In October, Prague city councillors confirmed that they had banned night-time pub crawls organised by travel agencies because the city wanted to target “more cultured” tourists. It was a widely-expected move to bar guided tours between 10pm and 6am, with deputy mayor Jri Pospisil stating that Prague city hall was “seeking a more cultured, wealthier tourist...not one who comes for a short time only to get drunk”.
Prague is not the first European capital to start trying to influence the type of tourist visiting in a strategy that is increasingly prioritising a perceived quality over quantity approach that is also aiming to balance the economic benefits of tourism with city livability.
Amsterdam last year launched a campaign of ‘stay away’ adverts aimed at young British men, which was triggered by search terms such as ‘stag party Amsterdam’, ‘cheap hotel Amsterdam’ and ‘pub crawl Amsterdam’ and also follows a city crackdown on its notorious Red Light District.
Adding to its realignment, Amsterdam also recently implemented a one in, one out system for hotels, which means that a new hotel development will only be permitted to open when another closes, and any new property will not be allowed to offer a higher number of beds than their predecessor. The Amsterdam office of global law form DLA Piper said that while the content of the legal framework is still not fully clear, in its view the policy could have serious ramifications for the real estate sector.
“The indirect effects of these obligations could impact the broader market, influencing investment decisions, operational strategies, and market stability. In any event, this issue should form part of conducting due diligence when acquiring or developing, or extending a hotel in Amsterdam,” the company said. “We also expect that investors and lenders will be more reluctant to invest in assets or developments with an incorrect zoning or ground lease. But they will have more appetite to invest in new developments which meet all these criteria, which could affect the valuation of hotel properties and new projects in Amsterdam.”
However, despite concerns CBRE said that the hotel investment market in The Netherlands is in the process of a rapid recovery and, based on strong operational performance, added “it is clear that purchasing parties are once again convinced of the hotel product and are therefore willing to pay the price that selling parties have been charging for their hotel investments for some time.”
European cities choose own strategies
Moves to put off large groups are likely to impact other European cities – a reality likely to be viewed differently by the various host cities. For example, Dublin’s relatively under-developed hotel market is likely to continue pushing for the Irish capital to remain at the centre of weekend travel.
“Post-pandemic, we saw a big drop-off in people heading to Eastern Europe in favour of Spanish and Irish destinations and that will almost certainly increase in 2025 following Prague’s decision,” according to Jon Stainer, Creative Director at stag specialist StagWeb and GoHen. “Initially, the war in Ukraine was causing a lot of uncertainty in the region and saw people looking elsewhere but we were expecting travel to return to the region in 2025. However, introducing a pub crawl ban is a statement for stags and hens to think twice about heading to Prague.”
The profile of cities attracting pre-wedding groups has changed, with Benidorm topping the 2024 European list for stag and hen parties, followed by Albufeira, Dublin, Lisbon, Barcelona, Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam, Krakow and Budapest.
Iberian Tourism Concerns
Yet the Iberian Peninsula is also at the heart of a growing backlash against perceived lower quality visitors and overtourism, which this summer saw growing momentum behind anti-tourism demonstrations from Spain’s Canary Islands and the Balearics through to hotspots such as Paris, Athens, Barcelona, Andalucia and Venice. Common among locals’ complaints was not that tourism was bad per se, but that balance had been lost, overwhelming the host cities in the pursuit of travellers’ money.
As a result, tourist taxes of around €7 have been introduced in a number of European cities, including Paris and Rome, to stay overnight, while after trialling a €5 entry fee for day-trippers, Venice now looks likely to double its tourist tax next year. Venice also joined several cities in blocking the short-term let boom, which has led to locals being priced out of living in cities, while Barcelona has promised to completely ban short-term lets from 2028.
However, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts President EMEA Dimitris Manikis stressed at the recent Resort & Residential Conference in Athens that he believed the issue was a wider one over the lack of housing options in many of the cities, rather than a travel-related challenge.
“At the moment there are a lot concerns about overtourism but it’s not about overtourism, it’s a living crisis. Our record numbers [in Greece] were in 2019 but no-one was talking about overtourism. You also need infrastructure developed sustainably. We all have to work together, we can’t just blame the government,” he said.
Cities Address Issues
Some locations are taking a different approach, trying to address the issue before it becomes a problem for the citizens. For example, Copenhagen’s tourism authority has been working long term to develop a strategy to encourage better tourism. The Danish capital has a two-pronged approach: firstly, trying to spread tourists geographically through the city beyond well-known hot spots, and secondly encouraging travel throughout the year, not just in the summer season.
For the moment, although there is clearly increasing concern around resident protests about tourist numbers, the main hot spots appear to remain highly attractive to hotel groups and investors, with Mediterranean resorts and major European cities – that attract both business and leisure visitors – continuing to offer attractive prospects.
“We’ve not seen any impact of the protests impacting hotel performance to date, although they have not been major thus far,” STR Senior Director Thomas Emanuel said. “We often get asked about overtourism but we are not seeing any impact in our data thus far. Of course, if demonstrations become more high profile, larger, or became violent, I think it is fair to assume that those destinations would be more unattractive and could therefore benefit competing markets.”