The mayor of a popular Italian ski resort is clamping down on day-trippers after the town was suddenly overwhelmed by 260 buses bringing more than 10,000 visitors from Naples and the surrounding Campania region, lured by a TikTok star and cheap tickets.
The onslaught on Sunday severely clogged the road leading up to Roccaraso, nestled in the mountains of Abruzzo, and overcrowded its ski slopes. Local residents were furious after the crowds, many of whom brought picnics, left the resort strewn with rubbish.
The day-trippers were influenced by a Naples-born TikToker, Rita De Crescenzo, who posted a live video and several photos from the resort to her 1.7 million followers, as well as by travel agencies offering return bus trips, some leaving at 6am for the two-hour trip, for €20-€30 with breakfast thrown in.
Francesco Di Donato, the mayor of Roccaraso, said the resort had had especially busy days in the past but it had never experienced an influx akin to last Sunday’s.
He hinted at calling in the army to deal with the issue, but for now he has limited the number of tourist buses that can enter the town on Saturdays and Sundays to 100. What’s more, bus companies will need to pre-book online.
Ordinarily, on average 20,000 skiers venture to Roccaraso on weekends in January and February, on top of 15,000 who go simply for a visit.
“Then we have hundreds of unauthorised buses arriving,” Di Donato told the news agency, Adnkronos. “On Sunday 260 came, especially from Campania, bringing another 10,000-12,000 people. This was a real assault and the situation became unmanageable.”
Di Donato rejected accusations on social media of discrimination towards Neapolitans, who are often stereotyped as being uncouth, arguing that the town needed to be protected and that hosting too many people posed a safety risk.
“Racism towards Neapolitans? Not really,” Di Donato told Corriere della Sera. “Roccaraso welcomes and wants to welcome more tourists, but we want civilised skiers. With €30 you cannot even ski, as a ski pass costs €60. Roccaraso is not able to withstand the kind of assault we had on Sunday – for example, we cannot put 1,000 portable toilets in a ski resort.”
De Crescenzo, who along with her TikTok fame has more than 400,000 followers on Instagram, denied responsibility for the overcrowding and pledged to return to the resort on Sunday – this time with even more people.
“All I said was that Roccaraso is a beautiful place,” she told Il Messaggero. “People are free to move as they want and I cannot be responsible for the behaviour of others. I published content that reached a huge audience, which makes me proud. I’m convinced that Roccaraso will continue to be a highly attractive destination. I will be back on Sunday and you will see that, thanks to my videos, even more people will come than last weekend.”
The overtourism debate is usually reserved for the summer period and for famous Italian cities such Venice, Florence and Rome, but the Roccaraso case has further exposed how social media influencers can contribute to the phenomenon.
“[Overtourism] no longer happens only in the most renowned destination,” wrote Carlotta Sisti in Elle magazine. “But it also happens, and unexpectedly, in less renowned destinations which are not accustomed to huge flows of visitors, just like Roccaraso.”
Emilio Borelli, a councillor for the Campania region, said: “Behind this extraordinary influx lies a digital phenomenon linked to TikTok,” while noting how local travel agencies prominent on social media attracted customers with cheap deals.
TikTokers have prompted visitor booms at other lesser-known sites, including a church in Rome that has a mirror popular with selfie-takers.
Article by:Source: Angela Giuffrida in Rome
