Overtourism Role Play

Secretary General UNWTO

There is no overtourism.

The world is a big place and most areas see few or no tourists. The challenge is to bring more tourists to different places at different times of the year.

Tourism needs to grow as it brings jobs and income to Less Developed Countries and helps to support peace and understanding between different people, cultures and religions.

So it is all a question of better management of tourism resources.

Chief Researcher WTTC World Travel and Tourism Council

There is no overtourism, only temporary market disturbance.

Tourism is No. 1 industry in the world, needs to be supported and to grow, providing jobs, income taxes and profit . The market will regulate supply and demand by setting prices high enough for scarce resources. The problem is that the governments have regulations which distort the market, so market forces cannot be fully play their roles. Prices will regulate better than government policies.

So it is all a question of deregulation and stop of interference by government.

CEO WWF  World Wildlife Fund

Overtourism has to stop, it is killing flora and fauna.

Tourism is a distructive force, it leads to overuse of nature by unnessary pollution from aircraft and leisure transports, to destruction of flora and fauna, to bringing in invasive species which kill off local plants and animals. Tourism in cities is also bad for those species which have adapted to city environments and are suffering from increased air pollution.

Tourism leads to monocultures in agriculture to guarantee supply for tourist centres, reducing the biodiversity in the region. Animals are killed to be used as souvenirs, poaching and illegal hunting are endangering many species including mammals like tigers and elephants. Cruise ships are destroying coastal ecosystems.

So tourism should be highly taxed, especially long distance tourism via high taxes on kerosin, CO2 taxes, hotel taxes for luxury hotels, ending cruise tourism, forbidding access to nature reserves etc.

Mayor of Venice

Overtourism is destroying my city. Keeping out poor visitors.

Venice has too many day visitors spending not enough money but using up the space and wearing out the streets and monuments. Support visitor structure with cruise ship passengers (bringing lot of money from the berthing fees) but with quay outside historic Venice, and with overnight guests in hotels in Venice. All other asked for entry fee („cleaning charge“) doubling every year (2019 10 Euro, 2020 20 Euro, etc.).

So keep low-spending guests out of Venice.

Spokesperson of the NGO Tourism is a Human Right

Overtourism is a myth, developed by the tourism industry to keep poor people out of tourism.

The rich want to keep the best places for themselves, denying people with less money access with the fake argument of overtourism. They just want to keep people separate from each other, so they can be told to fight with each other instead of fighting together against the rich and powerful.

Tourism needs to be established as a human right and every person has to have the right to have at least one return flight of free choice for free, paid by taxing the ultrarich persons.

So there is no overtourism, there is the right for all to travel. 

Minister of Tourism, Jamaica

There is no overtourism, there is undertourism.

Overtourism is an invention by the developed countries. Less developed countries need more tourists to earn money for development. Curbing the number of travellers or making it more expensive to travel is a political tool to keep poor countries poor. If some places in Europe want less tourists, they can put a special tax on hotel rooms or similar, but for the rest of the world it would be bad if air transport becomes more expensive through taxes or airport fees or a CO2 tax.

Most countries want more tourists, not less and will be able to handle them. Let them come!

Local citizens association spokesperson, Dubrovnik

We will start to kill tourists, if more are coming.

Our city has been taken over by tourists. They do not even come here to understand our history or culture, but to look at places where they filmed some stupid TV series. Prices are up, we cannot sleep, the tourist are making everything dirty. The money they spent is not ending up in our pocket but in the hands of the rich restaurant or hotel owners and in the Swiss bank accounts of corrupt politicians.

We want a limit of the number of tourists to a few hundred per day and everybody has to pay entrance fee which is collected and distributed by our local citizens association.

If this does not become policy, we will start to attack the tourists to warn them not to come anymore. We are the people!