AMSTERDAM — It’s peak travel season, and Europe, which welcomes nearly half the world’s tourists every year, is seeing spikes in visitor numbers for the second year in a row. Since tourism creates 26 million jobs for the European Union and accounts for 10 percent of its gross domestic product, according to the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization, one might think that Europeans would be happy to see the sector grow.
But not everyone sees an increase in visitors as cause for celebration.
Residents of a number of destination cities have amped up complaints lately about “overtourism.” They say that foreign visitors are overcrowding the city center, displacing residents, driving up housing prices and “Disneyfying” their culture.
For the second year in a row, anti-tourist demonstrations are being staged in places like Barcelona, Ibiza, Mallorca, Venice, Amsterdam, Rome and even the city of Dubrovnik in Croatia. Sometimes the protesters march peacefully with signs, but visitors to Venice will find angry signs criticizing them for using AirBnB, while in Spain anti-tourism activists are becoming more aggressive, throwing eggs at tourist buses and slashing tires of tourist bicycles.
A number of European cities are attempting to address those concerns by passing legislation to crack down on the unwanted impact of visitors; placing time limits on AirBnB and other home rental services; creating marketing campaigns to signal undesirable tourist behavior; and banning the opening of new tourist-oriented shops.
Amsterdam, which has about 800,000 inhabitants and expects to welcome 18 million tourists in 2018, is one of the latest cities to join the complaint chorus. A number of politicians ran in the local elections in March on sustainable tourism platforms, and in May the new coalition government presented a program of reforms that it said is designed to create a “City in Balance.”
“The positive sides to tourism — the jobs and income for the city — are being overshadowed by the negative sides,” states the plan. “A new balance is needed in which residents are central and visitors are welcome.”
On May 29 the city rolled out a new marketing campaign called, “Enjoy and Respect” that targets male visitors aged 18 to 34 from Britain and parts of the Netherlands. That group is the focus of the program because, “they visit the city for just one reason, and that’s to drink their brains out,” says Nico Mulder, marketing strategy director of Amsterdam Marketing, an independent nonprofit organization subsidized by the city of Amsterdam, which developed the campaign.
“There is a big group of people who see Amsterdam as a destination where everything is allowed because of the fact that you can smoke pot or there’s a red light district,” Mulder says. “But even though there’s a red light district, it’s also a place where other people are actually living. We want to emphasize that they are welcome, and they’re free to say and do what they want, but they should also be aware that we have rules here.”
The campaign targets this specific group of young merrymakers — identified through quality of life surveys and discussions with Amsterdam police — using sophisticated new technology: pop-up ads that appear when people buy tickets on low-cost airlines, and a social media geolocation tool called “geofencing” to send alerts on smartphones when people enter certain tourist zones in Amsterdam’s city center, like the red light district.
The campaign consists of posters in which we see split-screen images of certain activities that are allowed in Amsterdam, and where such activities can incur a fine. Under a headline reading “Booze and Banter,” for example, we see an image of a bar, where such activities are allowed, and the word “Free.” Next to it is an image of a street corner, where booze and banter are not allowed, where it says “€95” — 95 euros, or $110 — for the fine that can be incurred. “Bursting for the Loo?” reads another sign: peeing is free in one of the public urinals, but if you do it on the sidewalk that will cost you 140 euros (about $160).
Fifteen years ago, Amsterdam had another problem: People were moving out of the city center and tourism was waning. Amsterdam Marketing has spent the past 10 years trying to improve the city’s profile to attract both visitors and locals. Today, it might be seen as a victim of its own success. But Mulder says it’s only a process of trying to send the right message, rather than turn people away.
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“As a city marketer I think it’s good that we’re now emphasizing these aspects of behavior, because Amsterdam is really a front-runner in tourism, but we have to keep a close eye on that level of livability and we have to focus on the long term,” Mulder says.
The term ” overtourism” is now often used to describe what many see as a glut of visitors, and an impact that they feel has become out of control. Industry professionals dislike the term, says Tim Fairhurst, director of policy for the London-based European Tourism Association. “It is an oversimplification which tends to polarize discussion and reduce the scope for intelligent compromise.”
Fairhurst describes Amsterdam’s “Enjoy and Respect” campaign as “a good experiment,” but says other recent measures, such as limiting the group size of walking tours to 20 and making the tour guides legally responsible for participants’ behavior, “seem Draconian.”
He suggests Amsterdam could also reduce unwanted anti-social behavior by, for example, addressing the “pricing and availability of soft drugs and legal prostitution,” and explore managing “the number of low-cost flights to one of Europe’s largest airports,” Schiphol, rather than trying to modify the behavior of tourists who have decided to take advantage of these attractions.
Encouraging sustainable tourism is the primary goal of the United Nations World Tourism Organization, which notes the generally positive impact of travel on the European economy. “Today, tourism is one of the key pillars of the EU strategy for jobs and inclusive growth,” according to a report published in April on European tourism by the U.N.’s tourism agency. “Sustained growth in tourism has been instrumental in supporting the economic recovery of many European countries, largely contributing to job creation, GDP and the balance of payments.”
Protests against tourism in Europe have been “a wake-up call” for the organization, says Sandra Carvao, its director of tourism marketing trends, in a telephone interview.
“There is no overtourism, there’s just bad management,” she adds. “We always say no destination is good if it’s not good for its citizens and for its visitors. It’s important that the locations listen to the community, engage them, and make them aware of the benefits.”
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