The Overtourism Backlash Isn't About Crowds

[0:00] It was the summerof 2024. About 2,800 people marched to Barcelona carrying water pistols. They sprayed them at tourists sitting at outdoor restaurants mid-meal and chanted, tourists go home. The signs read things like, Barcelona is not for sale, or stop taking our home. Most of the coverage afterward focused on the water guns because a water gun makes

[0:25] for a better headline and a better clip than focusing on the actual issue at hand. But nobody sprays a stranger with water because there are too many of them on the sidewalk. That reaction is about something else. And once you look at the research on where that specific kind

[0:42] of hostility actually comes from, the crowds turn out to be almost beside the point. And if you've been following the local news recently, you'll see that The recent protests around the world have some continuation in relation to what's being discussed today. I'm Kiara and this is Put the Guidebook Down.

[1:01] This standard explanation for overtourism backlash is basically a math problem. Too many visitors, not enough infrastructure, streets that were built for thousands of residents, now absorbing millions of tourists every year. The initial approach, and a lot of the current approach for today, is fix the numbers. Cap the cruise ships coming in on a daily basis.

[1:26] Tax the day trippers. Implement a tax for foreigners coming in to visit or add a fee for applying to visas. And the resentment should probably go down since the count of people visiting decreases. Except that explanation doesn't I can't afford to. Those are all very different complaints with other reasons behind why this situation.

[2:14] It's really about the place and who a place still belongs to. There's an explanation when it comes to the psychology about this type of resentment or feelings, and it was built decades before companies like Airbnb and Vrbo existed, and And we're going to try to keep this as a neutral episode, avoiding politics as much as possible.

[2:47] But this is, again, something that we need to acknowledge the roots of history and where things have gone to understand where we are today. Starting with our first framework. Intergroup Threat Theory. Why this was never really about foot traffic to begin with. Psychologists Walter and Cookie Stephan spent years studying why one group

[3:08] of people starts feeling hostile toward another and their Our answer, known as intergroup threat theory, splits that hostility into two separate categories that operate almost independently of each other. The first is realistic threat. A group's actual, tangible resources feel like they're So this could mean anything like jobs, housing, physical safety, access to resources and services.

[3:34] But the second is a symbolic threat. And this is the one that gets left out of most over-tourism conversations. Symbolic threat isn't about resources at all. It's the sense that a group's values, their way of life, their identity, their community, the things that make a place feel like theirs, are being altered or erased by an outside group.

[3:59] Whether or not that outside group means any harm at all, sounds familiar? Here's what makes the theory useful for a place like Barcelona specifically. The Stephans' research found that these two threats don't require any actual malicious intent from the group perceived as threatening. Most tourists aren't visiting or moving somewhere with the intent to take over

[4:19] a neighborhood or to take someone's job away. Most of them are just trying to have a nice week or try something new in their own life or maybe they're curious about that whole digital nomadic lifestyle that they're constantly seeing about online. But intergroup threat theory doesn't measure intent.

[4:37] It measures whether the host group perceives its resources or its identity And by that measure, it doesn't matter that no individual tourists meant any harm. The apartment, at the end of the day, is still not available to rent long-term to the locals. That bakery shop that's been there for 50 years, run by three different generations,

[5:05] has suddenly become a suitcase shop to store luggage and For foreigners who don't want to carry their suitcase while they wait for their flight or method of transportation, people still can't afford to live in the town that they grew up in. Or worse, they look up one day and don't recognize their home anymore. And in Spain,

[5:26] this is back in the news because an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home and it just revived the whole discussion. Of tourism, an evolving country and home place and how it's accompanying this new type of lifestyle, of interest in digital nomadism, the economy. It's a whole topic and the threat is real to the people experiencing it,

[5:56] whether or not it was engineered by anyone in particular. That's why tourists go home and Barcelona is not for sale. Can appear in the same location for the same protest. One is a response to realistic threat priced out of your own housing market. The other is symbolic.

[6:16] A claim that the city's identity is being sold to people who don't actually live there. And catering to foreigners instead of prioritizing the locals. I keep coming back to this whole concept and... A lot of my examples tend to gravitate towards this because I did research on exactly this dynamic during my time in Indonesia.

