Venice is the mass tourism capital of the world, according to a report by Airbnb

Venice is the mass tourism capital of the world: now there is also the “certification” of a report by Airbnb, the well-known online portal that connects travelers with residents who provide homes, rooms and bed and breakfasts. According to the Healthy Travel and Healthy Destinations report, presented today in Paris, in the ranking of world cities most taken by storm by tourists, Venice, with the monstrous figure, touched in 2017, of 73.8 tourists per inhabitant (including also residents of mainland territories, such as Mestre and Marghera) ranks ahead of, and by detachment from, Queenstown in New Zealand (51.3), Majorca (10.2), Amsterdam (7.8), and Barcelona (4.7).

“Venice,” the paper says, “attracts 20 million visitors each year, including tourists on day trips and cruise ship passengers who queue to access the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark’s Square on hot days waiting to leave at sunset, having seen little and spent a lot of time in souvenir stores. Crowding became such a major problem that the mayor considered limiting access to overnight travelers only, with publications listing the city as one not to visit in 2018.” However, the report continues, “with Airbnb, local hosts have been actively engaged in promoting less-traveled routes and local stores for their guests, helping the City in its efforts to attract healthy and sustainable tourism.” For Airbnb, fighting mass tourism can be done by focusing on unobtrusive tourism that benefits the area.

“Mismanaged tourism,” Jonathan Tourtellot, CEO of the National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations, writes in the report, “can cause a lot of damage, including overdevelopment, cultural and environmental degradation, commercial ruin, social stress, and crowding, to the point that a new word has been coined to refer to these problems: overtourism.” To combat this trend, we need to focus on changing the style of tourism: encouraging longer stays, making sure that visitors do not concentrate on a few monuments but spread throughout the city, making sure that they can also visit smaller destinations.

Venice is the mass tourism capital of the world, according to a report by Airbnb

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