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What's the problem with overtourism?

With visitor numbers around the world increasing towards pre-pandemic levels, the issue of overtourism is once again rearing its head.

When locals in the charming Austrian lakeside village of Hallstatt staged a blockade of the main access tunnel, brandishing placards asking visitors to ‘think of the children’, it highlighted what can happen when places start to feel overrun by tourists. Hallstatt has just 800 residents but has opened its doors to around 10,000 visitors a day — a population increase of over 1,000%. And it’s just one of a growing number of places where residents are up in arms at the influx of travellers.

The term ‘overtourism’ is relatively new, having been coined over a decade ago to highlight the spiralling numbers of visitors taking a toll on cities, landmarks and landscapes. As tourist numbers worldwide return towards pre-pandemic levels, the debate around what constitutes ‘too many’ visitors continues. While many destinations, reliant on the income that tourism brings, are still keen for arrivals, a handful of major cities and sites are now imposing bans, fines, taxes and time-slot systems, and, in some cases, even launching campaigns of discouragement in a bid to curb tourist numbers.

What is overtourism?

In essence, overtourism is too many people in one place at any given time. While there isn’t a definitive figure stipulating the number of visitors allowed, an accumulation of economic, social and environmental factors determine if and how numbers are creeping up.

There are the wide-reaching effects, such as climate change. Coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef and Maya Bay, Thailand, made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Beach , are being degraded from visitors snorkelling, diving and touching the corals, as well as tour boats anchoring in the waters. And 2030 transport-related carbon emissions from tourism are expected to grow 25% from 2016 levels, representing an increase from 5% to 5.3% of all man-made emissions, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). More localised issues are affecting locals, too. Renters are being evicted by landlords in favour of turning properties into holiday lets, and house prices are escalating as a result. As visitors and rental properties outnumber local residents, communities are being lost. And, skyrocketing prices, excessive queues, crowded beaches, exorbitant noise levels, damage at historical sites and the ramifications to nature as people overwhelm or stray from official paths are also reasons the positives of tourism can have a negative impact.

Conversely, ‘undertourism’ is a term applied to less-frequented destinations, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic. The economic, social and environmental benefits of tourism aren't always passed on to those with plenty of capacity and, while tourist boards are always keen for visitors to visit their lesser-known attractions, it’s a more sustainable and rewarding experience for both residents and visitors.

What’s the main problem with it?

Overcrowding is an issue for both locals and tourists. It can ruin the experience of sightseeing for those trapped in long queues, unable to visit museums, galleries and sites without advance booking, incurring escalating costs for basics like food, drink and hotels, and faced with the inability to experience the wonder of a place in relative solitude. The absence of any real regulations has seen places take it upon themselves to try and establish some form of crowd control, meaning no cohesion and no real solution.

Justin Francis, co-founder and CEO of Responsible Travel, a tour operator that focuses on more sustainable travel, says “Social media has concentrated tourism in hotspots and exacerbated the problem, and tourist numbers globally are increasing while destinations have a finite capacity. Until local people are properly consulted about what they want and don’t want from tourism, we’ll see more protests.”

A French start up, Murmuration, which monitors the environmental impact of tourism by using satellite data, states that 80% of travellers visit just 10% of the world's tourism destinations, meaning bigger crowds in fewer spots. And, the UNWTO predicts that by 2030, the number of worldwide tourists, which peaked at 1.5 billion in 2019, will reach 1.8 billion,   likely leading to greater pressure on already popular spots and more objection from locals.

Who has been protesting?

Of the 800 residents in the UNESCO-listed village of Hallstatt, around 100 turned out in August to show their displeasure and to push for a cap on daily visitors and a curfew on tour coach arrivals.

Elsewhere, residents in Venice fought long and hard for a ban on cruise ships, with protest flags often draped from windows. In 2021, large cruise ships over 25,000 tonnes were banned from using the main Giudecca Canal, leaving only smaller passenger ferries and freight vessels able to dock.

In France, the Marseille Provence Cruise Club introduced a flow management system for cruise line passengers in 2020, easing congestion around the popular Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde Basilica. A Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) spokesperson said, “Coaches are limited to four per ship during the morning or afternoon at the Basilica to ensure a good visitor experience and safety for residents and local businesses. This is a voluntary arrangement respected by cruise lines.”

While in Orkney, Scotland, residents have been up in arms at the number of cruise ships docking on its shores. At the beginning of 2023, the local council confirmed that 214 cruise ship calls were scheduled for the year, bringing around £15 million in revenue to the islands. Following backlash from locals, the council has since proposed a plan to restrict the number of ships on any day.

What steps are being taken?  

City taxes have become increasingly popular, with Barcelona increasing its nightly levy in April 2023 — which was originally introduced in 2012 and varies depending on the type of accommodation — and Venice expects to charge day-trippers a €5 fee from 2024.

In Amsterdam this summer, the city council voted to ban cruise ships, while the mayor, Femke Halsema, commissioned a campaign of discouragement, asking young British men who planned to have a 'vacation from morals’ to stay away. In Rome, sitting at popular sites, such as the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, has been restricted by the authorities.

And in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, meanwhile, the Narok County governor has introduced on-the-spot fines for off-roading. He also plans to double nightly park fees in peak season.

What are the forecasts for global tourism?  

During the Covid pandemic, tourism was one of the hardest-hit industries — according to UNWTO, international tourist arrivals dropped 72% in 2020. However, traveller numbers have since been rapidly increasing, with double the number of people venturing abroad in the first three months of 2023 than in the same period in 2022. And, according to the World Travel Tourism Council, the tourism sector is expected to reach £7.5 trillion this year, 95% of its pre-pandemic levels.

While the tourism industry is forecast to represent 11.6% of the global economy by 2033, it’s also predicted that an increasing number of people will show more interest in travelling more sustainably. In a 2022 survey by Booking.com, 64% of the people asked said they would be prepared to stay away from busy tourist sites to avoid adding to congestion.

Are there any solutions?  

There are ways to better manage tourism by promoting more off-season travel, limiting numbers where possible and having greater regulation within the industry. Encouraging more sustainable travel and finding solutions to reduce friction between residents and tourists could also have positive impacts. Promoting alternative, less-visited spots to redirect travellers may also offer some benefits.

Harold Goodwin, emeritus professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, says, “Overtourism is a function of visitor volumes, but also of conflicting behaviours, crowding in inappropriate places and privacy. Social anthropologists talk about frontstage and backstage spaces. Tourists are rarely welcome in backstage spaces. To manage crowds, it’s first necessary to analyse and determine the causes of them.

Francis adds: “However, we must be careful not to just recreate the same problems elsewhere. The most important thing is to form a clear strategy, in consultation with local people about what a place wants or needs from tourism.”

As it stands, overtourism is a seasonal issue for a small number of destinations. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, a range of measures are clearly an option depending on the scale of the problem. For the majority of the world, tourism remains a force for good with many benefits beyond simple economic growth.

Related Topics

• OVERTOURISM
• SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

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Why are people protesting against tourists in Barcelona?

Thousands of protesters have hit the streets of central Barcelona to denounce mass tourism and its effect on Spain's most visited city, the latest in a series of similar marches around the country.

The protesters stopped in front of hotels and restaurants to confront tourists, symbolically taping off some businesses and carrying signs reading "Barcelona is not for sale" and "Tourists go home".

Footage showed demonstrators shooting colourful water pistols at tourists eating outdoors at restaurants, with some soggy diners awkwardly shuffling to a different table.

"I have nothing against tourism, but here in Barcelona we are suffering from an excess of tourism that has made our city unliveable," said Jordi Guiu, a 70-year-old sociologist.

The group of protesters marching along a waterfront district in Barcelona on Saturday was some 2,800 strong, police said.

Here's what has led to the locals' frustrations bubbling over in the incredibly popular travel destination.

Housing costs in the heart of tensions

The key driver behind the protests is the rising cost of housing due to mass tourism, while the negative effects on local commerce and working conditions also play a role.

Housing costs in Barcelona have increased significantly, with rents up 68 per cent and the cost of buying a house up 38 per cent in the past decade , according to local authorities.

In the past year alone, rents in the city rose by 18 per cent, according to property website Idealista.

"Local shops are closing to make way for stores that do not serve the needs of neighbourhoods. People cannot afford their rents," Isa Miralles, a 35-year-old musician who lives in the Barceloneta district, told AFP.

Short-term holiday rentals under scrutiny

Barcelona's mayor Jaume Collboni announced last month that it was banning tourist apartment rentals by 2028 to combat the "negative effects of mass tourism".

The plan is to scrap the licenses of the 10,000-plus apartments currently approved as short-term rentals and put them back on the local housing market .

"We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona's largest problem," Mr Collboni told a city government event.

The announcement could lead to a legal battle and is opposed by Barcelona's tourist apartments association, APARTUR, which says it will feed the black market.

"Collboni is making a mistake that will lead to [higher] poverty and unemployment," APARTUR said in a statement.

Inside Airbnb, a website providing data about the impact of the vacation rentals platform on residential communities, says there are over 18,000 listings in Barcelona .

More than half of the listings were entire homes or apartments , as opposed to a host renting out a room or section of a property they live in, according to the website. About one in three were unlicensed .

Nearly three quarters of hosts in the city had multiple listings .

Restrictions on short-term rentals have been announced by local governments around the world as residents increasingly get priced out of popular travel destinations due to gentrification and owner preference for lucrative tourist rentals over long-term rentals for locals.

Tourism-reliant economy questioned

Spain has long been a popular holiday destination for its warm weather, rich history and sunny beaches.

But the country is struggling to balance promoting tourism, a key driver of its economy, and addressing citizens' concerns over housing availability and costs.

Spain was the second most-visited country in the world in 2023, behind France, according to World Tourism rankings by the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

It received 85 million foreign visitors in 2023, an increase of nearly 20 per cent from the previous year, according to the National Statistics Institute.

The most-visited region of Spain was Catalonia, with 18 million foreign visitors. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia.

The coastal city alone, with its many internationally famous sites such as La Sagrada Familia, received more than 12 million tourists last year, according to local authorities.

The protesters in Barcelona are aware of the importance of tourism to the economy, but want to see that change.

A protester told Reuters one of the reasons she was attending the demonstration was to protest "against the economic model based on mass tourism."

"This model makes us poorer and more dependent," said Nuria Suarez.

Tensions on the rise around Spain

Barcelona isn't the only place in Spain where tourism is creating tension in the local community.

The Barcelona protests come after similar demonstrations in other tourist hotspots such as Malaga, Palma de Mallorca and the Canary Islands, some attended by tens of thousands of people.

Seasonal hospitality workers struggle to find accommodation, with many resorting to sleeping in caravans or even their cars.

The national government is taking notice, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announcing last week that the government would create a registry of holiday rental properties in a bid to limit the number of listings .

Housing Minister Isabel Rodriguez said the registry would be ready by the end of 2025 at the earliest. When that happens, online platforms will have to provide data about hosts to verify if they are allowed to rent their homes.

The government is also looking to take steps to curb mid-term rentals ranging from one to 11 months, and may give neighbours in apartment blocks a say over whether an owner can list their property on platforms, the minister said.

But some don't feel the measures are enough.

"The rise of tourist rentals is a major problem and these measures are not serious," said Victor Palomo, leader of the Madrid Tenants' Union after meeting with the housing minister.

"It can't be that it's only neighbours that are in charge of regulating them," he said, calling for landlords to pay more taxes.

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Squirt Guns and ‘Go Home’ Signs: Barcelona Residents Take Aim at Tourists

Locals confronted visitors to the Catalan capital in a whimsical (but very serious) demonstration against mass tourism and housing shortages.

By Amelia Nierenberg and Rachel Chaundler

Amelia Nierenberg reported from London and Rachel Chaundler from Zaragoza, Spain.

For the last few months, tourists in certain areas of Spain have found fewer welcome mats and more hostility. Anti-tourism graffiti loops across buildings, and tens of thousands of people have protested this year against unsustainable mass tourism.

Over the weekend in Barcelona, locals’ anger over housing shortages, overcrowding and the cost of living was tangible — and wet.

Residents of the Catalan capital took to the streets on Saturday with water guns, squirting them at diners eating al fresco.

About 2,800 people demonstrated, the police said, a figure that some organizers said was an undercount. Some carried signs with messages like “tourists go home” and “you are not welcome,” and doused families at restaurants.

“Spraying someone with water is not violent,” said Daniel Pardo Rivacoba, who helped lead and organize the protest.

“It’s probably not nice,” he added, “but what the population is suffering every day is more violent.”

Rosario Sánchez, a high-ranking Spanish tourism official, condemned the protests. She argued that the citizens were “not saying ‘no to tourism,’” but instead looking for changes that addressed their quality of life.

“Spain is one of the safest tourist destinations that exist,” she wrote in an email. “Specific incidents with tourists are reprehensible uncivil behavior that has nothing to do with the reality of our country.”

The headlines could drive people away and hurt the tourism industry, which is core to Barcelona’s economy, said Christian Petzold, the director of BCN Travel, a tour operator in the city. Tourism accounts for 14 percent of Barcelona’s gross domestic product and about 150,000 jobs, according to data from the City Council.

The protesters and their supporters say that the demand for short-term housing is exacerbating an increasingly unaffordable rental market. The mayor, Jaume Collboni, announced plans last month to get rid of all short-term housing by late 2028. He called it the city’s “ largest problem .”

Mr. Petzold suggested that some of the anger was misplaced, citing a high number of expatriates and digital nomads, who bring higher salaries to the competitive rental market.

“These people have more impact on the city and everything than the actual tourists,” he said. “This blame on the tourists is a bit cheap.”

And, locals say, tourists are everywhere, crowding monuments, streets and restaurants. In catering to them, locals say, businesses end up selling a bland simulation of Barcelona (paella and sangria, anyone?) that could overtake the city’s genuine character.

“Our city has been sold as a postcard,” Adrián Suárez, a 27-year-old engineer and activist who participated in the protests, wrote in an email.

In other parts of Spain, where nature is more of a pull, ecological challenges are more central.

“The Canary Islands have a limit,” said Sharon Backhouse, the director of GeoTenerife, a science, travel and research company in the Canary Islands, who participated in the protests there. “They don’t want any more hotels and they want a new tourism model. They want their natural spaces respected, not cemented over.”

And it’s not just happening in Spain. Cities worldwide are trying to find the right balance.

Venice is testing what amounts to an admission fee for tourists . Amsterdam, the Dutch capital, has urged young British men to “ stay away ,” barred cruise ships from the city center and is banning new hotels .

Officials in Japan, also reeling from a glut of visitors , put up a screen to block a popular view of Mount Fuji that was often used as a selfie backdrop. Bali asked tourists to pay a visitor fee . The Galápagos Islands, which had a record-breaking 330,000 visitors last year, will too .

Barcelona, a bucket-list destination , has been especially inundated. It has a population of 1.7 million, and more than 12 million tourists stayed at least one night last year, up from 10.7 million in 2022. This year could set a record, city officials said.

“We should be happy and grateful that people are interested in coming to our country,” said Carmen Sánchez, who has been a tour guide in Barcelona for 18 years.

“Tourism is fundamental,” she said, adding, “Attacking tourism is not the way forward, because we are all tourists. Everyone travels and anyone who says they don’t is lying.”

Regardless of the source of the problem, for locals, “there is no place to go anymore,” said Tarik Dogru, an associate professor of hospitality management at Florida State University who studies Airbnb. “It’s kind of a city for tourists only.””

Residents, who are struggling to stay in their city, are skeptical about the plan to eliminate short-term housing rentals. “Let’s see what’s happened in five years,” Mr. Pardo Rivacoba, the protest organizer, said.

But if Barcelona does not come up with a sustainable path forward for its residents and its natural resources, experts said, it risks its future.

“The city will be left with no resources,” Dr. Dogru said, adding, “There won’t be any tourists. And it’s a dead city.”

Amelia Nierenberg writes the Asia Pacific Morning Briefing , a global newsletter. More about Amelia Nierenberg

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Fed up with tourists, Barcelona protesters blast them with water guns

Locals marched and delivered a manifesto on tourism’s cost-of-living impact, the latest backlash against a global travel surge since the end of pandemic limits.

Key takeaways

Summary is AI-generated, newsroom-reviewed.

• Demonstrators say that tourism inflates living costs and that revenue distribution is uneven.
• They made 13 demands, including limits on tourist accommodations and fewer cruise terminals.
• The frustration in Spain reflects a growing backlash against overtourism around the world.

