Panic as ski resort communities buckle under overtourism

Brits have long flocked to the snowy hills of the French, Swiss and Italian Alps - but a rising tide of local frustration could mean they won’t be welcome for much longer.

Cheaper flights and viral holiday destinations have caused countries and cities all around the globe to buckle under the weight of increased footfall - with tourist taxes and limits on accommodation brought into force at a number of popular travel spots.

While last year’s protests - with incensed campaigners telling non-locals to “go home” - were concentrated in sunnier regions and cities like Majorca and Florence, snowy communities haven’t been exempt from the consequences of ever-increasing tourist hoards.

Anti-tourism graffiti spotted on the slopes of Italian ski resort Alpe di Siusi earlier this month neatly summed up the local sentiment. In red, spray-painted letters, skiers travelling up the mountain on cable cars were met with the message “Too Much. Too Much. Too Much. Too Much”.

The northeastern Italian province of South Tyrol welcomed around 7.7 million visitors, with 33.7 million overnight stays in 2022 - not quite the peak of 15 million that Florence recorded in 2019, 20 times more than its population.

With around 90,000 overnight visitors in Alpe di Siusi alone last year, the smaller region’s footfall pales even further in comparison to competing tourist destinations.

But there is reason to believe that ski resort-concentrated overtourism could be emerging as the next big threat to local infrastructure and communities - with overcrowding posing a particular risk to those navigating the slopes and squeezing into ski lifts.

The Alpe di Siusi’s statement graffiti is less an outlier than a growing trend - with the message “Tourists go home” carved into rock at the nearby Three Peaks of Lavaredo last year.

The tourist boom is being driven in part by holiday destinations going viral online - as when southern Italian ski resort Roccaraso was hit by 260 buses of tourists in January, keen to experience for themselves what they’d seen posted by the TikTok user Rita De Crescenzo.

The onslaught of visitors caused gridlock on the roads around the small mountainous town and clogged up its ski slopes.

Mayor Francesco di Donato described the influx of around 100,00 day-trippers as “a real assault”, warning that “the system cannot handle these numbers”.

No end appears to be in sight, despite authorities across the world introducing regulations including tourist taxes, cruise ship bans and limitations on short-term rentals.

Tourism in Europe rose to new heights in 2024, in spite of impassioned protests that some thought would dissuade visitors - with the number of international tourists on the continent rising by 12% from the previous year, according to the European Travel Commission.