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Why tourism in Venice is doing more harm than good and what we can do about it

The current state of tourism is hurting venice.

The ever-increasing offering of low-cost travel transportation, housing, and planning has helped the tourism industry to boom in the past decades.

The year 2019 alone counted over 1.5 billion international arrivals.

However, most major stakeholders of the tourism industry focus on profit, not on sustainability.

Today, tourism hotspots are affected by mass tourism – when visitors arrive in masses of tens of thousands of people – and the industry in the most popular destination has turned into a problem, rather than a resource. Venice is one of them, and it is suffering a lot.

Mass tourism is in many ways an issue rather than a ressource for Venice. Big ships can bring up to 2 million visitors every year. Many will only be day-trippers.

Venice residents dropped from 175.000 in 1951 to 50.000 in 2022. Why?

Data shows that the population in Venice has been constantly decreasing for several decades.

Several factors can explain why this is happening:

  • An increased cost of living
  • Higher cost of housing
  • A decrease in quality of life (traditional shops replaced by low-quality souvenir shops, constant, for example)
  • Lack of spaces for the youth
  • Lack of rewarding job opportunities

All of the above can be linked directly to the impact caused by the dramatic increase in mass tourism in Venice.

Indeed, some local entrepreneurs and several foreign investors exploit this situation to target tourists and generate great profits. Meanwhile, authentic activities and shops have and are being strangled by: ever-increasing rents, a constantly decreasing market size of the local population, and the competition of tourist traps seducing tourists with their cheap mass-produced products or frozen food.

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Venice is a beautiful and unique city that must and can only be preserved by locals, who are the only people with the knowledge (and love) necessary to do so.

This is why one of the biggest threats to the survival of Venice is the disappearance of its citizens.

Without citizens, Venice loses the mastery and the know-how that keeps and kept Venice alive for thousands of years.

Alas, however, younger generations are forced to move out of the historical centre because they can not find rewarding jobs and unaffordable housing, having to give up on their dream of living in their city.

Currenlty, the Venice I.V. (“indice di vecchiaia” or “age index”, which represents the ratio between people over 64 and children under 15) is well above 2,80.

In other words, there are almost 3 people over 64 for every child under 15.

This, coupled with a 35% decrease in the population aged 20 to 34 between 2001 and 2011 (just 10 years!), does not leave much hope for the city.

To give Venice a chance of survival, strong measures must be taken to repopulate the city.

Why tourism in Venice is doing more harm than good and what we can do about it - Venezia Autentica | Discover and Support the Authentic Venice - In Venice, tourism is not sustainable. Discover the impact of the travel industry on Venice and how sustainable tourism can help saving the city

The above trend represents the number of locals and the number of tourists in Venice since 1950.

One of the reasons behind the constant increase of tourism arrivals is the decrease of international transportation.

Since 2015, Venice counts up to 30 million stays every year. And that in a city of fewer than 8 km 2 (or 3 square miles)!

This increase, however, has also been coupled with a decrease in the average length of the stat of tourists and a shift of touristic behaviour that is harming deeply Venetian inhabitants and local businesses.

Mass tourism in Venice. Crowd of tourists going towards Saint Mark's square

These changes in tourism and the daily saturation of tourists within the city has led to an invasion of mass-produced souvenir shops and tourist traps, that are putting many local enterprises and artisans’ shops out of business by causing an increase in the cost of living and renting.

The consequences of this are a decrease in life quality and opportunities for the locals, as well as a worsened experience for responsible and caring visitors.

Related: You don’t want to be that tourist, watch out for these common tourist traps in Venice

Why are we speaking of a decrease in quality of life for the inhabitants as well as a decrease in quality of the stay for visitors?

Until the early 2000s, most visitors would come and stay in Venetian hotels for a few nights, taking a few days for exploring the city as a whole, visiting Venice beyond the landmarks, discovering the local life and culture.

In recent years, along with a yearly staggering increase in the number of the visitors, the way of visiting the city has changed: many tourists now come to Venice as a day/hour trip, as part of a cruise, for example, dramatically modifying social, logistic, economic and touristic aspects of the city.

Related: Good or bad? The truth about cruise ships in Venice

A vivid effect of this shift towards day-trips is that the only walkways used by dozens/hundred of thousands are the main streets connecting Piazzale Roma and the Train Station (the arrivals area) with the Rialto Bridge and Saint Mark’s square.

For 11 months a year, Venice assists to an almost daily gigantic human wave arriving in the city and trying to quickly move to and back from the two most known Venetian landmarks, resulting in a total jam.

Mass tourism is jamming the city completely, and diminishing the quality of the stay for responsible tourists, as well as the quality of life for people living in Venice.

To make things worse, Venice cannot provide picnic or resting areas because of its small size and its morphology,  resulting in visitors sitting down for resting and eating on bridges, narrow alleys, house doors and shop windows blocking even further the already jammed city.

Even though they are not perceived as such, alleys and bridges in Venice are the equivalent to streets and crossroads in other cities. Blocking them is a guarantee for Venetians to get angry at you.

Related: You asked, We answered: 19 things you might not know about Venice, Italy

Another effect of this approach to visiting the city is the impossibility for day-trippers themselves to take the time to appreciate the city and to understand what is genuine and worth their money, and what is absolutely not.

Foreign investors and investment funds have decided to take advantage of this situation by purchasing shops on the busiest paths to display their cheap/very cheap merchandise, luring in the passing tourists and selling mass-produced plastic goods which, at best, are of no value. At worst, they have been found to be toxic.

One more problem is that Italy has a high unemployment rate but no minimum wage, and these businesses, in particular, exploit the situation even further: employees struggle to live even in Mestre (which has much lower rents), while the company they work for is destroying local and family businesses and artisans’ shops.

Why tourism in Venice is doing more harm than good and what we can do about it - Venezia Autentica | Discover and Support the Authentic Venice - In Venice, tourism is not sustainable. Discover the impact of the travel industry on Venice and how sustainable tourism can help saving the city

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The investment race for selling 99cents souvenirs has led to a spike in the price of shops and rents that forced many genuine local activities, which were not aiming at masses, to try and move to less visited and therefore less expensive areas.

Because of the day-trip approach and the ever-decreasing local population, however, those less-visited areas struggle to have enough customers, leading an ever-increasing number of local activities to close and never to open again.

Related: Interactive Local Map Of Venice, Italy

This lack of opportunities and the negative outlook for young Venetians is leading more and more people to leave the city, well knowing that they will never be able to come back unless the current situation changes.

Are the negative effects of mass tourism in Venice really that bad?

The situation we just described could seem to be a bit too gloomy to you, maybe a result of a pessimistic approach.

The considerations we made, however, are perfectly in line with UNESCO’s last report about the current situation of “Venice and its Lagoon”, which lead the institution to consider putting Venice on the UNESCO World Heritage in Danger list in 2017.

Related: Venice to be or not to be a UNESCO World heritage site, that is the question

Is there any chance for Venice?

We are convinced there is still hope for Venice, of course!

Our strong determination and optimism make us believe it is possible to change this very negative trend and to improve the life of the Venetians, the health of the city, and the quality of the stay of the visitors… but we don’t trust the authorities for making this change happen.

We believe that Venice can prosper again, but only thanks to the people like you and us.

We believe that YOU can make a difference! Travel Responsively, please.

Murano glass bead making lesson in Venice

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Watch CBS News

Famed Italian city suffering from too much of a good thing

December 9, 2016 / 1:21 PM EST / CBS News

VENICE, Italy -- There are more tourists than residents in Venice; as many as 90-thousand people visit the city every day .

As CBS News correspondent Seth Doane reports, the “tourist problem” has gotten so bad in Venice that UNESCO -- the UN’s cultural body -- has threatened to put the city on a list of “world heritage sites in danger.”

It has given Italy two years to deal with the problem, but so far there are no solutions in sight.

The unique charm of Venice makes it a popular destination for many travellers. Its idyllic, narrow canals and quaint alleys draw more than 20 million tourists a year -- and there lies the problem.

Ecologist Jane Da Mosto says Venice’s famed lagoon is vulnerable.

“It’s too small, it’s too fragile… and we can’t look after the people that think they are coming to a theme park.”

As a resident of Venice, she worries that her city is becoming merely a backdrop for selfies.

While the number of visitors has grown rapidly, the local population is dwindling. In 1951 there were nearly 170,000 residents in the Italian city. Today there are fewer than 55,000.

2016-11-12t161234z-812700726-s1beumkzgcaa-rtrmadp-3-italy-venice-protest.jpg

Venetians have staged a demonstration against the forever-rising tourism. The protestors carried luggage as a symbol that they were on their way out.

“We have to find a way to protect the Venetian life,” Mateo Secchi, one of the organisers of the protest, told CBS News, “because a city without citizens is a city without a soul – it’s like Disneyland.”

Despite working in a hotel, Secchi says mass tourism is “a double-cut weapon because in the beginning you earn a lot of money and everybody is happy, but in the long distance it’s big trouble.”

The most obvious signs of the tourists’ outsized impact on the small city are the huge cruise ships that arrive daily and dwarf the lagoon.

Paolo Costa, the President of the Port Authority says the cruise ships are simply a scape goat.

“Everybody thinks that there is a big ship coming in from nowhere -- with a flood of tourists and they are flooding the city -- this is not absolutely true,” he says.

Cruises account for fewer than 10 percent of tourists that travel to Venice. Instead, the fault appears to lie with the three-quarters of tourists who spend just a day in the city. These “day-trippers” travel to the famous city but rarely contribute to the local economy.

