In Instagram posts and YouTube videos, the Swiss village of Lauterbrunnen in the canton of Bern looks idyllic. Heidi-style chalets are surrounded by cow-dotted pastures and shadowed by towering peaks, while a waterfall cascades down the rock face at the foot, sending sparkling rainbow colors into the air. But when you zoom out a bit during the summer months, you’ll see what’s not on social media: the crowds of tourists that make you consider imposing a tax on day-trip visitors who arrive here by car.
Online, Lauterbrunnen is regularly dubbed “Switzerland’s most beautiful village” and this has led to a boom in visitors, causing traffic jams on the single road into the city and queues on footpaths leading out of the city center and towards the best views. “The city was always busy,” said one hotel manager Telegram. “But since the pandemic is ‘over’, the number of visitors has definitely increased dramatically.”
Lauterbrunnen joins a growing list of popular venues from Venice to Kyoto that may have become victims of their own success. And just like them, he is looking for ways to minimize the impact of overtourism.
Lauterbrunnen, where visitor numbers peak at around 6,000 per day according to some reports, is not as busy as tourist hotspots such as the Acropolis (where visitors were capped at 20,000 per day last September) or Bali (which introduced a new tourism tax). in February 2024). “I do not believe we are experiencing ‘overtourism’ as discussed in cities such as Venice,” says Marc Ungerer, CEO of Jungfrau Regional Tourism.
But like other places that have suddenly become the focus of social media attention, Lauterbrunnen’s size means it is struggling to cope with the high numbers of visitors and their behavior once they arrive. “During the busy summer season, the village road gets a bit crowded as the road is not very wide and there is only one pavement,” admits Tom Durrer, resort manager of Lauterbrunnen. However, the municipality plans to build a second pavement and widen the road,” he said.
Half an hour’s drive away, on the shores of Lake Brienz, Iseltwald (population: 415) faced similar problems when it catapulted to stardom after its picturesque pier featured in the Korean Netflix series. Crash Landing on You. In the resulting tourism boom, bus travelers clogged roads and byways, leading authorities to impose a £5 selfie tax for taking photos on top of the structure.
A proposed tourist tax on Lauterbrunnen is seen as a way to discourage day-trippers who come to take photos and leave quickly, creating traffic congestion and litter without benefiting the local economy. However, Ungerer says, “the legal basis for such a tax does not yet exist.” “Initial announcements are being made now, so it is too early to think about what such a tax might look like or how it might work.”
It’s a delicate balance in a place where most of the population of 2,400 rely on tourism for income. After all, Lauterbrunnen was popular long before it was Instafamous. When European travels first began more than two centuries ago, Wordsworth and Lord Byron were among those inspired by the surrounding mountains and the valley’s 72 waterfalls.
In the 19th century, an enterprising local entrepreneur built the Hotel Staubbach on the edge of the village, with incredible views of the Staubbach Falls. Soon a number of hotels and guesthouses for weary hikers created a boom town that became more popular with the electrification of the railway line. Lauterbrunnen is now easily accessible from the resort town of Interlaken and is also the gateway to the car-free villages of Mürren and Wengen.
Still, it’s easy to understand why some locals are fed up with tourists. In a country where rules and order are highly respected and the natural environment is highly valued, rumors about people taking photos in private gardens and playing football in cemeteries are disgusting. Meanwhile, the notoriously insular Swiss are uncomfortable living right next to an endless stream of holidays. After the 2023 summer season, the website swissinfo.ch reported that residents gathered at a crisis meeting organized by district chiefs: the mood was one of despair.
It’s a shame because there are many lesser-known (but equally beautiful) villages in Switzerland with plenty of space to wander around. According to World Bank data, more than a quarter of the country’s population lives in rural areas and its cities are small (none with a population of more than 400,000). This means you’re never far from a meadow-covered village, where old barns surrounded by perfectly manicured geraniums curl up into hillsides and ducks and chickens roam small farms that open up to seas of wildflowers.
Les Plus Beaux Villages de Suisse is an organization dedicated to promoting rural settlements in incredible settings. Among them is sun-soaked Soglio, a maze of narrow streets that seem stranded in the choppy, forested tide of the Bregaglia Valley near Italy. Meanwhile, at the slightly better-known Saint Saphorin in the French-speaking Vaud region, vine terraces zigzag above medieval streets while Lake Geneva glistens below, backed by snow-capped mountains. Beauty may be subjective, but it’s hard not to be surprised (just don’t tell everyone on TikTok that).
Tourism chiefs in Lauterbrunnen admit social media ‘helps’ [the village] to be better known,” says Durrer. But they also hope it will help preserve it in the future. “It is an important communication channel to influence visitors’ positive behavior,” he adds.
Other places facing similar problems have different ideas. In spring 2023, the Italian resort of Portofino introduced ‘no waiting zones’, with fines of 275 euros in areas where selfie-taking tourists blocked the streets and caused traffic chaos (the zones will be in effect until October). As a new summer season begins in Lauterbrunnen, some residents may be wondering if it’s time to refocus the lens.
