Steeped in over 800 years of history, Cambridge attracts people from all around the world to visit its beautiful architecture, renowned educational facilities and quintessentially English ambience. However, locals claim the city centre has been inundated with tourists, with most people “only coming in for work”.
Cambridge relies heavily on its tourism and hospitality sectors, with 8.1 million tourists visiting yearly. The city, although historic, is greatly compact in size, therefore, most people typically visit for the day. Making up nearly a quarter of local employment, the industry is on the increase, yet the locals aren’t too happy.
Ray Brenan, a local busker, told Express.co.uk: “Apart from a few old stones and its cobbled streets, I have nothing else nice to say anymore.
“Take away the universities and there’s really nothing else to it, it’s overrun with people visiting.”
Cambridge is known for hosting one of the world’s best universities, home to over 25,000 students. As a collegiate university, an administration divided into smaller institutions, students will live and study in their colleges.
One of the most famous colleges is Kings College with its unique chapel features and city centre location. Queues of people can be seen outside of the gates on the streets, at capacity with visitors taking photos.
Local market trader Lorain Cheeseman explains how “everyone just comes here to visit people at university”.
“We get a really huge amount of visitors, everyone is always here on holiday,” says Cheeseman. “There are a lot of students in the city, I don’t live here anymore, I just come in to work.”
Another market trader felt the same, saying she now just comes to work too. “ I don’t live here and I don’t know many people who do nowadays.”
The vast majority of tourists that visit Cambridge are day-trippers – arriving in heavily packed coaches, large groups of visitors get dropped off, spend a few hours exploring the city, and then get back onto the coaches. Fast trains from London also allow tourists to get to Cambridge in less than an hour.
However, some local workers view the influx of people positively. “I love selling ice cream to the visitors. Everyone is so nice and really friendly, but it does get very very busy at the stall,” says Kristof Santha, a local ice cream stand worker.
Masters student at Cambridge, Muhammad Mudassar, shares this view, saying “people here are more friendly than other cities, but most people are students here like me”.