It’s a wet and windy afternoon in Cambridge but that hasn’t stopped hordes of British and international tourists from turning out to admire the gothic splendour of King’s College chapel. Sightseers are milling around the entrance, taking photos of King’s through a huge wooden doorway, when a large group of Chinese tourists throngs past.

“It gets very difficult and congested at the height of the summer,” said an elderly woman, boldly attempting to make her way across the cobbles using a small, wheeled walking frame. “There can be thousands of people here then – and I do wonder what good it does for the place.”

She is not the only concerned resident. Last week the city’s tourism service, Visit Cambridge and Beyond, announced it was developing a plan to try to split up tourists who are visiting en masse and making the main street linking the most popular colleges “almost impassable” during peak seasons.

“Many visitors, particularly those from China, arrive in large groups, sometimes up to 50 at a time,” said Emma Thornton, the service’s chief executive. “This is a concern for those living and working locally – it affects their enjoyment of the city centre.” She later changed tack, saying on Wednesday that the organisation welcomes tourists of all nationalities, but wants to split them up to improve their own enjoyment of the city.

John Hipkin, a former mayor, also criticised Chinese tourists for arriving in big groups, telling Cambridge News the city was at risk of being “submerged by visitors” and calling for coaches to be banned from the centre.

Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

Standing outside King’s News, drinking in his magnificent view of the college directly opposite, Jas Aujla, a newsagent, has a very different opinion.

“There are not enough tourists coming at the moment. I would like more.” Large groups of 50 Chinese tourists offered a welcome boost for his business and the local economy, he said, and he had nothing but praise for the thousands who have visited his shop over the years. “We can never have enough tourists. Local shops have already closed down this year. If you go to central London, how congested is it there?”

At the Cambridge Fudge Kitchen next door, Reinis Punka takes a break from making huge batches of dark chocolate sea salt fudge to emphasise the diversity of Cambridge’s tourist scene. “Most Chinese tourists don’t like fudge – they just come in and leave. The nationality we see most often is Dutch, but we also get lots of customers from Spain, Germany, Australia and New Zealand,” he says. “At least 70% of our trade comes from tourists.”

He can understand why some residents resent visitors marching through the narrow medieval streets in large groups, but points out that the busiest areas of the city are pedestrianised. “It’s not a problem. You just get used to the fact that you can’t rush anywhere. I think it’s good for my mental health. It makes me walk slowly, so I am constantly noticing something new.”

Last year 8.1 million tourists came to Cambridge, delivering a boost of £835m to the local economy and accounting for 22% of jobs. However, 88% were day visitors, staying for as little as two or three hours – just enough time, in other words, to do a tour and go punting.

“On huge London coaches hordes of them come, bringing their own food and leaving their litter behind,” said the woman with the frame, who didn’t wish to give her name, but identified Chinese tour groups as the biggest problem. “They don’t stay overnight, they don’t read college notices about keeping off the grass and they don’t spend money locally.”

On the banks of the Cam, Nicholas Maseychik, owner of the Cambridge Punt Company, is well aware that many visitors are on whistle-stop tours. But he believes tourists are being scapegoated for the city’s congestion. “There are genuine infrastructure problems to do with transport and traffic in Cambridge and while tourism feeds into that, it’s not the sole culprit,” he said.

Photograph: Andy Hall/The Observer

The city was recently crowned the congestion capital of Britain, with the average Cambridge commuter spending the equivalent of 23 days a year stuck in traffic, according to an analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics by Admiral Insurance. It also had the fastest-growing economy of any UK city last year, and is the most unequal in Britain, with all the problems and resentments that brings. “I’ve been here since the 1970s and I’ve witnessed this small medieval town go through extraordinary growth recently,” said Maseychik.

He stressed that, although he has seen an “enormous” rise in the number of Chinese tourists wanting to go punting in recent years, the majority of his customers are British. About 30% of visitors come to see friends and family who live locally, according to Visit Cambridge.

The city is a major draw for Chinese tourists, largely because of a famous Chinese poem, Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again, whose first and last lines are inscribed on a granite stone inside the grounds of King’s.

“To block people coming is bit like trying to stop water flowing – it’s not only impossible, but also harmful,” said Dr Wei Sun, chairman of Cambridge Chinese Community Centre. “The best approach is to divert the water.” Instead of trying to limit tourism from China, visitors of all nationalities could be encouraged to spend more money and time in Cambridge and visit places outside the university.

Alan Kippax is another resident who would be in favour of breaking up the large tour groups – but thinks complaining about the numbers is unhelpful. “Tourism is essential for creating an understanding of the cultural identity of Cambridge and the UK more generally. You have to accept there will be tourists if you live in Cambridge,” he says.

“It’s a privilege to do so – and it would be highly unreasonable to try to prevent the rest of the world from enjoying this city too.”

• Edinburgh is considering a tourism tax as the city council leader Adam McVey looks for ways to ease pressure “on our core services and on the people who live and work here”.

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• Airbnb was accused by the chief executive of Visit Somerset, John Turner, of keeping the price of accommodation in Bath artificially low to “destroy the competition”.