Finance & economics | Hotting up

What the war on tourism gets wrong

Visitors are a boon, if managed wisely

A demonstrator uses a megaphone as people protest against mass tourism, in Alicante, Spain, July 13th 2024
Photograph: Reuters
|Barcelona

Cooling off is easy in Barcelona. Swim in the sea, sip sangria—or just hang about looking like a holidaymaker. Recently residents have taken part in anti-tourist protests, some firing at guests with water pistols. Other rallies calling for an end to mass tourism have taken place across the Balearic and Canary Islands. And it is not just Spaniards. Locals in Athens have held funerals for their dead neighbourhoods. Authorities in Japan have put up a fence to spoil a popular view of Mount Fuji and prevent tourists gathering. Soon there will be a 5pm curfew for visitors to a historic neighbourhood in Seoul.

From the August 3rd 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Finance & economics

Solar panels installed on the roof of a building at Skardu in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.

Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral

Pakistan and South Africa provide a warning for other countries

People walk at Zaryadye park with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia.

Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?

In a strong economy, price pressure can endure for a long time


illustration of a house cut in half diagonally, the lower corner being a bill.

Why you should repay your mortgage early

For the first time in decades, the arithmetic suggests settling housing loans


How AI will divide the best from the rest

Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides

The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research

Economists are in raptures, but they should be careful

Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending

DOGE has so far disrupted everything in government bar the deficit