Did our AI help? Share your thoughts.

Thousands took to the streets of Barcelona over the weekend to protest overtourism , some armed with brightly colored water pistols that sent bewildered visitors fleeing restaurant patios, abandoning half-eaten meals.

The protesters, who carried signs reading “Tourists go home,” say tourism has inflated the cost of living for Barcelonians, while the revenue from visitors hasn’t been fairly distributed across the city. As travel rebounds after the end of pandemic restrictions, the frustration in Spain reflects growing backlash against overtourism around the world.

• Led by the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic, or the Neighborhood Assembly for Tourism Degrowth, the protesters listed 13 demands in a manifesto published Saturday, including restrictions on tourist accommodations, fewer cruise terminals in the city’s port and an end to tourism advertisements using public money.
• Local authorities estimated 2,800 people participated in the protests. Daniel Pardo Rivacoba, 48, a member of the organizing group, said as many as 20,000 people from 170 organizations took part in the protests.
• Rivacoba said the use of water guns was a spontaneous decision made by individual protesters and was not suggested by organizers. “Receiving water on your face is not nice, but it’s not violent,” he said.
• Responding to growing concerns, Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni pledged Saturday to reserve 10,000 residential units usually used by tourists for local residents and increase taxes on tourists, among other measures.

Barcelona has long been a popular tourist destination. Last year, close to 26 million visited the region, according to official figures , and Spain was the second-most-visited country in the world, according to U.N. Tourism . Barcelona’s population is 1.7 million.

Along with Venice , it is where the backlash against overtourism began, said T.C. Chang, a professor of geography at the National University of Singapore who researches urban tourism.

“As far as I know, there has been no explicit violence. But [overtourism] was already recognized at least 2-3 years before the pandemic,” he said in an email, noting that residents have also put up “No tourists welcome” signs in neighborhoods. “What has happened in Barcelona will spread to more tourist-crowded places beyond Europe,” he added.

The bigger picture

Locales in Japan , Indonesia , Greece , Italy and the Netherlands have also taken steps to curb influxes of visitors in the past year.

In Japan, one town sought to install a huge screen at a popular photo spot in front of Mount Fuji to stop tourists from taking selfies and causing traffic jams. Last year, the Greek government imposed a new timed ticketing system for the ancient Acropolis, a UNESCO World Heritage site, along with a visitor cap of 20,000 people per day. Venice experimented with extracting extra fees from tourists, while Amsterdam restricted the construction of new hotels.

“I think the key point here is about sustainable tourism development and sustainable management of tourist flows within a country,” said J.J. Zhang, a tourism geographer at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

As a possible solution, Zhang suggested determining the capacity of popular sites and controlling traffic, such as by “using technology where real-time data can be communicated to tourists such that overcrowded places could be avoided,” he said.

But Bob McKercher, a professor in tourism at the University of Queensland in Australia, raised another issue: The majority of tourists worldwide are domestic. “So while overtourism may be a long-standing issue,” he said, “can you really stop people from visiting their own country?”

Beatriz Ríos contributed to this report.

'A fundamental security failure': How did a gunman open fire on a Trump rally?

How does a gunman, in plain view of some spectators, manage to open fire on a former president at a campaign rally protected by federal and local law enforcement?

That is the frightening and unanswered question facing the country — and security officials — after Donald Trump said he suffered a graze wound on his right ear while he was speaking in a field in Butler, Pennsylvania, and left the stage with a bloodied head.

Secret Service personnel shot and killed the gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, immediately after he opened fire, the FBI said. A spectator was killed and two additional spectators were injured, but it was not immediately clear who shot them.

The assassination attempt, in which Crooks fired multiple shots at the stage from a roof outside the venue’s security perimeter, appeared to be the result of a grave lapse, perhaps the biggest since President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded outside a Washington hotel in 1981.

Security experts said it was difficult, and perhaps impossible, to eliminate every threat, particularly with long-range weapons and outdoor events.

But some said routine precautions should have prevented the shooter from getting onto the nearby roof.

Steve Nottingham, a former SWAT commander in Long Beach, California, called Saturday’s shooting “a fundamental security failure.”

