On tourism, limits, and what we pretend not to know

We need to talk more about degrowth in Tourism

At first, it was a trickle. A few lucky people with passports and film cameras. A boat here. A plane there. A hotel by the sea.

Then the world grew. Fast.

In the past few decades, the global middle class exploded. Cheap flights. Package deals. Cruise ships with more people than towns. Travel became not a privilege, but a product. And like all products, it had to scale. Faster, cheaper, everywhere.

But here’s the thing about tourism:
It doesn’t grow.
It spreads.

Tourism seeps.
Into forests. Villages. Coastlines. Cultures.
And eventually, into resistance.

From Tenerife to Bali to the Balearics, people are no longer clapping when the planes arrive. They are marching. Spray-painting walls. Burning excavators. Blocking hotels. Because they know something we pretend not to see:

More is no longer better.
More is the problem.

You’ll hear some clever people say:
“There’s no such thing as overtourism. Only poorly managed tourism.”

That’s bullshit.

Too many is too many.
No policy, no tech, no clever app can rewrite the laws of physics and space.
We’re squeezing millions into places that were never meant for thousands.

Degrowth in tourism is not radical.
It’s reality catching up.
The Earth cannot handle exponential growth – and neither can the places we claim to love.

But here's the uncomfortable part:
I believe we’ve passed the point of no return.
Because the systems built on over-tourism now need it to survive.
Because the industry cannot slow down without collapsing.
Because too many are invested in volume, not value.

We’ll keep flying. Building. Marketing.
And the places we say we care about will keep crumbling under our footsteps.

Degrowth is not a strategy.
It’s a moral line.
It’s what we should have done.
And maybe, just maybe, it's what a few brave places can still choose to do, while there’s anything left to protect.

Until then, we smile at the horizon, take one more flight, and whisper:

“We didn’t know.”

Even though we did.