Historic cities elbow-to-elbow with vacationers. Beaches the place you’ll be able to’t see the sand by way of the multitude of towels, chairs and umbrellas. Tourists arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct.
That could sound like your common summer season journey to any one of many many European locations plagued by overtourism in current years, from Barcelona to Venice, the place fed-up locals have taken to the streets to protest the detrimental affect of too many guests.
But it’s taking place in components of Asia, too. Across the area, a number of famend locations are reaching a tourism glass ceiling that’s impacting the standard of life for residents whereas destroying the long-lasting spots that draw folks in the primary place.
“Bali is definitely one,” says Gary Bowerman, a travel and shopper developments analyst based mostly in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, when requested to specify some bother spots.
“I would also say Kyoto in Japan. And maybe Phuket might be another.”
The problem isn’t house — it’s an enormous continent, with rather a lot to see, and lots of locations are in determined want of tourists to assist their economies. The drawback is that too many individuals are going to the identical spots in the identical locations.
“Kyoto was by far the most crowded and our least favorite stop of the trip,” says Shannon Clerk, an American vacationer who just lately visited Japan along with her sister.
To beat the anticipated crowds on the historic metropolis’s well-known Fushimi Inari Shrine, they acquired up at 5 a.m.
“We saw minimal people on the way up, but on the way down large hordes of tourists were arriving.”
The remainder of their Kyoto go to was spent strolling by way of busy crowds of individuals on the sidewalks and thru the markets, she says.
“Every sacred or historical spot was overrun by non-Japanese tourists dressed in kimonos and sandals, taking Instagram photos.”
Bowerman attributes the difficulty to a number of elements, together with pent-up demand after the pandemic, cut price airfares to an ever-increasing variety of Asian locations, a rising and travel-eager center class in quite a few nations (together with the world’s two most populated nations, India and China), and alluring promotional campaigns by numerous vacationer boards.
Meanwhile, extra home tourists are exploring their very own nations.
“It’s almost like the genie is out of the bottle,” says Bowerman of the travel growth. “How do you put it back in?”
The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) studies that travel in Asia has made a spectacular restoration from the pandemic pause. According to its newest mid-year report, Northeast Asia (which incorporates China, Japan and South Korea) is main the way in which with an outstanding 20% tourism development through the first six months of 2025. Even as soon as out-of-the-way locations like Mongolia are reporting will increase in customer numbers.
Looking at Southeast Asia, which is about to enter its conventional excessive season, tourism is rising notably shortly in Vietnam. According to the UN’s World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), worldwide arrivals soared by 21% through the first six months of this yr.
Two of Vietnam’s celebrated UNESCO World Heritage locations have develop into more and more crowded: scenic Ha Long Bay with vacationer cruises and historic Hoi An with pedestrians alongside its slender lanes.
“As soon as places achieve that UNESCO destination, everybody wants to go there,” Bowerman laments. “Vietnam is also very, very popular with domestic tourists as well as inbound tourism. And Vietnam is a country with more than 100 million people. There’s a lot of tourists there. There’s a lot of people going to those destinations.”
Meanwhile, Thailand’s worldwide visitor numbers are down by about 6% over final yr, in line with authorities statistics. But you’d by no means understand it visiting a few of its hottest websites.
The authorities in Phuket just lately announced plans to sort out a few of the main challenges going through the island, together with site visitors jams and water shortages, because it struggles to maintain tempo with development. Other hot-button points on the island embody waste administration and marijuana use – the 2022 decriminalization of hashish noticed a growth of dispensaries and cafes opening throughout the nation, notably in vacationer areas.
Many guests to Phuket take day journeys to the close by islands, together with Phi Phi Islands’ Maya Bay, made well-known by 2000 movie “The Beach,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Decades on, the bay’s pristine waters and crescent-shaped seaside nonetheless draw followers of the movie.
“We did a Phi Phi island boat tour, but we were far from alone,” recollects Gabi Jimenez, an American traveler who visited Thailand earlier this yr.
“There must’ve been over 100 boats doing the same multi-stop tour at the same time. Specifically at Maya Bay, what should be a 10-minute stop ended up being over an hour trying to fight through the crowds just to get to the beach and back.”
Nikki Scott, founder and editor of the Backpacker Network and South East Asia Backpacker journal, cites three important detrimental results that include too many tourists — destruction of the native setting as a consequence of building, detrimental impacts on nature and sources brought on by too many guests, and the eradication of the native tradition to serve tourism calls for.
“Unfortunately, there are many places in Asia that are experiencing the impact of overtourism in a variety of ways,” she says.
“The locations most in danger (in Southeast Asia) are islands and beaches.”
She agrees with Gary Bowerman that the Indonesian island of Bali is without doubt one of the most obtrusive examples.
“From plastic pollution to water shortages and terrible traffic jams, Bali is one of the places that is worst hit by overtourism,” she explains.
