How coronavirus is reshaping Europe's tourism
hotspots
The collapse of visitor numbers amid the pandemic
offers cities a new opportunity to rethink their business model
by Stephen
Burgen in Barcelona and Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Mon 20 Jul
2020 05.00 BST
Barely a
year ago the graffiti on the walls of Barcelona read Tourists Go Home. Now that
they have gone, the city – along with others that are heavily dependent on the
tourist trade – fears an economic meltdown and is hastily drawing up plans to
lure visitors back while placating tourist-weary residents.
Trade
associations predict at least 15% of businesses and one in four restaurants in
Barcelona city centre will close permanently as a result of coronavirus and the
outlook is similarly grim in other urban tourist destinations, with tens of
thousands of jobs at risk.
But
Covid-19 has got the mayors of some of Europe’s most heavily visited cities,
academics and urban scholars all singing the same tune: the collapse of the
travel industry caused by the virus offers a unique opportunity for cities
plagued by mass tourism to rethink their business model.
Barbora
Hrubá, of the Prague tourist agency, said the Czech capital wants a “different
type of visitor”. Xavier Marcé, the Barcelona councillor responsible for
tourism, said: “I don’t want more tourists, I want more visitors.” “We’re a
city in crisis and are trying to do something different,” said Paola Mar, his
counterpart in Venice.
“We want to
have a sustainable visitor economy that doesn’t harm the liveability of our
city,” said Heleen Jansen, corporate communications coordinator at
amsterdam&partners, a non-profit organisation that advises Amsterdam on how
to market itself.
However,
good intentions are one thing, concrete proposals another. According to Janet
Sanz, Barcelona’s deputy mayor, cities that have grown dependent on tourism are
paying the price for having a monocultural economy and now the challenge is to
diversify.
Easier said
than done with the scale of tourism in these cities. Barcelona, which has a
population of 1.6 million, received 30 million visitors in 2019; Venice,
270,000 residents, 25 million visitors; Amsterdam, population 873,000, welcomed
19 million tourists.
In Venice,
mass tourism has in recent years been seen as a threat to the city’s survival,
but now the debate has switched to how it will pull through with fewer
visitors.
While
tourists have been trickling back to the city since the coronavirus lockdown
was eased, the majority travelling by car from Austria, Germany, France and
Belgium, many hotels remain closed and those that are open are only about 30%
full.
“This is a
time for reflection,” said Mar. While the city is yet to devise any bold
measures to manage tourism better in the future, some smaller changes are
afoot.
“Owners of
property that was rented to tourists have signed an agreement with the council
and Venice’s universities to now rent to students,” said Mar. “It’s a good
sign.”
Other
cities, including Amsterdam, Barcelona and Lisbon, have taken steps to curb the
Airbnb phenomenon that has pushed up rents and driven residents out.
Jaime
Palomera, spokesman for Barcelona’s Tenants’ Union, wants the thousands of
tourist apartment licences that were granted in perpetuity by the Catalan
government in 2011 to be revoked. He also says the government should legislate
against letting single rooms to tourists, a loophole that allows landlords to
get around the law banning renting out entire apartments.
As in
Barcelona, much of Venetians’ antipathy towards tourists has focused on the
giant cruise ships. But neither city has jurisdiction over the port and any
form of control will have to come from central government.
“We no
longer live in fear of the monsters crashing,” said Matteo Secchi, who leads
the activist group, Venessia. “But I feel for the staff at the cruise ship
terminal who are now at home. We are against big ships and have always said we
need a solution, but the workers must be protected.”
With tens
of thousands of jobs at stake, the headache for cities is how to rethink
tourism without causing mass unemployment.
“There are
people who think that the city is magnificent the way it is, without tourists,”
Marcé said. “But they may change their view when the state stops paying 80% of
their salary in September and unemployment goes up to 18%.”
Marcé
believes it is less a question of numbers than of distribution. He wants to
encourage tourists to visit other parts of the city and not just the
traditional sites. This is a view shared by Amsterdam in its six-point
post-Covid-19 plan, although it concedes that it is difficult to discourage
visitors from congregating at iconic sites.
“Thirty
million visitors managed the way they were up until the beginning of this year
is not sustainable,” Marcé said. “The same number with different interests
dispersed to different areas may not be such a big problem.”
Octavi
Bono, the director general of tourism for the Catalan government, agrees. “We
don’t want more or less tourism, we want better tourism with a better
distribution of tourists by season and by location. We are continuing with an
agreed marketing plan.”
Agreed by
whom? asks Pere Mariné, spokesman for Barcelona’s federation of residents’
associations. “He says that because they’re thinking about businessmen, not
citizens.”
“As for
Marcé’s idea of decentralisation, I’m not opposed to it, but that entails
promoting the city in a different way, and the plans they’ve approved recently
point to more of the same, mass tourism.”
Marcé says
the problem is that the Catalan coast is crowded with tourists who want to
spend a day in Barcelona, a problem not shared by Paris, Berlin or Amsterdam.
Limiting the number of beds in the city has no impact on day-trippers, he
points out.
In
Amsterdam, Geerte Udo, chief executive of amsterdam&partners, says they are
working on a “campaign about the rediscovery of the cultural offer, the old
centre of the city and other different neighbourhoods, the local entrepreneurs
and the public space. In this way, the campaign contributes to the renewed bond
between residents and their city, environment and each other. It builds on our
aim to seduce Amsterdamers to rediscover their city.”
At a time
when many residents are revelling in the tourist-free streets, squares and
beaches, it seems odd that both Amsterdam and Barcelona are urging them to
“rediscover” the city. It gives the impression that the citizens abandoned the
city when in fact they feel they have been expelled from it.
In the
meantime, no one expects travel to recover significantly this year, so for now
it is a question of wait and see.
“We think
the low-cost market is going to change, both because of effects on airlines and
attitudes to mobility,” Marcé said, adding that low-cost accounts for only 4
million visitors to the city.
Mar also
believes there will be a natural change in tourism as a result of the pandemic.
“Tourism
will be completely different,” she said. “Not everyone will travel like they
used to. And those who do travel may want to do so in a calmer way, maybe they
will see less but enjoy the experience more.”
.jpg)
.jpg)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário