The Relationship between Budget Travel and Over-tourism

Traveling is to go from one place to another, take a trip, or make a journey. It can be very expensive as there are many expenses to cover, such as flight tickets, transportation, hotel, food, shopping, etc. So, today, I will be investigating budget travel experience and its problems.

Budget travel is travel that is budget conscious. Budget travel helps to save money, have a cheap holiday, and show that travelers do not need to splash cash to have amazing experiences. Apart from the pros of budget travel, there are some cons, such as the inconvenience of taking a cheap airline, the lack of options, long layover, and inflexible schedules. Moreover, the popularity of the tourist attractions and their low-cost services lead to over-tourism, which is a growing problem in a lot of places, affecting the environment, local economies, and people.

Budget travel is discussed by Kash Bhattacharya in his blog, Budget Traveller. Kash focuses on showing people how to travel in style on a budget. He personally believes that low-cost travel does not have to mean ‘roughing it.’ On his blog, he posts practical travel tips, lists the best value restaurants, cafes, and reviews luxury hostels, expressing important information about the topic of travel. In addition, Kash invites other bloggers to write guest posts, so there is a variety of different perspectives from all over the world, which is a great and unique thing about this blog that other blogs don’t have. The website is made more attractive by including pictures, links to social media channels, related news, and posts. It is also organized with specific categories based on topics, industry trends, and keywords. I think Budget Traveller is a good example of a travel blog. Kash’s experience of traveling to over 40 cities in the last 6 years makes him credible to the audience. In my opinion, it is not necessary to splash cash in order to have an amazing experience. There are several ways and sources that help people to achieve their travel dream without breaking the bank. However, everything comes with a price. As travelers get to see more and spend less on their trips, there is a high chance to run into problems and annoyances as well. I agree with Kash that low-cost travel doesn’t have to mean ‘roughing it.’ Yet, I think traveling should be a time to relax as well.

On the other hand, Kiwano Hotels, an eco-friendly service website that discusses traveling and ways to get the best out of the trip. Along with their hotels, lodges services, they also have blogs providing stories, tips, information about eco-friendly travel and some problems that come with traveling, like over-tourism. Budget travel bloggers introduce and advertise places they visited to their audience, causing overcrowding from an excess of tourists. Nevertheless, the source is making a claim that over-tourism can be prevented. This blog expresses the cause of over-tourism that not many people know, which is the popularity of budget travel. I agree that over-tourism is a growing problem in a lot of places as they have become so overrun with tourists that they are unable to cope with their popularity. However, it can be prevented by destinations and travelers. In order to stop this, amazing places do not have to close, instead they should limit the number of tourists, steer the focus on other destinations, and reduce demand in peak periods. As for travelers, they can avoid the tourist hotspots, travel at off-peak times, spend wisely, and respect the environment. Additionally, awareness plays an important role. Travelers need to be aware that there is a tourism problem in many places and understand the consequences of this problem on local economies, tourist attractions and people, in order to plan and act wisely to prevent this growing problem. Thereby, it takes some research and planning in order to prevent stress and problems while traveling.