Barcelona’s city hall launched a new strategy to direct €100 million ($108 million) from its tourist tax – the charge travelers see at the bottom of their hotel bill — to a fund that will install heat pumps and solar panels in state-owned schools.
The Italian city of Venice has announced new limits on the size of tourist groups - the latest move to reduce the pressure of mass tourism on the famed canal city.
Overtourism, destruction of habitat and exploitation of communities have indeed created backlash, and a growing number of tourism-related companies are taking proactive steps to get the target off their backs.
France has announced it is banning smoking on beaches as part of a wider campaign to help people quit. By the first half of 2024, the four-year 'plan anti-tabac' will also see lighting up prohibited outside of schools and in government-owned forests and green areas.
