Overtourism: Insights from Lisbon

The Tagus River beyond the rooftops of Alfama

The impact of growing tourism in many areas of the world has prompted a great deal of discussion about how best to grapple with it. This debate has spawned the buzzword “overtourism” to describe its most extreme levels. The crush of global tourists has reached a tipping point in cities such as Venice and Barcelona and in remote destinations such as Machu Pichu and Angkor Wat. Closer to home, small towns like Charleston and Asheville are grappling with unprecedented popularity with tourists and hotel developers. In these and other areas seeing adverse effects of tourism, drastic measures are being considered to limit access and protect historic structures and the quality of life for both locals and tourists.

One of the places in Europe that has seen the most explosive growth in tourism in the past decade is Portugal. A long-time favorite of Brits and its neighbors from Spain, its great weather, gorgeous scenery, warm people and low costs began attracting ever-larger numbers of visitors from Germany, France and beyond. Allie and I spent a long weekend in Lisbon on our way to a longer visit to the southern coast with our daughter Zoe, and I used my time there to observe first-hand the impact this boom is having on Lisbon.

It had been more than a dozen years since our last visit and the changes were immediately visible. This was in the so-called shoulder season, but you would not know it from walking the streets or waiting in long lines. Despite being there in early October, we found the crowds to be similar to what we would have expected at the height of the summer. All the ubiquitous street cafes teemed with hungry, or at least thirsty tourists. The historic #28 Tram was jam-packed day and night as it navigated tight corners and dense traffic on its way from the river level to the Castelo de São Jorge above the city. The line to enter the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos in Belém stretched for blocks.

The good news is that the city looked great and put out a very positive vibe. It seemed cleaner and more modern, while still possessing the seedy charms I recalled in Alfama. The food scene is exceptional—lots of diversity, with higher quality and lower prices than I had expected. The weather was beautiful, though we did find the warm, sweet smell of chestnuts roasting on street vendors’ carts a bit disorienting when the temperatures were in the low eighties!

Wine here is a special bargain. Portugal is justly famous around the world for its fortified wines, the Ports and Madeiras, but it also produces other fine wines, in whites, reds, rosés and greens (that is, young), but lacks the scale of Spain or France, making it a very minor exporter to the Americas and yielding shockingly low local prices. Good quality wines by the glass were available at around 5 euros while a high-end bottle at dinner might be 25 euros. Very acceptable wines were offered at even lower price points.

Belém was a pleasant surprise. Many tourists make the 20-minute trek to this western section of the city, to see the Instagram-worthy Monument to the Discoveries, celebrating the many explorers who set sail from this point to then-unknown parts of the globe, to tour the historic Belém Tower and to visit the afore-mentioned Jerónimo monastery. Unwilling to endure the long lines to enter the monastery, we walked a bit further on to the Belém Cultural Center. This is a massive complex composed of independent modules connected by open areas, which on this day held a crafts fair. The structure built of concrete “stones” is an outstanding example of blended architecture: a modern building that fits into its historical context and appears to have been there as long as its more historic neighbors.

The Exhibition Hall of the one and a half million-square-foot complex held an extraordinary find for us: the Berardo Museum Collection of the Foundation of Modern and Contemporary Art. The Berardo Collection was presented in two sections. The first was an excellent display of the evolution of modern art from its origins in the early twentieth century up to the sixties. The second part exhibited more contemporary work but unfortunately, only a small part of the collection was viewable on the day we visited.

This exceptional facility complements a truly impressive array of museums celebrating the modern arts including the nearby MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), the Modern Collection at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, the MUDE (Museum of Design and Fashion), and the National Museum for Contemporary Art, also known as the Museu do Chiado, an attractive, upscale neighborhood of Lisbon. The last of these is sometimes referred to as MNAC—apparently, initialism is a thing in Portugal. However they are called, this concentration of excellent facilities makes Lisbon a not-to-be-missed destination for lovers of modern art and design, just another of the attractions bringing more and more tourists to this European capital.

Data show that the dramatic growth in Portugal’s tourism has slowed a bit in the past year. Tourism officials have attributed this in large part to Brexit, or rather the uncertainty caused by the seemingly endless process of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the related decline in Sterling exchange rates. The slower growth may be real, and Brexit may be a factor, but on this early fall weekend, the boom appeared to be unabated. Lisbon’s charms and the many others that lie beyond in the compact country are certainly real, and I have every reason to expect even more tourists from the Americas and Asia to join the throngs of Europeans taken advantage of all that Portugal has to offer holiday-makers. Lisbon even passed the acid test of my wife’s determination to keep visiting destinations that are new to us before to returning to places we know. “I definitely want to come back here,” she declared as we loaded our rental car for the drive to Algarve and our next chance to observe first-hand the impact of overtourism in Portugal.

My conclusion is that, at least so far, the positive benefits of the tourism boom in Portugal have greatly outweighed any negative repercussions. Lisbon appeared to us a thriving city, full of life, both native and foreign, to be sure, but bustling rather than bursting. While the negative consequences of hyper-growth in tourism are real and vital concerns in too many places, my view is that the tipping point for overtourism is still a remote threat to Lisbon, and to Portugal.