Overtourism was one of the buzzwords of 2025 and was an issue that could no longer be swept under the rug.
In the past year, locals from Japan and all the way to Italy have gone on social media to protest the way foreign travellers have infiltrated their hometowns, encroaching on their way of life in the worst possible manner.
As a result, both national and local governments have been working on ways by which to mitigate overcrowding on the part of foreign nationals in key tourism sites, as well as solutions that could ease things up for locals in terms of traffic, utilities, and the cost of living.
However, experts warn that 2026 may not be the year we see the end of overtourism, but it will be a time when relevant solutions will be found and eventually implemented.
It’s definitely not over yet
In a piece written in October of last year, IE Business School professor of innovation Enrique Dans declared that cities had been turned into theme parks at the expense of local residents who were sorely inconvenienced by droves of foreigners who encroached on their way of life, clogged the streets, put a strain on key utilities, and drove up the prices of food and other necessities.
According to Dans, the problem of overtourism was essentially a situation that went out of hand; as he puts it:
“Today’s mass tourism was born with the creation of low-cost airlines [over] two decades, powered by globalisation and then supercharged by digital platforms. The logic has always been more visitors and more income. But this free-for-all, based on an infinite number of visitors, has run up against the physical, environmental and social limits of cities. Each arrival record means less housing, less public space, less local life. In response, city halls are finally beginning to see what we all knew a long time ago: tourist saturation is not a success, but a cancer.”
Beyond that, this “cancer” has led to the defacement, even desecration of sacred or historic spaces: the Pyramids of Giza for one, Japan’s Toshodaiji Temple another; to say nothing of tourists littering in temple courtyards or dressing inappropriately at any of Italy’s famed churches or dancing in a mosque in Muslim-dominant Malaysia.
But Dans remains optimistic that change has begun, as governments are applying stricter rules and implementing hefty fines for misbehaviour for foreign guests, and local communities have taken to policing key areas to protect their integrity.
But how exactly are things changing?
To get down to brass tacks, overtourism may not yet be gone, but it is being controlled thanks to measures applied by governments and the private sector.
Such measures include:
- The imposition of fees specific to tourists This measure has been implemented in some key European cities like Barcelona, Santorini, and Venice, all of which were severely hit by the impact of overtourism. In all three cases and beyond, this involved the charging of tourism fees, putting price caps strictly for locals, as well as the use of dynamic pricing for goods and services;
- The rise of secondary destinations As a way of decongesting key cities and tourism hubs, some countries have actively begun to promote secondary destinations: lesser-known locations that are equally important historically or commercially. We have seen this in Malaysia which has successfully spread tourists out from the congestion of Kuala Lumpur and Melaka to Penang and Kota Kinabalu, and also in the religious tourism sector in France which has decongested key sites in Paris and Lourdes to equally sacred sites in Lisieux and Ars-Su-Formans;
- Offering primers on behaviour to travellers Ill behaviour on the part of tourists, especially those from the west and East Asia has long been an issue for many countries. As a preventive measure, some countries encourage travellers to read up on how and how not to behave within their jurisdiction. It would also help a great deal if the UN Global Code of Ethics for Tourism were to be made more widely available to both tourism professionals and travellers alike; and
- Technology is a weapon in the battle against overtourism 2025 saw several nations implementing artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools to monitor tourist activity, particularly in Japan where AI cameras are used to monitor crowds. AI and other innovations may also be used to help travellers create personalised itineraries leading them to secondary destinations more in keeping with their interests, offering them a better travel experience as opposed to being dragged along on a droning tour they may find boring or uninteresting.
Admittedly, it may not look like much on paper, but it says a lot that the world is trying to find ways by which to rectify the situation.
There is still a great deal of work to be done, but if it means giving tourists a meaningful experience that does not encroach on the everyday lives of locals, then any action against overtourism is certainly welcome.
