Beyond the Reel: Rethinking the Impact of Travel
I love traveling. Ever since I received my first paycheck, I’ve been spending a large part of it on travelling. In fact, my first paycheck was from a foreign country. After university I left South Africa for South Korea to teach English at public schools, with the hunger to explore new places and cultures. Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to travel more frequently. Tickets to anywhere are now easier and relatively cheaper to buy than ever before.
Over the last year I have been particularly fortunate and was able to travel to destinations in North America, Europe and South East Asia, and what struck me most was the effects that tourism could have on our host communities and how it affects some communities more than others.
I’ve become curious about the consequences of tourism. I am also wondering why sustainable tourism is such an overlooked subject, and why more everyday people like myself would most likely not be able to name a hand full of sustainable travel tips with certainty. It is quite confusing – is Airbnb really bad for all communities or could it be good? Is remote working in a cheaper country always bad or could it be good for the locals? Should we stay closer to city centres or further out? Is social media contributing to popular destinations’ problems or solutions? Do we need to worry about it or just trust that local communities and governments will manage the situation?
Why is sustainability not a larger part of the way products are being sold to us, or does the average traveller care too little to make it viable for businesses to think of a way to indicate this, even on the smallest way on their platform? Can technology help?
Basically, I’ve come to the realisation that as travellers we really do have a responsibility to learn how to make more sustainable choices whilst travelling.
Over-tourism in the Iberian Peninsula
Earlier this year I spent an amazing 2 weeks working remotely from Lisbon and Porto in Portugal. What struck me for the first time was just how much tourism can change an entire village, town and even city.
I quickly realised that every corner of Lisbon central and Porto was filled with souvenir shops, cafes promising “authentic Portuguese food,” and shops selling tours for the next day. Lisbon’s streets were lined with tourists taking photos of trams and using them for the novelty, while others sought out the best Pastel de Nata shops. Amidst this tourist frenzy, banners also appeared, declaring tourism as an evil that needed to be stopped.
Finally, the protests in neighbouring Spain and elsewhere has shown how easily tourism can take a wrong turn. See the BBC article about the protests in Spain here.
Over-tourism in Bali
In the second half of 2024 I decided to take a career break for travelling and spent about 2 weeks in Bali. While the charms of Bali are undeniable, I feel like the threat to its charm is just as real. The effects that tourism had on the local community, culture and the environment was alarming.
Walking to my usual coffee spot in the morning (where they also offer a massage for the price of a couple of coffees back home), I’d hear more Aussie accents than Indonesian voices, while at least three motorbike drivers would slow down to ask if I needed a lift.
The streets brimmed with souvenir shops selling identical trinkets, and even the island’s most sacred temples felt a little more like curated attractions. Tourists paid for religious cleansing rituals, cameras in hand, while locals looked on, outnumbered in their own places of worship.
Traffic is now so bad that it takes up to 3 hours to reach another tourist city ordinarily just 45 minutes away. Other noticeable issues include trash management, pressure on natural resources such as water, and… tongue in cheek – influencers!
It is estimated that tourism now makes up around 80% of Bali’s economic activity, with rapid growth in the last few years after COVID and the increase in remote workers.
Where Tourism felt okay
While Bali felt overwhelmed by tourism, I found other places where the balance seemed better maintained. How is it that mass tourism in some destinations feels acceptable, and in many cases, even beneficial? Why are tourists still welcomed there with open arms?
Destinations where I personally felt a little better visiting during the same period include the famous cities, towns and sites in South Western USA, Thailand (Bangkok and Krabi), and Malaysia. Why? I am not sure. Perhaps because over-tourism there has not yet reached the headlines. Because trash management, natural resources are managed better, and that income or the standards of living of the locals are better?
Could it be that the issues are just better masked, or are there factors one should consider to understand why the same technology, behaviour, or policies could be positive in one destination but negative in the other?
High Level Considerations for Being Responsible Traveller
This article may have more questions than answers – apologies if you have read this far, expecting to learn about the top 5 things you can do to be a better tourist. However, I have found a useful way of assessing options whilst traveling by looking at what UN Tourism, a specialised agency of the United Nations, uses to assess sustainability in Toursim.
UN Tourism has developed a statistical framework with definitions, concepts, classifications and reporting rules to assess the effects of tourism on the economy, the natural and built environment, the local population at the places visited and the visitors themselves. Even though the framework is mostly focussed on measuring sustainability at a policy level rather than individual decisions, it gave me a framework to think about.
In short, UN Tourism states:
Sustainable tourism is tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts whilst addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.
Broken down into its different parts, the extended definition of Sustainable Tourism set out in the framework goes like this:
Sustainable tourism is a multi-faceted concept that involves
(i) making optimal use of environmental resources, including maintaining essential ecological processes and helping to conserve natural resources and biodiversity;
(ii) respecting the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities, by conserving their living cultural heritage and traditional values and contributing to intercultural understanding and tolerance; and
(iii) ensuring viable, long-term economic operations that provide socio-economic benefits to all stakeholders that are fairly distributed, including stable employment and income-earning opportunities and social services to host communities, and contributing to poverty alleviation.
More about the framework on the UN Tourism website here.
Rethinking how I travel: Small Choices, Big Impact
For me, travel has always been about discovery—new places, new cultures, and new perspectives. But the more I’ve traveled, the more I’ve seen how tourism can be both a blessing and a burden. At its best, it brings economic opportunities, preserves traditions, and fosters cultural exchange. But when it’s unchecked, it can take away from the very things that make a place special. The challenge isn’t to stop exploring, but to do it in a way that’s more mindful—respecting local communities, making sustainable choices, and thinking beyond just our own experience.
I don’t have all the answers, but I think I’m starting to ask better questions. How can I travel in a way that gives back rather than just takes? How do my choices—where I stay, what I spend money on, how I engage with local culture—affect the places I visit?
I also wonder how technology could play a role in helping us make better decisions. Could travel platforms do more to highlight sustainable options? Could data help ease the pressure on overcrowded destinations? With so much of travel now shaped by online booking, social media, and digital convenience, there must be ways to use technology as part of the solution rather than the problem.