The towns and villages surrounding the north Italian lake have becoming overrun with tourists, pushing young people out and leading to resistance from locals.
Antonia Ferri is a freelance journalist, who previously worked for the newspaper Il Foglio. Her work focuses on borders of all kinds, both material and immaterial.
Cross-posted from Green European Journal
As one of Italy’s most popular natural attractions, Lake Garda sees millions of tourists every year. But with these visitors also come the familiar downsides of overtourism: overcrowded streets, soaring housing prices, and environmental degradation. Now, local residents are determined to fight back, and they are organising and forging international alliances to save their communities and their way of life.
In summer, the tarpaulins that cover the small boats moored alongside Piazza Malvezzi in the centre of Desenzano del Garda in the winter months are stripped off. The wealthy owners – often from northern Europe, Russia, and the United States – now return to sail to the middle of Lake Garda and soak up the sun in the landscape surrounded by mountains.
The landscape is radically different in winter, when the lake is a dark anthracite grey. The small boats remain moored under their dark green tarpaulins, and the centre of Desenzano – a town of 30,000 inhabitants on the Brescia side of the lake – is less busy. On a Saturday morning in January, some ducks approach the gazebos set up in the middle of the square. A girl wearing a hat and red woollen gloves offers them a sheet of paper with the wording: “Stop Short-term Rentals”. She is part of a group of residents who, in 2014, formed Collettivo Gardesano Autonomo (Autonomous Gardesano Collective”), which tackles issues such as the right to housing, ecology, as well as the fight against excessive tourism.
A lake under pressure
The towns and villages around the lake are small. They are criss-crossed with narrow streets connected by a single main road, and surrounded by vineyards and delicate ecosystems. The hotel sector and inland industries create jobs, but the members of the Collective fear that the massive influx of tourists is disrupting the lives of the locals, the environment, and a sense of community. The petition to regulate short-term rentals managed by large online platforms, such as Airbnb and Booking.com, is aimed at local institutions. It needs more support from the residents, and also more signatures in addition to the 300 already collected .
The petition states: “We, the citizens of Lake Garda, appeal to you to issue a proposal that we consider of fundamental importance to improve the living conditions and sustainability of the town, which is an essential space within which the life of the community is conducted.” According to the data gathered by the Collective, in the municipality of Desenzano alone there are 567 advertisements for entire apartments (and not single rooms) available for short-term rent, even in the low season when the demand for tourist accommodation is much reduced. Meanwhile, the average age in Desenzano is rising as, similar to the rest of Italy, many young people are moving away or emigrating to northern Europe in search of opportunities.
“You don’t have to build more houses to offer a future to younger people,” argues architect Luca Rinaldi, former superintendent of landscape heritage for the area, “the housing problem can be addressed by imposing restrictions on mass tourism.”
Desenzano is not the only town on Lake Garda struggling with ‘hyper-tourism’; Sirmione, a small town of 8,000 inhabitants (of which just 300 live in the historic centre) less than an hour from Verona, is so packed with visitors in summer that it is even difficult to walk around the town. In 2023, the south-western shore of the lake alone recorded approximately 9 million tourist visits. Lake Garda welcomes a total of 27 million tourists, making it the second most visited natural attraction in Italy after the Romagna Riviera. “We must restrict the access routes to the villages on the lake to manage this phenomenon.” The former superintendent explains how other tourist destinations have reduced the impact of hyper-tourism by reserving the most exclusive areas for luxury tourism, as in the case of the Costa Smeralda in Sardinia. However, many do not share this opinion.
Action on all levels
The solutions proposed by both the Collective and other citizens and organisations in the area, such as Tavolo Ambiente Garda (Garda Environmental Group), aim to restore a sustainable model of living. At the heart of the action lies an awareness of the environmental and housing emergency. As the Collective states in the text of the petition, “While incomes per family are stagnating, housing prices are rising to 14 euros per square metre,” which is causing economic hardship and evictions.
