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The tourist hotspots shrinking on purpose, and where to go instead | Travel News

Cruise ship docked in Barcelona port with the city skyline behind
Travel News · 7 min read · July 30, 2026

The tourist hotspots shrinking by design - and where to go instead

For two summers, overtourism has been told as a story about protest: banners, water pistols, a chalked slogan on a wall. This year it has quietly become a story about infrastructure, and infrastructure does not reverse itself the way a bad headline does.

Short on time? Let us summarise this guide for you.

It has been easy to read the last two summers of overtourism headlines as a fairly shallow story: a bit of local frustration, a viral photo, a news cycle that moves on by September. That was never quite right, and this year it has stopped being true altogether. Behind the photographs, city halls and port authorities have been signing contracts, passing decrees and setting capacity limits that will still be in force in the 2030s.

That is the real shift worth understanding this August. The protest phase has given way to the policy phase, and policy is a great deal harder to undo than a bad headline.

1. Barcelona

Barcelona is cutting its cruise terminals from seven to five. The WTC South terminal closes permanently by the end of 2026, part of a €185 million deal signed with the port authority in 2025. Its replacement will not open until 2030, which makes this a multi year squeeze rather than a single difficult season.


2. Cannes and Nice

Cannes stopped large ships docking directly as of 1 January 2026. Anything carrying more than 1,000 passengers now anchors offshore and tenders people in, with a hard cap of 6,000 disembarkations a day. Nice went further, signing a joint decree in December 2025 that limits ships over 1,300 passengers to just 15 calls a month, specifically across July and August, the exact weeks most UK holidaymakers are on the Riviera.

3. Santorini and Mykonos

Both islands now cap cruise arrivals at around 8,000 passengers a day and charge landing fees of up to €20 in peak season. It is a deliberate trade: fewer people stepping off a ship for a few hours, in favour of protecting the narrow streets and cliff paths that made both islands famous in the first place.


4. Venice

Venice has barred large ships, anything over 25,000 tonnes, 180 metres long, or 35 metres tall, from the lagoon since 2021, permanently rerouting them to the industrial port at Marghera instead. That sits alongside its separate day tripper entry fee, making Venice one of the longest running examples of a city choosing to shrink its own cruise footprint rather than manage the queues that came with it.

5. Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik limits itself to two cruise ships at its main port plus one near the Old City, aiming to keep peak day numbers around 8,000. It is one of the longest standing policies on this list, driven in large part by UNESCO concern for the Old Town walls, and it has become something of a template for the newer restrictions elsewhere.

6. Palma de Mallorca

Palma allows three ships a day, only one of which can carry more than 5,000 passengers. Its overall daily summer cap is set to fall further, from 8,500 to 7,500 passengers, from 2027, under an agreement between the Balearic government and the cruise industry's own trade body.

7. Amsterdam

Amsterdam is relocating its cruise terminal out of the city centre entirely, a project running through to 2035, while raising its day tourist tax to €15 in 2026. Slower moving than the others on this list, but the direction of travel is identical: less cruise capacity in the historic centre, permanently.


It is not really about nationality, it is about volume

It would be easy to read all of this as a wall of "keep out" signs facing UK holidaymakers. That is not quite what is happening. Almost every example above targets cruise passengers specifically, the visitors who arrive by the thousand, spend a few hours and comparatively little money, then leave by nightfall. It is a very different target from the visitor who books a hotel, eats in local restaurants and stays a week.

Greece makes the split obvious. The same government capping cruise arrivals in Santorini and Mykonos spent the first half of this year trying to make life easier for British holidaymakers arriving by air, briefly attempting to exempt UK travellers from the EU's new border checks entirely, a move Brussels later blocked. One kind of visitor is being turned away at the port. Another is being actively courted at the airport.

Montenegro shows the same pattern from a different angle. While Kotor is reportedly weighing an environmental fee aimed at cruise traffic, the country's 2026 tourism strategy is simultaneously running a targeted digital campaign aimed squarely at the UK, Germany and France, chasing fewer, higher spending, longer staying visitors rather than more people full stop.

So the honest version of this story is not "these places do not want tourists." It is "these places are trying to trade volume for value," and the visitors being squeezed out are disproportionately the ones on a ship, not the ones with a suitcase and a week booked.

The places building for more

While the Mediterranean's biggest names are constraining themselves, a smaller set of destinations is doing the opposite, and naming their target market outright.

Albania has the clearest growth strategy of any destination in the region. Its national tourism plan runs to 2030 and is explicitly built around expansion, backed by visa waivers that now cover the UK alongside dozens of other countries. Visitor numbers passed 12 million in 2025, up more than 6% year on year, and coastal towns including Ksamil, Dhermi and Vlore are being actively marketed as exactly the kind of place someone priced or crowded out of Santorini or the Amalfi Coast should be looking at instead.

Montenegro is chasing the same customer with a more polished pitch: fewer visitors, higher spend, aimed specifically at British, German and French travellers, with its coastal resorts and marinas positioning themselves as the upmarket alternative to the Adriatic's more crowded stretches.

Our advice: go where you are wanted

We think the choice here is fairly simple, and it is the one we would make ourselves.

This is not a boycott of Venice or Barcelona. Both remain extraordinary, and a well timed, well planned trip to either is still one of the best holidays going. But if you are weighing up where to spend a precious week this summer, it is worth knowing which destinations are actively building the infrastructure to welcome more visitors, and which have just spent public money limiting them. All else being equal, the places investing in growth tend to reward you with it: shorter queues, more availability, fewer restrictions, and a warmer, more commercially motivated welcome. The places capping capacity are doing it for good reasons, but those reasons do not include making room for one more.

Seamus McCauley, Head of Public Affairs at Holiday Extras, said:

"What is striking this year is how permanent all of this has become. A protest is a headline for a week. A terminal closure, a passenger cap written into a decree, a relocation project running to 2035, those are decisions that will still be shaping how people travel to these places in ten years' time."

"But it is important to be precise about who this is actually aimed at. Almost none of it is about wanting fewer British holidaymakers. It is about wanting fewer people who arrive by the thousand for a few hours and leave again. Greece is a perfect example: capping cruise numbers on its islands while its own government has been trying to make things easier for UK visitors arriving by air. Our advice has not changed: go where you are wanted, and let the places building sea walls against day trippers keep the space for someone else."

About Holiday Extras

About Holiday Extras
Holiday Extras is the European market leader in airport parking, airport hotels, worldwide airport lounges, destination car hire, airport transfers and holiday insurance. Established in 1983, Holiday Extras helps more than 11 million travellers have a better holiday every year. Flextras ensures it is easy and free to cancel or change bookings. The company has been listed eleven times in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For.


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