The perfect destination for Instagram and Tiktok, the nightmare of the locals of a picturesque village. Become a magnet for tourists who have “one purpose”

A picturesque village in southwestern England, nicknamed “Venice of Cotswolds”, is “destroyed” by tourists attracted to take pictures for social networks, than by the history of the place, a local councilor, quoted by The Independent, complains.

This is Bourton-On-Water, located in the Gloucestershire County in the Cotswolds region-a famous rural area for its gentle hills, villages with yellow limestone and typically English landscapes.

Hundreds of thousands of visitors come here every year, and recently the village has become a real magnet for tourists who shoot or posed to put the images on Instagram and Tiktok.

Local councilor Jon Wareing is mournful that these tourists are less interested in the culture and heritage of the village of Bourton-On-the-Water. The representative of the local administration catalogs them as being of the “hit-and-run” type: wine, film and leave.

“It is a combination of excessive tourism and fast tourism, which refers to people who cram in very popular places to create content,” Wareing said.

The locals also complain about the increase in the amount of garbage, especially on the central meadow, very popular among visitors and have even claimed verbal abuses. In addition, traffic has become infernal in the village where about 3,500 people live.

In fact, at the top of the season, Bourton-on-the-Water houses even more tourists than residents, being visited by over 300,000 people a year.

The village is famous for the five low stone bridges over the Windsh River and its yellow limestone houses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm6ygj5eufs

Dissatisfaction with “accelerated mass tourism” is not isolated. In another famous village of Cotswolds, Castle Combe, the locals say they are violated with the drones piloted by tourists, and the community is eroded by Airbnb -type rents. There, despite the fact that the village has only 356 inhabitants, the number of visitors reaches hundreds of thousands annually.

Meanwhile, companies that organize minibus tours through the villages in Cotswolds report a massive business growth.

Bourton-on-the-Water also has special traditions: every August, thousands of people gather to watch a medieval football match, played right in the river Windsh.

Illustrative photo source: Dreamstime.com