“Horde”, “flocks”, “swarm of locusts”… The dams can also give in when it comes to describing a tourist activity that has suddenly become excessive. It is no longer possible to talk about the tourist economy without referring to overtourism.
The recent emergence of the concept of overtourism is nothing more than a contemporary form of tourismophobia, which consists in highlighting the few places of friction generated by poorly managed flows, thus de facto minimising the carbon footprint of those travelling across the world. The sleight of hand consisted in focusing attention on the masses.
We were going to point out the family that goes to the sea for two weeks a year, to congratulate the adventurers who return from their eco-lodge in Costa Rica. We were going to denounce those who have no other choice on their holidays because their business closes in August, to applaud those who had the intelligence not to crowd the seaside resorts on the Languedoc coast, leaving for Bali in winter.
The bad tourist, the excessive tourist, thus becomes that proletarian who clogs the roads every summer Saturday, who, from the first ray of spring sunshine, decides to show his children Mont-Saint-Michel. As a form of class contempt, we do not do worse.
So yes, there are indeed phenomena of overpopulation in certain cities and places with a lot of tourists, which are above all problems of oversupply that cities are beginning to regulate. The success of the Airbnb platform has contributed significantly to unbalancing the tourist market in cities, while helping to boost attendance in rural areas.
Political irresponsibility
And what about the offer of low-cost airlines, whose growth is continuous and even subsidized? Palma de Mallorca has 100,000 flights a year according to the air claims service provider Flightright, an average of 400 flights a day in the summer period. Can we really talk about overtourism or should we talk about a total political irresponsibility that has led to too many imbalances between the visitor and the visited, by not imposing any limits on air traffic?
From there, establishing the link between overtourism and mass tourism was only an easy step to take, on the pretext that tourists spend their holidays in the same places and at the same time. In August, Argelès-sur-Mer (Pyrénées-Orientales) welcomes nearly 100,000 people a week, but this is the capacity of the resort: there is no excess, there is no reason to point out this beach tourism as a form of tourism that we no longer want, without offering the slightest credible alternative solution.
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