[6:35] And there's more public conversation about it now more than ever, especially with the latest protests going on around the world, but especially in Bali. Bali has become one of the biggest hotspots anywhere for foreign digital nomads and travel influencers wanting to give that lifestyle a try.

[6:55] And the stereotype about what that's doing to the island exists because the damage is real. Investors from places like Dubai and Singapore have poured money into building entire villa complexes and resorts across areas like Canggu, Uluwatu, and Bingin. I know and I've seen several influencers who went to Bali, fell in love with Bali,

[7:23] and then decided to build out their own villa or even try their own business at running a resort. And most of which is like wow that's a lot going on there and the important thing to call out is that it's marketed to foreigners keep that in mind as we continue our discussion but a lot of that construction

[7:56] Now, moves through a national online permitting system, which lets a developer apply remotely and start building without the kind of neighborly consultation that used to be a part of how land got used in these communities. Or even if we think about it, how a lot of communities And locals don't get a say

[8:12] on what goes up next door anymore. They just watch it happen. And then watch the prices around it follow. Rents in nomad-heavy areas, like the ones I mentioned, have climbed more than 15% in a single year. And the average monthly rental in Bali now runs more than twice the average local monthly wage.

[8:41] Balinese people working in the same tourism industry building, all of this increasingly, can't afford to live anywhere near it and end up commuting in front of them. Now remember that example I said where you didn't remember that these are all catered to foreigners? Well, here's one of the larger differences.

[9:06] That is starting to make this whole problem more conversed about online. The tension came to a peak this past summer when two Dutch nationals running a social meetup called the Entourage Run Club in Canggu were caught. The event was meant for foreigners only. For foreigners to meet each other who are living...

[9:37] In Canggu or other parts of Bali so that they can build their community. They turned away a local for a foreigners only event looking for them to create their own community. We just excluded all of the locals and the fact that these people are living within the locals culture and community.

[9:57] Now, Indonesia's immigration department didn't treat it as a minor PR problem because people were pissed. Once this became public, foreigners who were either in Indonesia or outside were looking on this situation and being And then the locals were like, this is what we've been trying to say. This is what's going on.

[10:20] Let's finally use this as a point to start the discussion and actually be heard. And the power of social media really helped us. Then, the Indonesian government finally spoke up and took initiative. They banned both organizers from the country, and the Directorate General of Immigration described what happened in blunt terms.

[10:41] There should not be a state within a state. That's not a symbolic threat in the abstract sense that the Stephans were writing about decades ago. That's the exact mechanism playing out in public with an actual government response attached. And this is critical because one of the true foundational themes or principles of Indonesia is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika,

[11:03] which officially translates to unity in diversity. And this whole situation went against that. So now that we've talked about the different situations and frameworks around this part of of why this is occurring and what's happening, understanding a little bit from what was in the historical side of it to where we are now.

[11:22] Let's move into the 2026 policy wave, symbolic threat showing up as law. If intergroup threat theory is right, you'd expect the backlash to keep escalating even in places that are actively trying to fix the practical, resource side of the problem. And that's exactly what's happening right now, in real time, across several cities running several different experiments.

[11:44] Barcelona is furthest along. Spain's constitutional court upheld the city's plan to stop renewing short-term rental licenses entirely. Phasing out roughly 10,000 of them by 2028. And this year, the city also raised its municipal tourist tax to the maximum allowed, more than doubling it from previous years. Venice, for its part,

[12:07] expanded its daytripper entry fee for 2026 to 60 days instead of last year's 54, charging visitors between 5 and 10 euros just to be in the city on its busiest dates. Which makes sense because a lot of people visiting Venice come in just for the day, especially from cruise ships. And in Amsterdam,

[12:29] a coalition of resident groups is suing the city outright for arguing that officials have ignored their own legal cap of 20 million tourists overnight stays for three straight years. While the number kept climbing past 23 million in 2025 alone. So clearly, This is a large issue and one that has been ignored.

