The drop in the number of guests in the middle of the pandemic offers cities a new opportunity to reconsider their business model.
by Stephen Burgen in Barcelona and Angela Giuffrida in Rome
Just a year ago, graffiti on the walls of Barcelona said Tourists go home. Now that they are gone, the city, along with others who rely heavily on the tourism industry, fears an economic crisis and develops plans to attract visitors while calming citizens tired of tourists.
Trade associations expect at least 15% of businesses and one in 4 restaurants in Barcelona city centre to close permanently due to coronavirus and the prospect is just as bleak in other urban tourist destinations, with tens of thousands of jobs at risk.
But Covid-19 has blackmailed the mayors of some of Europe’s most visited cities, academics and urban academics: the cave of the industry caused by the virus offers an exclusive opportunity for cities plagued by mass tourism to reconsider their business model.
Barbora Hrub, of Prague’s tourism agency, said the Czech capital was looking for a “different type of visitor.” Xavier Marcé, Barcelona tourism consultant, said: “I don’t need any more tourists, I need more visitors.” We are a city in crisis and we are looking to do something different,” said Paola Mar, its counterpart in Venice.
“We need a sustainable guest economy other than the quality of life in our city,” said Heleen Jansen, corporate communications coordinator at amsterdam-partners, a non-profit organization that advises Amsterdam on how to market.
However, smart intentions are one thing, concrete proposals are another. According to Janet Sanz, deputy mayor of Barcelona, cities that depend on tourism are paying the value of a monocultural economy and the challenge now is to diversify.
It’s easier said than done with the scale of tourism in those cities. Barcelona, with a population of 1.6 million, received 30 million in 2019; Venice, 270,000 inhabitants, 25 million; Amsterdam, with a population of 873,000, received 19 million tourists.
In Venice, mass tourism has been seen in years as a risk to the city’s survival, however, the debate has now focused on how it would deal with fewer visitors.
While tourists have returned to the city since the coronavirus blockade eased, and most travel by car from Austria, Germany, France and Belgium, many hotels remain closed and those that are open only have 30% of their capacity.
“This is the moment of reflection, ” said Mar. Although the city has yet devised ambitious measures for greater tourism management in the future, minor adjustments are being made.
“Owners of contracted goods for tourists have signed an agreement with the council and the universities of Venice to hire students now,” Mar said. “This is a sign.”
Other cities, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Lisbon, have taken steps to stem the Airbnb phenomenon, which has increased rents and driven residents.
Jaime Palomera, spokesman for the tenants union in Barcelona, needs to revoke the thousands of tourist apartment licenses granted in perpetuity through the Catalan government in 2011. It also says that government law opposes the rental of individual rooms for tourists, a vacuum that allows owners to circumvent the law prohibiting the rental of entire apartments.
As in Barcelona, the Venetians’ antipathy towards tourists has focused on giant cruise ships. But none of the cities have jurisdiction over the port and any form will have to come from the central government.
“We no longer live worried about the fall of monsters,” said Matteo Secchi, who heads the activist organization Venessia. “But I feel for the cruise terminal staff who are now at home. We oppose big shipments and have said we want a solution, but the staff want to be protected.”
With tens of thousands of jobs at stake, the conundrum of cities is to reconsider tourism that causes mass unemployment.
“There are other people who think that the village is charming as it is, without tourists,” Marcé said. “But they can replace their minds when the state stops paying 80% of their wages in September and unemployment rises to 18%.”
Marcé thinks it’s less of a number query than distribution. You need to inspire tourists to make a stop in other parts of the city and not just in classic places. This is a shared view across Amsterdam in its six-point post-Covid-19 plan, admits that it is difficult to deter climbers from being brought to iconic sites.
“Thirty million visitors have controlled what they were like until earlier this year is not sustainable,” Marcé said. “The same number with other interests scattered across other regions would probably not be such a big problem.”
Octavi Bono, general manager of tourism of the Catalan government, agrees. “We don’t need more or less tourism, we need more tourism with a greater distribution of tourists by season and place. We continue with an agreed marketing plan.”
Who do you agree with? Fr. Mariné, spokesperson for the Federation of Resident Associations of Barcelona. “He says this because they think of businessmen, citizens.”
“As for the concept of decentralization of Marcé, it is subject, but it means selling the city in another way, and the plans they approved recently imply the same mass tourism.”
Marcé says the challenge is that the Catalan coast is full of tourists who need to spend a day in Barcelona, a challenge not shared through Paris, Berlin or Amsterdam. Limiting the number of beds in the city has no effect on hikers, he says.
In Amsterdam, Geerte Udo, Managing Director of Amsterdam and Partners, says he is conducting a “crusade through the rediscovery of cultural offerings, the old town and other neighbourhoods, local vendors and public spaces.” In this way, the crusade contributes to the renewed bond between the population and its people, its surroundings and others. It is based on our purpose of seducing the Amsterdamers to rediscover their city.
At a time when many locals revel in the streets, squares and beaches without tourists, it turns out that Amsterdam and Barcelona are pressuring them to “rediscover” the city. This gives the impression that citizens have left the city when they actually feel expelled.
Meanwhile, no one expects to recover particularly this year, so for now, it’s about waiting and seeing.
“We believe that the cheap market will change, either because of the effects on airlines and attitudes towards mobility,” Marcé said, adding that cheap visitors accounted for four million visitors to the city.
Mar believes there will be a herbal replacement in tourism as a result of the pandemic.
“Tourism will be absolutely different,” she says. “Not everyone will like what they used to do. And those who may need to do it more calmly will perhaps see less and enjoy the experience more.”