Erin: Over the last few decades, travel has become more accessible than ever.

Budget Airlines emerged making flying less expensive and social media

platforms, the popularity of travel influencers as well as access to digital

information has inspired more and more people to get out and see the world.

While there are many benefits to global travel becoming more

accessible, there's also a downside.

When there are too many travelers in a place, there can be negative side

effects that impact local communities, public infrastructure, nature, wildlife,

and the protection of heritage sites.

This issue has become so prevalent that there's a name for it.

Overtourism.

Today we're gonna dive into the reality of overtourism.

We'll learn what it is, what causes it, how to avoid contributing to over

tourism, and what needs to change to make tourism more sustainable.

Here to discuss is Paige McClanahan.

Paige is a travel journalist and a New York Times contributor

who's based in the French Alps.

She reports often on over tourism and related issues, and she also hosts a

podcast called The Better Travel Podcast.

This is Alpaca My Bags, the responsible travel podcast here

to help you travel in a way that's better for you and for the planet.

I'm Erin Hynes, travel writer accompanied, as always by my producer, Kattie Laur.

Kattie: We are also on Patreon where you can support us financially and

help us keep this podcast going.

Uh, so the link for that is in our show notes.

Erin: Okay, so Kattie, do you know about tourist shaming?

Kattie: I don't know if it's a phenomenon.

I don't really know much about it other than I've likely

participated in it myself.

Erin: I'm gonna be looking for you in comments on TikTok to see if you're

in there doing the tourist shaming.

Kattie: Oh, I'm active in the comment section on TikTok.

Don't you worry.

Okay.

Erin: So I don't think it's a new thing.

I think it is always happened.

I think it's just become more of a thing because people now have

smartphones in their pockets and can just like video record everything

and put it on the internet.

So I've seen it everywhere.

A great example actually is the Iceland travel subreddit.

As most Alpaca Pals know, I'm obsessed with Iceland now and I continue

to read that subreddit actively.

There are a lot of ways you can die in Iceland if you're not careful.

And in the subreddit, people love to document, like people will share photos

of tourists that are doing stupid things that could potentially kill them.

And recently, I think I sent it to you, I saw a video on TikTok, which was a

little closer to home, it was a video of some people in the Niagara Gorge that

were getting way too close to the river.

They had left the sort of like designated walking path, and they were on these

rocks really close to the river.

And if you are living in Southern Ontario, you know not to do that

because it's a very dangerous river with an intense current.

Kattie: In this video, it is a raging river like raging.

Erin: Yes.

You can see from the video how dangerous it is.

I've also seen on TikTok a lot, people posting Peggy's Cove in Nova Scotia.

Famously, if you are from Nova Scotia or you read the signage around

Peggy's Cove, you will learn that the black rocks are super dangerous

because they're very slippery.

So every year, like multiple people fall in because they venture out onto the

black rocks, they slip into the ocean.

And once you're in there at Peggy's Cove, it's very unlikely that

rescue will be able to get you out because the ocean is so violent.

And I see videos of like people out on those black rocks on TikTok all the time.

Now it's like pretty common.

And the comment section is just people like shaming them, which I guess is

warranted, I just don't know if like,

Kattie: I mean, I don't blame them.

Erin: I just don't know if it's like, I would hate to be filmed without my

knowledge and put on the internet, but I guess that's the one caveat

that I'm like, Oh, I don't know.

Kattie: I mean, especially if you're being filmed and then you die, like.

Erin: Ah, just, I don't know that anyone would post the

video if a death was involved.

I'm assuming that all these videos we see are people who survived.

I hope so.

I actually think though, like what's interesting about this tourist shaming

thing that's happening like all over social media is it brings up like

conversations about like how much signage and interference there should be with

dangerous sites that tourists go to.

Like actually, when I was in Ireland at the Cliffs of Mower,

this was like a huge debate amongst the Irish people that I was with.

They were saying like, some people say we should put up a fence so that people

can't get so close to the edge, and other people don't want that because then

you're messing with the natural landscape.

Kattie: It's such a tough call cuz there's a hiking trail in

Algonquin Park that I love.

It's the Booths Rock hiking trail.

I know you've done it and there's a huge cliff face.

Same with the Cup and Saucer hiking trail.

I took a picture like standing right near the edge because it's cool

and Instagramable and memorable.

And honestly, if somebody put a fence up there, I think people would be pretty

bummed just because it kind of just takes away from the majesticness of it all.

Right?

And that's what like fence and infrastructure does to a tourist

place that's natural beauty.

So I can understand why people would totally be bummed and like not super

stoked on signage and infrastructure like fences and stuff like that around.

But that being said, like people sometimes are dinguses and make not smart decisions,

and that can be very life threatening.

Especially not even to like the person who's making the not smart decision,

but to the people around them.

Like that's the consequence of not being respectful of a place and maybe

not being respectful of your own body and putting yourself in dangerous,

dangerous situations is that you don't get to enjoy that thing so much anymore

and you ruin it for everybody else.

But then also on the note of filming people, I saw a video similar to this

of somebody who had filmed a fashion influencer and somebody had posted the

video of being like, "These are some fits that I came across in New York today."

And then it was reposted by one of the women in that video, and she was like,

"Listen, I don't really love the fact that you're filming me in these places.

