Overtourism has been a topic of debate for some time now. In 2024, according to the United Nations, international tourist numbers reached 1.5 billion. Barcelonians, or barceloní in Catalan, decided to take the slogan “If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?” quite literally, drenching bar and restaurant patrons with water pistols, and making a seemingly taboo topic highly relevant. The desire to roam aimlessly around the planet is irrefutably rooted in almost all of us, but is it a good idea?
Here on the coast we haven’t yet fallen victim to excessive visitor numbers – except perhaps for brief periods – but we are in a privileged position to ask the question: what is tourism, really?
An apparently harmless activity, made of flip-flops, selfies and aperitifs; but perhaps that’s not quite true. Wikipedia provides two interesting nuggets of information: 1 – the term tourism has only been in official use since 1947 and, 2 – it still doesn’t exist in numerous languages. Languages presumably spoken in places where people still travel for work, visits, love, study, to enjoy holiday homes, to improve their health, or to look for a new place to live. In short, not to take photos and be able to declare “we did Madagascar, then South Africa, then the Belgian Congo” loudly on the tram.
The misunderstanding
Tourists, consequently, are a recent human mutation, multiplying in “places of interest” across the globe, where local residents may consider themselves fortunate or not. A misunderstanding arises between the two, and this is what we will call tourism. In this relationship, tourist and native – separated by language, tastes and customs – improvise a reality based on what each believes the other wants.
Tourism is an army of the misunderstanding, steadily advancing and, in the long run, flattening the places (destinations) that it conquers, because it visits them without reason, hoping that the reason will spring forth. The inhabitants of the growing slices of the planet that every year become “destinations”, must adapt to the new reality, putting aside their distinct characteristics to become part of the supranational homeland of the tourist.
On the coast
We’ve been fortunate to have maestros such as H.H. the Aga Khan, for example, the Donà Counts, Domenico Gentili, Rafael Neville, the Fumagallis – founding fathers who created specific areas within which to ringfence tourism (respectively Porto Cervo, Porto Rotondo, Baja Sardinia, Porto Rafael, Puntaldìa). Not new Sardinian towns – no one would ever dream of describing them as such – but enclaves where the cheerful superficiality of vacationers can flourish undisturbed. Places apart, made as containers for tourism and its, let’s say, ineffable peculiarities.
Contamination – architectural and beyond
In reality, the earliest examples were the Club Meds of Caprera and Santo Stefano, just off La Maddalena, in the 1950s. Do you remember them? The “hola” from staff as guests arrived, the beads used instead of money, the beach activities – in these incubators of anything goes, practices developed that ended up spilling over the fences and into local communities. Each then established its own network of snack bars and restaurants, built holiday accommodation, suffered a real estate market artificially inflated by tourism. Stuccoed walls began to spring up on houses, alongside arches and columns borrowed from seaside architecture. And so villages of fishermen, carpenters, seamstresses and pastry makers became tourist destinations, not only in form but, gradually, in their illogical substance.
Travellers and tourists
Local populations, from Japan to Portugal, from South Tyrol to Santorini, have begun to push back. Even among intellectuals (tasked with having to justify themselves), some are questioning travel for recreational purposes. In 2024 the New Yorker published “The Case Against Travel”. In the essay, philosopher Agnes Callard criticises tourism that “turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best”.
The deception lies in the belief that we are living a new chapter of our life, while in reality we are immersed in pre-packaged experiences, and it would be more mature and fruitful to stop and look for meaning within ourselves. “Because that’s where the truth lies, not in a tourist temple or on a beach crowded with strangers.”
The opium of the people
It may not be easy to visualise it as such, but we must consider tourism as an addiction, a simplified way of seeing and experiencing things, and not only travel. Being tourists in life, in work, in relationships, in virtually any realm that we approach without seeking meaning, depth or connection, is a danger we constantly face. There is an industry – a mechanism – that tends to standardise the world, a bit like how ski slopes are flattened to accommodate as many people as possible. It is important that, as travellers, not tourists, we strive to preserve the differences, both great and small, that make us so interesting and likeable, and the world a continuously new place to discover.
MODEL ALINA T @ PRODIGY MGMT
PHOTOGRAPHER MICHELA LOCCI
STYLIST YLENIA FESTA
MAKE-UP ARTIST CLAUDIA MELIS USING ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS
HAIR STYLIST AGATA BRANCHINA
SET DESIGN ELISABETTA BONGIORNI
CASTING DIRECTOR LAURA STELLA MOTTA
PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT DESIREE SACCHIERO
STYLIST ASSISTANT GIULIA MASSIMI
LOCATION STUDIO WHITE (MI)
A COAST MAGAZINE PRODUCTION
