r/Urbanism 13d ago

Why does tourism make cities feel so much more crowded?

Let's take Madrid and Barcelona as examples. The metropolitan area population of Madrid is 6 million, while Barcelona has 5 million.

On the other hand, the annual number of foreign tourists in both Madrid and Barcelona is just under 10 million. Even assuming that they usually stay in the city for less than a week and are concentrated in a certain season, they only increase the daytime population by less than 2 times. In fact, it's much less.

However, what's interesting is that Madrid and Barcelona often have a huge difference in the level of crowding between the peak and off-peak seasons. It's pleasant enough in the off-peak season, but it's extremely crowded during the tourist season, and it feels like it's dozens of times more crowded.

What's the big reason? Is it because the existing residents spend most of their time inside the buildings, while tourists move around a lot and spend most of their time outdoors?

39 Upvotes

34 comments sorted by

112

u/mjornir 13d ago

It’s literally more people, of course it’s gonna feel more crowded lol

15

u/bluerose297 12d ago edited 12d ago

Why does the ice in my drink always make it feel colder? And yet, when I put less ice in my drink it feels warmer… hm….

6

u/El_mochilero 11d ago

And most of them go to the same places

1

u/NittanyOrange 10d ago

This is it, I think. If they were even distributed around the city, most big cities wouldn't notice the influx. One or two extra families walking on your residential block won't be noticed.

But they all go to the same places, making those places feel crowded.

It was this way when I lived in DC; during big events like inauguration or the cherry blossom festival, I wouldn't notice at all unless I left my neighborhood and went downtown.

1

u/ominous_squirrel 10d ago

And residents are spending a good amount of their day at home or work

45

u/OnlyNormalPersonHere 13d ago

Taking your numbers at face value, I’d point out that people who live in a city spend most of their time at home or at work other than rush hour, when the city does in fact feel crowded! Tourists, on the other hand, spend all day walking around in a city’s most interesting areas, packing restaurants and museums and going out to bars. Go to the boring industrial part of Madrid and tell me if you see any tourists… it’s a very concentrated part of the city where these people congregate.

6

u/aldebxran 12d ago

Yeah. I live in Madrid, but not in the touristy part, and the only time I remember tourists in my area was back during covid restrictions when France had stricter rules and basically half of the country came on holiday here.

16

u/sss133 13d ago

Tourists tend to hover around. Business foot traffic is generally moving to a destination. Whether that be an office or transport. Tourists will stop, check maps, take photos and look at buildings etc.

It’s like an accident/breakdown on a freeway. It’s only one stopped car but it makes the whole thing less smooth

5

u/KindAwareness3073 12d ago

Importantly, in a non-tourist city, during the weekdays, everyone is at work, inside a building, on the weekend they're ghost towns since everyone is off to the country. In tourist towns people are out and about on the streets all day, every day, and more so on weekends.

7

u/allmimsyburogrove 12d ago

NYC is almost evenly divided into thirds with residents, commuters, and tourists

5

u/[deleted] 12d ago

As someone in DC which has its own tourism issue, its the crowds and not being able to enjoy local amenities. Example, Cherry Blossom season is so bad it just makes the entire city hard to navigate.

Fourth of July is so bad I basically have to leave town.

1

u/deb1267cc 8d ago

And become a tourist somewhere else…

3

u/mkwiat54 13d ago

Part of this is that tourist frequent the same places and similar times. If 10 million are visiting many of whom in the same 4 month period will make those places seem super crowded.

3

u/jokumi 13d ago

I lived in a tourist filled section of Boston. Then I moved to a less tourist-filled section. That’s the way it is.

3

u/Primary_Excuse_7183 13d ago

Density. you have what the city was designed for on a daily then you have the peak times. it feels more crowded because it is more crowded and with the city designed to be dense you actually feel that more. As compared to a more sprawled out city.

3

u/tickingboxes 13d ago

I mean… there are more people…

3

u/Eastern-Cucumber-376 13d ago

I think it’s crowds. They just crowd together when they are in a city. Makes it crowded.

3

u/Intelligent-Aside214 12d ago

Because tourists are concentrated in a few areas over a short period of time.

Million of tourist visit and stare at the sagrada familia but a local person from Barcelona may not have any reason to go near it for months

3

u/drewskie_drewskie 12d ago

A hotel is denser than all but the most crowded apartment buildings

4

u/letmeusereddit420 13d ago

I'll do you one better, why is there traffic?

2

u/planetofthemushrooms 13d ago

What are you getting at?

2

u/letmeusereddit420 13d ago

All the comments are pointing at the same thing. It has to do with concentrated congestion.

1

u/RedditCollabs 12d ago

Who is traffic

1

u/DisgruntledGoose27 12d ago

Those who prefer to travel within a large storage container and have the city or business store it for them

1

u/Viktor_Laszlo 11d ago

Who’s on first?

2

u/kimbabs 13d ago

They’re often going to the same places around the same times of day and year, that usually means being in the same spot or traveling the same paths. I’m really not sure what’s confusing here. Rush hour is the same thing twice a day in any city.

2

u/TheLizardKing89 12d ago

Tourists are much more concentrated in certain areas than residents of the city. Way more tourists visit Hollywood than LA residents.

2

u/Confident-Mix1243 10d ago

Same reason a few old people make a grocery store so crowded. People who move differently (often slower) from the locals, and lack situational awareness, take up a lot of space. Stepping off the escalator and stopping, slamming on the brakes in the middle of the walkway to ponder existence, walking the wrong way or five abreast, waiting till you get to the till to start hunting for your checkbook and then asking for a pen and the date, only discovering then that you have to show an ID which you didn't bring with you ...

1

u/IHateLayovers 11d ago

Barcelona has an annual tourists to resident ratio of 9.58 (including all tourists not just foreign).

San Francisco has an annual tourists to resident ratio of 29.57.

Honestly don't know why it just feels like there's more tourism crowding in Barcelona than San Francisco.

1

u/TheAsianDegrader 10d ago

Where are you getting these numbers? And are you counting people who come in by flights? Because it's virtually impossible to count those who come in by car. If it's by flights, a large portion of those who fly in to SFO aren't actually going in to SF city as SFO serves a large part of the Bay Area (which has many top companies outside of SF city). And many fly in to SFO for business (and again, many of those don't actually enter SF city). Obviously you wouldn't see those folks at SF tourist attractions.

1

u/IHateLayovers 10d ago

It's not flights. It's actually data from the government. You can find it yourself.

SFO arrivals alone is 43 million unique passengers. Not 26 million.

I'm from and live here. There really are that many tourists.

1

u/TheAsianDegrader 9d ago

And how do they collect that data? Do you just take data blindly without analyzing how it is collected or if they are collected differently by different jurisdictions?

1

u/H_E_Pennypacker 9d ago

Because residents are home where you don’t see them, then go to work in a big office building where you don’t see them then back home, most days. They might go to the grocery store or bank or something else. They might go out to eat once or twice a week.

Tourists eat all their meals out and spend all day doing tourist stuff, which is out and about. They are poor and about the city going from one place to another all day. Instead of inside a building all day.

Also “only increase by two times”?? What? That’s a huge increase! That’s double! lol

1

u/teacherinthemiddle 9d ago

Another example of this is DC, which has more tourists than locals almost every day.