If you had just come up to me, I would've happily done like an outift chat with you,

but because you filmed me in like my own neighborhood and stuff, like you don't

know if there's people on the internet, like trying to figure out where I am.

It risks my privacy."

Erin: Like yeah, I've wondered that about those videos.

Kattie: That also being said, You also took a really funny video in

Iceland of people getting blown away, and I don't think you got everybody's

permission to take that video either.

So

, Erin: I will say when I do it, I tried to make sure the

person wouldn't be recognizable.

Like I tried to like zoom from very far away, or take it from behind.

But yeah, I don't know.

I guess like with the dangerous acts that people film sometimes I wonder like,

shouldn't you be intervening or maybe like yelling at those people to let them know

they're in danger instead of filming it?

I mean, we don't know what goes on behind the scenes.

Like they absolutely could have been doing that as well, but there could

be more active attempts to help people

Kattie: Yeah.

Like what are the point of the videos and the photos?

Right.

It's ultimately to shame someone online.

Erin: I don't think it's just that.

Okay.

Because it's,

Kattie: Are they educational?

Erin: I think they're somewhat educational because.

To be honest, the Peggy's Cove thing, I don't know that I would've

known that explicitly until I was at Peggy's Cove and saw the signage.

I had seen those videos before I went to Peggy's Cove last year.

So going to Peggy's Cove, I was like in the car with my brother and Lucas being

like, "We can't go on the Black Rocks.

It's dangerous ." So I literally knew that because of TikTok.

But there is signage there, so like.

As long as you're reading the signage, you would be aware.

I don't know.

I think there's sort of like a fine line between like adding

infrastructure to keep people safe and leaving like landscapes as they are.

Kattie: I mean, nobody reads signs.

Let's be real.

Erin: I do

. Kattie: Well that's because you're an upstanding citizen.

Erin: No, Cuz there's interesting information on them.

. Well, okay.

I do think like if you're gonna share those videos, at least try to.

Hide the person's face.

Like film from an angle where you can't see their face or like blur it out.

There's plenty of technology now, like you can blur people out so that

a specific person isn't being shamed.

Like if you wanna use it as an example Sure.

But like respect people's privacy.

I think that's like the low bar.

There's one more point I wanna add though, that just like popped into my

head when we were talking about like adding infrastructure to keep people safe.

I find, and this is me like sharing something that people might disagree with.

So here we go.

So no hot.

I find that people get really worked up about adding like fencing, designated

paths to places like natural places.

And while I understand like where people are coming from, I don't think that it

ruins nature because it in many cases makes nature safer and more accessible.

I don't feel that it takes away from the experience of being in nature,

like I think people put on a pedestal, the like feeling of being in nature.

You're still in nature.

Even if you're on a platform with a fence that's there to keep you safe and to

make that spot more accessible to people.

Kattie: So, okay.

When you first said tourist shaming, I actually thought you were talking

about something else that you had mentioned to me earlier today.

Um, and this is something we did way back in the early days of the show, I

think our first few episodes, and that is talking about bad reviews and I know

you had something fun to say about this.

So let's talk about bad reviews.

Erin: Well, recently I've gotten really into looking up places I've

been to and then filtering on Google to the bad reviews, like the one star

reviews because I love doing that.

they are so funny, but like they're also problematic, but they're funny.

I just have to say, first off, I shared one of these on TikTok and

one of the commenters cracked me up.

They were like, "Can you really write a bad review about Nature ?" Cause

this review is about this very famous waterfall in Iceland.

If you've ever seen like any material about Iceland, you've

seen a photo of this place.

It's like a small waterfall that goes over into a stream and behind

it is a really famous mountain, and it famously was featured in a

couple episodes of Game of Thrones.

So this review for this waterfall in this mountain read, "Maybe I don't

see the point because I haven't seen Game of Thrones, but this

is probably the least impressive waterfall that I've seen in Iceland."

Kattie: and like how many stars did they give it?

Erin: One star.

And they're entitled to their opinion.

I just like couldn't believe it.

I was like, This is an incredible waterfall,

Kattie: how a waterfall can stoop so low to a one star.

Erin: They could have given three stars.

At least three.

I never give less than three stars.

Maybe that's just, it's kind of like a policy I have.

You have to really do bad for me to give you one star.

And I would never one star nature, planet Earth.

No.

So, Paige, you've been reporting on travel for several years, and

in a couple of your stories you cover issues around overtourism.

For example, your work has touched on the challenges that

sites like Pompeii and Italy are facing with an influx of tourists.

We've talked about overtourism in a few episodes of Alpaca My Bags,

but we haven't ever dedicated a full discussion to it, and we felt like

you would be the perfect person to unpack this travel issue with us.

Before we dive into overtourism, though, I wanted to chat first about the benefits

of tourism because there are a lot.

And I think it's important in this discussion to highlight

them before we dive into talking where tourism goes wrong.

So I was hoping you could share with us some of the various ways that you believe

tourism can do good and also support a local community in a positive way.

Paige: Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for having me on the show, first of all, and thank you for

starting with that question because yeah, I mean, I think in all of these kind of

conversations and all of my reporting about overtourism, I never wanna lose

sight of the fact that travel and tourism is really important and hugely beneficial.

So I love that.

We're, we're starting off on this foot.

I mean, if you're looking at it from the perspective of the destinations you're

visiting, I mean, obviously there are huge economic benefits in terms of the

jobs that are created through tourism jobs that can't really be outsourced.

You know, like bus drivers and tour guides and waitresses, hotel reception.

Also just the, the tax income, the tax revenue that's generated for

local communities through all of the money that comes through tourism.

So economic benefits, but there are also important social and cultural benefits.

I mean, we live here in, um, a very rural village, a very rural part of France,

a little village in the French Alps.

And um, without tourism, to be honest, our area would be

really, really quiet year round.

We would, you know, we wouldn't have, like, we have a little

cinema, little movie theater here.

We have lots of kind of fun restaurants and cafes, ski piste and stuff.

And without tourism we wouldn't have any of that infrastructure, or maybe

a few of them, but not nearly as many.

So tourism in a rural area especially can really bring a lot of life and energy to

a place that wouldn't otherwise have it.

And then environmentally as well.

I mean, I think it's easy to think of over tourism damaging the environment,

which of course, You know, is a problem and is something we need to be aware of.

But tourism can also really be supportive of conservation and there are lots of

instances of, you know, income from tourism directly supporting conservation

and income from tourism giving communities a real financial incentive to invest

in conserving their ecosystems.

Of course you know that said, all of these things, it's all in the how isn't it?

It's in how you're doing it.

You know, it's making sure that you're not pushing people off their

land by setting it aside for tourists to come and, you know, go on their

hikes and take their pictures.

So there's so many questions of the how, and that's really where

I get where it gets interesting.

But I mean, I think, you know, we can't have this discussion without

talking about the benefits to travelers, you know, to us as tourists.

And, you know, it's hugely, you know, important for us to have the chance to

expose ourselves to other cultures, to people living in other countries, to

people with different kind of political opinions from ours with different

socioeconomic backgrounds from ours.

You know, the value of that is really hard to describe.

I mean, and hard to quantify really.

Um, but I know for me personally, it's been, it's been huge.

And I imagine probably for you as well, Erin, all the travel

you've you've done in your life.

Erin: Absolutely.

And you know, there's no one that I've talked to who hasn't talked about that,

about how traveling to a different country had some sort of impact on them.

And so I think it's really easy to like overlook that benefit

on a personal level of it.

And it just, it also just fosters like cross-cultural understanding and

exposure, which is very important, especially in a world that is

like increasingly globalized.

Like it, this is the way the world is going.

And so when people, cuz you know, I get trolls sometimes on social media that

tell me, Oh, you're part of the problem.

Like, you should just stop traveling if you believe in this.

And fair criticism.

But also it's not realistic that we stop traveling.

It makes more sense to actually just try to travel in a way that's more

responsible and uh, sustainable.

So we know some of the main benefits of tourism.

So let's dive into overtourism.

Could you explain just in simple terms what it is?

Paige: So the most powerful and most effective definition of overtourism

that I've heard is when tourist activity degrades the quality of life of the people

who are living in the tourist destination.

The other aspect is that, you know, when tourist activity degrades the

experience of the visitor, right?

So there are two sides of the coin, and of course I think, you know,

there's a priority that we should give to the, the impact on the quality of

life of the people who are living in that place because it's their home.

Erin: It's funny you mentioned this because I've noticed like even my

own travels that you start to see like very obvious signs of it and

some of it is just so in your face.

Like I'll never forget being in Barcelona and literally seeing the signs that

people were spray painting on the walls of buildings that said, Go home tourist.

And more recently I saw in a subreddit for Mexico City, someone posted a

piece of signage that they had seen that was this message saying, If

you're a digital nomad, go home.

Like stop buying our properties and I find that like a really interesting

example of like how overtourism becomes evident in the community because that's

people, like local people literally saying this is having an impact.

Back in 2009, actually I was living in Italy and Venice and living there

was the first time that I found myself like thinking about overtourism as as

a traveler, mainly because you could really feel the symptoms of it there.

And I hadn't experienced that side before.

I had always been a tourist.

I hadn't experienced what it was like to live with overtourism.

And at that point in time, like this was very intense.

There were a lot of cruise stops in Venice.

Every single day.

And so I learned a lot about how the mass numbers of tourists were

affecting daily life for local people.

Locals would time their shopping trips around when the cruise ships would

arrive for the day to avoid the crowds.

Like I, I often did the shopping for the hostel I worked in, and I knew

what time I would have to go to be, just walk like comfortably and be

able to pull my trolley of groceries.

And then in 2014, I spent several months backpacking around Europe,

and that was when I started thinking about how frustrating it was on the

tourist side, because I distinctly remember Dubrovnik, Croatia, just

not enjoying my experience at all.

Just getting there and being so excited to see it.

This was the moment when Croatia was becoming very, very popular

and I got there and I was just frustrated beyond belief.

Like I don't think I even have photos of that trip because I was just too annoyed

that there were so mess, so many people.

You couldn't, you couldn't enjoy it.

So those are two personal experiences I've had with overtourism.

And I know you've covered a lot of, uh, regions and sites throughout Europe that

have struggled with it, so I was hoping you could describe for us an experience

of overtourism that you've covered in your work or maybe just one that you've

experienced yourself in your own travels.

Paige: Well, actually, yeah, I might share an experience from my personal life here.

I mean, you know, you gave the example of when you were living

in Venice, because here in, in the little village where we live, we live

just outside a village called Samoa.

