For more than a decade, images of Santa Maddalena, a church in a small village in northern Italy surrounded by the jagged peaks of the Dolomites, have been circulating online. But locals say it was only last summer that the steady stream of tourists hit.
Now authorities are stepping in to slow the tide, introducing new regulations aimed at curbing day-trip tourism and easing pressure on villages.
Access to the village near the church, a UNESCO World Heritage site, will be restricted from May by barriers, with only residents and tourists staying in the area for at least one night allowed to enter, the local government said. Passenger cars and tour buses carrying day-trippers will be refused entry.
Visitors on this day (up to 600 during peak season) must instead walk more than 30 minutes to reach the church from the designated parking lot. The city has not yet decided whether to introduce a shuttle service for visitors who cannot walk.
Peter Peenthaler, mayor of the surrounding Funes district, told CNN that once the village’s parking lot reaches capacity, drivers will have to park further away, and that the filtered entry system will operate from May to November. Parking currently costs 4 euros (just under $5) per day, but Pernthaler said the price would be increased to deter visitors who arrive just to take a quick photo.
“I don’t want to talk about overtourism. That’s not the right word,” he says. “I’m not saying tourists are a nuisance, but they come in large numbers and we have to manage them, both for the safety of our residents and to ensure a good experience for the tourists themselves.”
It took years for Santa Maddalena to emerge as a social media hot spot. The church quickly attracted attention among Chinese tourists after it appeared on SIM cards issued by Chinese mobile phone operators more than a decade ago. Nearby Mount Seceda was later featured as a screensaver in Apple’s iOS 7 update in 2013, drawing waves of visitors eager to see the image in person, with peak numbers reportedly reaching 8,000 visitors a day.
Both sites have since become staples on TikTok and Instagram, drawing tourists that locals describe as “hit-and-run tourists.” Tourists document the landscape and then rush to move on, contributing little to the local economy while taxing infrastructure.
City councilor Roswitha Mollet Niederwolfsgruber said day-trippers clog the narrow roads and hinder long-term tourists. “They destroy everything in their wake to take pictures,” she told CNN. “It has become unsustainable and unbalanced.”
Local officials stress that the goal is not to stop tourism altogether, but to slow it down.
“There are professional photographers who come here, and there are also tourists who can’t wait to take a quick selfie before leaving,” says Pernthaler. “Some people stop and stay here for days, while others arrive and leave within an hour and a half.”
Attempts to curb mass tourism are not new to the region. Last summer, Georg Labansar, a former Italian national team snowboarder who owns a meadow near Seceda, installed a turnstile that charges visitors who cross his property to take pictures of the church of San Giovanni di Ranui on the other side of the valley. He later told CNN that the move would only lead to more tourists.
Pernthaler himself has faced backlash over the restrictions, but says he doesn’t want to be remembered as a “mayor who chases tourists away.” Rather, he frames the move as part of a broader “slow tourism” push, encouraging tourists to trade frenzied tourism for deeper and longer stays.
Although enforcement requires additional patrols and is expensive, Peenthaler insists it is a necessary investment. “We need order, both for the people who live here and for the people who come here and take classic photos and then leave,” he told local media.
What may seem like an extreme reaction may prove to be protective. Many local residents fear that the Cortina Winter Olympics, scheduled to open next week on the other side of the Dolomites, will further intensify existing pressures. A study by the European House Ambrosetti think tank estimates that the Olympics could attract an additional nine million visitors between 2027 and 2030.
The regions expected to benefit the most and also feel the strain include those already facing tourist saturation, such as Milan, Belluno, Bolzano, Sondrio and Trento. For communities like Vilnes, the current influx could still prove to be the calm before a much larger storm.
