NEWS TRAVEL WEEKLY BUSINESS
too much tourism in a small area. If Venice is the problem, there are 1,000 places to go in Italy that aren’t Venice. Tourism is supposed to be a mutual benefit – good for the host community and good for the traveller. We need to keep that balance. You’ve more chance of doing that by spreading tourism, than just going to the same iconic sites, which get worn out.”
ADAM GOLDSTEIN, Vice-chairman, Royal Caribbean Cruises:
“Overtourism is a key element, but only one, of less-than-responsible tourism – and we should frame this in terms of opportunity. If there is proper dialogue, people can respond. “In Dubrovnik, which is at the epicentre of this, the mayor came out with regulation of cruise ships. We invited him into a dialogue and asked: ‘What are the issues in the old city?’ He said: ‘Well, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, we have all the ships. We don’t have ships on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays.’ So, it’s overcrowded three days a week. “We said: ‘That could be
addressed. What else?’ He said: ‘All the ships come in the morning.’ So he is in favour of more tourism, just not in the old city on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings. The old city is not going to get any
Virtuoso’s Matthew Upchurch (left) and Intrepid Travel’s Darrell Wade
“Tourism is supposed to be a mutual benefit – good for the host community and good for the traveller”
bigger, [but] there is tremendous capacity to generate more tourism and utilise capacity. “Venice is sort of ground zero. Our polling suggests most people who live in and around Venice want the economic activity [tourism brings]. There are two groups of antagonists. One, with whom it’s possible to have a dialogue, don’t want ships coming through the Giudecca Canal, but to use the industrial channel. The second group, which is difficult to have a dialogue with, don’t want cruise ships in the lagoon at all. The backdrop is that cruise ships are less than 10% of Venice’s tourism. “There are potential solutions
that could create either more capacity or less objection.”
MATTHEW UPCHURCH, Chief executive, Virtuoso:
“A lot of our clients wouldn’t be caught dead in Venice in the summer. They don’t want that [busy] experience.” “If you look at the size of the
world’s source markets and [especially] at China, what is going to happen over the next 20-30 years is massive. It’s hard to manage people. You need to inspire people to do the right thing, so marketing must change. “There are entrenched interests
on either side – the incumbent interests and what I call techno- arrogance. When I talk about this [I’m told] ‘You’re a Luddite. How to balance these? Government could play a big role.”
DAVID DINGLE, Chief executive, Carnival UK:
“If you closed the whole cruise industry tomorrow, it would make zero difference to overtourism because we are such a small part of the total. It’s easy to measure cruise tourism. You know when 2,000 or 3,000 people turn up in a port, so it’s an easy target. “The WTTC report [see box] points out 72% of tourists are day visitors. We need deeper levels of data to understand this issue. In Barcelona, 6% of tourists are cruise visitors and they probably spend the shortest time there of
62
travelweekly.co.uk 9 August 2018
any tourists. Most are there for a day, whereas people on city breaks stay three or four days. “It is no accident that [concern
about] overtourism has arisen at the same time as political movements we might call ‘nationalist’. I don’t know what the solution is [but] dialogue is critical. There is little sign this movement will be easily swayed by economic arguments. “Maybe it could become a self- regulating issue to an extent, if
Travel Foundation sets sigh
The Travel Foundation hosted the roundtable to discuss ‘Managing overtourism’ for industry leaders attending the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) Summit in Buenos Aires in April. The discussion took place in the light of a WTTC report on overtourism, Coping with Success: Managing Overcrowding in Tourism Destinations, published last year. This identified five elements of
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
