How to Protect Cities from Overtourism?

Strategy consultancy Roland Berger has recently released the report “Protecting your city from overtourism” (get it here). It’s a pleasant to read report that consists of 3 parts:

The curse of mass tourism

Until recently, cities have only been working to attract tourists in increasing numbers. More and more cities are learning the hard way that growth leads to problems such as congestion, friction with local inhabitants who sometimes give up and move out. We wrote about the problems overtourism causes before.

Comparing cities’ tourism density against value

Roland Berger analyzed the performance of 52 top European city break destinations by comparing their tourism density against value creation.

Some cities turn out to be doing a great job in keeping a healthy balance, others risk becoming (or already are) a “mass trap”. And many cities have plenty of unused potential (many of “ours”!).

What can cities do against overtourism?

Overtourism is not inevitable. With the right interventions, the situation can be turned around, or even avoided from the start.

Some of the keys to controlling tourism flows are regulating hotel capacities and controlling access to key sights. Cities are also encouraged to develop infrastructure such as public transport in line with the needs of both residents and visitors, and taking the strain off the city center by distributing guests across other parts of the city.

And what can you as a traveler do to help the fight against overtourism? Follow our locals’ tips to visit spots outside of the touristy center, or better yet: visit a not-so-touristy city that can actually use more tourists! Since 2018 we have exclusively focused on cities like this – we have plenty of them amongst our 76 cities!

Read more about what we wrote on the topic of overtourism.