It is now glaringly obvious the condition whereby, nowadays, it is no longer possible to observe the tourism phenomenon, let alone deal with its problems, with the tools we learned about it during the second half of the twentieth century, when it apparently became a mass phenomenon. As much as we have been talking about mass tourism for several decades now, things, in reality, were not really like that, and only today do we realize that what actually mass tourism really means. The reason for this rude awakening lies in the fact that what we always called “mass tourism” actually was not.
Tourism: a middle-class phenomenon
In fact, the phenomenon, even considering the influxes of foreigners, was relatively niche: before the fall of the Berlin Wall, only the bourgeoisie and middle classes of some Western European countries (with the Germans taking the lion's share, as far as Italy is concerned) and a few Japanese and Americans were travelling for leisure purposes. This was an unprecedented tourism, but all in all still niche when one considers that the entire communist bloc and that of the non-aligned countries were basically excluded, so the flows were still manageable, although already of unprecedented proportions for the eras in question.
The new tourism, within everyone's reach (or almost)
It was only with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the advance of true globalization that the fall of borders, the advent of the new bourgeoisies in emerging countries and the rise of low-cost transportation opened the door to true mass tourism. It is eminently a matter of numbers: just as with mass immigration, mass tourism, in the long run, is not sustainable, and this is always because of the limited receptive capacities of tourist resorts, which are not theme parks but places with inhabitants and ways of life that cannot and should not be disrupted.
A phenomenon that seems to enrich a few and harm many
Similar to mass immigration, a phenomenon to which it is related, mass tourism significantly impacts the lives of the inhabitants of the places on which it falls, but while the losses (in quality of life, in urban decorum, in usability of spaces) are socialized, the gains seem to fall only into the pockets of elites of a few accommodation owners and local governments. Although not entirely true, many inhabitants of places with a high tourist impact perceive the phenomenon of mass tourism as an anguish on the part of the privileged rich, natives and otherwise, that contributes only marginally to their well-being.
Italy: few inhabitants, many tourists
To get an idea of the impact of certain numbers on cities, one need only take Venice as an example, which in 2023 saw 5,664,611 arrivals (i.e., individual people who stayed at least one night in the municipality) crashing into a city that has 261,905 inhabitants, of whom, however, only 52,000 live in the historic center, i.e., where the bulk of arrivals pour in. By way of comparison, the ancient capital of the Serenissima is the recipient of a tourist flow comparable to that of Moscow, which, however, is a metropolis of 12.5 million inhabitants and not a small Renaissance city. Another mass tourism capital on the peninsula, Florence (population 382,000), boasts about 5 million annual arrivals, about the same as a major capital like Madrid, which is also plagued by overtourism but has more than three million residents, almost eight times as many as the Tuscan capital.
The same goes for places that appear rural: cases like Hallstatt mentioned in the first part of this article are borderline, but in Italy we are not too far off. Staying in the Veneto region, recall how Cortina d'Ampezzo (population 5,800), in the heart of the Dolomites and awaiting the 2026 Winter Olympics, received 319,822 arrivals in 2023. Lazise, population 7,000 on the Verona side of Lake Garda, received something like 771,000 arrivals. Even without further intoxicating the reader with figures it will become clear that these are unsustainable numbers, which not only deteriorate the quality of life of the residents of tourist resorts but also the experience of the tourists themselves, who end up finding themselves swamped in urban and environmental settings degraded not only by overtourism but also by pollution.
How to get out of it (if we want to get out of it)?
So the question that arises is the usual one: what to do? The radical left, with an underground but mighty movement, has for long years, first in the Iberian Peninsula and then gradually in the rest of Europe as well, begun a no-holds-barred crusade against tourism which, unlike immigration, is not framed as an invasion of desperate sans papiers, but of wealthy do-nothings. This is a qualunquistic and short-sighted view but one that finds fertile ground among those, and they are many, who get only inconvenience and disadvantages from mass tourism. European cities are thus filled with murals and signs intimating “Tourist go home.”
Fighting mass tourism: a leftist issue. Or is it?
It is pointless to ask why the tourist should go home while the immigrant, who often causes vastly greater problems than the tourist, should be welcomed but so be it. Also notable is the short-circuit that those on the left who begin to oppose tourism only today, when it has actually become a truly mass phenomenon, and that is democratic. The problem, however, remains on the table. Do you really want to leave the search for solutions to this problem to the radical left, or to the parochial anomie of local governments (of whatever color)? Is a conservative approach to the problem possible? Canada, as we have seen, is beginning to move with closures. In Europe, which is more moderate, we proceed with the sad phenomenon of reservations: one books access to a place, protected by bars, and when a limit number is reached that possibility lapses, and one no longer enters, in a sort of crasis between the Italian topoi of the ZTL and the click day. The solution is violent but unfortunately, at least in the short term, with few alternatives. A genuine conservative, perhaps with an eye to the liberal tradition should, however, express some considerations and suggest improvements; for example: why not give precedence, in these reservation systems to Italian citizens? Let's remember that the Italian taxpayer, or at the limit the European Union taxpayer, already pays top dollar every year for the maintenance of roads (perhaps of ZTLs he cannot enter), museums, tourist attractions and mountain passes: why, then, should he not be able to access something that, for all intents and purposes, he pays for every day, unlike a Chinese, U.S. or Emirati tourist? The measure, among other things, would boost domestic tourism. Why not propose it?
Advertisement. Why in the age of social?
Another chapter concerns advertisements on social networks and media: is there really a need for them? It is really alienating, for example, to see local authorities complaining about overtourism and then, at the same time, filling the web with advertisements inviting people to visit the same places in question. Do places like South Tyrol, Veneto or Tuscany really need to attract even more tourists in the name of limitless growth? Is this really what the population wants, or are we in the presence of a problem that is ultimately convenient to complain about rather than solve?
Tourism as a business card
Indeed, it is worth remembering that tourism is not only a revenue opportunity for merchants and the public treasury, but it is also and, for an identitarian, above all, a calling card of a nation and its civilization. Ensuring quality tourism for the people and an equally high quality experience for visitors, foreign and otherwise, is a positive resume for the institutions and peoples that manage the phenomenon, not without geopolitical repercussions: do we really want to let only the “tourist go home” shouters deal with the problem? [2 - end. Part 1 was published HERE]
Research fellow at the Machiavelli Center. A philosophy scholar, he has been working for years on the topic of the revaluation of nihilism and the great German Romantic philosophy.
Italiano 
English
Scrivi un commento