'Overtourism is killing Big Sur': activists raise banner in California vacation spot

The sign was placed over Bixby Bridge, which has been featured in Big Little Lies, an HBO show set in Monterey county

Kari Paul
Tue 9 Jul 2019 22.25 BST

Residents of California’s Big Sur are showing signs – specifically a large, yellow sign - that they are fed up with tourists.

Over the weekend, a banner declaring “Overtourism is killing Big Sur” was hung from Bixby Bridge, dominating any would-be Instagram-perfect photos of the scene.

The California Department of Transportation was made aware of the banner Saturday morning, said spokesman Jim Shivers. The local sheriff’s department removed the sign within hours. The group behind the sign calls itself “Take Back Big Sur” and is comprised of about two dozen locals, according to SFGate. A permit is needed to put up signs, Shivers said.

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Tourism injected $2.85bn into the economy of Monterey county, on California’s central coast, in 2017, up 3.5% from the previous year. Tourists began to overwhelm Big Sur starting in 2005, Butch Kromland, of the Community Association of Big Sur, told local news station KSBW.

“The barrier between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, that barrier has melted away in a lot of ways and I think that is a result of normalizing things in way via social media,” Kromland said.

The popularity of Bixby Bridge in particular has grown after its frequent appearances in Big Little Lies, an HBO show set in the county.

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