ROME – Residents in a picturesque Sardinian seaside town say they feel “trapped” by summer tourism, pushed off overcrowded beaches and forced to make trips by foot and dinghy for fear of having tourists steal their parking spaces.
Each summer Stintino, home to barely 2,000 residents, “sees an influx of 60,000 tourists, Italian and foreign – mainly German, French, Spanish – who literally crush us, making it a living hell for locals”, mayor Rita Limbania Vallebella tells i.
After complaints from residents and wanting to preserve the environment, the mayor in 2020 capped the number of holidaymakers allowed on the north Sardinian town’s most popular, tropical-like beach of La Pelosa to 1,500 per day.
“If I hadn’t done that, it would be a folly: hordes of 12,000 sunbathers would invade La Pelosa each day, and disintegrate it,” she says.
The fee has risen to €3.50 (£2.94) this year, with 750 tickets available at the beach and the other half online. The beach is already fully booked until September, says the mayor.
Beach patrols take place and rule-breakers face fines of up to €800 (£670), up from €500, with sunbathers required to wear an identifying bracelet. Littering carries the highest fine.
Smoking, dogs, stealing the coral-coloured sand, and using a beach towel rather than a straw mat are forbidden.
Tourists must bring their own mats, which the mayor says prevent the loss of the precious sand, which clings to wet towels.
Ms Vallebella claims tourists often leave rubbish on the sand dunes and have forced locals to change their daily habits.
“We avoid places where tourists go, take our boats out instead to the open sea and don’t use our cars. If we abandon our parking spots in town, holidaymakers immediately grab them.”
Residents feel overtourism is “squeezing” them out and “making rentals skyrocket”, says homemaker Anna Pinna.
“We don’t feel free to move around in our village like in the winter. Tourism has trapped us. Everything has got too expensive. Bars and restaurants are off-limits with a meal costing up to €130 (£109) per person,” says Mrs Pinna.
Two-bedroom studios for rent near the seaside have gone from €500 (£420) per week to €3,000 (£2,500), adds Antonio Lovari, a pensioner from Naples who regularly visits Stintino in summer to stay in such properties.
“I don’t think I can afford more than one week of holiday this year, it’s a pity. I’ll have to settle with Naples’ quieter coast next year,” he says.
Mrs Pinna blames tourists for having “destroyed our little corner of paradise” and wishes local authorities would place a weekly cap on the number of tourists allowed inside the village, not just on its beaches.
The mayor has no plans to enlarge restrictions, but is worried about the upcoming August peak season.
“In the past, not counting just La Pelosa beach, during a single day we recorded roughly 40,000 tourists splashing in our clear waters,” she says.
“You could hardly see the blue sea, just bathing bodies.”