Exclusive: YouGov polling across Europe suggests most countries are sympathetic to protests against overtourism
A third of people in Spain say their local area now has too many international visitors, according to a continent-wide survey that has found most people across Europe are sympathetic to protests against overtourism and back steps to combat it.
The YouGov survey comes after a summer of demonstrations and urgent warnings against the impact of mass tourism from Santorini to the Canary Islands, and measures aimed at reducing it announced from the Cinque Terre to Amsterdam.
The polling in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the UK found Spain was the country that felt most strongly about the phenomenon, with 32% of respondents saying there were now too many foreign travellers in their area.
This shit has been the same cycle for literally centuries. When times are good, locals hate tourism. When times are bad, the locals wonder where all the tourists money went.
In these “tourist economy” areas it’s easy to miss the fact that even if you don’t directly work in the tourist industry, there’s a ton of infrastructure and services which get propped up by that industry. I’ve been on both sides of this, as a local and a tourist, and most of the whining is privileged elitism. Every local knows how to avoid tourists, and every local has also been frustrated by something being closed in the off season. Connect those dots and stop complaining.