Overtourism may cause issues in certain parts of the world, but surely falsely accusing a destination of suffering from the problem can be just as troubling.
After all, nothing puts travellers off visiting a destination than the thought of having to fight through crowds of tourists all equally as angry as they are with the crowds.
And now, a new report has named Dublin as the latest European capital to be suffering from the problem, even though tourism experts are confused by the accusation.
The findings came in September in the first Overtourism Index created by online travel platform Evaneos and consulting firm Roland Berger which has been built using external data collected from a sample of 70 of the world’s top 100 destinations.
Each of the destinations has been rated on a scale of one to five using four criteria: tourist density per inhabitant, tourist density per square kilometre, seasonality and the host country’s sustainability maturity which takes into account the social impact of tourism, the state of the destination’s infrastructure and transportation development.
The report put Dublin in third place for suffering overtourism issues in the urban tourism sector, with a score of 3.4 compared to an average of 2.6 out of 5, following only Denmark’s Copenhagen with 3.8 and Holland’s Amsterdam on 3.7.
And while Evaneos has pledged to no longer sell city break trips by plane lasting less than five days, experts are questioning whether Dublin even belongs on the list, especially as Tourism Ireland’s own data shows that tourism numbers remain down since Covid.
Covid collapse
Back in 2019 the future for Irish tourism was looking positive as it recorded its fifth consecutive record year with 9.7 million overseas visitors, of which 6.6 million visited Dublin.
Like everywhere else, tourism collapsed in the country during the pandemic and even in 2023, when similar destinations were close to or beating their 2019 figures, Ireland received 6.3 million visitors in total. While Dublin specific figures remain elusive, it is noticeable that fewer travellers visited the entire country in 2023 than did its capital city in 2019.
Nor is 2024 looking much better, as there were 5.2 million overseas tourists to Ireland between January and September – still a long way from a full recovery to pre-Covid levels even once the final quarter’s figures are added.
University of Strathclyde emeritus professor, hospitality and tourism management Richard Butler said “Ireland not coming back {to its pre-Covid levels of tourism} is a complete puzzle to me.
“Normally if there is some catastrophe that can turn visitors off for years but even after a big event like a terrorist attack or a volcano erupting you’d be back to normal after a couple of years.”
Butler added the problem is even more pronounced as while Dublin, and Ireland, struggle in their recovery, similar rival destinations have bounced back.
Ireland v Scotland
He cited the example of Scotland, a destination equally rich in culture and history with a similar target audience consisting of North Americans and other diasporas, and which received 3.99 million overseas visitors in 2023, easily the beating the 3.46 million who arrive in 2019.
Similarly, Butler said the lack of tourists to Ireland can’t be blamed on the often wet weather which Scotland also suffers from while pricing is unlikely to be an issue.
He added: “What drives a lot of tourism is price and if you seem good value for money particularly compared to competitors then you’re going to attract people.
“Dublin is still thought of as reasonably cheap compared to London or Paris.”
He added any housing issues in Dublin are more likely to be caused by a failure by local government to build enough homes rather than tourists taking over entire districts.
Butler said: “I never buy the Airbnb line that tourists want to live like a local, I don’t think tourists are cultural anthropologists.”
Instead, Butler argued that Dublin’s reputation as a party city, while events like St Patrick’s Day draw massive crowds keen to sample the local brew Guinness has caused a similar, but distinct, problem to overtourism.
“There is a great confusion between overtourism which is technically too many travellers and what I call nuisance tourism which really relates to the behaviour and patterns of the visitor,” he said.
“It’s not necessarily that there’s too many of them, it’s just that the locals have got really annoyed with them because of their behaviour.”
Busy days
Michael O’Regan, a lecturer in tourism and events at Glasgow Caledonian University’s Glasgow School for Business and Society, admits while the city can experience busy days thanks to events like the St Patrick’s celebrations, international sporting events and the increased hosting of conferences and conventions, he was surprised by the overtourism accusation.
He added: “That problem of nuisance behaviour was there quite a bit in the 90s after Dublin took off as a destination, and Temple Bar particularly was a hotspot for antisocial behaviour, but that’s now gone.”
He added accommodation issues are unlikely with the tourist board becoming increasingly effective in persuading tourists to stay across the city while he recommended it should continue to target the long-haul market which typically stays longer and spends more money.
Instead, he questioned the methodology of the study for creating a problem that he doesn’t believe exists.
Certainly Tourism Ireland remained unconcerned about the overtourism accusation and is instead targeting an increase in travellers for Dublin and beyond.
A Tourism Ireland spokesperson said: “Two separate studies – by Fáilte Ireland and Dublin City Council – carried out earlier this year confirm that nine in 10 Irish people believe that tourism is a positive force for communities.
“At Tourism Ireland, we don’t take this for granted. We want to spread the benefits of overseas tourism across regions and seasons, benefitting communities across the island.
“Our focus is on matching demand overseas with supply and available capacity on the ground in Ireland. We know there are opportunities to grow revenue, especially outside of the peak season when there is capacity ready to be filled.
“Hotel occupancy in Ireland is at around 88% in the peak summer months and at 73% in the off-peak season. The potential revenue benefit of those 15 percentage points in the off-peak months is over €300 million.”
So whatever problems are facing Ireland in general and Dublin in particular, it seems overtourism is not one.
Instead it would be far more interesting to understand exactly why Irish tourism is yet to see the post-Covid recovery that other destinations have long since taken for granted.