Venetians and visitors alike welcomed new rules introduced on Thursday to limit the size of tourist groups in the latest effort to reduce overcrowding. Tourist parties will be capped at 25 people and guides will be barred from using loudspeakers to help the flow of pedestrians and make it more peaceful for residents. "I think it's right," said 81-year-old local Edie Rubert. "It would be better to reduce it more. Because you can't walk along the narrow canalside streets when these groups are there," she added, saying it was even worse when she needed to use her shopping trolley. Local police fines a tour guide on the day Venice municipality introduces a limit for tourist groups to 25 people to protect the fragile lagoon city and reduce the pressure of mass tourism in Venice, It...
Read MoreTag: mass tourism
Armed with selfie sticks and phones, the tourists flood into Santorini from everywhere - on dinghies from giant ocean liners, on coaches that zigzag up the steep hillsides, atop donkeys that clip-clop along the narrow cobbled streets. Some brave the afternoon heat to find a good spot among the white-washed houses and blue-domed churches where they then wait hours to watch the Greek island's famed sunset. As the sun dips, many more join them, squeezing along the cliffside or onto balconies, cameras at the ready. Tourists view Santorini’s famed sunset, on Santorini, Greece, July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis "This has been my dream since high school," said American tourist Maria Tavarez, 40. But for many of Santorini's 20,000 permanent residents, the once idyllic island...
Read MoreThousands of people protested in Spain's Balearic Islands on Saturday against mass tourism ahead of the summer season. Holding posters reading SOS Residents, Enough Mass Tourism, protesters marched through Palma de Mallorca, the capital of the largest Balearic Island. About 10,000 demonstrators took part, a Spanish National police spokesperson said. A smaller protest with a few hundred people was staged in Menorca. People take part in a protest against mass tourism and gentrification in the island ahead of summer season in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, May 25, 2024. REUTERS/Juan Medina "We want the authorities to stop people who have not lived here more than five years from buying properties and to put more controls on holiday accommodation," said Carme Reines, from a collective w...
Read MoreA UNESCO committee has decided not to add Venice to the organisation's World Heritage List in Danger, disregarding a recommendation from experts and sparing the Italian government from an embarrassing verdict on the city's condition. "The World Heritage Committee ... has made the decision not to inscribe Venice and its Lagoon on the World Heritage List in Danger," UNESCO, the U.N. cultural agency, said in a statement as the committee met in Riyadh. FILE PHOTO: Tourists in Venice, Italy August 22, 2023. REUTERS/Manuel Silvestri Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano said adding Venice to the list would have been an "undue move" not based on objective facts. "Venice, therefore, is not in danger," he said in a statement. Venice, known for its canals and cultural sites, has ...
Read MoreUNESCO experts have recommended that Venice and its lagoon be added to its list of World Heritage in Danger as Italy is not doing enough to protect the city from the impact of climate change and mass tourism. UNESCO World Heritage Centre experts regularly review the state of the UN cultural agency's 1,157 World Heritage sites, and at a meeting in Riyadh in September, a committee of 21 UNESCO member states will review more than 200 sites and decide which to add to the danger list. For nearly 10 of these sites, the experts recommend that member states put them on the danger list, among which already are the historic centre of Odessa, Ukraine, the town of Timbuktu in Mali, and several sites in Syria, Iraq and Libya. FILE PHOTO: Tourists shelter from the sun in St. Mark's Square as t...
Read MoreAmsterdam took a first step toward banning large cruise liners under broader plans to reduce mass tourism and pollution, officials said on Friday. Once implemented, the measures adopted by the city council would bring the Dutch capital into line with other high-profile European cities, including Barcelona, Dubrovnik and Venice, that have already cut cruise liner numbers or are considering doing so. The council approved the proposed ban on Thursday. "The motivation ... was to reduce the number of tourists, but also for environmental reasons," city spokesman Wouter Moll said. Viking Longship Mani, Expeditions ship Viking Polaris and Viking ocean ship Venus on the North Sea Canal, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Amsterdam's executive branch needs to work out details and it is unclear whe...
Read MoreScrawled across Barcelona's opera house, along the city's renowned La Rambla boulevard, is expletive-laden graffiti urging tourists to "go home". In another district, the messaging is more emphatic still: "Tourism kills neighbourhoods". The signs, which appeared in recent days, underline how anti-tourism sentiment is bubbling up in the Spanish city most-visited by foreigners, as arrival numbers return to near pre-pandemic levels following the lull during lockdowns. Mass tourism regulation has surfaced as a political hot-button topic across Spain ahead of local and regional elections on Sunday. A man ties protest banners in the balcony of a building that was recently converted for tourist use at Sants neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain, May 19, 2023. The banner reads "No more tou...
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