How the Iberian holiday hotspot of Lisbon is handling overtourism

Fuelled by the rise of tourism in Portugal, the narrow streets of the country's capital, Lisbon, have become clogged with tuk-tuks. From her balcony, Rosa Alves says she does not even try to count them anymore. They appear as soon as the sun rises, carrying tourists to the top of the hill.

The 78-year-old pensioner has been living in her apartment for the past 50 years, but she says things have never been so bad in her beloved neighbourhood. There are more tourists, more tuk-tuks and more traffic, she says.

According to Rosa and reports in Portuguese media, sometimes residents can’t even leave their homes whenever they want due to traffic and parked tuk-tuks blocking their way. “For the last five, six years this has become a mess. All over Graça (neighbourhood), there has been a serious change for the worse" she says.

On the other side of the road, a graffiti says: “Stop Gentrification”.

Alves didn't write it, but she sympathises with the message.

In addition to the traffic the area has changed: her neighbours started to leave and strangers became the most common next-door presence as holiday rentals took over.

The tuk-tuks are just one issue of the tourism influx into the city of Lisbon. But it’s not just here, it's a world trend.

2024 is expected to be the first year in which global tourism will set records since the coronavirus pandemic brought much of life on earth to a halt.

Travel is surging, rather than levelling off, driven by lingering "revenge travel" (taking a trip to make up for lost time during the pandemic), digital nomad campaigns and so-called golden visas blamed in part for skyrocketing housing prices.

The World Travel and Tourism Council predicted in April that Portugal's tourism sector will grow this year by