Tourists Ruined Europe—Is America Next? How the Global Travel Boom Is Reshaping Neighborhoods and Housing

Tourism is officially back. But after an impressive rebound from pandemic lows, the mood in the world's most visited places isn’t celebratory—it’s souring.

Global tourism hit a record high in 2025, with 1.52 billion international arrivals—a 4% increase from the year before, according to UN Tourism. And it’s hitting locals harder than ever before.

In Spain's Barcelona and Mallorca, frustrated residents took to the streets with squirt guns, spraying tourists in protest. In Paris, workers at the Louvre Museum walked off the job, demanding relief from chronic understaffing and overcrowding.

The backlash was as much about inconvenience as it was imbalance. While tourism demand has come roaring back, the infrastructure that once absorbed it—hotels, staffing, public services—hasn’t recovered at the same pace. And the gap has redirected travelers from secluded tourist zones into neighborhoods, housing, and the daily life.

In some places, it’s fueling both displacement and degradation. In Jamaica, less than 1% of the island’s coastline is accessible to locals. And across Greece’s Cyclades—including popular destinations like Santorini and Mykonos—the environmental toll of nonstop tourism landed the region on a Heritage-in-Danger list.

Across the world, residents of the most sought after destinations are asking whether their cities still belong to them. The question for the U.S. is whether it’s on the same path—or already arriving at that crossroads.

Is America next—or are we already there?

So far, the U.S. has been largely spared the surge in international arrivals seen abroad. In 2025, North America actually saw a 1.4% dip in tourism, a decline many observers attribute to lingering hesitancy tied to President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and international relations.

But even without a spike in global visitors, many of the pressures reshaping Europe are already playing out stateside. 

National parks are bearing the brunt of underfunding and overuse. Vandalism has surged, with recent damage reported in Gettysburg, Arches, and Death Valley. Just this week, Yosemite saw its granite boulders tagged with graffiti.

And the reprieve in arrivals may not last. Two massive global events are on the horizon: the 2026 FIFA World Cup, hosted in 11 U.S. cities, and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Together, the events are projected to draw millions of international visitors and inject nearly $25 billion into the American economy.

Already, ultra-wealthy tourists are spending millions to rent luxury homes in advance of the Games. That influx of short-term, high-dollar demand is expected to ripple outward—fueling price competition, accelerating conversions to short-term rentals, and tightening the vise on an already brutal housing market.

In cities already struggling with affordability, the economic growth that tourism brings is coming into direct conflict with the people who hoped to live there long term.

Short-term rentals fill the gap, and clash with locals

Nowhere is the strain of the tourism rebound more visible than in the rise of short-term rentals—a trend accelerated at least in part by the pandemic. 

The hotel industry was battered by the drop in tourism. Many operations shuttered or scaled back, and in cities like New York, as many as a third of hotel rooms vanished and still haven’t returned. 

That void didn’t stay empty for long. As travel demand returned, short-term rentals stepped in to absorb it.

Airbnb’s U.S. market share has jumped from 28% in 2019 to 44% in 2024, according to Skift. And as that footprint expanded, so did friction. From New Orleans to Phoenix, locals have watched homes vanish from the long-term rental or for sale market, converted into income streams for out-of-town investors or absentee landlords.

STR conversions are driven by one key factor: profit. When local rules are loose and short-term revenue outpaces what a traditional lease can earn, the decision to convert is simple.

“A high volume of visitors combined with not having enough hotel capacity lead to the best markets for STR, and these dynamics seem to be at play in these markets,” explains Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com®. 

And in high-demand areas with limited housing supply, that shift can raise rents, price out first-time buyers, and shrink the pool of homes available to people who actually want to live in the city—rather than visit for a weekend.

Investor interest is only expected to grow. Industry analysts at AirDNA predict a strong outlook for STRs over the next two years, citing stabilizing mortgage rates, softening home prices, and accelerating demand. It’s a rare moment, they note, when the housing market and the travel market are aligning perfectly—for investors.

For everyone else—especially renters and would-be homeowners—that alignment means more competition, higher prices, and fewer places to go.

'Neighbors not nightmares'

They’re dynamics I know all too well. Every spring when I return to my hometown of Phoenix, it looks a little less like the place I grew up and more like a curated weekend escape—pub bike convoys coasting through quiet blocks, bachelorette boas drifting past T-ball practice.

The visitors aren’t the problem, it’s where they are. Not tucked into hotel strips or resort zones, but embedded in once-residential neighborhoods.

That shift may in part be owed to a 2016 law. That year, Arizona passed a state law that stripped cities of the ability to regulate short-term rentals. Since then, STRs have exploded across the Valley of the Sun. In Scottsdale alone, estimates place the number at 4,000 to 5,000.

With them came a spike in noise complaints, nuisance reports, and neighborhood frustration. Scottsdale officials tracked a clear increase in complaints after the 2016 law took effect—so much so that the city was eventually forced to pass a nuisance ordinance just to manage party houses.

Even with those rules in place, locals still report recurring issues: loud music, intoxicated guests showing up at the wrong address, strangers turning suburban cul-de-sacs into late-night venues. In response, locals have formed a group dubbed "Neighbors Not Nightmares" to report nuisance parties and organize for more regulation of STRs.

And if that’s happening in a metro area of 5 million, the pressure is even more acute in small towns. On Tybee Island, GA—just 2.7 square miles and home to 3,400 full-time residents—locals have fought for years to rein in STRs. They’ve been met with fierce opposition from tourism-reliant business owners who say the island’s economy depends on the nightly turnover.

Keep in mind—all of this is happening against a backdrop of a decline in tourism in the States. What the years ahead hold is anyone's guess. Tourism may be on the brink of return, but for many communities, what’s already vanished is the ability to stay.