During the summer of 2020, we're just kind of what, four or five

months into the pandemic and people were starting to kind of get out.

It was at this sort of lull, you know, when people thought maybe

things were, were gonna sort of get back to normal again.

But in general, people were staying within their own country.

Right.

And so where we live is actually really well known among French

people as a destination for hiking.

And we have a beautiful nature reserve just at the end of our road.

So in August 2020 when all of France is on vacation, we had traffic jams up

our little two lane road that leads to our house that I've never seen before

or since, and it would take 30 minutes to drive the mile and a half from the

middle of the village up to our house just because you're sort of stuck in this

sort of like bumper to bumper traffic, you know, inching your way along.

And it was because the parking lot at the end of the road where

the road dead ends was full.

So like the only way a car could go forward was when another

car pulled out and drove down.

And for me that was just such, um, a perfect illustration of what I think

really is, you know, at the heart of so many problems with overtourism, really

just comes down to a mismatch between the infrastructure, the services, you know,

or the regulations that are in place.

These kind of things that we need to kind of manage tourism properly and the

amount of demand for that destination.

Right?

And in this case, There was huge demand for the touristic offering

of this beautiful, you know, hiking nature reserve at the end of our road.

And it was demand that they'd never seen before, that they weren't anticipating,

and that completely outstripped the, you know, the infrastructure that had

been built to accommodate tourists.

But then it was just these kind of couple of weeks in the middle of August 2020

and then by September much quieter.

And then by October, you know, I can go for a jog there at nine in the

morning and not see a soul like.

So I think that's another thing with overtourism is that so many of these

issues are really site specific.

Yeah.

And they're really time specific.

It's easy to say, Oh, Barcelona, like overtourism, don't go.

You know, we can, we can get a little bit more detailed like it's worth,

it's worth diving deeper than that.

Erin: Yeah.

I've talked about this on my blog.

If you wanna go to a city that's, that's struggling with overtourism, go in the off

season because that's a moment when, when vendors will benefit from your presence.

I also just wanna bring up, cuz it's just so top of mind for me, but your point

about like investing in infrastructure.

Before heading to Iceland, I was curious about like, what state Iceland was

in in terms of tourism, because pre pandemic, they were talking like publicly

about how they were having trouble, um, handling the influx of tourists.

They're one of the only countries that invested a larger budget in tourism

than they ever had before during 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic.

So while the world was on travel pause, quote unquote, they were

busy investing in infrastructure.

It was noticeable, and you can tell that all these things are new.

They installed a lot of public bathrooms to keep people from like going off

into the woods and doing their thing.

There's a lot of very marked paths at sites that used to not have them,

where people were just like wandering through the ancient moss and such,

which you're not supposed to do.

Um, there's more park rangers posted at a lot of the like really popular waterfalls

and like natural sites that we'd been to.

And the other big push was from a marketing perspective.

They're really encouraging tourists now to spread out beyond the golden

circle, which is sort of the core area that most tourists will go.

Their marketing campaigns are encouraging people to go to like regions that are

much further flung to try to spread out the density of tourists in the country.

And it was really interesting to see that like in practice, because reading about

it I was fascinated, but then like while we were there, it was very noticeable

that this investment was happening.

Paige: Wow, that's so cool to hear Erin.

I actually wrote a story for the New York Times about how, I think the

headline was like, Iceland Prepares for Tourism Comeback or something.

And I wanna say this was like October 2020.

So I wrote the story, but I wasn't able to travel there.

I think Iceland was actually closed at that point and the New York Times

wasn't gonna send me in the pandemic to, um, to go research the story.

So I spent a lot of time on Zoom with all sorts of people in Iceland and you

know, with, uh, oh gosh um, with someone high up in the ISC government whose

position escapes me at the moment, who is describing this, um, investment in tourism

infrastructure that they were doing.

And, and he was also saying, yeah, like the, the huge boom in tourism we saw

before the pandemic, it just outpaced us.

We just weren't, we couldn't respond quickly enough, and now we have this

pause and yay, let's make the most of it to build those parking lots, to

build this tourist, to put up those roping off the, the ancient moss.

So it's wonderful to hear that you saw that in action when you were there

and, and the results of that work.

Erin: Yeah, it's, it's really, I think a lot of it too is small details

that I don't think a couple years ago I would've noticed those small

details about that infrastructure.

It's just from reading that, like I knew to look for it and

yeah, it was, it was very clear.

What are other ways that you could tell when a region or a city or a

site is moving into the territory of over tourism where it might

be potentially causing harm?

In other words, what would you say are the main sort of symptoms of over tourism?

Paige: You know, I think in terms of symptoms that are like visible

that we as travelers or you know, visitors can see when we're in a place.

If you're thinking about a city, say like a European city, for example,

one really interesting kind of barometer is the mix of shops that

you see in a sort of a city center.

You know, are you seeing a lot of like knack shops, shops that sell like phone

cases or shops that sell ice cream or smoothies, you know, the kind of things

that one might buy when you're just sort of strolling through as a tourist, or

are you seeing shops like Green Grocers and butchers and tailors and laundromats

and the kind of retail stores that, that really are there to serve locals?