The Collective is inspired by other movements that are attempting to combat the housing crisis, the phenomenon of “showcase villages”, tourism-related pollution and the struggle for local citizens to access the local cultural heritage. In Naples, activists of the Sud Europa contro la turistificazione (Southern Europe Against Touristification, SET) network are trying to collect 10,000 signatures to force local institutions to regulate short-term rentals and to halt uncontrolled tourism and gentrification. It is a battle being waged by collectives and citizens’ organisations across Southern Europe, from Spain to Greece to Cyprus to Albania, as locals see their cities and coastal areas come under increasing pressure.
According to the latest Eurostat data, 719 million overnight stays were booked via online platforms in 2023. Paris was the most popular city, and the top countries in Europe for these short-term travellers were France, Spain and Italy (with 141 million overnight stays). Bookings via platforms grew by 21 per cent compared to the previous year.
In 2023, Airbnb’s then country manager for Italy stated that Italy had the third-highest number of listings on the platform after the United States and France. Despite the gravity of the short-term rental crisis, the authorities are still struggling to manage the issue due to a lack of transparency that makes it difficult for them to monitor the situation. In addition, taxes on the earnings of the platform are not paid to the countries where they make the most revenue, but to the country of the registered office (Ireland in the case of Airbnb). This hampers the ability of the authorities to mitigate the effects of tourism on urban development, including the transformation of residential areas and the large volume of waste generated.
An EU regulation adopted in March 2024 aims to increase transparency in the collection and sharing of data on short-term rental services operated by platforms and is a first step towards enabling governments to implement measures. Meanwhile, several European cities have already taken action by limiting the number of overnight stays permitted via short-term rentals and by introducing heavy fines for those who fail to declare the use of apartments for tourism. Barcelona in particular has been waging war against short-term rentals for some time and Catalonia has announced its intention to revoke licences in the entire city. In the US, New York has banned rentals for periods shorter than 29 days since 2011, and imposed new conditions in 2023 that include the requirement for owners to be present during the stay. However, critics argue that the ban has not made housing more affordable, and has even encouraged the emergence of a black market in short-term rentals.
The struggle to impose rules
Lake Garda does not enjoy the same protections as big cities due to its natural characteristics. “It would take a socialist state to impose restrictions, but as long as the opportunity exists to earn an economic rental income based on the geographical position of certain locations, it will be exploited,” comments Luca Rinaldi. In the case of Sirmione, where there are ten tourist beds for every eight residents, the mayor has tried to curb the problem of excessive tourism. Among the conditions for owners who put up their properties for short-term rental contracts is to reserve one room in four for persons with disabilities, and to have parking spaces available within a certain distance. The measure was opposed by the Associazione Italiana Gestori Affitti Brevi (Italian association of short-term rental managers), which initiated legal action.
“Our demands go even further [than those proposed by the mayor of Sirmione]: they force owners of short-term rentals to declare their use for tourism, and we request mapping to identify the parameters of tourist sustainability,” explains the Collective. The demands include the blocking of new non-hotel structures, a census of municipal assets that can be used for housing purposes, and an increase in the public housing stock for those in need and with rents that are more affordable than the market price. Activists also propose tax breaks for property owners who offer long-term rental contracts.
As timeshare owners and hotel entrepreneurs invest in apartments to diversify their offer, the most tangible danger of hyper-tourism for residents is eviction, . The Collective and other local associations and tenants have therefore joined forces to organise anti-eviction pickets and actions to defend those who have received an eviction notice. “The number of evictions has not increased much over time, but the reasons have changed,” say the activists. “We’re meeting increasing numbers of families with an income who are working, but whose lease has expired, and they are unable to find affordable housing.” Single-income families or workers with lower wages, such as bricklayers, labourers, and migrant families are particularly affected. The latter group is also subject to the prejudice of landlords, which creates the phenomenon of housing discrimination exacerbated in turn by mass tourism.
