Overtourism is one of those phrases that sounds like a social media complaint until you see what it looks like on the ground. Residents are priced out, public transit and basic services strain under the load, historic sites suffer daily wear they can’t easily recover from, and the trip itself starts to feel like crowd management instead of enjoying the place. Cities that depend on tourism still want travelers, but more places are drawing a line around how many and what kind of tourism they can handle, especially the fast, high-volume kind tied to cruise calls and day trips.
That is the context behind measures such as Amsterdam’s push to end large cruise ships by 2035, and it is also why travelers who care about sustainability should think beyond trends and consider capacity, timing, and impact before booking. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines overtourism as the point at which tourism’s impacts begin to harm residents’ quality of life and the quality of the visitor experience, a situation many destinations are seeking to address.
What Overtourism Actually Means (And Why It Matters)
The important takeaway from UNWTO’s description is that overtourism goes beyond raw visitor numbers. It is also about concentration in time and space. A city can host millions of visitors and still function well if tourism spreads across neighborhoods and seasons, if housing remains livable, and if infrastructure keeps up. The problem arises when the same small areas shoulder the pressure every day, and when tourism growth outpaces a place’s social and environmental carrying capacity, a concept UNWTO has used for decades in destination management.
That is why so many current policies focus on the highest-impact patterns: short stays, cruise day calls, and short-term rentals that remove housing from local markets. These pressures often stack on top of each other. A historic center fills with day-trippers, while long-term residents struggle with rent, and municipal budgets stretch to cover cleaning, policing, transit, and preservation. When residents protest, it is often less about disliking visitors and more about rejecting an economic model that shifts costs onto locals while concentrating profits elsewhere.
Why Overtourism Is Intensifying Now
The simplest reason why overtourism is becoming more common is that international travel has fully rebounded and continues to grow. In aviation, recovery has already surpassed the pre-pandemic benchmark. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported that global air travel demand in 2024 rose 10.4% from 2023 and stood 3.8% above 2019 levels, indicating that mass travel is back at full scale. Tourism has become more frictionless with low-cost air routes, algorithm-driven travel trends, cruise itineraries that drop thousands of people into small ports at once, and short-term rental platforms that can scale faster than local regulations can keep up.
In Spain, for example, Reuters noted that short-term rentals and tourism pressure have fueled political action and crackdowns in several destinations, while national statistics show tourism volumes hitting new records. When governments respond, they increasingly target the mechanisms that turbocharge volume, such as holiday rentals and cruise calls, because those are easier levers than telling people to stop traveling altogether.
5 Places Where Tourism Is Hitting a Tipping Point
The five destinations below are places where that pushback is already visible, and where travelers may want to reconsider this year.
Venice, Italy
Venice has become the shorthand example of overtourism in Europe due to its physical constraints, which make the problem visible. You cannot spread out easily in a small lagoon city with narrow pedestrian routes, delicate infrastructure, and a historic core that absorbs considerable day-trip traffic. That is why Venice has adopted a policy aimed directly at day-trippers: an entry-fee system that requires advance registration on specified peak days, with a higher fee for late bookings. Reports outlining the 2026 return and expansion of this system reflect a city trying to manage the most intense peaks.
As a result, Venice is a place to reconsider this year, not because it is off-limits, but because your timing and trip style matter more here than almost anywhere. Short, peak-season day trips are the highest-impact option. A lower-impact approach means visiting in the shoulder season, staying overnight outside the most compressed dates, and building your itinerary around less-pressured areas of the lagoon so your spending supports a broader local economy. The point is to avoid contributing to the exact visitor pattern the city is actively trying to deter.
Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona’s overtourism story is driven by the intersection of housing and visitor volume. The city has dealt with the issue of how tourist demand, especially short-term rentals, can squeeze local housing supply and push rents upward for years. The city’s plan to end permits for short-term tourist apartments by 2028 as part of a wider push to rein in overtourism pressures, and related reporting has tracked how Spain has tightened rules as backlash grows in high-demand markets.
At the same time, Spain’s broader tourism boom helps explain why the pressure feels relentless. The Associated Press reported that Spain set a tourism record in 2025, with Catalonia, home to Barcelona, remaining the top regional destination. Record-setting volumes can be great for national GDP, but in a city already struggling with housing affordability, the marginal impact of “one more weekend trip” is not abstract. If sustainability is part of your travel ethic this year, consider swapping Barcelona for a less crowded Catalan or Spanish city, or at minimum, travel off-peak and prioritize hotels and legally licensed accommodations that do not displace long-term housing.
Santorini, Greece
Few places show the strain of cruise-driven surges as clearly as Santorini, where thousands can arrive within the same few hours. The island’s fame is built on a fragile geography and a small permanent population, yet it can receive millions of visitors a year, including large numbers arriving by ship on the same morning.
Greece has moved toward more direct crowd management in response. The nation has introduced policies tied to cruise scheduling and caps, including Santorini’s plan to limit the number of cruise passengers per day and use berth allocation systems to stagger arrivals.
From a planning standpoint, Santorini is most crowded when cruise ships are in port and during peak summer weeks, which can affect everything from transportation to restaurant wait times and viewpoint access. Travelers who want a smoother trip often do better by visiting in shoulder season or choosing a nearby Cycladic island as a base and adding Santorini on a quieter day.
Kyoto, Japan
In Kyoto, overtourism concentrates around a handful of iconic sights, then spills into nearby residential streets when visitors treat lived-in neighborhoods like photo backdrops. The clearest sign of escalation came when parts of Gion, the historic geisha district, began restricting tourist access to certain private alleyways after repeated incidents of harassment and trespassing. The policy reflects a destination’s effort to protect daily life and cultural workers from the worst effects of “must-photograph” tourism.
Kyoto has also turned to pricing as a management tool. According to the South China Morning Post, Kyoto received approval to implement a higher accommodation tax, including a top tier aimed at luxury stays, with the stated goal of addressing overtourism pressures and funding local needs.
While Kyoto remains extraordinary, in 2026, it is also clearly signaling that it wants fewer careless visits and more respectful ones. Kyoto is at its most crowded during cherry blossom season and peak autumn foliage, when the same few districts absorb the bulk of visitors. If you want more space and shorter waits, plan outside those windows or stay in a nearby base and visit Kyoto on lower-traffic days.
Machu Picchu, Peru
Machu Picchu illustrates how overtourism can threaten not only residents’ lives but also the physical integrity of a world-famous heritage site. Peru’s Ministry of Culture has set daily visitor limits that increase during the high season, and official reporting has outlined a high-season cap of 5,600 visitors per day under updated entry rules for 2026. That cap exists because the site’s trails, terraces, and circulation points cannot absorb unlimited foot traffic without accelerating wear.
The practical issue for travelers is that demand regularly overwhelms supply, which creates a pressure-cooker market for tickets, guides, and logistics in the gateway towns. Peru’s growing concern is about the impacts of mass tourism, including overcrowding, negative visitor experiences, and environmental strain in the surrounding area. Machu Picchu is difficult to visit on short notice because tickets, entry times, and routes are tightly managed. If it’s on your list this year, plan it early, stick to the official circuits, and build a broader Peru itinerary so your trip isn’t concentrated in one overworked gateway.
