Mass tourism threatens Croatia’s Game of Thrones city Dubrovnik, and it’s getting worse
The Unesco World Heritage site on the Adriatic is under threat from hordes of cruise ship tourists who crowd its narrow streets looking for landmarks from the hit TV series
Marc van Bloemen has lived in the old town of Dubrovnik, the Croatian citadel widely praised as the jewel of the Adriatic, for decades, since he was a child. He says it used to be a privilege. Now it’s a nightmare.
Crowds of tourists clog the entrances to the ancient walled city, a Unesco World Heritage Site, as huge cruise ships unload thousands more daily. People bump into each other on the famous limestone-paved Stradun, the pedestrian street lined with medieval churches and palaces, as fans of the popular TV series Game of Thrones search for the locations where it was filmed.
Dubrovnik is a prime example of the effects of mass tourism, a global phenomenon in which the increase in people travelling means stand-out sites – particularly small ones – get overwhelmed by crowds. As the number of visitors keeps rising, local authorities are looking for ways to keep the throngs from killing the town’s charm.
“It’s beyond belief, it’s like living in the middle of Disneyland,” says van Bloemen from his house overlooking the bustling Old Harbour in the shadows of the stone city walls.
On a typical day there are about eight cruise ships visiting this city of 28,000 people, each dumping some 2,000 tourists into the streets. He recalls one day when 13 ships anchored there.