Because when I was doing, um, When I was reporting this story in Barcelona last

year, that was really one of the main symptoms that I was hearing from people

is the, the change in the mix of shops and how that makes life more difficult

for the people who wanna live there year round and, you know, less, less pleasant.

And it kind of degrades the sense of community.

So I would say in an urban environment, that's a really interesting thing

to, to kind of keep your eye out for.

And then of course, you know, kind of as you were saying in natural areas, it's,

you know, are you seeing parking lots that are overflowing like we had here.

Are there enough toilets in a place?

Are the the paths well marked?

That kind of thing.

But also just in general, whether you're in a city or in a national environment,

you know, just pure overcrowding and you know, usually it's pretty easy to

tell of course, you know, in a big city.

You know, the subway or the metro system is gonna be full of people.

But you know, if it looks like the tourists are really contributing

to putting something over the edge, then that would be a pretty obvious

visible symptom of overtourism.

Erin: So those are obvious symptoms of overtourism that I think

even tourists can pick up on.

And I'm curious about the more subtle impacts as well.

Can over tourism impact maybe the culture of a city or people

or, Well, you mentioned it a bit, the livability of a region.

What would you say are the like unseen symptoms of overtourism that

we might not be able to pick up on?

Paige: Yeah, no, I think that's a really interesting question and it

makes me remember actually when I was in Barcelona last year, um, to report

this story, I spent a lot of time with a woman named Mar Santa Maria Varas,

who is both an architect and an urban planner and a native of Barcelona.

She grew up right there near the, the old city of Barcelona.

And she said in terms of the less visible symptoms, she talked a lot about the

availability of affordable housing.

She still manages to live with her husband and their little boy in the city center,

but so many of their friends have moved out to the suburbs because, um, because

of gentrification, which, you know, this is controversial, Airbnb disputes

this, but some studies have found that Airbnb is contributing to gentrification

in Barcelona, in other cities and also in terms of this change in the retail

mix that we were talking about earlier.

And she was telling me how when she was a little girl growing up in Barcelona,

she could walk through the middle of Barcelona from one end to the other,

and her parents weren't worried about her because that they knew,

they knew all the shopkeepers and it was such a community sort of feel.

And when you lose that sense of like the shopkeepers looking out and being the sort

of the guardians of the public space now she's not comfortable with her little six

year old boy, you know, walking through the middle of Barcelona because there

isn't that sort of social infrastructure anymore that they used to have before.

Tourism became so big in Barcelona.

I mean, so we have the overcrowding in public spaces, which is more visible,

but in the context of Barcelona especially, you know, the unseen impacts

would be gentrification, availability of affordable housing, and this the

sense of kind of the spirit of the, the public space and the, the sense of kind

of community, um, in the city itself.

Erin: It's funny, a lot of those I think, translate also to Toronto where

I'm based, cuz Airbnb has been a massive complaint here and, and there's been

legislation around it because it, it led to a lot of shortages of like housing

that would be very important to the infrastructure of structure of Toronto.

There's a lot of condos sitting empty that just like have no one to live in them

because they've been turned into Airbnbs.

So this was a question actually that Kattie brought up to me, and I

think it's a really interesting one.

And I kind of touched on it already when I was mentioning that, um,

when I went to Croatia in 2014, Croatia was becoming very popular.

It was becoming the trendy place to go.

And I actually wrote about this on my Instagram recently, this summer.

I'm noticing it's Greece.

Everyone is in Greece.

Literally all the bloggers I know they're all in Greece.

So obviously some of this has to do with like marketing campaigns,

like when it comes to bloggers, it's just that like they're being hired

to go there that particular summer.

But I do notice these sort of ebbs and flows with like places

becoming trendy to go to.

How does this relate to over tourism?

Like is that a precursor to over tourism?

Would you say it's a sign already of over tourism?

I'm just curious about how like a trendiness aspect of a destination,

um, factors into overtourism.

Paige: Yeah, no, I think that's a fascinating question and a

really important one to kind of try to get our heads around.

And I think, you know, if we go back to what we were saying before about

overtourism being about kind of a fundamental mismatch or unbalance

between the infrastructure services and regulations that are in place

to manage and sort of govern the presence of tourism in place and the

number of tourists who are coming.

And when we think about a place like Dubrovnik, which all of a sudden

what Game of Thrones comes on and makes it, you know, hugely popular

and the people in Dubrovnik, you know, the local government people in

Dubrovnik did not see this coming.

And you know, suddenly this huge wave of tourists outstrips their capacity

to manage those tourists sustainably.

I think it is really interesting and worthwhile to pay attention to

those trends because they can be precursors to this mismatch between.

What's on offer and what's, what's flowing in?

And you know, if we're trying to think about, okay, what causes those influxes.

Cause I think it, it really is an interesting question.

An important question, and it can be so many things.

I mean, in the case of Barcelona, the huge influx in tourists,

they started to see, um, really started with the Olympics in 1992.

And it was really a very, um, explicit decision by the government to market

itself as a tourist destination, to put Barcelona on the map as

one of the cities that you need to go to when you come to Europe.

You know, in some cases it really does start with the governments.

The same in Iceland.

Iceland launched this huge campaign after the the 2010 eruption of the volcano.

Like they were going for it.

They were all over social media.

"Inspired by Iceland".

And you know, so in in some cases it does start with government.

Now cases, it's a Game of Thrones phenomenon where it's

like, whoa, who saw that coming?

