The historic city of Oxford has long been one of the favourite choices for tourists. Thanks to its architectural beauty of the 12th century and academic excellence, it attracts millions of tourists from across the globe, each year.
However, the latest local reports said that beautiful destination is turning into a living ‘hell’ for local residents. Regularly plunged into gridlock by pesky globetrotters, the city is seeing too much footfall of tourists.
Before embarking on a cross-country trip to the Edinburgh Festival, last weekend, the Marston representative wrote on Twitter: ‘Some of us are coming up for a brief respite from the tourist hell of our own small city of Oxford.’ Edinburgh Festival is in itself a very popular event and draws people from various international arenas but still is less crowded than Oxford.
But most of the locals, like everywhere else suffering from tourism overflow stated that they are not opposed to tourists but to the way they are managed in Oxford.
Coach parking arrangements, advising groups to walk in single file, not blocking the entrances at the special tourist attractions could be some of the ways to keep the place from overflowing with tourists.
The situation took an incendiary turn when the locals, last summer, took to the streets and called for major changes to cut down on the number of holidaymakers who visit the city. Recently, some Barcelona residents claimed tourists are worse than poverty.
Over tourism is not a new concept but has seen has protest in places like Venice. The tourism authority has imposed some rules which the tourists need to abide by or else would face legal actions. travel experts says if this continues, time is not far it might soon be a place like Pompei, where people come to visit but no-one lives there.
