Crowds of people gather on the foreshore of Sydney Cove on Australia Day. Credit:Jessica Hromas Ms Burt's view of these tourists is towards the hostile end of Doxey's irritation index or Irridex – a model developed more than 40 years ago to measure community attitudes towards tourism. The Irritation Index According to the irritation index, initial euphoria, perhaps of the type that Sydney residents greeted tourists with during the 2000 Olympics, is followed by apathy, irritation and, eventually, antagonism as the perceived costs of tourism exceed the promised benefits. Tourism is lauded by politicians as a modern-day gold mine, bringing untold riches to Australia in the form of jobs and money spent in cafes, restaurants, shops and tourist sites.

NSW Tourism and Major Events Minister Adam Marshall said: "The tourism industry is vital not only to Sydney's economy but to the whole of NSW, contributing billions in revenue and supporting tens of thousands of jobs throughout the state." A crowded Bondi Beach in summer. Credit:Ben Rushton In the 12 months to March 2017, Sydney received more than 13 million overnight visitors, including 3.6 million overseas tourists, who stayed a total of 101 million nights, according to Destination NSW, the state government's tourism agency. Visitors are forecast to spend more than 146 million nights in Sydney by 2024-25. But tourism can carry unwanted baggage such as urban congestion, rising housing prices, loss of social amenity, destruction of unique neighbourhoods and environmental impacts. Crowds filter through the city during the 2016 Vivid Sydney Festival. Credit:James Alcock

"The assumption that has governed most destinations is that more tourism is better," according to Felicity Picken, a lecturer in Western Sydney University's School of Social Sciences and Psychology. "This suits macro-economic growth models and the globally competitive tourism supply sector, like hotel chains, but has always carried problematic environmental and social consequences." Short-term rentals, popularised by Airbnb, in residential buildings and neighbourhoods has caused conflict. Sydney's public transport to tourist hotspots such as the Blue Mountains and beach suburbs is often congested, causing discomfort for residents and visitors. Backpackers were blamed for trashing Coogee Beach with 15 tonnes of rubbish on Christmas Day last year. Road closures during this year's Vivid Sydney festival caused inconvenience to Sydney CBD residents, resulting in at least one resident locked out of her Circular Quay apartment complex and abused by traffic controllers.

Public transport to tourist hot spots such as the Blue Mountains is often congested outside of peak travel times. Credit:Facebook/Lorraine Vogel Dr Picken also questioned whether the economic benefits of tourism and access to Sydney's tourist sites was evenly shared. These problems pale in comparison to Venice, which receives an estimated 30 million visitors a year, including many day trippers and cruise ship passengers. 'Tourists go away' Anti-tourism posters appeared in Venice last year with a blunt message in English: "Tourists Go Away!!! You Are Destroying This Area". The city may also lose its UNESCO World Heritage status because of mass tourism.

Barcelona has moved to restrict the number of hotels following protests by residents who claim the tourist boom has priced them out of the city. Closer to home, Byron Shire has proposed a bed tax to cope with the influx of tourists – around 2 million each year – and deal with rental affordability issues. New York, London and Berlin are among cities that have moved to impose restrictions of short-term rentals. "The resistance to tourism as witnessed in mature tourist destinations like Venice and Barcelona offers a wake-up call to all international tourism destinations and is a development that was almost unthinkable a decade ago," Dr Picken said. Larry Dwyer, a professor of tourism economics, management and policy at the University of NSW, said Sydney had proportionately far fewer tourists than Venice, Barcelona and Byron Bay, with visitors concentrated in the CBD and eastern suburbs. He suggested tourists, who tend to have higher disposable incomes, had bid up prices in areas such as The Rocks, Circular Quay, Darling Harbour and King Street Wharf, which were at risk of losing their identity to cater for tourists. "They build glitzy, fun parlour-type things to entertain tourists and the city then loses a lot of its identity," he said. "It's like a bastardisation or commodification of culture. But the problem is tourists like these precincts."

Airbnb: friend or foe? The loudest gripes about tourism remain Airbnb-type rentals, which attract blame for noise, congestion, competition for parking, reducing the amount of rental housing supply as well as raising rental prices – issues raised in the NSW government's Short-term Holiday Letting in NSW Options Paper released on Friday. Airbnb has also addressed accusations that people have suffered discrimination because of their race when trying to make a booking. An Airbnb spokesman said the homestay website spread the economic benefits of tourism: "In stark contrast to mass junk-food tourism, Airbnb supports a healthier and sustainable kind of tourism where everyone in our community shares the benefits." "Without home sharing, many of our hosts, including seniors and families, would struggle to pay their mortgage or bills," he added.

A study of Airbnb rentals in Sydney by Professor Nicole Gurran from Sydney University's School of Architecture, Design and Planning said listings extended beyond popular tourist areas to neighbourhoods "already affected by tight rental demand". In contrast, a report by the Tenants Union of NSW suggested Airbnb had yet to make an impact on the private rental market: "It is worth noting in passing that lower income renters in Sydney's private market have mostly already been moved out of the areas where Airbnb is located." Ms Burt, the convenor of Neighbours Not Strangers, a group that campaigns against the encroachment of short-term rentals in residential buildings and neighbourhoods, said the number of short-term rentals in her apartment complex had increased building maintenance costs, including a $100,000 bill to repair lifts, and depressed the value of apartments. "According to local real estate agents, they advised that one could expect anything up to a 30 per cent jump in property values once short-term letting ended," she said.