And in other cases, maybe it's, you know, an influencer I think of like, you know,

Justin Bieber in his video and , you know, an influencer or something like

causing an in influx of, of visitors.

But I think it's really interesting to watch what's driving those

trends and to understand them.

And then, you know, to the extent that governments will be able

to see it coming and predict it.

You know, maybe that will give them a little bit of a heads up to be

able to prepare for the tourists who are coming and minimize any negative

impacts they might get as a result.

Erin: Mm-hmm.

, I've actually read that also, especially in Europe, budget flights.

Have driven a lot of it as well.

Especially, and this was a factor in Iceland too, because they introduced

the, um, layover with Iceland Air.

So if you fly Iceland Air between North America and Europe, you can have a free

layover in Reykjavik, I think it's up to five days and they still offer this.

But a couple years ago this was like a huge promotion and

tons of people were doing it.

And that's when I started noticing Iceland becoming like

a really notable destination.

And just like within Europe, knowing people that live there, like my

family in Holland, they fly to different destinations throughout the

summer no problem for like 20 euros.

And I was reading somewhere that Barcelona, that that was considered like

one of the factors because they introduced these flights and there was no cap on how

many could show up in a day in the city.

Do you know anything about this, this aspect of the issue?

Paige: You know, I don't know specifically about that issue in, in Barcelona

and you know, any capping or lack, capping or lack thereof of flights.

But I do know that at the moment there's a plan to expand the airport in Barcelona,

and the, the mayor of Barcelona is not happy about this, but because the airport

lies outside of her jurisdiction, there's nothing that she can really do about it.

The same with the harbor in Barcelona that welcomes all the cruise ships.

The harbor is technically not under the city's jurisdiction.

So, you know, and you know, the people who are kind of struggling with the,

with the negative impacts and the people who are benefiting from the positive

impacts, you know, when those two things don't line up, it can be challenging.

But in, in terms of kinda cheap flights in general, yeah.

I feel like there was this phase, you know, I don't know, five to 10 years

ago where suddenly we had this explosion of, of cheap flights and people were

just sort of like, Okay, let me go on to kayak or whatever and find the cheapest.

You know, where do I wanna go this Friday?

What's the cheapest deal?

Let me book it.

You know, I think there was like a period that, where that was, that

kind of thing was really common.

And sure, I could see how that could have easily led to, um, you know,

surges and visitors that cities weren't necessarily prepared to welcome.

Erin: Kattie, As you know, travel for me does not always go according to plan.

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So of course today there's another layer to add onto the discussion

around overtourism, and that's the impact of the pandemic.

I have seen in some circles people arguing that the pandemic like provided a much

needed break from overtourism, and I think people were hopeful that there would be

like a slow ease back into it, but I think as we're seeing in the news about airports

around the world being like completely chaotic, this has not been the case.

I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this, like maybe through the

lens of Barcelona or another destination that you've written about.

Like do you think that the pandemic has helped to reduce overtourism or

we've just kind of reverted back to the state we were in pre pandemic?

Paige: In the case of, of Barcelona, I was really struck.

Opinions on you know, kind of short term tourist rentals in the city were, I think,

probably even more polarized than they would've been otherwise because of the

pandemic, because the people who were earning an income from renting out, you

know, a room in their homes had gone without that income for a while, and they

were really desperate to get back to it.

Whereas at the same time, the people who weren't earning an income from

tourism were really enjoying, you know, having a quieter city and you

know, not having the wheely suitcases bumping up and down at all hours of

the, you know, the day and night.

In that case, it sort of, you know, maybe drove people even to further extremes

on their, their views on how we should, we should go back to, um, to traveling.

But, you know, if places are smart, like, you know, Iceland and also like

Amsterdam, another, another, um, city that I, I wrote about for the New York

Times last year, they're taking steps to, during the downturn in tourism,

to impose new regulations and to, you know, build new infrastructure so that

when tourists do come back, they can do it in a more sustainable manner.

Erin: Well, hopefully we see some results from some places around around Europe

especially cuz I know it's definitely been quite an issue across Europe.

So I know from my own research and writing that overtourism is a pretty

complex issue and it's complicated because, like we mentioned at the top,

there are benefits to tourism so it's really hard to sort of balance the

benefits and the harmful consequences.

And as tourists, it's tough because we can, of course, make individual

choices that help to reduce overtourism.

But a lot of the onus, like we've said, is on tourism boards, CMOs, infrastructure,

regional leadership, and in some cases airlines, to shift their practices to

create safeguards against overtourism.

From your own reporting and experiences, like what from your personal experience,

would you say is your biggest concern?

Like what is the most top of mind issue when it comes to over tourism that um,

we should be thinking about as tourists?

Paige: As tourists?

I think, you know, something that we can be keeping in mind is really being aware

of whether we are kind of jumping on a trend, just jumping on the bandwagon

and going to a place just because we've seen 10 people posting about it

on Instagram in the past week, and now we're just dying to go there and we

wanna see that one spot and go to that one beach and get that one picture too.

Being aware of what's driving our own travel intentions and travel desires,

and then just checking and doing our own kind of research to see, you know,

whether the place that we're going to is struggling with crowds at the moment.

Taking the time to do a bit of research before we go ahead and book a trip to

see whether we might be going to a place that's struggling with crowds at the

moment, because you know, that's going to add to problems for the people there,

but it's also probably not gonna be such a nice experience for us either.

Erin: Yeah.

I find that that tends to be my driving factor is like I recognize that it's

gonna be not a fun experience for me if there's tons of crowds there.

But I have to ask you about this point because I was reading about how Pearson

Airport in Toronto, which is my airport so I'm very invested in what's going

on there, is a total mess right now.

There's been like insane delays and a lot of people are very frustrated with

the airport and I listened to a podcast where they interviewed some people from

around the industry about why this is happening, and they brought up a really

interesting point, which is that airlines have been overbooking flights and they're

creating more availability for flights for people to book than airports can handle.

So this journalist was saying like, It's really not the airport's fault, it's that

the airlines like refuse to bump down how many flights they're actually selling.

And I thought about this in the context of over tourism, cuz I thought like,

that's like something that a destination might not be able to control so much.

Like if there's flights being offered to place, people are going to book them.

I think the other thing is some sites around the world truly are one of

a kind places that understandably a tourist isn't gonna wanna skip.

For example, like personally seeing the Taj Mahal was something I dreamed of.

It was something like I could not not do while in India.

And it was busy, but like I could not imagine not seeing it

and it was truly spectacular.

Like it's, it's one of my most favorite memories of India, just

seeing that for the first time.

So yeah.

I'm curious about your thoughts on how we can navigate this tension of

wanting to be responsible tourists, but still having those experiences,

like how can we strike a balance?

Paige: I mean, from my perspective, I think that the biggest responsibility

in terms of managing the impacts of tourism on a given place is the

local government in that place.

And you know, and that needs to start with the government leaders in that

destination really need to be listening and really engaged with their own

citizens, the residents of that place.

You know, they need to be listening to what, you know, about tourism is

making life hard or unpleasant for the people who are living there.

And then they need to be responding accordingly.

And of course, you know, some places are doing this, um, a lot more

proactively than others, but I think, so I think the first responsibility

lies with the local government because they do have the power to, you know,

impose taxes, to impose regulations.

If it's a bigger government authority, you know, outside of city, maybe like a region

or something to impose limits on the number flights or to, you know, increase

the airport tax or whatever it is.

Like there are real concrete steps that governments can take to reduce negative

impacts of, of tourism if they're paying attention and, you know, and willing to,

you know, do something that might actually decrease some tax revenues or something.

But I think, yeah, the first and biggest, um, responsibility lies

with the government leaders.

But yes, I mean, you know, companies certainly have a role and we as

travelers certainly have a role.

And as travelers, we can do our best to make smart choices and to educate

ourselves about the places that we're going before we go there, and the

challenges that those places are facing.

But we can also, you know, take responsibility for demanding

more of our, you know, the companies that are serving us.

Can call out bad behavior or irresponsible practices that we might see from a

tour operator or from a restaurant or a hotel chain or an airline.

You know, we can use our, sort of our voices as consumers to call

out bad practices when we see it.

But no, I think, yeah, the local governments really, um, are the,

the biggest, you know, and most, um, most powerful player here really.

Kattie: Governments listening to their people?

Whoa, this is just a striking concept.

Paige: amazing.

Well, it is, you know, in, in Barcelona, I'll go back like in 2015, Ada Colau

was elected mayor of Barcelona, and she really, you know, at that

point, public opinion in Barcelona was just, was starting to turn.

I mean, there had been some protests and stuff, but they were a little

bit kind of off, not fringe, but they weren't super mainstream.

But from 2014, 2015, 2016, if you look at, they were doing public

surveys of Barcelona, residents, how do you feel about tourism?

And to be honest, it stayed pretty high.

Like people were still pretty pro-tourism in Barcelona, but those numbers did start

to dip and she really responded to that.

And that's where we started to see reimbursement of this

pushback, um, against Airbnb.

It really started with the election of Ada Colau in, in 2015.

And there are other examples of, um, like the government in Kerala in

Southern India, that's another example of a government that's really responded

to local concerns that, you know.

In that case it was pollution of the waterways from tourists who were kind

of going boating in the mangroves.

You know, they had huge resorts, um, on the beaches, but not so

many of those jobs were going to people who were from that area.

And there wasn't that much like income from tourism that was

actually ending up in the community.

So the government listened to those concerns and developed

some really cool pilot projects.

And then put them into place and now they're sort of expanding

them across the region.

But there are some examples of governments being really

responsive to their residents.

But yeah, we can, we can sort of hold these up and, and hope the other

governments will then will follow suit.

Kattie: When you both mentioned how these trends start from, you know,

countries maybe going all out on their tourism marketing, are they putting

the money into the marketing and the infrastructure, or are they just putting

all their money into marketing and then hoping for the best when people show up?

Like what is the, what is the dynamic there?

Paige: Ooh, that's an interesting question.

Um, I think first of Iceland where they really were, maybe they were the you know,

one of the first kind of tourism bubble moments and actually the word overtourism,

it had been around, it had been used a couple of times before, but it really

entered the sort of conversation in 2016 after Skift the, you know, travel media

outlet wrote an article about Iceland in which it used the term overtourism, and

it was in 2016 with that Skift article overtourism really sort of entered the,

the vernacular and the conversation.

So if we're thinking about Iceland, I mean they put a huge investment in

marketing the country through a big social media campaign starting in 2010.

