From Venice's cruise ships to taking food off the locals' plates in Cuba - 6 places that are being destroyed by tourism

From Venice's cruise ships to taking food off the locals' plates in
Cuba: 6 places that are being destroyed by tourism
The Independent
Julia Buckley

It's called the Butler Model (named for Professor Richard W Butler): a
tourist destination is "discovered", grows exponentially, and reaches
peak success. For most places, though, it's all downhill from there –
beaches are overcrowded, lines are long, and badly behaved tourists ruin
the atmosphere that their predecessors came for. As Barcelona blames
ever-increasing tourist numbers for an uptick in complaints to police
and Thailand has closed an island due to overcrowding, Responsible
Travel's CEO Justin Francis tells us which destinations are crumbling
under tourism – and how to visit them with minimal impact.

6. Cuba

The last few years have seen vast increases in tourist numbers, says
Francis, but they're going up faster than the infrastructure. That
doesn't just mean issues finding places to stay; it's affecting locals
too, with restaurants buying up food, meaning that locals are priced out
and "tourists are literally raiding food off the plates of the Cubans,"
according to Francis.

How to do it better: Francis tells us a high proportion of tourists only
visit Havana; go further afield to spread the tourist load more evenly.
He also recommends staying in casas particulares (homestays) rather than
hotels.

Or try: Belize and Costa Rica have developed excellent models of
sustainable tourism, says Francis – in fact all of Central America is a
better bet than the Caribbean, according to him.


Source: From Venice's cruise ships to taking food off the locals' plates
in Cuba: 6 places that are being destroyed by tourism -
http://www.msn.com/en-ie/travel/other/from-venices-cruise-ships-to-taking-food-off-the-locals-plates-in-cuba-6-places-that-are-being-destroyed-by-tourism/ar-AAm5yuk?li=BBr5MKc#page=6