Tourists flock to Europe for its glorious architecture, winding streets and joyous queer celebrations. But overtourism is crowding the continent’s rainbow communities. From Amsterdam’s packed canals to Berlin’s long lines for nightlife venues, queer havens have begun to face the cost of their popularity. Tourism brings economic windfalls, but it threatens what makes these queer destinations attractive in the first place: their authenticity.
Christian Cristalli, a board member of Arcigay, Italy’s largest LGBTQ+ association, explains the two-sided nature of this tourism boom via his hometown of Bologna. “Tourism has made my city more vibrant, with new cafés, coworking spaces and cultural hubs that enrich the local experience,” he says. But this vibrancy is not equally distributed. Housing costs have soared—especially in historic neighbourhoods—pricing locals out of many neighbourhoods. The culprits don’t even necessarily see the effects.
“We care deeply about ensuring that people visiting Bologna, even for a short time, have a positive and meaningful experience, and good memories of the city,” Cristalli says. “At the same time, we hope that during their stay, visitors work to leave Bologna better than they found it, rather than treating it as a convenience while passing through.”
This challenge is not unique to Bologna. In Barcelona and Paris, for example, gentrification and commercial transformation are indelibly linked. Once-quirky or outre queer enclaves can feel like mere Instagram filters of their former selves. Paris, a perennial jewel in the crown of European queer tourism, is starting to groan under the strain of all the attention it gets. Last year an estimated 35 million people visited the city. Mathieu de La Musse, a French entrepreneur who divides his time between Paris and Normandy, has seen the housing crisis in his own community become exacerbated by short-term rentals like Airbnb.
“There aren’t enough apartments for locals,” he says. “I know a lot of people who are looking for an apartment—they’re getting very hard to find.” While French lawmakers have tried to limit short-term rentals to make room for locals, Paris still finds it difficult to reconcile its role as a global tourist magnet with the needs of its residents. The 2024 Olympics added another layer, says de La Musse, making public spaces cleaner and safer, but also disrupting daily life.
Le Marais is at the heart of Paris’s queer story. It was once considered the beating heart of LGBTQ+ life in the city, but many queer venues have been priced out in recent years, with many survivors leaning into being straight-friendly. “Most foreigners don’t know the real gay scene in Paris,” says de La Musse. “We have a very nice event almost every day of the week,” but these events are mostly outside Le Marais, making it harder for visitors to find them.
In Barcelona, a city where locals have protested against overtourism, queer spaces are going through a similar metamorphosis. Bran Sólo, a Spanish artist who has been exhibiting his work in the city for years, admits that tourism has been good for many LGBTQ+ businesses, drawing international crowds of all stripes who help keep Barcelona’s many bars and other gay venues in business. But this cash infusion comes with a price. “Internationalization has diluted certain features of Barcelona’s queer culture, making these spaces more homogenous and less authentic,” he says. Local flavour and intimacy are frequently sacrificed in the pursuit of broad commercial appeal, a change that can leave these spaces bereft of the very characteristics that made them meaningful. This is not only a problem for Barcelona; it’s a cautionary tale for queer spaces across Europe, where market forces prioritize the expectations of the visitor over the needs of the community.
Queer spaces, after all, are not merely places to drink and flirt. They represent resistance, survival and joy for the LGBTQ+ community. Cristalli stresses that tourists are less likely to see these deeper layers of queer culture.
“Queer culture is not just about nightlife or celebratory events,” he says. “It’s also about resilience, advocacy and creating inclusive spaces.”
Sólo agrees, noting that tourists in Barcelona obsess over events like Pride and the city’s throbbing nightlife, but they don’t see the real needs of the community. “Other significant aspects are overlooked, such as community initiatives, spaces of historical resistance or struggles for rights that have defined the local queer community.”
Even beyond the commercial realm, physical spaces that queer locals hold dear are also coming under pressure. Sólo points to Barcelona’s famously queer and clothing-optional Mar Bella Beach as an example. “Tourism here has generated problems such as overcrowding, lack of respect for local dynamics and degradation of the environment,” he says.
Cristalli says that in Bologna, parking lots for residents have been razed to create new tourism hubs. “Parks and streets that once felt like safe and quiet spots for queer residents have become overrun, limiting their ability to function as places for relaxation or community gathering,” he says.
So how can beloved cities serve residents and visitors simultaneously? Cristalli suggests urban policies that prioritize affordable housing and protect queer spaces from excessive commercialization: “Everyone has the right to travel and study, the right to culture and the right to education. But cities must also help the ones who are becoming hosts in their homes.”
Sólo calls for a focus on authentic cultural initiatives and preserving long-standing queer spaces, rather than reducing them to marketable stereotypes. “Raising awareness of the needs of the queer community among tourism stakeholders would also be useful,” he says.
De La Musse sees tourists as part of the solution. LGBTQ+ travellers must forget their stereotypes about the countries they’re visiting (e.g., “French people are not all arrogant”) and immerse themselves meaningfully in local queer culture. This can mean attending neighbourhood events, doing their best to support independent businesses and visiting local spaces with as much respect as possible. (You can also book a weekend at his Normandy mansion for an alternative, off-the-beaten-path queer vacation.)
By seeking out the evolving, contemporary queer cultures that exist outside the more obvious tourist routes—from grassroots meet-ups in Bologna to under-the-radar parties in Paris—tourists can play a role in protecting the vivacity and diversity of their international queer family members’ cherished locales. After all, the best memories are rarely prepackaged, even when they involve very pretty packages.
The interview with Sólo was conducted in Spanish and translated to English
