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Many European cities take step to curb or impede the growth of tourism. Who doesn't know the sad record of Venice in Italy? More than 60,000 people visit Venice each day, which is more than the population -56,000- who lives in the historic city. Big European cities are also suffering from excessive tourism with overcrowding at the top sites and attractions.The ranking -overnight visitors in millions during the year 2016- speaks for itself: 1.London (19,88m) 2.Paris (18.03m) 3.Barcelona (8.2m) 4.Amsterdam (8m) 5.Rome (7.6m).Obviously, for most of these cities, tourism is a significant component of their budgets.But at the same time, populations are tired of noisy and bothering activities and have no choice but to leave the city centre.Barcelona is the clearest case in this respect. The city council of the Catalan capital under the pressure exerted by its own population decided to ban new hotels in the city centre and to regulate the holiday flats rented through platforms such as Airbnb.It will be interesting to follow this matter.But it will be difficult to achieve a good balance between the rapid development of tourism and the respect for the tranquillity of the local populations.

Mo Tailland / 10th February 2017

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