Deputy Mayor of Tourism Paola Mar describes tourism as “the city’s most important resource,” but admits that something must be done to address the “25 years of mismanagement” that have led to this crisis.

ap-16317482292832-venice-tourists.jpg

They are currently evaluating more than 15 proposals to tackle the problem, including increasing taxes on tourists or gating-off and selling tickets to busy areas such as Piazza San Marco.

The size and geography of Venice make it vulnerable to the global crush of tourism.

The city will have to find innovative ways to tackle the problem if it is to avoid the label of “world heritage site in danger.”

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Sustainable Tourism in Venice: Finding Harmony in the City of Canals

Sustainable Tourism in Venice: Finding Harmony in the City of Canals

Venice has been attracting millions of visitors every year with its picturesque buildings, winding streets, and enchanting waterways. However, Venice is a fragile city and it is facing a critical challenge: how to preserve its beauty while promoting sustainable tourism .

In this article, we will explore the sustainable issues in Venice, what the municipality is doing to make the city sustainable, and how to visit Venice sustainably.

Sustainable tourism in Venice: let's begin with a definition

sustainable tourism in venice - unsplash

Sustainable tourism refers to a type of tourism that aims to minimize the negative impact of the tourism industry on the environment, local communities, and cultural heritage.

It focuses on preserving natural resources and ecosystems while providing economic benefits to the local community .

Sustainable tourism also aims to promote responsible behavior among tourists and encourage them to adopt sustainable practices.

Sustainable tourism involves several practices such as reducing carbon emissions, conserving natural resources, promoting cultural heritage, and supporting the local economy.

For example, sustainable tourism can involve using renewable energy sources, reducing waste and plastic use, and promoting responsible tourism practices such as respecting local cultures and customs.

The benefits are numerous. It promotes sustainable economic development and provides jobs and income for local communities while preserving the natural environment and cultural heritage. Sustainable tourism also helps to reduce the negative impact of tourism on the environment and ecosystems, which is crucial for the preservation of our planet.

In other words, it is a critical aspect of responsible travel that ensures the long-term sustainability of our planet and communities . By adopting sustainable tourism practices, we can preserve the beauty of our planet and contribute to the well-being of local communities.

Let's now focus on the sustainable tourism in Venice and discover what the city is actually doing to preserve its heritage.

Sustainable Issues in the city

sustainable tourism venice - https://unsplash.com/photos/RBqlP9lZYak

Venice faces several sustainable issues due to its unique location, fragile ecosystem, and the overwhelming number of visitors it receives.

One of the most pressing issues is the impact of mass tourism on the city's fragile infrastructure.

The city's waterways and canals are under constant pressure from the influx of visitors, who often use motorized boats, leading to increased pollution and erosion .

Another issue is the high level of waste generated by tourists, especially during the peak season. The excessive amount of plastic waste, littering, and overflowing trash bins create an eyesore for tourists and locals alike.

Could we say that Venice is a Sustainable City?

Venice, a truly tourism dependent city, is taking several steps to become a sustainable city.

In 2017, for example, the city implemented the "Venice 2030" project , which aims to reduce the environmental impact of tourism while promoting sustainable development.

The project includes measures such as reducing the number of cruise ships, regulating the use of motorboats, and promoting responsible tourism.

The municipality is also investing in renewable energy sources, promoting sustainable mobility, and preserving the city's cultural heritage.

We cannot forget to mention one of the most significant measures introduced in the last years: the ban on large cruise ships in the Venetian Lagoon. The Stop alle Grandi Navi campaign was in fact launched to protest against the negative impact of these ships on the fragile ecosystem and cultural heritage of Venice.

The municipality has also taken steps to regulate the use of motorboats and reduce the number of visitors in the city's historic center.

They are also trying to introduce a tourist ticket system , which would charge tourists for entry into the historical center, with the aim of monitoring daily tourist arrivals and raising funds for the preservation of cultural heritage sites.

These efforts demonstrate the city's commitment to preserving its unique beauty while promoting more sustainable tourism practices .

How to Visit the city Sustainably

sustainable tourism

There are several ways to travel around this UNESCO World Heritage site sustainably .

One of the best ways is to use public transportation , such as water buses or the iconic gondolas.

Walking or cycling (where it is possible, like at Lido island) is also a great option to explore the city and its hidden gems.

Choosing eco-friendly accommodations and restaurants that use local and organic products is also an excellent way to support the local economy and reduce the carbon footprint of your visit.

It is also essential to be respectful of the city's cultural heritage and avoid damaging historic buildings or monuments.

Do you know the Detourism Campaign promoted by the municipality?

detourism campaign - https://unsplash.com/photos/Uh73Dn7Zuho

" Detourism " is a movement that encourages travelers to explore off-the-beaten-path destinations and promote sustainable and responsible tourism practices.

This campaign aims to reduce the negative impact of mass tourism on the environment, cultural heritage, and local communities by promoting alternative destinations and sustainable travel practices.

As you have read through the article, Venice has been facing challenges with over tourism for several years, which has led to negative impacts on the environment, cultural heritage, and local communities.

The Detourism Campaign offers an excellent opportunity to promote sustainable and responsible tourism practices in Venice and encourage travelers to discover lesser-known destinations in the region.

The campaign can help reduce the negative impact of mass tourism on the fragile ecosystem of the Venetian Lagoon and preserve the cultural heritage of the city. It encourages travelers to explore alternative destinations, such as the nearby islands, which offer a more authentic and less crowded experience of the region.

Supporting local businesses and choosing sustainable accommodations and tour operators can also help promote responsible tourism practices in Venice!

The campaign is also important because it raises awareness about the impact of mass tourism on the environment and local communities. It encourages travelers to be mindful of their actions and promote sustainable travel practices that benefit both the traveler and the destination.

Overall, the Detourism Campaign is a positive initiative that promotes sustainable tourism practices and encourages travelers to make responsible choices when planning their trips.

In conclusion, Venice is taking important steps towards becoming a sustainable city, but it is also essential for tourists to contribute to this effort by adopting responsible behaviors and choosing sustainable tourism practices.

By visiting Venice sustainably, we can help preserve its unique beauty for generations to come.

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Horváth (2018) A new era for urban tourism, the case of Venice, Italy.pdf

Profile image of Domokos Horváth

In the last decades a number of studies have dealt with the negative impacts of tourism, still, there is a lack of research that explains why these impacts have emerged. The present article addresses this research gap, and after the identification of the different impacts, attempts to explore the reasons for their emergence through the case of Venice. Given that certain tourism impacts have been the focus of recent protests of Venetian residents, the article also tries to explore the connections between tourism-related issues and social movements that is, the reasons behind these demonstrations. The study is based on qualitative interviews with opinion leaders from local (Venetian), regional (Veneto Region) and international (European Union) levels.

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Sustainability

Francesco Visentin , Dario Bertocchi

Venice is one of the most famous iconic destinations and one of the most emblematic cases of overtourism affecting a historic city. Here, social movements against tourism have emerged as a reaction to vastly unsustainable tourist flows that have had dramatic and transformational impacts on Venetians' lives. The aim of this paper is to investigate how tourism transforms the social, cultural, and everyday geographies of the city. The effects of tourism on the historic city are conceived as a process of continuous transformation and repositioning. Taking into consideration the most tangible daily practices of tourists (eating, sleeping, and buying) and the finer dynamics of Venice's tourism problem, we translate data on these practices into a temporal and spatial analysis to better understand how dynamic the texture of the city is in relation to the tourism subsystem. A comparison between 2008 and 2019 is conducted to evaluate the impact of tourism on residential uses of the city and measure the sustainability of growth of the tourism facilities. The investigation highlighted an impressive accommodation's growth, from 8.249 in 2008 to 49.260 in 2019 of bed places (497% growth) in the entire historical city, a similar expansion is also evident in the total number of restaurants that has increased by 160% in all districts and a variations of 4% in shops instead of a population decline of −13% in the same period. In addition, a residents' survey in spring 2019 was conducted to better understand the intensity of these impacts and the motives for depopulation and the anti-tourism movements. We focus on how tourism, if not managed and planned, radically changes the social and urban structures of the city and the lives of local residents. We conclude by presenting some local theoretical and practical insights into the touristic pressure, provided by citizens' associations on one side and policymakers on the other.

negative sociocultural impacts of tourism in venice

Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles

Yolanda Romero-Padilla , Alfonso Cerezo-Medina , Romero -Martínez , Antonio Guevara

This research addresses the conflicts generated by the recent tourist growth in the tourist city from the perspective of local social movements. First, these processes of growth are reviewed, with a particular focus on excess tourism and the role of tourist housing. Second, it reflects on the conflicts and the social reactions to the perception of negative impacts of tourism in its daily space. Third, the theoretical revision is contrasted and applied to the cities of Malaga and Marbella. The results show that in cities with classic coastal tourism rental housing have existed since their origins as a destination, and now it has become visible because technology platforms have placed it in the global market; meanwhile, in cities with urban-cultural tourism, housing is a new form of accommodation that generates new conflicts. Finally, the results contrast the characteristics of the growth model in the tourist city with the demands of social movements based on reconciling tourism with preserving and improving the quality of everyday life. The three results constitute research opportunities

