A popular Italian city has seen a massive drop in hotel and Airbnb bookings, with one-in-two rooms being left vacant over the summer amid a wave of anti-tourism protests across Europe.
Florence, home to Michaelangelo’s sculpture of David and the Duomo cathedral, has seen a year-on-year drop of room bookings since May and local tourism experts are expecting August to be another slow month.
Monica Rocchini, the president of a local hoteliers’ association, told local media: ‘We currently have a room occupancy rate of around 50%.’
She added that with so many rooms empty, going rates for these rooms are having to drop as well.
Rocchini said that June and July saw a 15-20% drop from last year, adding that much of this was caused by Donald Trump‘s announcement of tariffs which led to Americans, typically a high-spending cohort, to cancel their bookings.
She said that locals may need to shift their attitudes if they wanted to enjoy the money tourism brings: ‘Having tourists doesn’t mean being touristy, but few locals understand that.’
It comes just a few months after anti-tourist protesters targeted ski resorts after Italian locals branded the words ‘too much’ in bright red letters atop a snowy mountain.
The red slogan, which was deliberately placed under a ski lift, appeared at Alpe Di Siusi ski resort in the Dolomites.
Brigitte Foppa, councillor of the European Greens party, said tourism in the area was ‘a continuous growth’ that has been ‘underestimated for years’.
‘They told us that we were troublemakers…Now we are paying the price, the wound in society has opened’, she warned.
This is not the first time residents have protested against the growing number of tourists in the area.
Last summer, locals painted a preferential lane with the word ‘priority’ in the asphalt, after commuters had raised concerns that the masses of tourists had clogged up access to cable cars, causing them delays.
The Dolomites were compared to Disneyland as the beauty spot became overloaded by swarms of selfie-snapping tourists and so-called influencers.
Images and videos shared on social media shared by furious locals showed crowds of holidaymakers clogging up a cable car station in the Seceda area of the Alpine mountain range, which has become increasingly popular thanks to social media.
One particular video shows a lengthy queue of visitors at the station over-spilling onto a nearby cafe, while some tourists are seen blocking a staircase as they wait in line.
Another clip showed how a hiking trail came to a standstill as it became overwhelmed by tourists trying to reach the cable car.
The video, which was shared on an Instagram page, was captioned: ‘Something incredible even just to be told.
‘Hours in line waiting for your turn to go up the Seceda to admire the meadows, ridges, the most beautiful mountains of the Alto Adige, being careful not to step on each other’s feet, not to clash, to take the selfie as ‘freely’ possible in the presence of other tourists.’