[12:52] There's a fourth kind of policy response that doesn't get filed under tax or ban, and it's worth naming because it works differently. Straight up capacity limits. Machu Picchu now caps entry. At 4,500 visitors a day on ordinary dates, up to 5,600 during the highest demand weeks of 2026,

[13:10] with a fixed time slot and a fixed walking route printed right on the ticket. Now, the Acropolis runs a similar system, 20,000 visitors a day, sold in hourly blocks, so the crowd gets spread out instead of priced out. And I experienced this when I went to Greece this past summer because

[13:44] I had done research about where to purchase tickets because they changed their ticketing system to try to make it more efficient and controllable when it came to tourists and it made it better and I can't imagine without it because even with the current system, it is insane.

[14:02] I was told to go early in the morning or at sunset. And when we got up there with our guide, they said, oh, the crowds aren't that bad. I was like, if the crowds aren't that bad now, I don't want to see it when Now, unlike a tourist tax,

[14:15] a hard cap doesn't just make the same experience more expensive for whoever can afford it. It rations the experience itself, regardless of income, which is genuinely different As an answer to the question of who gets in. Every one of these policies is aimed at a realistic threat. Too many rentals, too many day visitors,

[14:45] too much pressure on housing and services, too many people in one location, not enough. The Amsterdam lawsuit isn't framed as please build more housing. It's framed as the city breaking a promise about what kind of place Amsterdam gets to remain. These ones in Spain are saying that There are too many people here, not enough space,

[15:21] not enough resources, so how can we keep letting more people in when the locals can't even be a part of their existing community? A tax, a ban, a cap can address the resource competition, but none of them fully answers the deeper claim underneath it, which is about who gets a say and what a place turns into,

[15:41] which means these policies might The policy response almost always targets the first track because it's the one you can legislate. The second track, the sense of a place being quietly reassigned to people who don't live there, doesn't show up on a spreadsheet. It's a lot harder to measure, and it's the one still driving the water pistol action.

[16:21] So this was a lot. This is a deeper topic, and similar to passport privilege, I think this is one that deserves more focus. I mean, there's a lot of topics that deserve more focus, but this is one that's just beginning to get the attention it deserves. I'll be honest about where I land on this.

[16:38] It's a little uncomfortable in a way of what this show actually is because every one of these cities that we're talking about is being reshaped in part by people making a version of the same choice I make when I choose to book a flight or take a trip and film a video about it afterwards.

[16:56] I'm also a travel creator. I recognize that. I'm someone who likes to go and experience different culture and would love to have the opportunity to go back abroad again and Immersed myself and live in a local community, but having to be cognizant about how I conduct myself over there,

[17:13] how I utilize resources and the privilege that I carry as being a foreigner whose currency is stronger than the locals' currency or property. Has more resources available to them or different level of privilege because foreigners are treated sometimes better than locals in other countries because of that whole assumption that they're bringing their stronger currency

[17:40] and can help the economy. So there's a lot to take into account. So the answer is not, I'm not telling you to stop traveling. We know that's not realistic. That's not what we want to do. And this show doesn't exist to make anyone feel guilty for wanting to see an experience somewhere new.

[17:56] But the There's a real difference between treating overtourism as a logistics problem, fix the numbers and the resentment disappears, and treating it as what the research actually says it is. A question of whose city this still gets to feel like. Being asked by people who are watching the answer change in real time.

[18:15] One short-term rental at a time. And it's to give awareness to all of these people, creators who are creating this great content that says this life can be yours. Not realizing that that statement has other consequences, impacts on the place that they're advertising. Because the place isn't yours. And a tax doesn't answer that question because anyone

[18:42] with enough money can still buy their way past it. A hard cap, the kind Machu Picchu, the Acropolis, several other tourist destinations are already adopting, comes a little closer because it treats presents itself as the limited resources instead of the price. It doesn't arrive. So if you travel somewhere that's visibly straining under the weight

[19:14] of people like you, it's worth sitting with which kind of threat you actually might be part of. Are you competing for an apartment, a table, a resource someone else needs? Or is your presence just changing what a place means to the people who've always called it home?

[19:30] Those call for different responses and most of us have never been asked to tell them apart. So let's begin and start the conversation. I'm Kiara. This is Put the Guidebook Down. Guidebooks tell you where to go. We're here for why you went. I'll see you

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