Inside Italy: Is TikTok tourism ravaging Italian travel destinations?
Inside Italy is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip from Italy that you might not have heard about. It's published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.
The impact of video-sharing social media platform TikTok on tourism in Italy has been a subject of debate in national news media and TV shows this week after dozens of videos showing sightseers standing (or, sometimes, skiing) just metres away from lava flows on Mount Etna went viral.
The TikTok clips led Sicilian authorities to issue warnings about the risks of getting too close to the flowing lava.
'I've seen many photos and videos of people dangerously close,' said Carlo Caputo, the mayor of Belpasso, a town south of Mount Etna.
This exposes tourists to 'serious risks, as the lava, interacting with the snow, can instantly vaporise it and, with thermal energy being released, it may violently hurl fragments or rocks,' he added.
But this was only the latest in a number of tourism-related incidents linked to viral TikTok footage.
In late January, the popular ski resort of Roccaraso, in Italy's central Abruzzo region, was overrun by over 10,000 day-trippers in the space of a few hours after Neapolitan TikTok star Rita De Crescenzo posted live videos of the resort to her 1.7 million followers.
The influx of tourists clogged the road leading up to the resort and overcrowded its ski slopes, sparking anger among the town's 1,500 residents.
Swathes of the resort were also reportedly left completely strewn with rubbish by groups of irresponsible visitors.
Roccaraso authorities have since introduced crowd-control measures, capping the number of tourist buses that can enter the town on weekends at 100, while also requiring bus operators to pre-book their trips online.
In another TikTok-related incident last November, the Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola in Rome was overrun by thousands of social media users looking to capture their reflection in a mirror intended to offer a unique perspective of the building's ceiling fresco.
The item has since become known as Rome's 'best selfie mirror'.
But as the list of overcrowding episodes spurred by viral TikTok content seems destined to grow further in the coming months, some Italian reporters and commentators have already accused so-called 'TikTok tourism' of 'destroying' Italian travel destinations.
Though I think that 'destroying' may be too strong a word to describe the phenomenon, I don't find these comments to be too far off the mark.
Following incidents in Italy as well as in other world countries, including China and the US, there is enough available evidence to confidently state that TikTok content is capable of funnelling thousands of visitors into a place within hours.
This can have a major impact on lesser-known areas, as local infrastructure is in most cases incapable of coping with large numbers of visitors.
But besides creating crowd-management issues for authorities and giving headaches to residents looking to go about their lives peacefully, huge flows of visitors can also pose significant safety risks, as has been the case on Mount Etna in recent days.
The head of Sicily's Civil Protection agency, Salvo Cocina, said on Facebook last weekend that 'wild' parking on the volcano's slopes had blocked key rescue routes, obstructing emergency vehicles.
He also warned about the 'risk of falls', which 'increases proportionally to the number of people' crowding the sides of the volcano.
As a final point, besides overcrowding issues, media reports have also drawn parallels between the rise of TikTok as a primary source for travel planning and an increase in 'unethical tourism', meaning practices that harm local communities, damage the environment or disrespect cultural traditions.
So all in all, in answer to the question of whether TikTok is ravaging Italian travel destinations, I fear that 'ravaging' may be too strong of a verb at this point.
But the social media platform is surely changing travel in Italy – and not for the better.
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