International Journal of Tourism Cities

Anna Soliguer Guix

Purpose-Focusing on critical discourse analysis, this paper aims to propose a framework for analysing the way activist anti-tourism groups construct their social action of protest. The authors argue that activist groups use different narrative strategies to construct and legitimise their discourse of protest to convey social meanings for social action practices. This study represents an attempt to explain how anti-tourism activist groups have the agency to build different paradigms of protest rooted in particular views of tourism. Design/methodology/approach-As a result of the lack of research in this area, this study used a comparative case study methodology drawn on four case studies in the field of anti-tourism protest. Case study is deemed adequate to explore a complex social phenomenon, how activist groups differ from each other, in a specific socioeconomic context. A critical discourse analysis method is used to study primary (interviews) and secondary sources (reports, websites and online campaigns documents) of information, which express the activist group motivations and objectives to protest against tourism. Findings-This study's findings provide evidence in how discourse differs among the protest groups. Three narrative paradigms of protest are identified, which guide their agency: scepticism, based on a global and ecological approach; non-interventionist transformation, rooted in local community issues; and direct transformation, based on a sectoral problem-solving approach. These differences are interpreted as the consequences of the emergence and the development of different paths of protest according to specific social contexts and power relations in which anti-tourism groups are embedded. Originality/value-This paper provides a contemporary approach to anti-tourism activism within the context of social movements. This case study may be of interest to practitioners and international destination managers interested in gaining a better understanding of anti-tourism protest strategies, new anti-tourism narratives following COVID-19 and the opportunities and challenges for opening a dialogue with those involved in activism and social urban movements as part of sustainable tourism governance. Our results can also help activists to rethink how they integrate differences and particular strategic positions to avoid hindering collective action. This knowledge is especially useful for managers and authorities seeking to develop more accurate collaborative governance practices with local activists, and especially those interested in fostering participative action without marginalising the diverse range of local community perspectives.

Cuadernos de Turismo

Gemma Canoves

The aim of this paper is to analyse the tourism-driven gentrification process of tourismification using the most recent literature and the case study of Venice (Italy). First will be analysed the recent history of the city to better understand why and how this phenomenon outburst in the initial stages, and then data will be analysed to understand which implications this phenomenon can have economically, socially, and culturally speaking, and what should a strategy consider dealing with this issue. El objetivo de este artículo es analizarelproceso de gentrificación de la turisficaciónejercido por el turismo utilizando la literaturamásreciente y elestudio de caso de Venecia (Italia). Primero se analizará la historiareciente de la ciudad para comprender mejor por qué y cómo este fenómeno se desarrolló en lasetapasiniciales, y luego se analizaránlosdatos para comprender quéimplicacionespuede tener este fenómeno a niveleconómico, social y cultural y cuálesdeberían ser lasestrategias para...

Living, narrating, representing Venice and its Lagoon

Cornelia Dlabaja

Overtourism has transformed Venice into a Disneyfied city in several ways, for example through short-term tourists and their perception and use of the city as a fun park. There is little perception of Venice as a lived-in space which is inhabited by families, elderly people and students going about their everyday lives in a city with only 52,000 inhabitants and a staggering 24 million visitors every year. The article examines the question of how Venetians are reclaiming their right to the island city as a common good for its inhabitants, relating this directly to how the city is cared for. It discusses the phenomena that come with the reshaping of the spaces and everyday lives of Venetian residents due to mass tourism. The different ways the city is inhabited are discussed, and the consequences thereof, based on ethnographic research containing field research in the form of qualitative interviews, participatory observations, analysis of social media activities on Facebook, analysis of secondary data and debates in the media.

Marc Morell

Tourism development affects prominent city centres worldwide, causing social unrest that has been labelled “tourism-phobia.” This article problematizes the recent appearance of this term by unravelling the links between the materiality of contemporary urban tourism and the response it receives from social movements opposing its expansion. We endeavour to understand the meaning that different actors involved in the city's touristification attach to this term, and in particular the perceptions of citizens’ movements that claim to espouse not tourism-phobia but urban-philia. To analyze these dynamics, we draw on Lefebvre’s discussion of the “right to the city” to highlight the extractive productive relations characterizing the tourism industry and the contestations such relations trigger. Taking the example of two Spanish cities (Barcelona and Palma), our findings indicate that the social malaise found in tourist oversaturation is due to the disruption it causes to everyday life, including price increases and rising rents. Consequently, the discomfort popular mobilisations have generated among the ruling class has led the latter to disqualify and even criminalise the former’s legitimate claims under the label of tourism-phobia. To conclude, we call for a future research agenda in pursuit of social justice and equity around re-touristification, detouristification or even tourist degrowth.

Alexander Ayala López

Saint Mark’s Square is unquestionably the most famous tourist attraction in Venice, a piazza characterised by its complex history, unique aesthetics and many allusions to power (given its proximity to the Doge’s Palace and Saint Mark’s Basilica). This square is the largest open space in the city and while it is routinely crowded with tourists from all over the world, political demonstrations have been prohibited since 1997. This article explores Saint Mark’s Square as a contested political space by focusing on the many local struggles against cruise tourism in Venice and its lagoon. Instead of constituting an ‘apolitical’ space, the preferred uses given to the square by local authorities and tourism stakeholders are manifestly ‘political’, producing a space of leisure and consumption that benefits the economic logic behind the ‘normal’ functioning of the piazza. Other alternative social and political uses of the square are not only discouraged but banned, which brings into discussio...

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Before the outbreak of COVID-19, the case of Barcelona was an emblematic example of how a city had turned into an iconic tourism destination in a few decades thanks to smart, yet incautious, tourism development policies based on the most attractive features the city is endowed with. The paper is a critical reflection analyzing the major complications, called "tsunamis", the city of Barcelona has faced in recent years: political instability, terrorism and tourismophobia. The paper aims at 1) retracing the causes and motivations but also community reactions and sociocultural consequences to the three tsunamis, and 2) trying to learn lessons from the Barcelonan case study proposing solutions to the tourismophobia phenomenon. The results stem from an ethnographic fieldwork undertaken during the IPAC Summer School in 2018, whose aim was to understand the paradox of international tourism, at once bringing economic benefits but creating sociocultural disequilibria. The analysis considers written sources and the participant observation during the ethnographic fieldworks in Barcelona.

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Overtourism: How to combat its effects

Millions more of us are descending on the same handful of tourism hotspots each year, giving rise to the very modern phenomenon of overtourism.

Boats lining up in a lagoon in Krabi, Thailand

Boats lining up in a lagoon in Krabi, Thailand.

More than 125,000 people visited Venice on Easter Sunday this year, presenting a small city with a big problem. Having long since shrugged off any notion of a tourist season, the Queen of the Adriatic is routinely submerged by tourists, water or both. But there are peaks within peaks, and the Easter influx worried city authorities. So, before the May Day weekend rush, they deployed a radical new weapon in the fight against overcrowding; at two key bridges leading to the city's historic heart, metal turnstiles appeared overnight.

The barriers would be shut if crowds reached dangerous levels, and only residents carrying a Venezia Unica transport pass would be permitted entry. But the radical experiment was controversial, stoking an increasingly fraught debate taking place in Venice and elsewhere.

Each year, millions more of us are travelling, and a new word for the problem this new age of mobility creates — overtourism — reflects a heightened level of anxiety in tourism hotspots.

"I've been trying to get people to think about the impact of tourism for nearly 20 years without getting very far," says Justin Francis, CEO and co-founder of British travel company Responsible Travel. "But now it's on everyone's lips because, after 50 years of staggering growth, the locals are taking to the streets. We're seeing a global tourism backlash, and I think it's a defining moment in the history of the industry."

In Venice, that backlash has focused on the cruise ships that disgorge day-trippers into a city of narrow bridges and canals. It's targeted successive mayors with euro signs in their eyes, and landlords who've driven rents skywards by putting homes on Airbnb. On Easter Sunday, opposition turned on the turnstiles. Despite being put in place to help ease overcrowding (they weren't needed, as it turned out), their mere presence served to exacerbate a feeling among residents that Venice had become a floating theme park. One activist group tried to tear them down; a protestor carried a sign with Mickey Mouse ears bearing the slogan: 'This is not Veniceland'.

"The gates are an experiment but they also work as a publicity stunt for our mayor," says Giovanni Di Giorgio, a member of Generazione 90, a campaign group set up in 2016. Giovanni, who's 24 and has always lived in Venice with his parents, says that the "drastic measures" were only a sop to residents' concerns, and not a meaningful solution to a problem that's about more than crowds on St Mark's Square.

"I've seen the ships since I was born — they used to dock right next to my house — and it seemed too much to me even as a small child," he adds. "You can't morally prosecute people for being tourists but I think the first sign of overtourism isn't the crowds but when a community shrinks and closes in on itself."

Venetians have become an endangered species; their population dwindling from a peak of 164,000 in the early 1930s to little over 50,000 today. The annual tourist population has risen to more than 30 million, meanwhile, or to a daily average of more than 80,000.

Globally, startling statistics lie behind the plight of residents in destinations as small as the Isle of Skye and as big as cities such as Barcelona. Last year, international tourist arrivals grew by 7% to 1.3 billion. The UN forecasts this figure will rise as the world's population grows — and while emerging economies continue to become travelling ones. In China, the number of overseas trips made by residents rocketed from 10.5 million in 2000 to 145 million last year. The UN predicts this will rise to more than 400 million by 2030, a quarter of the current global total.

Moreover, whole generations of the newly mobile, in China and beyond, tend to seek out the same destinations. "I think what governs the industry right now is the TripAdvisor top 10, the listicle and Instagram," Justin Francis says. While for many of us, heaving crowds are a deterrent, that aversion evidently doesn't apply to everyone else. "I last went to Prague in 1988 and decided I wasn't going back because there were already too many visitors," says Harold Goodwin, emeritus professor and director of the Institute of Place Management at Manchester Metropolitan University. "But most of us just get used to places getting more and more crowded."

