Band 6+: Many historic cities attract more tourists than they can comfortably accommodate, putting pressure on local services and residents. What are the main causes of excessive tourism in historic cities? What can be done to reduce excessive tourism? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

In today’s community traveling became much cheaper and more accessible than never before. As a result, this causes excessive tourism and surpass the comfortable limit. There are several factors causing this trend. On one hand, air travel became very cheap, reaching 10-50 euros for a single plane ticket. On the other hand, several transport systems are developed for making traveling more convenient and efficient.

Cheap plane tickets are a convenient way to increase traveling. Furthermore it helps people with low budget access traveling systems. However, it causes extreme demand that locals on popular historic sites simply cannot handle the pressure. Since the historic symbols monetizes the government and local businesses, new transportation system are being developed to make these places more accessible. For instance security checks at airports can be time consuming, so governments create new railways to save some time and mitigate the demand for the airplanes. Although, these factors create an income source to these places, there are some drawbacks.

To circumvent the excessive demand, the governments should create additional business centers. For instance more cafes or restaurants to keep up with incoming demand. Additionally, to keep up with the pressure and without losing income, I strongly suggest that governments and businesses should rise prices a bit. In doing so, demands will slightly decrease. Moreover, income of businesses and airlines wouldn’t have a difference. For instance, restaurants or clothing shops will have lower amount of customers, but since the prices increased their income will stay the same. Moreover it will be more comfortable to maintain the comfort to give the best service. The train tickets should be more expensive for a one particular reason. Since, there are extreme lines and waiting periods in airports, having the luxury to board without waiting should be more expensive. As a result, this would decrease the pressure significantly.

In conclusion, tourism could be beneficial for the locals, businesses, and the government. However, it should be maintained under control, since, the extreme pressure could lead to overcrowding and bad service in local businesses.