Tourist rush too great: holiday paradise Amalfi wants to count guests

Christian Klumpp

The Amalfi Coast is more popular than ever with tourists worldwide and is bursting at the seams. Now they want to better control the influx of tourists with real-time counting.

The Italian Amalfi Coast is a dream destination for holidaymakers in the Mediterranean. The proximity to Naples, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Salerno and Mount Vesuvius attracts many tourists.

The rush of tourists is so great that the locals are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the masses of visitors.

The problem in numbers: According to its own figures, the town of Amalfi has 4,512 hotel beds, whereas the number of inhabitants has shrunk noticeably from 5,530 to 4,653 since 2002.

Mayor Daniele Milano and his deputies have therefore now drawn up a catalogue of measures to better organise the constantly growing tourism industry.

‘We don't want there to be an anti-tourism sentiment,’ said Mayor Milano. ‘Neither the locals nor tourism should suffer.’ In order to find the right balance, reliable figures are needed above all so that people don't continue to act ‘on instinct’.

Amalfi wants to count tourists in future

Now the plan is to count. A system for monitoring pedestrian flows in the city centre and at traffic junctions is being installed ‘that can use technology to recognise people and vehicles’.

This technology will make it possible to know in real time how many people are in the historic centre, for example. The number of police officers, first responders and firefighters that need to be deployed to keep people safe can then be adjusted accordingly.

Water station to help with equalisation

Furthermore, arrivals are to be organised by water or land. To this end, the Cassone pier, which handles one million travellers a year, will be transformed into a genuine water terminal.

An electric guidance system and gates should enable the many travellers to be processed smoothly in the terminal. The city also wants to remove the many bus stops on the seafront promenade. A system with time slots for loading and unloading visitors is intended to equalise the handling of the masses.

Local residents to help draw up proposals

In order to gain a reliable impression of what is important to the locals and what bothers them the most (mainly the day tourists), a survey will be commissioned among local residents. Locals can contribute their suggestions here.

Sources:
- Press release from the city of Amalfi: ‘Amalfi lancia le sue azioni per un turismo più sostenibile’ (Italian)
- Ansa news agency: ‘Overtourism? Amalfi lancia 11 azioni per un turismo sostenibile’ (Italian)

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