Ruined by Tourists?

What happens when lots of tourists go to a place? Some people say tourism is really good,
and it brings jobs and money to their community and helps them get out of poverty.
But the stories of many places aren’t like that.

Venice, Italy, is a beautiful city known as the City of Water.
It was cleaner before tourists started to go there in millions – about 20 million last year.
People say that the boats in the canals of Venice cause a lot of pollution in the water.
Now the city is limiting the number of new hotel rooms and tourists who visit the city every year.

Reykjavik is the capital of Iceland. Iceland has a population of about 335,000 people,
but about 1.3 million tourists visited Iceland last year. There weren’t enough hotels for the tourists to stay in,
so Iceland started building hotels and buildings. The prices of houses weren’t very high,
but now they are because of tourism.

Santorini is a beautiful town in Greece with a population of 15,000 people.
However, last year 790,000 people visited this small town. The city has got old roads and buildings,
and tourists are the reason why some of them can’t be used now.
Tourists usually write messages on walls and drive their cars on the roads, and this damages the town.