The results can be direct and physical. Millions of feet per year do the kind of damage to attractions such as Machu Picchu in Peru, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia that it takes the elements centuries to inflict. But after decades of assumptions about the positive economic and employment benefits of tourism, the balance is tipping in many places — and the effects are often more complex.

Skift, a US-based travel media company, published a report on overtourism in 2016. In its foreword, Skift's CEO Rafat Ali said that overtourism 'represents a potential hazard to popular destinations worldwide, as the dynamic forces that power tourism often inflict unavoidable negative consequences if not managed well'. He added: 'In some countries, this can lead to a decline in tourism, as a sustainable framework is never put into place for coping with the economic, environmental, and sociocultural effects of tourism. The impact on local residents cannot be understated either.'

Money matters

Venice's economy has come to depend on tourism, making the situation here harder to manage as visitor numbers have grown. But the long-term effects of that short-term approach are being felt by people like Di Giorgio. As well as the depressing results of the population flight from Venice, life for those who remain has become harder. Historic houses have slowly been converted into hotels. And the rising popularity of holiday letting companies such as Airbnb has created a new class of landlord who buy up properties purely to service the new market, contributing little to the city in taxes. The result is that residents have been priced out of their city. "All my friends leave or live with their parents because there is no other option," Di Giorgio says.

A comparable effect is affecting more remote destinations. For example, in June, a Channel 4 News report discovered there were 550 Airbnb listings on Skye, an island in western Scotland with fewer than 5,000 households. The reason for this is that landlords can make more money from short-term lets than they can from renting to locals. Unfortunately, this has led to a social housing shortage on the island.

The mushrooming of available beds in the sharing economy has been a boon to destinations seeking a lift in tourism numbers — building hotels is a slow, costly and risky business by comparison — but in many other places, authorities are being asked to put the brakes on the Airbnb bandwagon. In some areas with large numbers of Airbnb rentals, residents have also complained of antisocial behaviour, while in Iceland, a law was passed in June 2016 limiting the number of days a person can rent out their property on Airbnb to 90 a year; any more and they require a licence from the state. Similar restrictions now operate in Barcelona and Amsterdam.

Andrew Sheivachman, Skift's business travel editor and the author of its overtourism report, says Airbnb has, to some extent, become an industry whipping boy. He points out that the company does not control the budget airlines or the tourism board marketing budgets that bring travellers into destinations in the first place. Airbnb, meanwhile, says it is increasingly working with destination authorities to promote a more sustainable approach.

Putting up turnstiles and restricting home rentals are just two of the solutions tried so far. Elsewhere, more extreme measures have been adopted. For example, this June, Thai authorities closed down an entire beach for four months to let it recover from overtourism. Maya Bay, on the island of Koh Phi Phi Leh, had become so overrun since Leonardo DiCaprio's 2000 film The Beach made it famous that its ecosystem — particularly its coral reef — was on the brink. When the bay reopens, there will be a cap of 2,000 tourists a day (half the current number) and boats will be banned from dropping anchor there.

But even a temporary ban on visitors would sink an economy like Venice's, so dependent has it become on one of the biggest threats to its future. In Amsterdam, as well as restricting home rentals, political parties in the city announced plans in May to stop cruise ships mooring in the centre. They also revealed a proposal to raise tourist tax (on accommodation) from 4% to 7%. The city has already cracked down on antisocial behaviour — for example, imposing fines for singing in the street and banning that stag trip staple the beer bike.

Other attractions have imposed higher entry fees in an attempt to deter tourists. At a national level, emerging destinations Botswana and Bhutan have gone for a high-value, low-volume approach, targeting fewer, bigger-spending tourists. "But should we feel uncomfortable that travel should just be for the rich again?" Justin Francis asks.

Authorities in Venice have rejected this approach, insisting cities must be free to visit, but it is considering a ticketing scheme for St Mark's Square. Many destinations are also working to tackle the herd mentality of tourists, and the easy temptation among destinations to promote the biggest attractions. "Venice should say, 'I know you want to visit St Mark's Square, but look at all these amazing places you can see,'" Giovanni says. "You can explore the islands, which are really cool and part of the larger identity of the city."

In Iceland, where visitor numbers have exploded in the past decade — exceeding two million last year — tourist authorities have begun a campaign to market areas beyond the crowded capital, Reykjavik.

Tourists tend to act like moths to the flame of the most famous, most Instagrammable destinations and attractions, but they have an individual responsibility to resist this impulse. "The top-10 thing is partly driven by our fear of missing out but we should be less fearful, because ignoring the obvious can often lead to the most magical experiences," says Francis, who also suggests travelling out of season, wherever possible.

But even where tourists and the custodians of destinations are able take steps to ease the problem, it can be hard to see a solution in a rapidly expanding world, and within an industry that can express some of the worst excesses — as well as best opportunities — of the free market. Sheivachman believes only the next global economic downturn will bring meaningful restraint, just as it did in 2008. "Are the places that have taken all this money from tourism going to push hard to market to them and bring them back?" he wonders.

"It would help if short-haul aviation were more expensive but it wouldn't take the problem away," adds Goodwin. "You can try to control accommodation, but I've thought long and hard, and while there are things you can do to manage the problem, and make it marginally better, can you take overtourism away? I think you probably can't."

In Venice, a dwindling population of residents are waiting to find out. "We must hope something will change," Giovanni says.

Five hotspots of overtourism

Venice, Italy The historic Italian city, precariously built in a sinking lagoon, attracts around 30 million visitors a year but is routinely choked with tourists, while residents have been forced out by rising housing costs.

Barcelona, Spain Professionally run home rentals are pushing up rents in the city. In a bid to root out unlicensed properties, an enlarged team of inspectors has been given greater access to data related to Airbnb listings.

Maya Bay, Thailand The beach became a Thai tourist hotspot after it appeared in the 2000 film The Beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. This year, Thai authorities shut it down temporarily and announced plans to limit visitor numbers.

Reykjavik, Iceland Tourism has been a big part of Iceland's recovery from its 2008 financial crisis, but soaring visitor numbers have put increasing pressure on Reykjavik's transport infrastructure and healthcare system.

Machu Picchu, Peru The 'lost city' of the Incas is a global overtourism case study. As of last year, visitors have to buy tickets (for either a morning or an afternoon time slot) and can only explore the site with a licensed guide.

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Published in the September 2018 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK)

  • Travel and Adventure

Almatourism – Journal of Tourism, Culture and Territorial Development

A New Era for Urban Tourism? The Case of Venice, Italy

  • Domokos Benjamin Horváth Aalborg University

In the last decades a number of studies have dealt with the negative impacts of tourism, still, there is a lack of research that explains why these impacts have emerged. The present article addresses this research gap, and after the identification of the different impacts, attempts to explore the reasons for their emergence through the case of Venice. Given that certain tourism impacts have been the focus of recent protests of Venetian residents, the article also tries to explore the connections between tourism-related issues and social movements that is, the reasons behind these demonstrations. The study is based on qualitative interviews with opinion leaders from local (Venetian), regional (Veneto Region) and international (European Union) levels.

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Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure pp 1–11 Cite as

Overtourism Effects: Positive and Negative Impacts for Sustainable Development

  • Ivana Damnjanović 7  
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  • First Online: 02 October 2020

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Part of the Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals book series (ENUNSDG)

Responsible tourism ; Tourism overcrowding ; Tourism-phobia ; Tourist-phobia

Definitions

Tourism today is paradoxically dominated by two opposite aspects: its sustainable character and overtourism. Since its creation by Skift in 2016 (Ali 2016 ), the term “overtourism” has been a buzzword in media and academic circles, although it may only be a new word for a problem discussed over the past three decades.

Overtourism is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon destructive to tourism resources and harmful to destination communities’ well-being through overcrowding and overuse (Center for Responsible Travel 2018 ; International Ecotourism Society 2019 ) as certain locations at times cannot withstand physical, ecological, social, economic, psychological, and/or political pressures of tourism (Peeters et al. 2018 ). Overtourism is predominantly a problem producing deteriorated quality of life of local communities (Responsible Tourism n.d. ; The International Ecotourism Society 2019 ; UNWTO 2018...

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Damnjanović, I. (2020). Overtourism Effects: Positive and Negative Impacts for Sustainable Development. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A.M., Brandli, L., Lange Salvia, A., Wall, T. (eds) Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71059-4_112-1

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Venice and Cruise Ships: A Delicate Balance

Last month, a 2,500-passenger ship entered the Venetian Lagoon — the first since the pandemic began — reanimating the debate on the negative effects of mass tourism.

negative sociocultural impacts of tourism in venice

By Anna Momigliano

In early June, the MSC Orchestra, a 2,500-passenger cruise ship, entered the Venetian Lagoon at dawn, sailing through St. Mark’s Basin, past the Doge’s Palace and the still-quiet St. Mark’s Square. It continued its journey through the Giudecca Canal and then docked on Venice ’s main island.

It was the first time a cruise ship had entered the lagoon since the pandemic hit Italy in February 2020.

In a place that is heavily dependent on tourism , and where cruise travel contributes about 3 percent of the local gross domestic product, many in Venice welcomed the ship.

But others did not. Among the latter were 2,000 protesters who met the MSC Orchestra when it sailed on its reverse route two days later. Some were on small boats on the Giudecca Canal; others chanted anti-cruise slogans from the waterfront.

“I hope we made some of the passengers wonder if what they were doing is wrong and think about the social and environmental impact of their vacation,” said Jane da Mosto, a biologist and activist who took part in the protest on a small boat.

