The chief executive of the world’s richest travel firm, Booking Holdings, has proposed a lottery system to tackle overtourism.
Glenn Fogel, chief executive of Booking.com’s parent company, told the BBC Today programme this morning (6 August) that visitor numbers to key destinations could be limited by a combination of “higher cost and lottery”.
Residents of some key tourism “honeypots” across Europe, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dubrovnik and Venice, say that current visitors numbers are unsustainable and are damaging the community.
Venice imposes a visitor levy on certain days, and there have been calls to increase it to €100 (£87). Meanwhile, authorities in Amsterdam are raising accommodation taxes.
Demonstrations against excessive tourism have taken place, with some protesters in Barcelona squirting visitors with water pistols.
Mr Fogel said: “You know I heard from somebody who was in Barcelona and was squirted with a water pistol thing and they actually enjoyed it tremendously – it was so hot, they thought it was so fun.
“I’m not sure that was the intention of what they [the protesters] were trying to get across.”
“We are one stakeholder among many and we give our opinion and we absolutely want to work with government to come up with solutions.
“But at the end of the day it’s not for one company to make their own decisions about how they should or should not allow people to travel or not travel. That’s why we have democracy and governments – to come up with these methods to do this.
“It’s not for us to try to steer somebody somewhere. That’s not my job. My job’s not to propagandise and try and force somebody to go someplace else. Look, somebody wants to come to London because that’s their dream of their lifetime to visit London – let’s face it, you haven’t lived if you haven’t been to London.
“Who am I to say to try and tell them, ‘No no no. You don’t get to go to London, You only get to go to Birmingham.”
At this point the business presenter, Will Bain, intervened to say: “I’m from Birmingham.”
Mr Fogel said: “Birmingham’s a nice place. I’ve been there. I’m just saying, [if] someone is coming from far away, I’m not the person to make that decision for them.
“I like the idea of both higher cost and lottery, so it’s not just restricted only to the elite to visit London. I think that would be a bad thing for the world.
“I think that even though you may not be wealthy, you should still get a chance to visit some of those beautiful and great places in the world.”
Lotteries are used at a small scale to limit visitor numbers, primarily to US National Parks. For example, each year 450 permits are granted for rafting through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River. At a hikers’ refuge in the Arizona park, Phantom Ranch, bed spaces are allocated by lottery 15 months in advance.
Justin Francis, chief executive of the environmentally-focused agency Responsible Travel, said: “We all want tourism to be accessible to all, including those on a lower budget who could be priced out. Lotteries are already used in US National Parks, cultural events in Japan, some Antarctica expeditions, and events like Glastonbury. I think there is a place for them.
“I’m reminded of how King Charles ran a system for visits to Highgrove, you had to apply through gardening clubs – which meant that those who were able to visit had a real interest, plus gardening club memberships increased. I’d like to see disadvantaged groups get some extra chance in any lottery, and this type of approach could be used.”
Mr Frances also hit out at the Booking Holdings boss, saying: “Glenn Fogel doesn’t seem overly concerned about the impacts of overtourism on residents and tourists in a growing number of destinations. He has little at stake in any destination, and his view it that if his customers want to go somewhere else they can.
“If I was his customer or a destination manager I’d expect more from the world’s richest travel company.”
Booking Holdings, based in Amsterdam, has a market capitalisation (the total value of its shares) of $177bn (£133bn). That makes it worth more than five times as much as Europe’s biggest budget airline, Ryanair.
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