The Winter Olympics risk bringing unsustainable numbers of visitors to the Dolomites, locals and environmental campaigners have warned, pointing to social media trends and apps that promote mountain tourism among consumers who “bring only noise, traffic and aggression.”
The winter Games will take place from 6 February to 22 February 2026 in the Italian city of Milan and the small Dolomites town of Cortina d’Ampezzo, as well as nearby Anterselva, Predazzo, and Tesero. Cortina, a ski resort, is accustomed to welcoming tourist numbers that outstrip its 6,000-strong population by a factor of eight, or more. But in recent times, driven by Instagram, TikTok, a 2023 Apple advert based in the region, and even activities such as geotagging, visitor arrivals have taken on a different character—and it has locals and experts alarmed.
Cortina’s Mayor, Gianluca Lorenzi, has noted that the 2,000 people who can gather at Lake Sorapis at the height of the season can spoil the very atmosphere and scenic beauty that is part of the area’s appeal. It is a fear echoed by Thomas Benedikter, director of South Tyrol’s POLITIS civic education centre, who has written about the way overtourism is depleting water resources and damaging the landscape.
@eatraveloveana 📍Cortina d'Ampezzo Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Queen of the Dolomites, is set to shine as one of the most iconic venues of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games❄️⛷️🏔️😍 #cortinadampezzo #dolomites #italy #olympicgames #cortina ♬ original sound – Marc Scibilia
With nine million additional tourists predicted by think tank European House Ambrosetti to flow into the host areas between 2027 and 2030 because of the Games, questions are being raised about how sustainable the situation is, especially when many of the newer visitors “know nothing about the mountains,” according to Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner, who accuses them of arriving by car, parking indiscriminately, taking photos and bringing “only noise, traffic and aggression.”
The situation could result in future caps on visitors, as already introduced in autumn 2025 by Madonna di Campiglio, a luxury resort in the northern Italian Dolomites, where authorities announced a 15,000-person daily limit on skiers to promote safety and ensure service quality.
People in favour of the Olympics’ return to the area (the Games were hosted there in 1956), point to the economic benefits brought by the growth of infrastructure and tourism. But critics like Benedikter warn that a combination of agriculture, industry, households, hotels, spas, and ski development “consume space and scar the scenery, the true capital of tourism, too often forgotten.”
For those who have been signalling the challenges of overtourism for years, the arguments are familiar. Harold Goodwin, founder of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism (ICRT) and Managing Director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership, has long explored the need for destinations to push for more quantitative growth, redistribute demand geographically and between seasons, and adopt social and ecological boundaries. Redrawing those lines could be the post-Olympics hurdle the Dolomites need to cross.