The pandemic has put Venice ’s legendary international tourism influx on hold for more than a year. In doing so, it has sparked an animated debate on how mass tourism has negatively affected both the lagoon’s environment and Venice’s character. In this debate, cruise ships have become a metonym for overtourism.

The pandemic hiatus has given the city — which is celebrating its 1,600th birthday this year — a chance to reflect on how tourism’s exponential growth has eroded its social fabric, driving non-touristy businesses and residents out. In the past four decades the city’s historical center (what most Americans mean when they say “Venice”) has lost half of its residents, now down to 50,000.

“The situation is dramatic, there are no houses,” said Maria Fiano, 46, a high school teacher who runs OCIO, an organization that monitors Venice’s housing. According to her estimates , 42 percent of beds in the center are rented to tourists, which landlords find more profitable, leaving many locals struggling to find a place.

But not every tourist has the same cost-benefit ratio. While day trippers — including many of those who are cruise passengers — amount to 73 percent of visitors, they contribute only 18 percent of the tourism economy. The proportion is inverted for people who spend at least one night at a hotel; they represent 14 percent of visitors, but 48 percent of the business.

In March, the local government of Veneto, Venice’s region, approved a plan vowing to curb hit-and-run visitors and attract more slow-paced ones. They also hope to wean Venice off its over-dependency on tourism, creating new places of employment, including a hydrogen plant, a project still in its embryonic phase, and a recently launched accelerator for renewable energy businesses. “It’s the first time that local authorities formally recognized that mass tourism cannot go on like this forever and that depopulation is a serious problem,” said Fabio Moretti, the dean of Venice’s Academy of Fine Arts, which was involved in the plan along with other academic institutions and the Boston Consulting Group.

‘An act of violence against the city’

The presence of large ships in the lagoon, especially those in the immediate vicinity of Venice’s most precious sites, has raised eyebrows at UNESCO and sparked protests by residents since 2012. They argue that mammoth, fuel-guzzling ships are physically incompatible both with Venice, a two-square-mile island, and the lagoon that surrounds it. (A 2019 study published in Nature asserted that the wakes created by large vessels induced the erosion of the shoreline and, through the “continuous resuspension of sediment in the area,” could redistribute industrial pollutants already present in the lagoon.)

It’s not so much the number of visitors they bring overall — only 7 percent of the 27 million tourists who visited Venice in 2019 were cruise passengers, according to a recent study by the Boston Consulting Group — but the fact that they bring thousands of them all at once, overcrowding the city’s historical center while contributing little to its economy.

On average each cruise passenger injects about 200 euros into Venice’s economy, according to the same study, but most of that money goes to port taxes and other services, such as laundry and refueling, rather than city-center businesses like restaurants and museums.

“I’ve never interacted much with cruise tourists, they are rarely seen in places like mine,” said Andrea Degnato, 37, who manages a wine bar called Cantina Arnaldi.

Indeed, because they are often in too much of a hurry to linger in a wine bar, cruise visitors are seen as the opposite of the kind of tourists who would make Venice tourism more sustainable.

“People are unloaded here as a sack of potatoes, they hang around, thousands of them, just a couple of hours, buy a slice of pizza and go back,” said Silvia Jop, 37, a Venetian who works in cinema and cultural events. “If you add this to environmental damages, it’s an act of violence against the city.”

But she also acknowledges that cruises provide work to thousands of people, such as cleaners and porters, although most of them tend to be from the nearby mainland. “Their right to have a source of employment must be respected,” Ms. Jop said.

‘Like having an elephant in a china store’

For centuries, the Venetian Lagoon protected Venice. Built on a cluster of islands, the city could not be attacked from land, and the lagoon’s hard-to-navigate shallow waters and muddy seabed discouraged invaders from sea, who risked getting stranded. Thanks to this inaccessibility, Venice maintained its status as a maritime power throughout most of the Middle Ages.

But today Venice can be reached on cruise ships weighing up to 95,000 tons, docking directly in the heart of the old city.

“It’s like having an elephant in a china store,” said Diego Calaon, a scholar of ancient topography at Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University. He noted that, in its heyday in the late Middle Ages, Venice had a policy of preventing large vessels from docking on its shores, noting that they were much, much smaller than modern cruise ships.

Stretching 30 miles across the Adriatic and shielded from the open sea by two narrow islands, the lagoon is a shallow body of salt water , often less than 5 feet deep, crisscrossed by deeper trenches created by erosion or dug by man. It is only through these canals that vessels of a considerable size can navigate — and, even so, with difficulty: In 2019 a cargo ship was stranded in the eastern part of the lagoon, near Chioggia.

Venice’s historical center, a fish-shaped island in the middle of the lagoon, is skirted by one of its deepest canals, the Canale della Giudecca, where cruise ships currently pass, docking in the island’s main port, the Marittima. But this route is narrow, and dangerously close to the city. In another incident in 2019, a cruise ship lost control and crashed into a dock , injuring at least four people.

“We see only two solutions. Either these huge ships are kept out of the lagoon altogether, or the industry adapts to our environment and sends smaller ships,” said Tommaso Cacciari, a spokesman for the No Big Ships Committee , a grass-roots organization that since 2012 has been fighting the presence of cruise ships in the lagoon.

A new home for ‘the monster’?

On paper, cruise ships are already banned from Venice, if not from the lagoon entirely. In 2012 Italy’s Parliament approved a bill that banned ships over 40,000 tons from parts of the lagoon close to Venice’s main island. But the same law also says that the ban will be applicable only after a viable alternative route is found. Almost a decade later, authorities still haven’t found that alternative.

“We are kept in a limbo,” said Francesco Galietti, the national director for Italy of the Cruise Lines International Association. He added that as soon as the Italian government finds a solution, the industry is ready to comply with whichever alternative route is chosen. “Any solution that makes sense would work for us. The only thing we care about is keeping Venice as a home port for the Eastern Mediterranean.”

But anti-cruise activists argue that it’s unfair that the current law is conditional on finding a new port: “It’s like having a monster knocking on your door and, rather than chasing him away, you worry about finding a new home for the monster before forcing him to leave,” said Ms. da Mosto, the activist.

There are two main proposals: rerouting vessels toward Marghera, the lagoon’s main commercial port on the mainland, or building a port outside of the lagoon.

The problem with Marghera, said a representative of Venice’s Port Authority, is that “it’s a commercial port for containers, it’s not built for passengers.” Also, since Marghera is inside the lagoon, critics say that rerouting cruise ships there will do little to contain environmental damages.

As for building another port altogether: On April 1, Italy’s government approved the allocation of funds for a feasibility study for such a project. But the process of developing the plans for the project alone is expected to last until mid 2022, the Port Authority said, leaving little hope that a new port would provide a solution in the short or even medium term.

Halting cruise traffic until a new port is ready would take an economic toll. Before the pandemic, the cruise industry employed, directly and indirectly, 4,200 people in the area, according to the Port Authority, and brought revenues of 280 million euro (over $332 million), although most of that money does not go to Venice’s historical center.

In the meantime, UNESCO is getting impatient. Last month the agency released a report urging Italy’s government to prioritize “the option of banning large ships from the Lagoon altogether” and to set a time frame to “temporarily reroute ships” toward Marghera or elsewhere.

The agency also announced on the same day that it is considering adding Venice to its list of endangered World Heritage sites. “The recommendations for inscription on the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger are not sanctions but alerts to find solutions,” a representative for the agency said in an email statement, mentioning “mass tourism, especially with the presence of cruise ships” as one of the organization’s concerns.

But several government officials, speaking anonymously because Italy’s factitious coalition government is divided on the topic, said they’re feeling pressured by UNESCO and, more broadly, by the negative publicity Venice received when cruise ships returned after the pandemic. Recent protests have brought the attention of the international media on the issue, and Venice is hosting a G20 summit between July 8 and 11.

The summit will provide an opportunity for a hiatus. Authorities have issued a temporary halt on large cruise ships until at least July 18, citing a combination of security measures ahead of the summit and the upcoming Festa del Redentore, the annual festival celebrating the end of the plague that devastated the island in 1576.

Sources in the Italian government say progressives in the coalition are trying to push an extension on the temporary halt until the Marghera port is at least partially ready and hope the international attention brought by UNESCO’s rebuke and by the upcoming summit will help them put pressure on the issue. “We’re feeling the eyes of the world pointed at us,” said one official.

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MSC Magnifica is seen from one of the canals leading into the Venice Lagoon in Venice

The trampling of Venice shows why tourism must change after Covid-19

Coronavirus has given hotspots like the besieged Italian port breathing space – and a vision of a new, greener kind of tourism

B efore Covid-19, the tourist industry was the largest employer by sector on the planet, giving work to one in every 11 people. And when the emergency ends, it will surely resurge – but should it return in the way it was before? Maybe now, finally, is a good time to rethink what tourism should be.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, the number of global tourists was predicted to balloon to 1.8 billion international arrivals a year by 2030. In 1950 that number was at 25 million. That huge increase cuts two ways. Tourism supports jobs, often bringing vital economic sustenance to historic or remote places. But over-tourism has a clear downside for the frailest destinations, like Machu Picchu in Peru , for many historic city centres, like New Orleans or Dubrovnik , and for the location I know best, Venice. There, 30 million annual visitors exert enormous demands on the residents, the heritage and the environment, changing tourism into a corrosive force.

