There are frequently news about how Barcelona is "tired of tourists" or how Venice is "cracking down on tourism". A lot of the efforts are driven by politicians and it's common to hear them promising to ban Airbnb and other tourist-oriented services.

But have any cities been actually successful in their effort to reduce tourism? Obviously excluding periods of economic instability or armed conflicts.

  • 2
    Is there any evidence that banning airbnb stems from genuine dislike of tourists, as opposed to hospitality industry's lobbying based on their dislike of losing business to airbnb? – user4012 Jun 24 '17 at 1:30
  • @user4012 the Airbnb thing is just an easy pick for the politicians to rage against. – JonathanReez Jun 24 '17 at 12:47
  • @user4012 While Barcelona's residents doesn't have anything against Airbnb, they do have ill feelings for renting residential houses to tourists. One thing is having crowds of partying people in hotels, and another thing is having them as your next door neighbours. You work all year long while your neighbours change every three days, but they're always on holidays and they live on unusual timetables, with frequent episodes of late-night partying and drinking. They don't care if they got in there through Airbnb or any other means, but they surely are quite pissed off. – Rekesoft Jun 26 '17 at 7:53

I think general travel bans apply under this question, the most famous (arguably) example of which was provided by the good Gaius Julius Caesar for that Queen of Cities, Rome. Admittedly, while his policy was aimed at reducing overall traffic and not just tourism/inflow, I think the general principle applies that he enacted a policy to keep people from entering 'his' domain.

I'm not certain banning AirBNB is to do with tourism in as much as insurance-related legalities and hotel lobbies though.

Overall though, while in modern times say Barcelona, Berlin, and others are in the news with regards to trying to reduce tourist activity, as such moves create more publicity, I think they will only increase the number of tourists. Perhaps the best move would be to invest in advertising for other popular near-by cities?..

| improve this answer | |

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .