Tourism is booming — and overwhelming locals around the world. Some 1.4 billion people traveled internationally in 2024. That’s 1 in 6 humans! Riding camels in Morocco, learning to tango in Buenos Aires and exploring ancient stone temples in Cambodia, they expanded our collective horizons and poured cash into regional economies. But some aren’t so thrilled when visitors crowd their streets, monopolize landmarks and raise their cost of living, especially in the 10 percent of destinations that draw 80 percent of all tourists. From Kyoto and Venice to Arches National Park, governments are trying different methods to manage visitor traffic and assuage their constituents’ frustration. Do the benefits of mass tourism still outweigh its impacts?
Home, sick
Mass tourism is often destructive, fundamentally altering venerated destinations and pushing locals out of their homes. In Barcelona, where protesters sprayed a few of the city’s 15.5 million annual visitors with water guns last year, housing costs have spiked 68 percent in the last decade, fueled in part by the rise of short-term rentals for out-of-towners using popular systems like Airbnb. This situation has echoes across Europe and the globe. But communities shouldn’t be gentrified for the sake of temporary visitors at the expense of their own residents.
Crowding can destroy the unique historic features or natural beauty that attracted tourists in the first place. In the United States, national parks are being “loved to death” with traffic. The lines and permits required to get into favorites like Zion make it feel something more like going to Disneyland. And it only takes a few miscreants to cause long-term damage, like the swarm that went off-trail at Joshua Tree in 2019, trampling the biome and setting the park back centuries. On a broader scale, tourism will account for 5.3 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in the next five years.
When cities and parks are overrun, it doesn’t just disturb the locals — it also undermines the visitor experience, making them less desirable. It’s not ideal to see the “Mona Lisa” through opera glasses from behind a sweaty mob tromping through the Louvre in June. High prices, noise, litter and damage to points of interest detract from the character of any destination. “Social media has concentrated tourism in hotspots and exacerbated the problem,” Justin Francis, CEO of a sustainable tourism operator, told BBC last year, “and tourist numbers globally are increasing while destinations have a finite capacity.”
Sadly, efforts to limit tourism without completely deterring visitors have largely flopped. Tourist taxes have become popular on virtually every continent, in countries like Ecuador, Croatia and Indonesia. Even stateside in Honolulu, Hawaii, hotel guests pay at least $50 a night on average. Still, Honolulu is so overwhelmed the city has had to shut down cultural landmarks to tap the brakes. So far, no method has been found to slow the tide.
Worth the trip
Responsible tourism is a driver of the global economy; more importantly, travel can make us better humans. In his 1869 book “The Innocents Abroad,” Mark Twain writes: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” Modern science suggests that exposure to new people and environments sparks synaptic connections in the brain that encourage creativity, reduce stress and increase trust in humankind. So it’s no surprise that in 2023, Pew Research Center reported that Americans who travel internationally “feel closer to others around the world.”
The economic benefits are easier to measure. Mass tourism accounts for about a 10th of the planet’s gross domestic product. The travel industry brought in $1.6 trillion last year — roughly equivalent to Spain’s annual GDP — and supported an estimated 357 million jobs, about 1 in 10 worldwide. For resort destinations like Macau in China or the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean, which derive at least a third of their gross domestic product from tourism, the industry is essential.
If we think of tourism as a global marketplace, competition for the attention of travelers often fuels healthy investments in communities. Consider the CopenPay project in Copenhagen, Denmark, which incentivizes guests to make sustainable choices like using public transit and volunteering for park cleanups in exchange for rewards that range from free meals to sports equipment rentals. Further, when people are invested in a place, chances are they will treat it with greater care and compassion. E veryone benefits.
In reality, the problems typically associated with mass tourism are not so much inherent to the industry as a reflection of mismanagement. Governments can adopt creative approaches to stagger visitors without deterring tourism, like the timed-entry reservations required at several national parks during peak season. Officials can similarly promote less frequented areas as alternatives. “For every crowded metropolis,” Tony Wheeler, co-founder of Lonely Planet travel guidebooks, told UNESCO last year, “there are probably a dozen places that would dearly love to be making a baby step up from undertourism.”
This story appears in the June 2025 issue of DeseretMagazine. Learn more about how to subscribe.