Florence to introduce big changes to fight overtourism

This popular European city has had enough of huge numbers of tourists affecting their way of life.

Florence is the latest European hotspot to introduce big changes to fight overtourism.

As part of a 10-point plan for sustainable tourism in the historic Italian city, key boxes outside buildings (where owners commonly leave keys for guests to check in to short-term rentals) will be banned in the UNESCO area, as well as tour guides using loudspeakers.

The city council approved the plan this week to manage “the physical, social and environmental impact of tourism.”

Florence had almost 9 million tourists stay last year and an estimated 1.5 million people just visit for the day.

“The message we want to give is that we care about our city, and we care that Florence can be attractive but above all, liveable for residents,” Mayor Sara Funaro said.

Those that were said to “suffer the most” were residents in a 5 square kilometre radius, where 95 per cent of Florence’s tourism is.

Florence is taking action to create more sustainable tourism. Picture: NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar

Tourists have been going wild.

Holiday hotspots across the globe are desperately trying to find new ways to cope with a massive boom in tourism post-Covid.

More and more popular destinations are introducing tourist taxes to develop better infrastructure. In more extreme cases, there are caps on the number of tourists allowed to visit because the huge crowds are doing more harm than good to communities.

As of next week, no more than 20,000 people a day can visit the famous Italian archaeological site Pompeii.

For the first time this year, Venice introduced an $8 entry fee for day trippers during the peak season. Tourist groups have also been capped at 25 people.

It is widely acknowledged there is a major problem with tourism in Venice, however, how to deal with it is a contentious matter.

Last year, Italy had the most Australian visitors since records began with 311,760 Aussies visiting the country – 19 per cent more than pre-pandemic in 2019, the Italian National Tourist Board reported.

Tensions between locals and tourists in popular cities are high, and viral videos of foreigners taking a dip in front of the San Michele Cemetery in Venice and climbing a statue to perform lewd poses in Florence aren’t helping the situation.

Visitors dining in the Spanish city of Barcelona were even squirted with water pistols in July.

Elsewhere in Europe, Manchester became the first city in the UK to impose a tourist tax for overnight visitors in April.

Then three popular British seaside towns – Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole – followed with a tourist tax in July.

Speaking to news.com.au at the time, Yvette Thompson, Australian general manager of sales and marketing at Melbourne-born Intrepid Travel, warned that Aussies planning trips overseas should prepare for more destinations to do the same.

“These places are now really looking at the number of tourists visiting a place and ensuring it’s sustainable for that destination,” Ms Thompson said.

“In some instances it’s a tax and that will be spent on the infrastructure. In other instances it’s actually curbing the number or putting a limit on the number of travellers that can visit in a day.”

Amsterdam announced it was banning new hotels and promised to cut the number of river cruise ships, and Greece introduced a cap on visitor numbers to the famed Acropolis in Athens.

Meanwhile, Oslo in Norway has cleverly used the issue of crowding in other European cities to its advantage.

Its latest tourism ad stars an expressionless 31-year-old resident named Halfdan, who claims the Norway capital feels more like a village than a city.

“If you don’t have to stand in line for a couple of hours is it even worth seeing?” he says while visiting a museum.

Turning to dining, Halfdan complains: “Sometimes I just walk right in off the street and get a table, and I’m not even famous. I mean what does that tell you?”

Switzerland, which has 9 million inhabitants, will have a national vote on capping its population at 10 million people by 2050 by limiting immigration.

About 30 per cent of residents in Switzerland (more than one in four) are foreign-born.