Some European Cities Don’t Want Tourism Caps Even as Congestion Problems Grow
Photo Credit: Residents in eight European cities, including Barcelona, were surveyed in a new UNWTO report. Pictured are tourists at Parc Guell in Barcelona. Flickr / davidgordillo
Skift Take
Given how attitudes over tourism have been boiling over across Europe's hotspots in recent years, some of the findings in this report, such as residents not wanting tourism numbers to be capped, are very surprising.
More than 1.3 billion people took an international trip in 2017 – a record high – and much of that growth was centered in Europe. Yet 30 percent of residents in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Lisbon, and Munich said "there should be no limitations to the growth of visitor numbers" in their particular city, according to a new a United Nations World Tourism report.
What's more, the survey released Tuesday found that 23.8 percent of respondents believed "that there is still room for visitor numbers to grow further" in their cities, and only 2 percent (the lowest total) saying that "all tourism development should be stopped".
While this seems largely like good news for tourism-related businesses in these cities, those surveyed did express some concerns. Notably, the 13 percent who thought "the growth rat
