CRUISE CONTROL

As Nice joins a long list of tourist hotspots bidding adieu to polluting luxury liners, JENNIFER PINTO reveals the port stop-offs where British holidaymakers may receive anything but a warm welcome this summer

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MAGINE waking to find the entire population of your town had doubled... or driving to the local shop only to find the queue is out of the door. And that’s before you even consider whether walking the dog is worth it, given your normally peaceful stroll could be hijacked by mobs of noisy, littering tourists, too busy taking snaps of the view to realise they are a blot on yours.

Welcome to the reality of communities living in cruise ship-dwelling ports. Once heralded as a mini economic boom for locals, the approach of huge holiday vessels to idyllic shores is now increasingly attracting angry protests, as natives rise up against “overtourism”.

The French Riviera city of Nice is the latest tourist destination to join the global backlash, months after Santorini was overwhelmed by a reported 11,000 travellers setting foot on the Greek island — normally home to 15,000 people — in just one day.

Nice’s Mayor Christian Estrosi has announced that from July 1, he will ban luxury liners carrying more than 900 passengers from the glitzy resort of Villefranche-sur-Mer, where cruise ships dock to visit Nice and its nearby picturesque towns. He previously called cruise ships “monsters of the seas” that “pollute and dump their low-cost clientele”.

‘And he may have a point. Cruise passenger numbers in Nice are expected to double by next year, reaching a crushing 320,000.The arrivals place great strain on infrastructure for a few hours, before leaving the same spots deserted the following day. Other campaigns are linked to soaring property prices driven by the surge in tourism — angering locals who believe they are being priced out of the market.