Many popular destinations are grappling with problems related to overtourism. That’s when a place gets more tourists at the same time than it can reasonably handle, resulting in crowds, long lines, disruptions of daily life for locals, and sometimes environmental degradation.
But there are things travelers can do to reduce their impact on heavily touristed sites — especially if they’re planning ahead now for summer trips. Here are some basic strategies along with some targeted advice from Johannes Reck, CEO of GetYourGuide.com , a website that sells tickets to 30,000 attractions and activities in 2,000 destinations.
TIMED TICKETS AND GOOGLE’S POPULAR TIMES
Photo: AFP
The problem isn’t just too many people. It’s too many people in the same place at the same time.
“Overtourism is a massive problem but it’s pretty misunderstood,” Reck said. “It doesn’t just mean too many people going to a certain place. It means there are too many people there at very discreet time points. It’s like the Uber surge.”
But if you tell an attraction in advance when you’re coming, they’ll let you skip the line. That’s the whole point of timed ticketing, which distributes crowds evenly throughout the day. If you buy tickets ahead, your visit will be less stressful and you’ll reduce your tourist footprint.
Reck notes that you can also get a sense of when restaurants, attractions and other sites are least busy using a feature on Google.com and Google Maps called “popular times.”
The popular times feature generates a little bar graph showing busiest and least busy times as part of the information provided in response to a search.
Google’s popular times data for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, for example, shows midday weekdays are “a little busy,” but weekends 11am to 4pm are “as busy as it gets.” The Van Gogh Museum, like a number of attractions, also offers advice on its Web site about the most and least crowded times to visit.
THE OFFSEASON
The surest way to avoid crowds and save money is to plan your trips for the offseason.
If you don’t mind sightseeing in chilly weather, head to Europe or New York in January, when prices are low and museums are emptier. Go to the beach in September when the water’s still warm but the crowds are gone. Avoid popular destinations during holidays and summer vacations when you’ll be competing with kids out of school and everyone else for expensive hotel rooms and a glimpse of the Mona Lisa.
“Key summer months and Christmas break are going to be very crowded,” Reck said. He said there’s an 80/20 rule of thumb in tourism: in which roughly 20 percent of the calendar accounts for 80 percent of the visitors.
LIVE LIKE A LOCAL
Throw away the bucket list of wonders of the world and explore off-the-beaten path destinations instead.
Seek out neighborhoods away from touristy downtowns. Book offbeat walking tours or a cooking class in someone’s home. Patronize a corner bar or mom-and-pop shop instead of the restaurant listed in every guidebook or on TripAdvisor.GetYourGuide.com has also found that customer satisfaction is higher with these types of experiences, and that travelers tend to go back to those places again on their next trips.
“The keywords,” said Reck, “are experiential tourism and immersive tourism.” Travel, he added, is not just about “the Van Gogh Museum or the One World Observatory.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
RSS