“Most recently, Bali experienced its worst floods in decades, which many say was partly due to environmental problems created by overtourism. With the eradication of Bali’s rice fields in favor of concrete to build new hotels and villas, the island is experiencing severe drainage problems, which exacerbated the flooding.”
But environmental points associated to tourism have lengthy been simmering in Southeast Asia, even properly earlier than the post-Covid growth.
Another paradise island that turned a sufferer of its personal reputation was Boracay in the Philippines. Authorities closed the island to tourism for six months in 2018 to reform the tourism scene and provides well-known spots like Puka Beach an opportunity to recuperate from overuse. Authorities closed it once more, for 2 years, through the pandemic.
The Philippine authorities additionally positioned a cap on Boracay’s vacationer arrivals, bolstered environmental safety and outlawed unlicensed lodging. New Wave Divers dive store in Boracay reported earlier this yr that the measures appear to be working: There are fewer crowds and far cleaner water for diving, snorkeling and swimming.
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Thailand has been testing an analogous technique at Maya Bay over the previous couple of years. The nationwide park authority banned tourism for 4 years and now imposes a two-month closure annually (usually August-September) so the marine and shoreline ecosystems can recuperate.
But nonetheless, officers are struggling to maintain a cap on guests, many of whom proceed to defy the clearly posted rules.
Most of Asia’s main cities have been much less impacted by influxes of tourists — Seoul in explicit is benefitting from the continued Ok-pop craze — as a result of they’ve the infrastructure in place to soak up them.
Kyoto, nevertheless, isn’t so lucky. According to Kyoto City officers, a mixed complete of greater than 56 million worldwide and home tourists visited the historic metropolis in 2024.
In addition to the vacationer expertise being lowered, it’s having a detrimental affect on native life. Residents in this metropolis of round 1.5 million persons are particularly aggravated by swarms of tourists clogging slender streets and lanes in town middle and overcrowding public trains and buses, which locals depend on for work and college commutes.
Roughly 90% of the Kyoto residents surveyed by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper complained about overtourism. Besides crowding, one of many greatest grievances was impolite or disrespectful habits by overseas tourists who appear to deal with Kyoto like a theme park quite than an previous, venerable and really religious metropolis.
“Japan’s traditionally conservative national character means there is a sense of disorientation at the loss of balance when one in three people is a foreign tourist,” explains Yusuke Ishiguro, an affiliate professor on the Graduate School of International Media, Communication, and Tourism Studies at Hokkaido University.
“Unfortunately, Japan’s tourism policies and businesses have traditionally focused on increasing visitor numbers. They are therefore currently in the ‘considering’ phase and actually doing nothing.”
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Ishiguro says authorities have launched closed-circuit cameras to watch vacationer habits and resort taxes to scale back financial incentives however provides neither measure has led to a elementary answer to overtourism in Kyoto and elsewhere.
“The only effective measures,” he says, are bodily limitations to regulate vacationer stream and setting capability limits. “However, these are only achievable in rural areas such as Shirakawa-go and Biei Town, where stakeholder relationships are relatively simple. It is impossible in cities like Kyoto because hotel owners and Airbnb hosts want to fill vacancies every day.”
Still, Kyoto is attempting. Last yr town banned tourists from venturing down personal lanes in the Gion space and taking unauthorized photos after the native geisha complained they had been being harassed by photo-seeking foreigners. Violators could face fines of as much as 10,000 yen ($65).
Headlines about overtourism in the area in recent years recommend studies of dangerous vacationer habits are rising as customer numbers develop.
Bali, for instance, has at all times had a fame amongst worldwide vacationers for being extra liberal and open-minded than it’s, says Bowerman.
“It’s actually a very, very spiritual destination. But people go there and behave badly by taking their clothes off for pictures at temples, or riding around without their shirts on motorbikes, not wearing helmets, that kind of thing that goes down very, very badly with locals.”
This wrestle to steadiness tourism-fueled financial development and the native high quality of life is a microcosm of what’s taking place all through Asia.
“We’re in a region where governments, in particular, have singled out or have identified travel and tourism as a pillar of economic growth,” says Bowerman.
“They see tourism as a very, very important platform for attracting investment and for national branding, and that it’s important for the future of the country and also to create opportunities for jobs and revenue.”
Plus, he feels the willpower to confront the difficulty is commonly absent.
“You can put laws or regulations in place, but enforcing them is very, very difficult to do. No country wants to be seen to be locking up tourists. It’s just bad PR.”
As for avoiding these crowds? There are loads of lovely locations in fashionable nations that aren’t overrun with guests and require minimal further effort to go to. And in case you do need to go to a notoriously busy place, contemplate visiting outdoors of peak travel seasons — that features home holidays.
“Even in popular tourist destinations, it’s easy to find under-explored areas just by wandering away from the trodden path,” suggests Scott.
“Rather than following the crowds or the advice of influencers, strike out in your own direction and see what you find. Talking to locals is also a great way of discovering under-the-radar spots. These unplanned stops and journeys are often the highlights of a traveler’s trip.”
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