OVERTOURISM: WHEN POPULAR PLACES BECOME TOO POPULAR

Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world, but in a few well-known places it has begun to harm the people who live there. This article examines how three European destinations, Venice, Dubrovnik and Barcelona, have responded to overtourism and considers what their experience means for Uzbekistan, where the number of visitors is rising quickly. A desk-based comparative case study was carried out using 15 published sources, including reports of international organisations, a university paper, news agency reports and official tourism statistics, and the findings are discussed against the academic literature. The three cities faced different pressures (day-trippers, cruise ships and tourist flats) and chose different tools (an entry fee, daily quotas and a ban on tourist apartments), and none of the measures is free of criticism. Uzbekistan received 11.7 million foreign visitors in 2025, nearly 47 percent more than a year earlier, and about 81.5 percent of them came from neighbouring countries. The evidence suggests that the problem lies less in the number of visitors than in how their flow is managed, and that Uzbekistan can still act before pressure builds up.