Tourism has become the biggest employer and fastest growing industry in the world. Tourism brings many benefits to communities around the world. But tourism hotspots are feeling the strain as tourist numbers increase. Overtourism describes a situation in which a tourism destination exceeds its carrying capacity – in physical and/or psychological terms. It results in a deterioration of the tourism experience for either visitors or locals, or both. Locals resent being crowded out of restaurants and parks. They resent paying inflated prices. Most of all they resent tourists behaving badly.
A record 1.323bn overseas trips were made by travellers in 2017 – a rise of 7 per cent on the previous year. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) forecasts this will continue to grow at a pace of 4 to 5 per cent, annually, in the coming years, aided by such innovations as the rise of low-cost airlines; bigger cruise ships; internet sites, including online booking, local reviews, smartphone mapping, ride-hailing, home-sharing and social media and its emphasis on personal-brand building through photos.
It was reported in 1997 that in order to draw more visitors, some St. Croix (US Virgin Islands) interests wanted to open a casino, which would change the character of the quiet, bucolic island.
In Hawaii, Maui is a very popular vacation destination, but visitors there have to put up with mainland-like traffic jams.
In summer, the South Rim of the Grand Canyon can seem as crowded as New York's Fifth Avenue.
In cities at tourism’s bleeding edge, such as Venice, resentment has boiled over into anti-tourism protests.
In Barcelona the cause against foreign visitors has been embraced by left-wing nationalist activists. Their view is expressed in graffiti around Barcelona: “Refugees welcome; tourists go home.”
Foreign tourism in developing countries is an economic, social and cultural disaster. The construction of tourist facilities, airports, hotels, roads, and recreation sites often dislocates indigenous communities by forcing them to move or cutting them off from traditional sources of income. It degrades the natural environment by polluting air and water and destroying natural habitats, such as nesting areas on the Turkish coast. It destroys ancestral lands and sacred sites. Local culture is commercialized; artefacts are produced for sale, folk dances become theatrical productions modified to meet the desires of foreigners and holy places are reduced from destinations for pilgrims to curiosities. It deprives local people of basic services. It promotes exploitation including prostitution and pederasty. Crime is encouraged; drug use increases. Tourism increases outflow of foreign exchange and hampers economic development. Hotels, travel agencies and car rental agencies are owned by foreign corporations. Food and other consumables, equipment for hotels, vehicles and managers are imported.
Because control of the world industry is mainly in the hands of multinationals based in the First World, the tourist phenomenon is interconnected with the larger pattern of economic control which characterizes the unequal relationship between the North and the South. Whatever the short-term costs or benefits of tourism for Third World host economies, the overall significance of the travel industry is that it reinforces the dominance of the First World centres of the international economy and deepens the dependence of the countries on the 'periphery' of that economic system.
Sustainable tourism rests on a number of pillars. One of those is the need for the tourist to respect local people, cultures and environments. The problem now is that tourism is promoted as an activity of pure hedonism. Rather than being encouraged to see themselves as global citizens with both rights and responsibilities, tourists are sold an illusion of unlimited indulgence. They are positioned as consumers, with special privileges.
Properly managed tourism has proven itself to be a great boon to developing countries. Tourism earned poor countries about $55 billion in 1988, according to UN estimates, making it the second biggest earner of foreign exchange after oil. Spending on international tourism, excluding travel, will grow 4.5 - 5% a year until the year 2000. On study estimates that no more than 40 - 50% of tourist hotels' operating cost are leaked back abroad and the figures are falling as local agriculture, services, manufacturing and management skills improve. Arts and crafts in some places are improving because of the impact of tourism.
Tourism has more effective leverage on the general public as customers than any other commercially-oriented sector of the world economy. International tourism may be regarded as an important mechanism (along with other forms of communication) for the transmission and better appreciation of foreign cultures.
It is a myth that tourism's major environmental impact is damage to developing countries. In fact, over 80% of the world's international tourism occurs between developed countries, which also generate the bulk of tourism. Package tourism to developing countries is probably under 5% of world travel and tourism.
Bottlenecks, capacity issues and the odd disorderly stag-do are surmountable problems that should be seen in the context of great progress. With tourism set to expand for the foreseeable future, we need a more optimistic, future-oriented, technologically informed, infrastructurally enabled vision of how to generalise the advantages that tourism brings to both tourists and their hosts.