Italian town clamps down after TikTok star draws ‘unmanageable’ crowds
Italian town clamps down after TikTok star draws ‘unmanageable’ crowds
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Mayor caps tourist bus numbers after thousands of visitors descend on Roccaraso, clogging roads and leaving litter. The mayor of a popular Italian ski resort is clamping down on day-trippers after the town was suddenly overwhelmed by 260 buses bringing more than 10,000 visitors from Naples and the surrounding Campania region, lured by a TikTok star and cheap tickets.
The onslaught on Sunday severely clogged the road leading up to Roccaraso, nestled in the mountains of Abruzzo, and overcrowded its ski slopes. Local residents were furious after the crowds, many of whom brought picnics, left the resort strewn with rubbish.
The day-trippers were influenced by a Naples-born TikToker, Rita De Crescenzo, who posted a live video and several photos from the resort to her 1.7 million followers, as well as by travel agencies offering return bus trips, some leaving at 6am for the two-hour trip, for €20-€30 with breakfast thrown in.
Francesco Di Donato, the mayor of Roccaraso, said the resort had had especially busy days in the past but it had never experienced an influx akin to last Sunday’s. He hinted at calling in the army to deal with the issue, but for now he has limited the number of tourist buses that can enter the town on Saturdays and Sundays to 100. What’s more, bus companies will need to pre-book online.
Ordinarily, on average 20,000 skiers venture to Roccaraso on weekends in January and February, on top of 15,000 who go simply for a visit. “Then we have hundreds of unauthorised buses arriving,” Di Donato told the news agency, Adnkronos. “On Sunday 260 came, especially from Campania, bringing another 10,000-12,000 people. This was a real assault and the situation became unmanageable.”.
