How Rome’s Overtourism Has Turned Its Most Iconic Piazza Into a City of StrangersEvery day, thousands of tourists gather just within a few square miles around the Trevi Fountain. They come from all over the globe to see one of Rome’s most recognizable landmarks, take their photos, and experience a piece of the city they likely imagined long before they arrived.Yet among all of these people, there is very little interaction between them. Tourists tend to stick to their own groups. Families stay with families, couples with couples, tour groups with a guide, and solo travelers keep to themselves. Hundreds to thousands of strangers stand shoulder-to-shoulder competing for the same picture, but they hardly interact. The Trevi Fountain is just one of many visible examples of a larger phenomenon in Rome. That is, tourism creates an extreme concentration of people, but doesn’t necessarily create a sense of community among them. For some visitors, the crowds themselves have become a part of the attraction. Josephine, a visitor from the Netherlands, recently returned to the Trevi Fountain not to admire the monument, but to watch the people surrounding it. “I don’t want to see the fountain anymore; I’ve seen it before, I’m good. And now I look at the crowds, and I watch,” said Josephine. Josephine described a significant change since her earlier visits to Rome. The experience of simply wandering through the streets and historic sights has become a thing of the past. She thinks this is due to the rising number of visitors. “No, that was a long time ago when you could have an experience like that,” said Josephine when asked if today’s tourists could still have an authentic Roman experience while visiting. “You could kind of walk around no problem, no crowds.” Another visitor from England expressed similar frustrations with the transformation. “I came a long time ago and they didn’t have all of this. All these crowds…I don’t like it,” she said. This issue, though, is not unique to Rome. Other European cities have faced similar patterns. “It’s crazy in Rome, it’s crazy in Barcelona, it’s crazy in Amsterdam,” said Josephine. But crowds do more than make it difficult to move through a city. They can also change how people interact with each other. Rome recorded 52.92 million visitors in 2025, meaning each year tourists are constantly surrounded by fellow tourists. But approaching each other can feel unusual and uncomfortable. Visitors have been warned about scams, pickpockets, and unsolicited offers, causing people to be closed off to interaction. As a result, a stranger approaching a tourist may not immediately register as an opportunity for conversation, and instead may simply seem like another interruption. This became especially noticeable while attempting informal conversations with visitors around the fountain. In particular, attempts to speak with American tourists were completely dismissed or shot down very quickly. However, tourists from other parts of the world seemed more willing to stop and talk. The difference is not enough to establish an official pattern about nationality, as just a handful of conversations doesn’t explain why one tourist is open to chatting and others simply refuse. But the contrast shows two trends in the social environment that mass tourism creates. The first piece of this is the idea of “extractive tourism.” The term was coined by academic Vijay Kolinjivadi in 2021, and it explains when a historical site that has some kind of uniqueness to visitors becomes all about the tourism value. It explains how tourism often takes more than it gives back to the community. The second part of this is that in some of the world’s most crowded tourist areas, people become very protective of their small circles. There is a level of irony to this. Rome is well known for its public piazzas, cafes, and streets designed for public life. Its historic centre is meant to encourage people to walk, linger, and observe. But at the most popular attractions, the sheer number of visitors creates the opposite effect. People are focused on navigating the massive crowds, taking the pictures that they came for, or just keeping track of the group they came with. The result is a city filled with strangers who may never even acknowledge each other. Tourism is extracting the community aspect of Rome. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all tourists are uninterested in connection. Some visitors are willing to stop and share their experiences when given a reason. Others, like Josephine, have found a different way to engage with the crowds by simply people-watching. That is perhaps one of the stranger results of extractive tourism. A visitor can travel thousands of kilometers to be surrounded by people from dozens of countries, yet only spend the day interacting with the same social bubble they brought with them. This defeats one of the main purposes of traveling: to connect with people around the globe and learn from each other. At the Trevi Fountain, the crowds are impossible to miss, but neither are the invisible boundaries between them. In a world of extractive tourism, proximity does not create connection. In one of Rome’s busiest public spaces, the most difficult thing to find may not be a clear view of the fountain, but a stranger willing to have a conversation, or a reason to speak at all. Ph: John Bametz / Shutterstock.com

Every day, thousands of tourists gather just within a few square miles around the Trevi Fountain. They come from all over the globe to see one of Rome’s most recognizable landmarks, take their photos, and experience a piece of the city they likely imagined long before they arrived. Yet among all of these people, there is very little interaction between them. Tourists tend to stick to their own groups. Families stay with families, couples with couples, tour groups with a guide, and solo travelers keep to themselves. Hundreds to thousands of strangers stand shoulder-to-shoulder competing for the same picture, but they hardly interact. The Trevi Fountain is just one of many visible examples of a larger phenomenon in Rome. That is, tourism creates an extreme concentration of people, but doesn’t necessarily create a sense of community among them. For some visitors, the crowds themselves have become a part of the attraction. Josephine, a visitor from the Netherlands, recently returned to the Trevi Fountain not to admire the monument, but to watch the people surrounding it. “I don’t want to see the fountain anymore; I’ve seen it before, I’m good. And now I look at the crowds, and I watch,” said Josephine. Josephine described a significant change since her earlier visits to Rome. The experience of simply wandering through the streets and historic sights has become a thing of the past. She thinks this is due to the rising number of visitors. “No, that was a long time ago when you could have an experience like that,” said Josephine when asked if today’s tourists could still have an authentic Roman experience while visiting. “You could kind of walk around no problem, no crowds.” Another visitor from England expressed similar frustrations with the transformation. “I came a long time ago and they didn’t have all of this. All these crowds…I don’t like it,” she said. This issue, though, is not unique to Rome. Other European cities have faced similar patterns. “It’s crazy in Rome, it’s crazy in Barcelona, it’s crazy in Amsterdam,” said Josephine. But crowds do more than make it difficult to move through a city. They can also change how people interact with each other. Rome recorded 52.92 million visitors in 2025, meaning each year tourists are constantly surrounded by fellow tourists. But approaching each other can feel unusual and uncomfortable. Visitors have been warned about scams, pickpockets, and unsolicited offers, causing people to be closed off to interaction. As a result, a stranger approaching a tourist may not immediately register as an opportunity for conversation, and instead may simply seem like another interruption. This became especially noticeable while attempting informal conversations with visitors around the fountain. In particular, attempts to speak with American tourists were completely dismissed or shot down very quickly. However, tourists from other parts of the world seemed more willing to stop and talk. The difference is not enough to establish an official pattern about nationality, as just a handful of conversations doesn’t explain why one tourist is open to chatting and others simply refuse. But the contrast shows two trends in the social environment that mass tourism creates. The first piece of this is the idea of “extractive tourism.” The term was coined by academic Vijay Kolinjivadi in 2021, and it explains when a historical site that has some kind of uniqueness to visitors becomes all about the tourism value. It explains how tourism often takes more than it gives back to the community. The second part of this is that in some of the world’s most crowded tourist areas, people become very protective of their small circles. There is a level of irony to this. Rome is well known for its public piazzas, cafes, and streets designed for public life. Its historic centre is meant to encourage people to walk, linger, and observe. But at the most popular attractions, the sheer number of visitors creates the opposite effect. People are focused on navigating the massive crowds, taking the pictures that they came for, or just keeping track of the group they came with. The result is a city filled with strangers who may never even acknowledge each other. Tourism is extracting the community aspect of Rome. This doesn’t necessarily mean that all tourists are uninterested in connection. Some visitors are willing to stop and share their experiences when given a reason. Others, like Josephine, have found a different way to engage with the crowds by simply people-watching. That is perhaps one of the stranger results of extractive tourism. A visitor can travel thousands of kilometers to be surrounded by people from dozens of countries, yet only spend the day interacting with the same social bubble they brought with them. This defeats one of the main purposes of traveling: to connect with people around the globe and learn from each other. At the Trevi Fountain, the crowds are impossible to miss, but neither are the invisible boundaries between them. In a world of extractive tourism, proximity does not create connection. In one of Rome’s busiest public spaces, the most difficult thing to find may not be a clear view of the fountain, but a stranger willing to have a conversation, or a reason to speak at all. Ph: John Bametz / Shutterstock.com