with people taking engagement photos,” said   
   Eger, who is traveling with her mother, husband and teenage son. “If you   
   make Venice your first    
   stop you’ll be jet-lagged, so getting up at 5.30 in the morning won’t even   
   be a problem.”   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/articles/theeuropean-hot-spots-struggling-wi   
   h-the-tourist-masses-c40cc8a3   
      
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