Tourism Expert Highlights Overtourism Challenges and Solutions
Paige McClanahan, a Paris-based writer, discusses the growing issue of overtourism, where neighborhoods begin to serve tourists more than residents, leading to anti-tourism protests in cities like Barcelona. McClanahan emphasizes tourism's significant economic impact, accounting for 10% of the global economy and one in ten jobs worldwide. She traces the surge in travel to factors like guidebooks, low-cost airlines, and social media, noting that tourist arrivals have increased from 25 million in 1950 to over 1.5 billion today. The Louvre in Paris, the world's most-visited museum, exemplifies the pressures of overtourism, having faced a strike in June 2025 due to crowd management issues. McClanahan argues that tourism requires regulation, taxes, urban planning laws, and infrastructure, while travelers must recognize their impact on destinations. 
