Travel Megatrends 2017: Overtourism Goes Mainstream
Skift Take
A global surge in tourism, driven by the growth of low-cost carriers and middle class families across the world who are beginning to vacation abroad, has had deep ramifications for the world’s most popular destinations. Some have tried to manage tourism by limiting the ability of tourists to stay in cities or pushing less popular areas as bona fide tourist destinations. The jury is still out on whether these destinations will be able to effectively manage tourism, or will continue to struggle in the face of mounting backlash from their citizens.
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Last week we released our annual travel industry trends forecast, Skift Megatrends 2017. You can read about each of the trends on Skift, or download a copy of our magazine here.
Download Your Copy of Skift Megatrends 2017
As it turns out, you can have too much of a good thing.
This year's lesson involves Iceland, where we sent a reporter this summer to watch the crowds of tourists emerge and fill Iceland's most popular sites to the bursting point. This nation of 330,000 welcomed 1.7 million people in 2016, and the fact that it's near impossible for a local to rent an apartment in Reykjavik is not a detail captured on the tourist map.