But at the same time, they were investing in infrastructure.

The social media campaign was a lot more successful than, um, their

infrastructure was, was ready for maybe.

And Amsterdam, this destination marketing organization is now a

destination management organization.

I think it was even, gosh, I'm not gonna, maybe four or five years

ago, a little while ago, that they actually completely cut their marketing

budget for tourism in Amsterdam.

Whereas now it's, they stopped marketing Amsterdam as a tourism destination.

Now they're just using the same money to manage the tourists who come to the city.

So I think we are seeing a shift away from marketing and toward management.

But then of course there are tons of places that still

want more tourists, Right.

Coming outta the pandemic.

So I guess it's kind of like a bit of a roll the dice, like are you gonna get

the tourists you're asking for or not?

Because you might not, you might market them and they won't come.

Erin: So knows.

I have always found Iceland such an interesting example because

it's a very, very clear one.

Like you can really see the correlation between, especially social media and

the rise of Iceland does a destination from statements that I've read, like

people in Iceland didn't expect the marketing campaign to work as well

as it did, so it kind of snowballed.

Like they, they just lost control of it.

So I know I myself over the years have picked up some helpful

tips for reducing mass tourism and my own impact as a tourist.

Some of the big ones that I try to stick to are traveling during the off season

or the shoulder season, especially if I know it's a very popular place.

I also always try to practice Second City tourism, which is when for

example, if you're going to Amsterdam, you counterbalance that visit with a

visit to another nearby city that isn't quite as popular so that your tourism

dollars get spread out a little further.

Do you have any other tips for tourists, just like practical tips that, uh, we can

use in our effort to reduce over tourism?

Paige: I can think of two things.

I mean, one I mentioned briefly before, but I think it it's worth repeating,

is just taking the time to do some research on the place before you go.

Of course, you know, that means maybe learning a bit of the language or reading

a novel from the place, or learning about the culture, but it also means, you

know, opening up Google News and typing like tourism problem X or like tourism

controversy X, you know, your destination.

And reading about the debate around if there is a debate around tourism

in that place and taking some time to familiarize yourself with that and

understand kind of the ins and outs of it.

Um, so just so that you can have it in your mind when you're there.

Just because you know a place has issues with tourism doesn't necessarily mean

you shouldn't go, but it certainly means that you should be aware.

The other point is just, it's just to maximize the benefits of your visit.

You know, for, um, for you as a traveler and for the destination.

You know, spending your money, booking yourself into a locally owned hotel,

eating at locally owned restaurants.

Buying crafts and things that are made there in that community that

really increases your contribution, your financial contribution

to that community itself.

And then also in terms of your own experience and the benefits

that you can bring home and hopefully spread from that trip.

Do your best to make genuine connections with the people you're meeting.

You know, have conversations with your taxi driver.

Have conversations with, you know, the guy who's selling you,

I don't know, some Knick Knack in the like, old city of Jerusalem.

Like, take 20 minutes if he's open to it and ask him about what life is like for

him or what his challenges are finding, You know, you'll always find people who

are interested in sort of talking to you and telling them about their lives and you

know, the more you can kind of engage in a really human way with the people in the

place you're visiting, the more they, you know, you kind of become attached to that

place and you'll follow the news there and it kind of becomes a part of your life.

And, um, yeah, no, and I think that's really the most powerful

benefit of tourism is creating these human connections across cultures.

So in addition to doing your research on the downsides, you know, make sure you

invest in maximizing benefits of your presence and you know, this foreign place.

Erin: That's such a good point.

Well, thank you Paige.

Actually, there's one thing I, I have to say, just cuz it's kind of funny.

So Lucas and I, the way that we connected with Icelanders throughout the trip was to

complain about how expensive Iceland is.

Cuz we were surprised because we thought Icelandic people that they must

make more money and like that's how they adjust to the prices in Iceland.

But we quickly realized that that, No, they're just as frustrated

with how expensive things are.

So that was always our segue for opening of a discussion with someone was to like

complain about the price of something.

Paige: Yeah.

You you see finding that like shared human connection.

Everybody hates overpriced items.

Yeah.

Erin: Well, thank you Paige.

It's been really awesome to chat with you and, uh, I've learned a lot from

this discussion and I think there's a lot of of great takeaways that I myself

can take from this convo, but hopefully our Alpaca Pals can take as well.

So before we let you go, where can people find you, hear you, read your work?

Share your links.

Paige: Um, yeah, if people wanna learn more about me, um, I encourage

you to check out my website, which is paigemcclanahan.com.

I apologize for my last name, but I promise it's phonetic.

And you can sign up for my newsletter I send once a month.

And, um, I'm actually researching a book that's gonna be published in a

couple of years and I'm doing a lot of travel for the book at the moment.

It's a book about the tourism industry.

I think of it as sort of like a smart analysis, smart, fun and engaging

analysis of tourism, um, in about eight places around the world.

So yeah, paigeMcClanahan.com.

Erin: Thanks for listening to the show.

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Alpaca My Bags is written and hosted by me, Erin Hynes, and

it's produced and edited by Kattie Laur in Canada's Toronto area.

If you wanna reach out to us, check the show notes for all the info you need.

I'll see you in two weeks, but in the meantime, I hope you get

alpaca your bags safely and soon.