Building alliances
In some cases, the Collective has managed to postpone evictions for a year or more. What makes the difference are the tenants’ networks, which form and unite in a struggle from the ground up which often transcends the local dimension and national borders. For example, the Gardesano Collective contacted the Sindicato de Inquilinas e Inquilinos de Madrid (the Madrid tenants’ union), which is working to prevent evictions in the Spanish capital and which states: “We won’t just be kicked out of our homes for no reason, nor do we accept that speculators are turning the city, housing and our lives into a commodity.”
The union has already won numerous victories, including the creation of a national political mediation body to discuss social reforms to protect tenants. This category is often under-represented politically in Italy, as 75 per cent of the resident Italian population owns a house. The cultural significance associated with real estate has also contributed to a high level of land consumption. Lombardy and Veneto share Lake Garda with Trentino and are in first and second place among the regions of Italy in terms of soil erosion.
Land consumption in the Lake Garda region is directly linked to the construction of luxury hotels, resorts and other tourist infrastructure such as the Garda cycle-pedestrian path. Land consumption increased by 6.5 per cent on the Brescia side of the lake between 2006 and 2022 – over one point more than the average for the whole of Lombardy. Desenzano and the neighbouring municipality of Lonato represent 71 per cent of the total land consumption among the municipalities on the shores of Lake Garda. Hydrogeological instability in this area is leading to a significant increase in landslides that block the few roads in the area. According to Rinaldi, “The territory will ultimately remain split between the spaces where protective measures and restrictions have been imposed, such as natural parks, and those where none have been imposed. In practice, any land that has not yet been built on should be turned into a park.”
It is a need shared by numerous coastal areas in Europe, whether by the sea or on likesides. “The Canary Islands are confronted with a situation similar to Lake Garda,” says the Collective. A major popular uprising against “touristification” began in the spring of 2024 in the Spanish archipelago off the coast of Morocco. Citizens organised and joined the collective Canarias se Agota (“the Canary Islands have had enough”). The spark that ignited the protests was the construction of two new luxury tourist complexes.
Canarias se Agota emphasises that the wealth generated by tourism does not guarantee the wellbeing of the local population. In reality, the excessive influx of visitors risks triggering a collapse in the energy and transport systems and a serious housing crisis. The slogan of the Canarian collective, “Nuestros cuerpos por nuestra tierra” (“Our bodies for our land”) expresses the will to “generate decisive change through a shared space”. Their website states: “Today we will change the course of history. We will not allow the final destruction to happen, because the Canary Islands have had enough, so let’s now all act together with our bodies to defend them!”
The Canarias se Agota activists are fighting for a moratorium on tourism and have previously used tactics such as hunger strikes.
Wealth vs well-being
Going forward, authorities have no choice but to impose restrictions on the influx of tourists or to reduce the offer by limiting short-term rentals, in order to prevent the problem from deteriorating and to dissuade activists from resorting to even more drastic methods of resistance. The hoteliers and owners of tourist accommodation may see profit as the sole objective, but the inhabitants of the Canaries and Desenzano don’t share the same priorities. As residents, they want to protect the quality of life and the enjoyment of shared spaces. They want to safeguard the right to housing and to live in the historic centres as they have always done. They are fighting to defend the identities of their towns and villages, the environment, and the development of proximity economies. They essentially want to put a stop to the tourist monoculture.
“We’ve met hoteliers, tenants, older and younger tenants at the gazebos,” says the Gardesano Collective. “Young people are struggling to find affordable housing, and many have been forced to move away.” While rents and the cost of living are rising, wages are stagnating. “One lady had tears in her eyes and told us that her landlord doesn’t want to renew her lease, and she now has no idea where she will go or how she will do it,” says one activist.
A property owner also stopped at the Collective’s stall. “She told us that she has tenants who have been living in her property for 20 years and added, ‘I’m happy, and in my opinion it’s right.’” She then proceeded to sign the petition.
Be the first to comment