Asia’s tourist destinations are overrun with visitors, testing the patience of residents in hotspots like Kyoto and Bali. Some governments are trying to limit the influx of visitors through measures like taxes or reduced visa stays.
Ethan Lin, co-founder of the Asia-based travel platform Klook, argued at the Fortune Leaders Forum in Macau on Sept. 8 that thinking of overtourism as a pure numbers problem misses the real source of the issue.
“Overtourism is a concentration problem, not a volume problem,” Lin said. In other words, too many tourists are going to the same small number of places within a country, rather than experiencing everything a destination has to offer.
AI may help tourists find something new to do or see. In Klook’s Travel Pulse survey of Gen Z and millennial travelers across Asia, 57% said they had used AI to find new destinations or experiences. “Technology and AI help to diversify [tourism] traffic into different and lesser-known destinations,” Lin said.
Speaking on a separate travel-focused panel, David Mann, Mastercard’s chief APAC economist noted that, per company data, those who pay for AI subscriptions are more likely to visit places off the beaten path. “People are looking to discover more places, more hidden gems, and plenty of places they’ve never tried before,” he said. AI “can really help them to find that even more effectively.”
