Goodbye, overtourism? Sustainable travel gains ground

Latin America is currently one of the world's most dynamic tourism regions. According to UN Tourism, the United Nations agency responsible for promoting responsible tourism, international arrivals in South America grew by 7% last year, while Central America saw a 5% increase, both above the global average.

But the boom comes at a price: overtourism. In some destinations, the sheer number of visitors is creating environmental and social problems, fueling tensions and raising questions about who really benefits from the business.

One famous example is Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel in Peru, which lures up to 5,600 visitors a day. In 2025, Peru's official watchdog warned that more tickets were being sold than permitted, potentially putting the site at risk of being added to UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has already expressed its concern.

In a bid to protect the Galapagos Islands and its bountiful ecosystems that inspired Charles Darwin, Ecuador doubled the entrance fee for foreign visitors to $200 in 2024. Even so, pressure is mounting to construct new hotels and tourist apartments. And in Mexico City, the influx of tourists and digital nomads into neighborhoods such as Roma and Condesa has fueled protests over rising rents.

What can be done to make tourism more inclusive and sustainable? That's one of the industry's biggest questions. At ITB Americas, an international travel trade fair in Guadalajara, Mexico, DW spoke with three experts.

Richard Bazan is a regional manager for the Americas at Planeterra, a nonprofit organization that promotes and supports community-based tourism. He said several trends are emerging: group sizes are shrinking and travelers are seeking more intimate experiences.

"Where groups of 20 used to travel together, now it's four or five," he told DW.

So-called "nature-positive" tourism is also gaining traction, with travel programs that help fund, for example, reforestation projects. Bazan said even all-inclusive resorts are realizing that they can no longer shut themselves off from their surroundings. Instead, they need to offer authentic experiences that connect visitors with the destination.

"Community-based tourism is no longer a niche," he said.

Pressure for change is also coming from travelers themselves. According to Booking.com's 2025 annual survey, which polled 32,000 people in 34 countries, 93% said they wanted to make more sustainable travel choices. For the first time, more than half (53%) were aware of tourism's impact on local communities, not just the environment.

Sarah Payne, director of the Reset Tourism Fund at the UnTours Foundation, pointed to the underlying problem. In the traditional tourism business model, most of the money generated never reaches local communities, the people who actually live with the influx of visitors.

"Access to financing is key, yet extremely difficult for communities," she explained. The financial products on the market tend to be expensive and inflexible, as tourism is considered a high-risk sector. Her foundation's fund offers low-interest loans with flexible repayment terms. Its guiding principle is that communities generally know what's best for their own land.

Sebastian Munoz, co-founder of Rutopia, a platform specializing in ecotourism and community-based tourism, has brought his experience from the nonprofit sector into social enterprise. His believes tours must be designed in partnership with communities so they feel a sense of ownership, rather than seeing them as something imposed from outside.

Bazan, meanwhile, thinks community-based tourism should not be approached as a humanitarian project, but through a market-driven lens: understanding what visitors are looking for and then planning hand-in-hand with the local community. In other words, building bridges between these two distinct worlds.

"It's not sustainable to create a product if no one comes to experience it," he said.

The big question is how to grow without sacrificing sustainability. For Bazan, that decision doesn't belong to the tourism industry. Communities themselves must decide how they want to grow, and outside players should not pressure them. Their role, he said, is to amplify local voices, not to bring solutions or investments. "We have to learn to listen," he said.

The impact of community-based tourism is difficult to measure, Munoz acknowledged, because it has social impacts that go beyond the numbers. He cited the example of the Indigenous Mixtec community in Mexico that receives tourists interested in learning the local language. Suddenly, children who today speak only Spanish began joining the classes and asking their grandparents to teach them the language, too.

For Munoz, community-based tourism can be a powerful tool for valuing cultural and regional diversity. It's about creating value over the long term — and that, he said, is where the real experience for visitors lies.

The experts agree that change is slow. But they argue it's worth the effort: If there is more respect for local people and environments, in the end, everyone goes home happier.