What is Overtourism?

Having just survived 4^th of July weekend in Lake Tahoe, the topic of overtourism is on my mind. Overtourism is a term used to describe a negative feeling of too many tourists in a particular destination.  Apart from being annoying to locals and tourist alike, overtourism has variety of other implications for locations where it has become an issue. These include: crowding, strain on infrastructure, traffic, increased housing costs, deterioration of local culture, and damage to the environment to name a few.  

Who wouldn’t want to spend a weekend at a pristine alpine lake, where there’s a myriad of avenues for entertainment and one of the best fireworks displays in the country? Many of our weekend visitors paid nearly $300 a night for the experience. Sadly, many first-time visitors are in for a shock when they experience traffic that takes an hour to drive the 5 miles from one end of town to the other, and beaches that are full by 8am in the morning. I saw a number of posts on social media from visitors saying Tahoe is beautiful but I had no idea it would be so crazy, or never again on 4^th of July weekend. I wont even repeat the words the locals used to express their sentiments.

The short-term effects of an extremely crowed raucous beach day were definitely evident on July 5^th when local volunteers organized by Keep Tahoe Blue picked up 1875 pounds of garbage from just 5 beaches, the most trash picked up in the last three years. One of the long-term effects is the ongoing debate about vacation rentals. Guest visits during prime weekends often exceed local hotel bed capacity, and/or visitors are looking for something different from the hotel experience. Locals who became so frustrated by the lack of affordable housing and annoyed with the impacts of vacation rentals in their neighborhoods won a vote in 2018 to eliminate vacation rentals form most parts of the city of South Lake Tahoe. This is now in court and we will see how it plays out.

I’m not at all making the case that tourism is a detriment to my city. In fact, that would be absurd as the local economy here is extremely tied to tourism. The key is really to driving visits year-round rather than at peak times. I’m also not anti-vacation rental because as an owner/manager of three of them that would be extremely hypocritical plus they also have a positive economic impact to the city and provide a more unique experience that guests are wanitng. I’m just using this as an example of the effects of (seasonal) overtourism in an area.

Have you experienced overtourism? What should or is being done to make that tourism sustainable?