He has worked security details for visiting world leaders, including presidents, and now trains officers on how to respond to critical incidents. He pointed at likely breakdowns in the pre-event scouting and real-time monitoring of places a gunman could shoot from.

“They were behind the curve, because they should have had those places covered ahead of time,” Nottingham said.

Jim Cavanaugh, a retired special agent in charge with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who has been on Secret Service details, said he was surprised that the shooter was able to occupy an elevated position within rifle range of the rally site.

“Whenever I’ve been with them, every single high ground is taken by them or the local SWAT police,” Cavanaugh said. “There’s nobody allowed walking on rooftops. They command the high ground.”

He said a high-powered rifle like an AR-15 can hit targets 200 yards away. Trump was about 148 yards from the rooftop where the shooter was found dead, NBC News found, based on an analysis of Google Earth images.

Cavanaugh added: “Having been on Secret Service details, it’s amazing to me that somebody was on an elevated position that they didn’t know about.”

Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens defended the Secret Service at a news conference after the shooting.

“It is incredibly difficult to have a venue open to the public and to secure that against any possible threat against a very determined attacker,” Bivens said. “That’s a huge lift.”

“The investigation will really give us an opportunity to take a look at where any failures occurred and what can be done better in the future,” he added.

The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FBI is leading the investigation, including its crisis response team members and evidence response technicians, it said in a statement Saturday evening.

Last month, as the presidential campaign heated up, the Secret Service said it was increasing the size of the detail assigned to Trump. The protection was bulked up “to ensure the highest level of security for not only the event sites but the travel in between events,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said at the time.

Perhaps the first sign that something was going wrong as Trump spoke Saturday came when spectators said they noticed a man with a rifle bear-crawling on a nearby roof. One recalled trying to get the attention of law enforcement.

“The police are down there running around on the ground. We’re like, ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle,’” the witness told BBC News .  “And the police were like, ‘Huh, what?’ Like they didn’t know what was going on. We’re like, ‘Right here on the roof. We can see him from right here. We see him. He’s crawling.’”

A couple of minutes later, the man opened fire, the witness said.

Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said at a news conference that law enforcement was not aware of the man’s presence on the rooftop until he started firing.

“It is surprising,” Rojek conceded when pressed by a reporter on the number of shots the gunman managed to fire.

He referred questions about advance security precautions to the Secret Service.

In the front row of the rally, attendees heard a series of pops and saw Secret Service agents jump on the stage. One, who identified herself as Erin, told NBC News that she saw blood on Trump’s ear. She did not fear for her own safety, she said. “We were only concerned about him,” she said, referring to Trump.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social a couple of hours later that a bullet “pierced the upper part of my right ear.”

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” Trump wrote. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”

Former Secret Service agent Evy Poumpouras said it is impossible to eliminate every potential threat in a situation like Saturday’s.

Outdoor rallies pose enormous security challenges given the availability of high-powered weapons, Poumpouras said.

“Somebody can be out in the distance and really engage your target from a long range, and there are weapons out there that allow you to do this,” said Poumpouras, who protected multiple presidents, including Barack Obama and George W. Bush, during her 12 years with the Secret Service.

“Let’s say you hunkered this whole area down. You’ve got the magnetometers; you’ve got the tactical element. Everything is locked and tight. How do you secure that outer perimeter? How far do you go? And can you cover everything? That’s a problem.”

She added: “Even if somebody is in an elevated position or not, how do you secure all of those elevated positions when you have weapons with the capabilities that are able to shoot long distances? This is what you are up against.”

Jillian Snider, a retired New York City police officer who was often detailed to political events, said it is routine for law enforcement to do a perimeter check extending a few hundred yards ahead of such an event.

“That doesn’t mean that someone can’t sneakily make their way to one of those positions afterward, especially if it was someone who had done some preplanning,” said Snider, an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “There are a lot of places in that area to hide, and you can’t monitor every possible position.”

“Someone who is that driven to do something like this will find a way to try and get the job done,” she added.

Jon Schuppe is an enterprise reporter for NBC News, based in New York.

Janelle Griffith is a national reporter for NBC News focusing on issues of race and policing.

Rich Schapiro is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Dasha Burns is a correspondent for NBC News.