In the years just before the coronavirus outbreak I spent months in the city of canals and culture interviewing Venetians about their lives. Invariably, the first thing they wanted to tell me about was the effects of mass tourism ; how, since the 1990s, it has pushed out residents; how streets and squares can become dangerously overcrowded; how it has pushed up housing costs and destroyed local shops that now all cater to sandwich-eating, souvenir-buying tourists and little else; how it allows overweening sightseers to invade weddings, baptisms and funerals at its religious places. The social ties Venice once enjoyed, its rhythm of life, even the vibrant artisanal trades, are now almost a thing of the past.

On top of all that, the millions of tourists coming to Venice put pressure on the environment by generating mountains of refuse, through the heavy use of the vaporetti water ferries and taxis, by over-stressing ancient buildings, and with the moisture in their collective breath on artworks. The hundreds of visits from floating resorts – massive cruise ships each with up to 4,000 passengers – add to air pollution and cause erosion of the area’s sensitive lagoon environment.

The population of Venice, more than 170,000 after the second world war, has dropped steadily to some 52,000 today . Remaining residents still feel fortunate to live in a city of such beauty, many believing their culture survives despite the onslaught, but they also grieve at the losses, lose heart, and move away at a rate of 1,000 a year to homes on the mainland. A Venice without Venetians – without significant numbers of permanent residents – is predicted for as early as 2030.

It is no exaggeration to say that mass tourism – adding to Venice’s existing issues with mismanagement of the environment, corruption , political stasis and now the climate emergency – is bringing the community, the lagoon and a fabulous heritage to within a hair’s breadth of collapse.

Tourism was a fairly benign source of livelihood for Venice until the world itself took a step-change some 30 years ago, when a new economics helped bring on cheap air travel, faster communications and an accelerated globalisation. When management of the city was handed over to the market with few controls, Venice was turned into an asset for stripping. Regional changes to Italian laws in the 1990s unleashed rampant property trading that deepened the effects of mass tourism.

Yet Venetians believe that they can still save Venice, and many are fighting for it and demanding that politicians do more. They want them to manage tourist numbers and pass new laws to govern property sales and rentals and put an end to the Airbnb-led free-for-all that is pushing residents out. They call for a focus on long-term accommodation at sustainable costs and more jobs through economic diversification. They want more environmental measures, especially a ban on outsized cruise ships, and improved treatment of the lagoon that is vital to Venice’s life.

This has come into sharp focus in the months-long Covid-19 breathing space, when the sudden emptying of the city restored a lost tranquility, along with fish, swans and cormorants to canals no longer churned by excessive traffic. Most of all, it ignited the hope that this difficult moment for the world could eventually offer a turning point.

The need in Venice, and in so many other destinations, is for a new tourism, one that also benefits residents – not one organised around speculators, landlords, and traveller’s demands. We visitors must see tourism less as an unquestionable entitlement and more as a part of our responsibility to sustain life on Earth. This must ultimately include limiting tourist numbers.

Tourism after coronavirus requires a new mindset. Maybe we can’t visit places so casually; maybe we will need to sacrifice the freedom to drop in at any time and go anywhere as fast as we can or by whatever means suits us. We need to accept life – and visiting – at a slower pace.

Beyond that we need to end our passivity as tourists and see destinations as people’s homes, not just attractions. We should acquaint ourselves with local conditions and be ready to refrain from travelling if authorities listen only to monied interests and fail to foster local livelihoods and protect the local environment. Greener attitudes will help fragile destinations to live on – and allow masterpieces such as Venice to survive for generations to come.

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Why is tourism bad for venice.

You would expect that a city of such Calibre as Venice shouldn’t be dealing with tourism issues. However, the city is experiencing a tourism threat and most Venetians now want more control over the visitor both locals and international. 

Venice Cruise Ships

With so many tourism issues, most locals are wondering whether the city will last long enough for the coming generations to witness. Over time, the Foreign Correspondents have discovered several things that are a threat to Venice but the sheer pressure from the international visitors is the most overwhelming. 

Is tourism bad for Venice? 

Definitely no, tourism is great for the city but too many tourists are becoming an issue in the city. First and foremost, the city has lost a significant number of its population. The other issue is that the social network that tied together the city has already started to vanish. 

Unfortunately, you will find many people in Venice during the day and only a few after working hours. What this means is that most people visit the city for work and will leave after their working hours. 

It also shows that very few people are willing to live in Venice. There are many reasons for this but the most impactful is flooding. Most locals opt to live in Mestre on the mainland. 

The other reason is that the tourism weight has become so much to an extent it risks damaging the base on which the city was built on. The ships are also posing a great threat. As a matter of fact, they are coming too close to the Canal Grande. This can damage the lagoon. 

Unlike what many cities advocate for, the authorities in Venice want to limit the number of people visiting every single year. If this is not advocated, then there can be negative impacts on the city. 

I wouldn’t think that tourism is bad for the city. As a matter of fact, it brings currency and all the good things. The problem is how people conduct their tourism in Venice. Most of them visit the city on massive cruise lines.

The ships pose a threat to the environment and also the spending is not as huge. The main reason is the visitors’ usually have a shore excursion and hence tend to spend little on the Venice land. 

There are also some instances of mass ‘’cattle’’ tourism which might be a cause of concern. This kind of tourism is detrimental to Venice. This doesn’t mean that Venice is the only part of the world with the same issue. There are many other countries but it happens that Venice is to be emblematic of the issue. 

There are almost 60,000 people who visit Venice every single day. This shows that this population is more than her entire population. A very significant number of those people come from cruise ships. 

As a matter of fact, the country has about a 49 percent increase in cruise dockings within the last few years (including a recent 2019 accident resulting in another ban of a cruise ship). This is according to the statistics shown by the Venice Passenger Terminal. Venice hosts the most popular cruise destinations in Europe. 

According to the research conducted on this issue, it is deduced that the high number of visitors especially those touring through ships are damaging the city whose economy is based around tourism. 

Through the information shared here, tourism in Venice is a double-edged sword. Venice is marked as a UNESCO World Heritage center but now tourism is ailing tragically.  However, some people point out that it’s not easy to have such huge numbers of people visiting the country every single year and still have full benefits.

The Fragile city

There are several groups that are specifically researching the dangers of Cruise ships in Venice. Some of them including UNESCO claims this type of tourism is greatly damaging the city. In fact, the ships are known to erode the foundations of the buildings which greatly contribute to the pollution. In addition, it is believed this type of tourism also has an impact on the cityscape because it is straining the city’s monument.

It may take longer for you to understand the whole concept but the reality of the matter is that such huge numbers of tourists in that limited space can be a cause of worry. The fact is that Venice is a small space that does not have the capability to host such a large number of visitors. 

According to research, the number of tourists is going up every day and every year. This number is gradually made up of more and more people that are coming from the cruise ships. This means that there are a very large number of tourists in Venice in a single day which you cannot expect to be good for the environment and the economy. 

Where did the whole issue come from? 

The issue of tourism in Venice didn’t start yesterday. This is a problem that has been there for a long time now. However, things have got out of hand in recent years. 

Tourism in the city has been increasing in the last century and now more and more tourists are flocking to Venice which can be worrying. This whole problem started to stir a public debate in the 1950s when the Venice population started falling drastically. This means that this was a city that had started to be a home for tourists alone from this time. 

However, as the population started to shrink, the ships continued to increase in size and numbers. This means that the city has increasingly continued to accommodate more passengers and foreigners as the number of residents continued to decrease.

The locals are increasingly becoming more and more frustrated and that is the reason why fewer people are choosing Venice as their home. I actually think that the local authorities should do something to limit the ships coming to Venice every single day and at the same time discourage such tourism measures. This will make the city more hospitable to the locals.

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Impact of Tourism in the Italian Art Cities: Venice, Florence, and Rome

Il Bel Paese, the Beautiful Country , is distinctly used to describe Italy. It is indeed a gifted country, with a notable natural environment, a mild climate and a prominent cultural heritage. Therefore, its status among the most visited countries not only in Europe, but worldwide, is not a surprise. Tourists arrive to admire the artwork of Michelangelo and Da Vinci, to swim in the beaches of Sardine and Sicily, and to be part of the unique atmosphere of its " art cities ." However, in regards to the everyday life of the residents, are there negative impacts of massive urban tourism?

Among the Italian cities, Venice is probably the most suitable to serve as an example and response to this question. In the historic center, the absurd proportion of 353 tourists per resident gives the impression of a city that serves more as a monument-attraction, and less as a real living space. Among the visitors, a significant number are single day excursionists, or participants of cruises who only take a quick look at the canals and narrow roads, and return to their ship without contributing to the city's economy . The touristic invasion, in combination with the flooding problem that continues to worsen, has led to an abandonment of the city center by the residents moving to other regions around the island.

In comparison to the specific situation of Venice, similar issues are presented for historic centers of other "art cities." Rome, which is naturally the most visited city in Italy, welcomes approximately  twelve million tourists every year. A 2010 study by Sapienza University of Rome showed that the authentic character of the city is in danger of alteration, due to low quality facilities that represent a "fast" tourism. The overcrowding of the city center of Florence by tourists also seems to be a constant cause of stress for its inhabitants, as indicated by a 2012 study published in the journal Tourism Geographies .

Alteration of the historic urban grid  and movement of residents are new threats to the cities' susta inability . Recently the problem of massive tourism has become object of studies and proposals, towards both an  environmental and social solution. One among them points out the need to support local brands and small businesses, in order to maintain the cities' traditional qualities, and another the imposition of new eco-taxes relevant to the touristic facilities.

What should be our attitude as architects and urban designers towards the negative impacts of urban tourism, and what other proposals-initiatives could be introduced to both protect and highlight historic cities?

 Credits: Images by Marilena Mela. Data linked to sources.

