Given the way they bring thousands of visitors to a place, cruise lines can at once be a much-needed source of income and a drain on local resources and lifestyle.
Mediterranean cities such as Spain’s Barcelona and Dubrovnik in Croatia were among the places that imposed stricter cruise ship regulations in 2024 while, over in North America, Bar Harbor, Maine and Cozumel are also exploring different measures to limit the number of daily visitors who come by large ship.
Picturesque European port looks to ‘cancel all that can still be canceled’
As many European cities have small downtowns and are not designed to handle a large influx of visitors, they have been hit particularly hard by overtourism. The French port city of Nice is now the latest Mediterranean city to start weighing a ban on cruise ships and Airbnb (ABNB) rentals.
This week, Mayor Christian Estrosi told a press conference of local residents that he will draft a proposal to ban any cruise ships carrying more than 900 passengers or larger than 190 meters (623 feet).
As the proposal waits to be drafted and make its way through the different branches of local parliament, the immediate steps ahead of the busy 2025 summer season is to “cancel all cruises that can still be canceled ahead of drafting a banning order.
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“Tourism, yes, overtourism, no,” Estrosi said in the Jan. 21 speech. “The cruises that pollute and dump their low-cost clientele who consume nothing, but leave their waste behind […] these cruises have no place with us.”
Such strict measures would affect most of the ships run by cruise line giants like MSC Cruises, Royal Caribbean (RCL) and its sister brand Celebrity Cruises, and Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH) but not smaller luxury journeys organized by Viking Cruises and Silversea, also a Royal Caribbean brand.
With overtourism top of mind, Nice is also looking to crack down Airbnb rentals
If passed by Nice municipal authorities, the changed bylaw would come into effect on July 1, 2025 and require major cruise lines with planned stops to the city to rework their itineraries for the upcoming summer.
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Estrosi said he was also working on a proposal that would also limit the number of permitted Airbnb rentals in Nice by as much as 50%. Similarly to other French cities such as Paris and Lyon,
Nice already has laws that cap how long a property owner can rent it out as a short-term rental to 120 days per year while the change would also cap the number of rental licenses given out in the city (a property owner who’d like to apply for a new license would need to wait until one frees up if all the licenses are taken — a process that could take months or even years if existing owners do not give up their properties’ status as an Airbnb property.)
Estrosi has been floating around the idea of such a ban since the middle of 2024 while Airbnb has previously issued statements saying that it is open to working out a solution that involves “the implementation of proportionate quotas” on rentals.
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