As the summer holiday season approaches in the northern hemisphere, discussion about overtourism is once again reaching fever pitch, particularly in Europe. In 2024, the continent received more international visitors than any other world region: 747 million arrivals, according to the U.N.’s World Tourism Barometer, with over 70% of those concentrated in the south and west, drawn by the irresistible combination of highly developed economies and services, mild weather, and ancient culture.
With the floodgates, or rather turnstiles and boarding gates, opening once more, commentators are pointing out the array of tourism management measures required to handle the influx, balancing the needs of visitors with those of locals, who, in some destinations, say they are overwhelmed.
Tourist taxes, daily caps, and strikes
Venice, Italy, has brought back the access charge it implemented for the first time in 2024, this time applicable for more peak days and with higher fees for last minute daytrippers. Greece has imposed daily caps on visitors to the Acropolis. Workers at the Louvre in Paris, the world’s most-visited city, have withdrawn their labour, saying they are exhausted. Meanwhile cruise ports across the Mediterranean from the Barcelona and the Balearics to Greece have implemented limits and brought in levies on disembarkations so massive they have been accused of causing a “feeling of collapse.”
And, as if the subject wasn’t causing enough bad feeling, anti-tourism protests took place across Europe in mid-June – the water gun becoming a symbol of resistance as demonstrators attempted to make the welcome at some landmarks a little chillier.
VIDEO: 🇪🇸 Thousands march in Spain's Mallorca against overtourism
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) June 16, 2025
Local demonstrators take part in a protest against mass tourism and rising house prices in Palma de Mallorca. Similar protests have been staged in tourist hotspots across southern Europe pic.twitter.com/BBsKa3R8xO
Tourism still booming and still an “opportunity”
Despite those protests, plus a softening of transatlantic travel to the States, and a world security situation many see as bleak, tourism overall is still booming, driven as the Associated Press points out by “cheap flights, social media, the ease of travel planning using artificial intelligence and what U.N. tourism officials call a strong economic outlook.”
But not everyone agrees that the situation is reaching a crisis point and some believe AI is not only part of the problem, but part of the answer. Italy’s Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè told the AP in an interview that artificial intelligence can be used to reduce crowding at popular sites, and noted that in Italy, only really four percent of the territory is affected by the industry and therefore, “Tourism must be an opportunity, not a threat — even for local communities.”
Spain meanwhile is managing the issue through regulation. It has squared up to massive global booking sites such as Airbnb with laws governing accommodation licencing and demands that the platforms remove 66,000 listings, amid accusations that the online providers are hollowing out the long-term housing offer and contributing to a tourism monoculture in certain destinations. Spanish authorities have also exchanged heated words with so-called budget airlines like Ryanair, which have complained about airport operator charges.
🚨Thousands protested #overtourism in southern 🇪🇺Europe, especially in Barcelona, under the SET alliance. Demonstrators criticized rising housing costs, gentrification, and loss of community due to mass tourism. Actions included water pistols, smoke, and anti-tourist slogans.… pic.twitter.com/zxUKvUxpBW
— Info Room (@InfoR00M) June 15, 2025
Anti-tourism measures for tourism’s sake?
What’s more, not everyone in all destinations is fearful of overtourism for the same reasons. Some activists in Spain and Portugal are more concerned perhaps with the wider environmental impact than with the local effects of tourism, highlighting that the industry is responsible for around nine per cent of global emissions.
And over on the Instagramable Greek island of Santorini, Mayor Nikos Zorzos spoke in 2024 of the need for anti-tourism measures for tourism’s sake, or in other words: the need to better manage the sector’s growth, not only for the sake of local amenities but also to safeguard the island’s economic success through popularity with visitors. He noted how“irrational” tourism development “consumes the place and reduces its advantage as a destination.”
For now though, unlike the earthquakes that have shaken Santorini in 2025, its own popularity and that of Europe as a region look unlikely to subside any time soon.
