Travellers in standstill traffic outside the sun-washed walls of Casa do Cipreste sometimes spot the bell and pull the string “because it’s funny”, Pimentel says.
With the windows open, he can smell car exhaust fumes and hear the “tuk-tuk” of outsize scooters, named for the sound they make.
He can also sense the frustration of 5,000 visitors a day who are forced to queue on the road that passes his house and crawl up single-lane switchbacks to visit Pena Palace, at one time the retreat of King Ferdinand II, the de facto first king of Spain.
This is what it means for a place to be visited in 2024, the first year in which global tourism is expected to set records since the Covid-19 pandemic brought much of life on Earth to a halt.
The demonstrations are an example of residents using the power of their numbers and social media to issue an ultimatum to officials: manage tourism better or we will scare away visitors who may spend their money elsewhere.
Housing prices, traffic and water management are all contentious issues.
Cue the violins, you might grouse, for people like Pimentel who are well-off enough to live in places worth visiting. But it is not just a problem for rich people.
“To not be able to get an ambulance or to not be able to get my groceries is a rich people problem?” asks Matthew Bedell, another resident of Sintra. The Unesco-recognised town has no pharmacy or grocery store in its centre. “Those don’t feel like rich people problems to me,” he adds.
Overtourism is “arguably a social phenomenon”, according to a 2023 analysis written for the World Economic Forum.
In China and India, the report says, crowded places are more socially accepted, which “suggests that cultural expectations of personal space and expectations of exclusivity differ”.
The summer of 2023 was defined by the chaos of the journey itself – airports and airlines were overwhelmed, American travellers faced nightmarish waits for passports to be issued. Yet by the end of the year, there were signs that post-Covid revenge travel was accelerating.
This January, the United Nations’ tourism agency predicted that worldwide tourism would exceed the record set in 2019 by 2 per cent. By the end of March, it reported more than 285 million tourists had travelled internationally, about 20 per cent more than in the first quarter of 2023.
Europe remained the most-visited destination. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) projected in April that 142 of the 185 countries it analysed would set records for tourism, and that this would collectively generate US$11.1 trillion and 330 million jobs.
Protests erupted across the country as early as March.
There’s been backlash against the business models on which modern tourism has been built and the lack of response by politicians
Thousands of demonstrators in the Canary Islands protested against tourism and construction that was overwhelming water services and jacking up housing prices.
In Barcelona, protesters shamed and squirted water at people presumed to be visitors as they dined alfresco on touristy Las Ramblas.
The tourists struck back by cutting holes in the screen at eye level. The barrier has since been removed – for now – to prevent it from being damaged by strong winds.
Unesco has warned of potential damage to protected areas around the world. Fodor’s No List 2024 urged people to reconsider visiting some travel hotspots, including overcrowded sites in Greece and Vietnam, and areas with water management problems in California, India and Thailand.
Not-yet-hot spots looked to capitalise on “de-touristing” drives such as Amsterdam’s “Stay Away” campaign aimed at badly behaved young men.
Tourism is surging to the extent that some experts say the term “overtourism” is outdated.
Michael O’Regan, a lecturer on tourism and events at Glasgow Caledonian University, in Scotland, argues that overtourism has become a buzzword that does not reflect the fact that the experience depends largely on the success or failure of crowd management.
Many of the recent anti-tourism demonstrations were not aimed at the tourists themselves, but at the leaders who have allowed the residents who should benefit to become the ones who pay.
“There’s been backlash against the business models on which modern tourism has been built and the lack of response by politicians,” says O’Regan.
Tourism “came back quicker than we expected”, he continues, adding that tourists are not the problem. “There’s a global fight for tourists. We can’t ignore that [ …] So what happens when we get too many tourists? Destinations need to do more research.”
Virpi Makela, who runs Casa do Valle bed and breakfast in Sintra, describes how visitors call her in anguish because they cannot figure out how to find her property amid the town’s “disorganised” traffic rules that seem to change without notice.
“There’s a pillar in the middle of the road that goes up and down and you can’t go forward because you ruin your car. So you have to somehow come down but you can’t turn around, so you have to back down the road,” says the resident of Portugal for 36 years.
“And then people get so frustrated they come to our road, which also has a sign that says ‘authorised vehicles only’, and they block everything,” she adds.
Nobody disputes that the tourism boom in Portugal needs to be managed better.
The WTTC predicted in April that the country’s tourism sector would grow by 24 per cent this year versus 2019 levels and account for about 20 per cent of the national economy.
Housing prices, driven upwards by a growing influx of foreign investors and tourists seeking short-term rentals, were already pushing an increasing number of people out of the property market.
In response to issues voiced by residents, Lisbon announced plans to halve the number of tuk-tuks allowed in the city, and built more parking spaces for them after residents complained they were blocking traffic.
Sintra, which is 40 minutes west of the capital by train, has invested in more car parks outside town, and youth housing at lower prices near the centre, according to officials.
More than 3 million people every year visit the mountains and castles of Sintra.
Sintra City Hall says that fewer tickets to the nearby historic sites are now being sold. This year Pena Palace began to permit the sale of less than half the 12,000 tickets per day sold there in the past.
But this is not enough, say residents, who have formed an association that challenges the local government to “put residents first” and to communicate with them better.
They also want to know the government’s plan for managing guests at a new hotel being built to increase the number of overnight stays, and more limits on the number of cars and visitors allowed.
“We’re not against tourists,” reads the group’s manifesto. “We’re against the pandemonium that [local leaders] cannot resolve.”
