Over-tourism

 Tourists visiting the beautiful Bonifacius Bridge in Brugge

 Visitors to Brugge on New Year's Eve 2018

Read an item on my Ipad, on CNN, about Over-tourism in various parts of the world, including Brugge and I was reminded about a recent speech by Dirk de fauw, the local Burgomeester which rather shook up the news in Belgium. He was saying that there were now too many day tourists coming to Brugge, more than could be comfortably contained even though this category of visitor stayed only between one and three hours and spent little.

Statue of Hans Memling
in Woensdagmarkt.
Occasionally visited by small art groups.

Normally in Woensdagmarkt where I live, there are relatively few tourists though we are within metres of Jan Van Eyckplein which attracts thousands; Jan Van Eyckplein seems to be the turning point where the tide turns, as it were and visitors perhaps sit to drink or eat there, spending an hour or two before retracing steps towards the centre. But the very centre does seem awash with strolling, happy tourists especially at weekends and on Feast Days. Interestingly, there are sites online advising tourists to Brugge, "this small, exquisite town", how to avoid the crowds!

I have just checked the figures and am amazed to discover that there were 2.5 million people who stayed overnight in 2018 while the record number of day tourists brought the figure of visitors to Bruges in 2018 to 8.3 million. No wonder it feels crowded in Katelijnestraat!! In just two years, numbers have increased by 28.5%. Day visitors, not included in tourist totals, here for shopping and culture, and coming from 17 surrounding municipalities, numbered 1.25 million. Day tourists in 2018 were almost 700,000 more than in the previous year and are often from cruise ships docking briefly in Zeebrugge or on tours combining visits to other cities like Brussels, Ghent, Amsterdam. Numbers of overnight tourists are led by the British with Germany, Spain and Italy closely behind.

 View of visitors from the Rozen Hoed Kai

The ever-popular tour boats increased by 10.3% in popularity over 2017 while the tourist mini-buses were up by 21.2%. An astonishing 848,000 people visited the urban museums and 721,000 went to private musea in Bruges. I could find no figures for the also popular carriage rides pulled by horses whose trotting over the cobbles gives me an enduring delight in this resonant Brugge sound.

Over-tourism, one of the words of the year for the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018, is defined as an excessive number of visitors heading to famous locations, damaging the environment and having a detrimental effect on residents’ lives. Such magnet locations are in the throes of an identity crisis with city fathers world-wide wondering if they can consider turning away such important sources of income.The World Tourism and Travel Council notes that 1.4 billion international tourist trips in 2018 involved visits to the planet’s 300 most popular cities.

 Cruise ships in Zeebrugge terminal

Individual cities need to respond to the developing crisis; Dirk de fauw, Brugge burgomeester notes that visitors outnumber locals by three to one and he proposes limiting the number of cruise ships which can dock at Zeebrugge to two at any one time, rather than the present five ships per day. The local tourist board will also cease to promote day trips perhaps both to reduce visitor numbers and to increase hotel bookings. These measures come in addition to the 1996 ban on building new hotels in the historic centre and the similar 2002 ban on holiday homes.

Taking a break in Jan Van Eyckplein.

 Resting in the Markt.