Overtourism is often mentioned in the same breath as housing poverty and soaring inflation, but in proof that the phenomenon affects the affluent too, even residents in one of the wealthiest towns in Portugal are now calling for guerilla action to put an end to the “harm to their daily lives” caused by excesses in the travel and tourism sector.
“A congested amusement park”
Sintra, on the Portuguese riviera just west of the capital, Lisbon, is consistently ranked one of the best places to live in Portugal. A UNESCO World Heritage site, it is packed with Romanticist 19th century architecture, historic palaces, castles, parks, gardens and beaches.
Those attractions mean it is also regularly packed with tourists, who, according to local association QSintra, are turning the place into “a congested amusement park” spoiled by “the mono-culture of tourism”.
Around 350 residents recently signed a petition against a new hotel and car park planned for the town’s beloved historic centre, describing it as “an attack on the cultural landscape”. And the group’s manifesto issues a plea: “To all who live in Sintra and to all who like to visit it, Sintra is in danger. It is urgent to defend Sintra and the Serra [mountain range], their heritage and their identity.”
Emergency access routes
And now the group has now taken action, with a series of posters that appeared around the town over the last weekend in July, featuring slogans such as: ‘Sintra: a traffic jam in paradise’. QSintra want to prevent the town turning into what they see as “Disneyland” and make authorities “accountable for sustainable policies with measurable outcomes”.
Access for emergency vehicles through the town’s serpentine historic streets is just one of the residents’ concerns, with noise pollution and crowding causing them to avoid going out at peak times, but killing off tourism altogether is not the agenda.
Crowding affects monuments, roads and public spaces
“We want Sintra and the people of Sintra to be able to live with tourism, but a type of tourism that respects and improves the lives of those who live here and does not, on the contrary, harm their daily lives and make them flee from what remains of their own life in the neighbourhoods, in the mountains and the surrounding area up to the Atlantic coast,” QSintra said in a statement.
“Mechanisms must be created to discourage mass tourism, flash tourist visits, and the flow of people that congest monuments, access roads and public spaces.”
