As travel agents, my wife and I watch the current trends in travel. We were all impacted by the pandemic in many ways, one of which was travel. We were stuck at home for a long time. When we were able to travel again, many went through a period of “revenge travel” where people went to as many places as they could.
While the revenge travel time period has passed, travel has entered a new stage. Several of the most popular travel destinations around the world are starting to limit or at least considering a limit on the number of visitors they will accept and/or charging additional fees to visit. Below is a quick review of five of those areas as examples of what you may expect when traveling in the future.
- Venice, Italy – Venice one of the most popular and storied locations to visit in the world. In case you didn’t know, the city of Venice is sinking – yes, going under the waves. One of the things city officials have decided cruise ships can no longer use the Giudecca Canal get to the city. The waves from the ships are damaging the wooden poles holding up the city and possible damage to walls, channels, and buildings. Large cruise ships now have to dock at Porto Marghera and then be transported to Venice – after paying a new visitors fee.
- Glacier National Park, Montana – While there is no general limit for visitors entering Glacier National Park, some areas of the park do have some restrictions. “Glacier National Park requires a vehicle reservation for the Going-to-the-Sun Road corridor, the North Fork, Two Medicine, and Many Glacier to reduce congestion, improve the visitor experience, and protect park resources during peak season.” Visit Glacier’s website for more information: https://www.nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm.
- Athens, Greece – When in high school or college, many of us had to read Greek stories or plays. Because of that, some people want to visit the places they read about and studied. One of the most iconic images for travel is the Acropolis in Athens. However, if you are interested in visiting it, you should know that the number of visits has been reduced to 20,000 per day.
- Maya Bay, Thailand – Maya Beach on Phi Phi Leh, was made famous in the 2000 movie The Beach. To reduce the over-tourism, a limit has been set up for 300 travelers to visit the beach at a time and they’re only allowed to stay for 1 hour maximum. Swimming is prohibited to protect the corals.
- Okinawa, Japan – in Okinawa, Aharen Beach, was recently named the 13th best beach in the world by Banana Boat. However, its popularity has brought over-tourism, congestion, littering, and threats to the area’s ecosystem. A tourist cap of no more than 1,200 travelers per has been established to prevent over-tourism.
The experience you had traveling to different destinations in your youth or at least pre-pandemic may not be what you encounter now. Rather than getting surprised on your long-anticipated trip, be sure to check the current conditions for your stops.
For more information on these sites and others, visit https://www.thetravel.com/popular-destinations-limiting-visitors-overtourism/