🌴 Overtourism and how technology is fuelling it

Every summer, Europe's most popular destinations fill with tourists, whose numbers can exceed those of residents. Cities become less distinctive and, around the world, thanks to ever greater numbers, trips become highly shareable on social media. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, travel to international destinations rose by 6% in the first half of the year, beating experts' expectations.

This growth may, at one time, have been considered a very good thing. But the destinations tourists seek most cannot expand to the point of housing travellers without limit. The more sceptical say the ever larger number of visitors is deeply changing the personality and appearance of historic cities, and making travel itself ever harder.

"It is a level of tourism that is degrading residents' satisfaction, but also the experiences for tourists. All of this because the tourist who is constantly in queues or behind hundreds of other tourists' backpacks is not truly and authentically discovering the place they are in," says Justin Francis, CEO of Responsible Travel, a company that organises sustainable trips for clients.

And whose fault can it be? Besides global prosperity, technology plays a fundamental role in this picture.

Over the last few decades, innovations in aviation, more efficient aircraft and the growth of low-cost airlines, have significantly reduced the cost of flying to any destination. Large cruise ships, able to carry thousands of passengers, now bring entire cities, and Venice has already banned them. Then we have the wonders the internet allows, such as booking online, restaurant or accommodation reviews, maps on the phone, home sharing and many others that, collectively, have democratised every step involved in travel.

Finally, as in many other parts of life today, we have the undeniable influence of social media.

"We cannot talk about overtourism without mentioning Instagram and Facebook. These platforms are part of the direction trends are taking," says Francis. "75 years ago, tourism was only about seeking experiences. Now it is using photographs and social media to build a personal brand. For many people, the photos they take on a trip become more important than the trip itself".

In this way, overtourism has so many influences that it is hard to do anything about it. Managing a tourist destination is almost like managing a natural resource, such as a mine; a sustainable level of tourists brings gains for the local economy, but an excess of that level can destroy it. Cities that are trying to control the number of visitors who arrive must do so delicately, by gently discouraging some forms of travel without seeming inhospitable.

That brings us to Airbnb, which has been a target for European laws and one of the main reasons for overtourism. In cities such as London and Barcelona, the authorities are already bringing in stricter laws on home rentals.

The results show that Airbnb has grown at a striking pace. In just a few years, the company has already become a very significant force in the tourist economy of many cities. In Amsterdam, according to the company, Airbnb accounts for 12% of overnight stays. In Barcelona, that figure reaches an 18% market share and in Kyoto it hits 22%.

But Airbnb, which, like Uber, has become a veteran at fighting laws that try to ban them around the world, does not accept that it is the cause of overtourism and says that, in many cases, it is even a solution. In this year's healthy tourism report, the company included several charts that allegedly show, geographically and economically, that the service it provides is producing more authentic travel experiences.

Airbnb says this is because it offers accommodation in every part of cities, not only at the points of interest where hotels usually sit, thus spreading the crowds more evenly.

In an interview, the company's vice-president for public affairs also said that the site benefits local economies more directly than hotel chains.

"Our hosts earn 97% of the value they advertise", says Chris Lehane. "Guests stay longer than typical hotel guests, and they increase the economy's earnings across the board, in a way that does not happen with hotels".

One of the biggest legal problems for Airbnb happened in Barcelona, where the company is still negotiating with the authorities, and has already agreed to remove thousands of listings that broke the city's rules, as well as to install a system to collect taxes and help hosts comply with the regulations.

These challenges should not stay settled for long, because the technology that sets them in motion is always changing. One of the more recent problems is the rise of a new class of professional hosts: people who buy properties for the sole purpose of renting or sharing them, often against local laws.

The company says it is trying to end this kind of practice, but even some customers wonder whether the efforts are enough.

Lehane concludes by saying that the problem is that many home-sharing listings are not really that. "There are people who buy multiple apartments and list them all, which really changes the character of a city", says Jonathan Tourtellot, founder of the Sustainable Stewardship Center, a non-profit group that promotes sustainable tourism. Airbnb asked Tourtellot to write part of the report presented this year.

The home-sharing company is still facing other challenges: there is more competition these days, with new, very similar services. The authorities have had a great deal of difficulty policing all these new platforms.

Growth has been global and uninterrupted. "In the end, the problem is only one of numbers", says Tourtellot. The specialist explains that in 1960, when air travel became more regular, there were about 25 million international trips. Last year, the number reached 1.3 billion.