After the Czech Republic entered into an open battle against apps like Airbnb, another country is expressing its willingness to fight back with overtourism, writes Euronews, quoted by FOCUS.
Bruges is a city declared by UNESCO as a world heritage site. Guests have always enjoyed beautiful cobbled streets, medieval buildings and a variety of historical landmarks.
This city also turned out to be overpopulated with tourists this year. Bruges has welcomed a record 8.3 million people, which is too much for a city that has a permanent population of 120 thousand people - the data is from 2023.
Mayor Dirk de Fau also receives complaints from locals and admits that there are too many people and if no measures are taken, the situation will get out of control.
A partial solution in this case is the imposed ban on the construction of new hotels in the historic center of the city. The municipality has stopped issuing permits for renting apartments and houses throughout the city.
Bruges' plans are slightly lighter than Barcelona's, where it has already been decided that there will be no short-term rentals allowed until 2029. Bruges hopes that with these quick steps it will find a solution to the problem.
The removal of Airbnb comes with some criticism and doubts that the problems will be solved. Bart-Jean Leites is the owner and founder of the local app Otamiser, which offers the same services as Airbnb. He notes that while it helps with overtourism, it's not directly related to the phenomenon - the problems come from homeowners looking for a quick buck.
Dirk de Fau refuses to introduce a daily visitor fee, as Venice did. The city has a history of a variety of measures implemented and made a number of changes before the global pandemic began. One such example is the imposed limit on the number of cruise ships that call at the port. The local authorities have removed the advertisements of the historical parts of Bruges from the airports to cool the passions of the tourists.
The authorities admit that they have economic benefits, but the guests of the city threaten all the sites and overload the entire infrastructure. As is usually the case, the tourists manage to drive the locals away from the city's sights, but the rest of the neighborhoods are unaffected by the crowds. With the tourist flow reduced, the locals hope that they will be able to take the city back.
Source: www.focus-news.net