Tourism Teacher

13 Social impacts of tourism + explanations + examples

Disclaimer: Some posts on Tourism Teacher may contain affiliate links. If you appreciate this content, you can show your support by making a purchase through these links or by buying me a coffee . Thank you for your support!

Understanding the social impacts of tourism is vital to ensuring the sustainable management of the tourism industry. There are positive social impacts of tourism, demonstrating benefits to both the local community and the tourists. There are also negative social impacts of tourism.

In this article I will explain what the most common social impacts of tourism are and how these are best managed. At the end of the post I have also included a handy reading list for anybody studying travel and tourism or for those who are interested in learning more about travel and tourism management.

The social impacts of tourism

Preserving local culture, strengthening communities, provision of social services, commercialisation of culture and art, revitalisation of culture and art, preservation of heritage, social change, globalisation and the destruction of preservation and heritage, loss of authenticity , standardisation and commercialisation, culture clashes, tourist-host relationships, increase in crime, gambling and moral behaviour, social impacts of tourism: conclusion, social impacts of tourism- further reading.

Firstly, we need to understand what is meant by the term ‘social impacts of tourism’. I have covered this in my YouTube video below!

To put it simply, social impacts of tourism are; 

“The effects on host communities of direct and indirect relations with tourists , and of interaction with the tourism industry”

This is also often referred to as socio-cultural impacts.

Tourism is, at its core, an interactive service. This means that host-guest interaction is inevitable. This can have significant social/socio-cultural impacts.

These social impacts can be seen as benefits or costs (good or bad). I will explain these below.

happy friends on camper van roof

Positive social impacts of tourism

There are many social benefits of tourism, demonstrating positive social impacts. These might include; preserving the local culture and heritage; strengthening communities; provision of social services; commercialisation of culture and art; revitalisation of customs and art forms and the preservation of heritage.

thai temple under blue sky

It is the local culture that the tourists are often coming to visit.

Tourists visit Beijing to learn more about the Chinese Dynasties. Tourists visit Thailand to taste authentic Thai food. Tourists travel to Brazil to go to the Rio Carnival, to mention a few…

Many destinations will make a conserved effort to preserve and protect the local culture. This often contributes to the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, the protection of local heritage, and a renaissance of indigenous cultures, cultural arts and crafts.

In one way, this is great! Cultures are preserved and protected and globalisation is limited. BUT, I can’t help but wonder if this is always natural? We don’t walk around in Victorian corsets or smoke pipes anymore…

Our social settings have changed immensely over the years. And this is a normal part of evolution! So is it right that we should try to preserve the culture of an area for the purposes of tourism? Or should we let them grow and change, just as we do? Something to ponder on I guess…

Tourism can be a catalyst for strengthening a local community.

Events and festivals of which local residents have been the primary participants and spectators are often rejuvenated and developed in response to tourist interest. I certainly felt this was the way when I went to the Running of the Bulls festival in Pamplona, Spain. The community atmosphere and vibe were just fantastic!

history of the running of the bulls

The jobs created by tourism can also be a great boost for the local community. Aside from the economic impacts created by enhanced employment prospects, people with jobs are happier and more social than those without a disposable income.

Local people can also increase their influence on tourism development, as well as improve their job and earnings prospects, through tourism-related professional training and development of business and organisational skills.

Read also: Economic leakage in tourism explained

girl in white long sleeve shirt and black skirt sitting on swing during day time

The tourism industry requires many facilities/ infrastructure to meet the needs of the tourist. This often means that many developments in an area as a result of tourism will be available for use by the locals also.

Local people often gained new roads, new sewage systems, new playgrounds, bus services etc as a result of tourism. This can provide a great boost to their quality of life and is a great example of a positive social impact of tourism.

Tourism can see rise to many commercial business, which can be a positive social impact of tourism. This helps to enhance the community spirit as people tend to have more disposable income as a result.

These businesses may also promote the local cultures and arts. Museums, shows and galleries are fantastic way to showcase the local customs and traditions of a destination. This can help to promote/ preserve local traditions.

red art relaxation girl

Some destinations will encourage local cultures and arts to be revitalised. This may be in the form of museum exhibitions, in the way that restaurants and shops are decorated and in the entertainment on offer, for example.

This may help promote traditions that may have become distant.

Many tourists will visit the destination especially to see its local heritage. It is for this reason that many destinations will make every effort to preserve its heritage.

This could include putting restrictions in place or limiting tourist numbers, if necessary. This is often an example of careful tourism planning  and sustainable tourism management.

This text by Hyung You Park explains the principles of heritage tourism in more detail.

Negative social impacts of tourism

Unfortunately, there are a large number of socio-cultural costs on the host communities. These negative social impacts include; social change; changing values; increased crime and gambling; changes in moral behaviour; changes in family structure and roles; problems with the tourist-host relationship and the destruction of heritage.

unrecognizable female black player sitting on football field

Social change is basically referring to changes in the way that society acts or behaves. Unfortunately, there are many changes that come about as a result of tourism that are not desirable.

There are many examples throughout the world where local populations have changed because of tourism.

Perhaps they have changed the way that they speak or the way that they dress. Perhaps they have been introduced to alcohol through the tourism industry or they have become resentful of rich tourists and turned to crime. These are just a few examples of the negative social impacts of tourism.

Read also: Business tourism explained: What, why and where

woman in white and red dress holding yellow flowers

Globalisation is the way in which the world is becoming increasingly connected. We are losing our individuality and gaining a sense of ‘global being’, whereby we are more and more alike than ever before.

Globalisation is inevitable in the tourism industry because of the interaction between tourists and hosts, which typically come from different geographic and cultural backgrounds. It is this interaction that encourage us to become more alike.

Here are some examples:

  • When I went on the Jungle Book tour on my travels through Goa, the tourists were giving the Goan children who lived in the area sweets. These children would never have eaten such sweets should they not have come into contact with the tourists.
  • When I travelled to The Gambia I met a local worker (known as a ‘ bumster ‘) who was wearing a Manchester United football top. When I asked him about it he told me that he was given the top by a tourist who visited last year. If it was not for said tourist, he would not have this top.
  • In Thailand , many workers have exchanged their traditional work of plowing the fields to work in the cities, in the tourism industry. They have learnt to speak English and to eat Western food. If it were not for the tourists they would have a different line of work, they would not speak English and they would not choose to eat burger and chips for their dinner!

Many people believe globalisation to be a bad thing. BUT, there are also some positives. Think about this…

Do you want an ‘authentic’ squat toilet in your hotel bathroom or would you rather use a Western toilet? Are you happy to eat rice and curry for breakfast as the locals would do or do you want your cornflakes? Do you want to struggle to get by when you don’t speak the local language or are you pleased to find somebody who speaks English?

When we travel, most tourists do want a sense of ‘familiar’. And globalisation helps us to get that!

negative sociocultural impacts of tourism in venice

You can learn more about globalisation in this post- What is globalisation? A simple explanation .

bread with soup

Along similar lines to globalisation is the loss of authenticity that often results from tourism.

Authenticity is essentially something that is original or unchanged. It is not fake or reproduced in any way.

The Western world believe that a tourist destination is no longer authentic when their cultural values and traditions change. But I would argue is this not natural? Is culture suppose to stay the same or it suppose to evolve throughout each generation? 

Take a look at the likes of the long neck tribe in Thailand or the Maasai Tribe in Africa. These are two examples of cultures which have remained ‘unchanged’ for the sole purpose of tourism. They appear not to have changed the way that they dress, they way that they speak or the way that they act in generations, all for the purpose of tourism.

To me, however, this begs the question- is it actually authentic? In fact, is this not the exact example of what is not authentic? The rest of the world have modern electricity and iPhones, they watch TV and buy their clothes in the nearest shopping mall. But because tourists want an ‘authentic’ experience, these people have not moved on with the rest of the world, but instead have remained the same.

I think there is also an ethical discussion to be had here, but I’ll leave that for another day…

You can learn more about what is authenticity in tourism here or see some examples of staged authenticity in this post.

Read also: Environmental impacts of tourism

Similarly, destinations risk standardisation in the process of satisfying tourists’ desires for familiar facilities and experiences.

While landscape, accommodation, food and drinks, etc., must meet the tourists’ desire for the new and unfamiliar, they must at the same time not be too new or strange because few tourists are actually looking for completely new things (think again about the toilet example I have previously).

Tourists often look for recognisable facilities in an unfamiliar environment, like well-known fast-food restaurants and hotel chains. Tourist like some things to be standardised (the toilet, their breakfast, their drinks, the language spoken etc), but others to be different (dinner options, music, weather, tourist attractions etc).

Do we want everything to become ‘standardised’ though? I know I miss seeing the little independent shops that used to fill the high streets in the UK. Now it’s all chains and multinational corporations. Sure, I like Starbucks (my mug collection is coming on quite nicely!), but I also love the way that there are no Starbucks in Italy. There’s something great about trying out a traditional, yet unfamiliar coffee shop, or any independant place for that matter.

I personally think that tourism industry stakeholders should proceed with caution when it comes to ‘standardisation’. Sure, give the tourists that sense of familiar that they are looking for. But don’t dilute the culture and traditions of the destination that they are coming to visit, because if it feels too much like home….. well, maybe they will just stay at home next time? Just a little something to think about…

woman in white tank top doing yoga exercise

On a less philosophical note, another of the negative social impacts of tourism is that it can have significant consequences is culture clashes.

Because tourism involves movement of people to different geographical locations cultural clashes can take place as a result of differences in cultures, ethnic and religious groups, values, lifestyles, languages and levels of prosperity.

The attitude of local residents towards tourism development may unfold through the stages of euphoria, where visitors are very welcome, through apathy, irritation and potentially antagonism when anti-tourist attitudes begin to grow among local people. This is represented in Doxey’s Irritation Index, as shown below.

negative sociocultural impacts of tourism in venice

Culture clashes can also be exasperated by the fundamental differences in culture between the hosts and the tourists.

There is likely to be economic inequality between locals and tourists who are spending more than they usually do at home. This can cause resentment from the hosts towards the tourists, particularly when they see them wearing expensive jewellery or using plush cameras etc that they know they can’t afford themselves.

Further to this, tourists often, out of ignorance or carelessness, fail to respect local customs and moral values. 

Think about it. Is it right to go topless on a beach if within the local culture it is unacceptable to show even your shoulders?

There are many examples of ways that tourists offend the local population , often unintentionally. Did you know that you should never put your back to a Buddha? Or show the sole of your feet to a Thai person? Or show romantic affection in public in the Middle East?

A little education in this respect could go a long way, but unfortunately, many travellers are completely unaware of the negative social impacts that their actions may have.

The last of the social impacts of tourism that I will discuss is crime, gambling and moral behaviour. Crime rates typically increase with the growth and urbanisation of an area and the growth of mass tourism is often accompanied by increased crime.

The presence of a large number of tourists with a lot of money to spend and often carrying valuables such as cameras and jewellery increases the attraction for criminals and brings with it activities like robbery and drug dealing.

Although tourism is not the cause of sexual exploitation, it provides easy access to it e.g. prostitution and sex tourism . Therefore, tourism can contribute to rises in the numbers of sex workers in a given area. I have seen this myself in many places including The Gambia and Thailand .

Lastly, gambling is a common occurrence as a result of tourism. Growth of casinos and other gambling facilities can encourage not only the tourists to part with their cash, but also the local population .

As I have demonstrated in this post, there are many social impacts of tourism. Whilst some impacts are positive, most unfortunately are negative impacts.

Hopefully this post on the social impacts of tourism has helped you to think carefully about the impacts that your actions may have on the local community that you are visiting. I also hope that it has encouraged some deeper thinking with regards to issues such as globalisation, authenticity and standardisation.

If you are interested in learning more about topics such as this subscribe to my newsletter ! I send out travel tips, discount coupons and some material designed to get you thinking about the wider impacts of the tourism industry (like this post)- perfect for any tourism student or keen traveller!

As you can see, the social impacts of tourism are an important consideration for all industry stakeholders. Do you have any comments on the social impacts of tourism? Leave your comments below.

If you enjoyed this article on the social impacts of tourism, I am sure that you will love these too-

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IMAGES

  1. Positive / Negative Impacts of Venice Tourism

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  2. Too much of a good thing: Venice’s tourism wave highlights industry’s

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  3. Venice residents protest against excessive tourism

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  4. The negative economic, socio-cultural and environmental impacts of

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  5. PPT

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  6. Sociocultural impacts

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COMMENTS

  1. The Impact Of Mass Tourism In Venice

    Several factors can explain why this is happening: An increased cost of living Higher cost of housing A decrease in quality of life (traditional shops replaced by low-quality souvenir shops, constant, for example) Lack of spaces for the youth Lack of rewarding job opportunities

  2. Sinking city: how Venice is managing Europe's worst tourism crisis

    Critical as the climate crisis is, the city faces a more immediate risk: the rising tide of tourists, presently estimated at 25 million a year and projected to reach 38 million by 2025. Nowadays...

  3. Sustainability

    1. Introduction: Overtourism, a New Word for an Old Problem Venice is probably one of the most famous iconic destinations and one of the most emblematic cases of tourism overcrowding, where problems related to its impacts are evident [ 1, 2 ]. The city is a victim of its own tourism success.

  4. Is Venice at war with itself?

    Italy's best known tourist destination is overwhelmed with visitors. Overtourism, cruise ships, the rise of Airbnb and the historic November 2019 flooding have all made the headlines. But are ...

  5. Venice, Italy threatened by mass tourism, could become UNESCO "world

    The most obvious signs of the tourists' outsized impact on the small city are the huge cruise ships that arrive daily and dwarf the lagoon. Paolo Costa, the President of the Port Authority says ...

  6. Over-tourism and the fall of Venice as a destination

    • Sustainability in tourism is still not achieved. • Given the Janus-faced character of the tourism industry calls for ambidextrous management. • Defines Trexi, a term that is a short for tourism exit. • Over-tourism is likely to be a permanent phenomenon. Abstract

  7. Sustainable tourism in Venice: which challenges the city is facing

    The benefits are numerous. It promotes sustainable economic development and provides jobs and income for local communities while preserving the natural environment and cultural heritage. Sustainable tourism also helps to reduce the negative impact of tourism on the environment and ecosystems, which is crucial for the preservation of our planet.

  8. (PDF) Venice and Overtourism: Simulating Sustainable Development

    This article is therefore focusing on Venice and on one of the possible solutions to mitigate the negative impacts of tourism represented by the concept of a tourist carrying capacity (TCC) in an ...

  9. (PDF) Horváth (2018) A new era for urban tourism, the case of Venice

    The Case of Venice, Italy 3.2 The Emergence and Change of Negative Tourism Impacts As demonstrated above, tourism has a number of different negative impacts in Venice that are often interconnected. In this section the reasons for the emergence of the above identified negative impacts are explored.

  10. Sustainability

    Overtourism problems, anti-tourist movements and negative externalities of tourism are popular research approaches and are key concepts to better understand the sustainable development of tourism destinations. In many of the overtourism narratives, Venice is considered to be one of the most relevant cases of overtourism and therefore has become a laboratory for studying the different conflicts ...

  11. Overtourism: How to combat its effects

    Skift, a US-based travel media company, published a report on overtourism in 2016. In its foreword, Skift's CEO Rafat Ali said that overtourism 'represents a potential hazard to popular destinations worldwide, as the dynamic forces that power tourism often inflict unavoidable negative consequences if not managed well'.

  12. A New Era for Urban Tourism? The Case of Venice, Italy

    In the last decades a number of studies have dealt with the negative impacts of tourism, still, there is a lack of research that explains why these impacts have emerged. The present article addresses this research gap, and after the identification of the different impacts, attempts to explore the reasons for their emergence through the case of Venice.

  13. Venice Tourism May Never Be the Same. It Could Be Better

    With more than 8,000 apartments listed on Airbnb, Venice has Italy's highest Airbnb-to-population ratio. The city's historical center, consisting of two islands, had at its peak in the 1950s ...

  14. Overtourism Effects: Positive and Negative Impacts for ...

    Sociocultural Impacts of Tourism. ... "the Venice syndrome" (Milano 2017, p. 9). At the same time, its remaining residents organize protests and referendums fighting against large cruise ships entering the city center. ... It seems that the problem of overtourism is currently prevalent leaving in its wake the abundance of negative impact ...

  15. PDF "The Overwhelmed City": Physical and Social Over-Capacities of Global

    the quality of life related to the impacts of tourism [19-22]. The phenomenon of overtourism is also associated with the problematic relationship between tourists and hosts and the continuous exchange between the two. This has generated recent waves of anti-tourism protests in enduringly popular European cities such as Venice, Barcelona ...

  16. Venice and Cruise Ships: A Delicate Balance

    Last month, a 2,500-passenger ship entered the Venetian Lagoon — the first since the pandemic began — reanimating the debate on the negative effects of mass tourism.

  17. The trampling of Venice shows why tourism must change after Covid-19

    Regional changes to Italian laws in the 1990s unleashed rampant property trading that deepened the effects of mass tourism. Yet Venetians believe that they can still save Venice, and many are ...

  18. Why is Tourism Bad for Venice?

    This can damage the lagoon. Unlike what many cities advocate for, the authorities in Venice want to limit the number of people visiting every single year. If this is not advocated, then there can be negative impacts on the city. Opinions I wouldn't think that tourism is bad for the city.

  19. Impact of Tourism in the Italian Art Cities: Venice, Florence, and Rome

    A 2010 study by Sapienza University of Rome showed that the authentic character of the city is in danger of alteration, due to low quality facilities that represent a "fast" tourism. The overcrowding of the city center of Florence by tourists also seems to be a constant cause of stress for its inhabitants, as indicated by a 2012 study ...

  20. Positive and Negative Social-Cultural, Economic and Environmental

    s: 1. the contri- bution of tourism to mutual respect and understanding between people and societies; 2. tourism as a vehicle for personal and collective satisfaction; 3. tourism as a factor...

  21. Full article: The negative cultural impact of tourism and its

    The main negative impact of tourism is expressed in terms of the commoditization of the society's culture. The trend of selling everything regardless of its religious and social values has been increasing. ... Kim, D. Y. (2011). The Impact of tourism on the socio-cultural setting of rural communities in Ghana"a case study of Boabeg-Fiema in ...

  22. PDF Venice and Overtourism: Simulating Sustainable Development Scenarios

    The increasing popularity of cruise tourism for which Venice is an attractive port of call, and since cruise ships have been growing increasingly large, its impact on Venice's relationship with tourism in general has become truly disturbing; The diversification of the supply of accommodation, from the year 2000 onwards, with the rise in the

  23. 13 Social impacts of tourism + explanations + examples

    [ hide] The social impacts of tourism Positive social impacts of tourism Preserving Local Culture Strengthening Communities Provision of Social Services Commercialisation of Culture and Art Revitalisation of Culture and Art Preservation of Heritage Negative social impacts of tourism Social Change