BRITS opting for a Cornwall staycation this summer are being told NOT to book holiday lets.
It follows a huge rise in holiday homes, which locals claim are pricing them out with many forced to leave the area.
New figures show Cornwall as having the highest increase of holiday lets, jumping from 2,500 in March 2020 to 11,000 in May 2022.
Former MP for St Ives Andrew George has since urged tourists not to stay in holiday homes unless they can check they aren't harming the local life.
He told The Guardian: “[Tourists] should ask before they come: ‘Can you assure me this accommodation is not having a negative impact on housing need?’”
He also added that tourists could then tell the owner of that property that they were "never coming again” if they found that the home was negatively impacting the area.
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Instead, Brits should use local hotels or B&Bs to support the hospitality industry.
St Ives – the tourist capital of Cornwall – has been popular with holidaymakers for decades, but with the pandemic boosting the staycation buzz, locals say things have got "out of hand".
Stefan Harkon, an RNLI lifeguard in St Ives, said: "At times, people in the town feel that they are just operatives in a theme park. We work in an area but we can’t live in it."
Local Jasmin Or previously said she was facing being homeless due to the housing crisis in Cornwall.
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She said: "There’s no homes left. Everything has been turned into second homes now and that’s the issue.
“They’re all Airbnbs and a lot of locals have been driven out of their homes now to accommodate for the summer.”
The anti-tourist sentiment by locals has seen a surge in recent years.
Last year a tourist in Cornwall was left stunned after spotting grafitti telling visitors to "go die".
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A few months later, more graffiti in Cornwall was spotted with tourists told to "f*** off."
And last week, nuisance drivers and their "predatory" parking left a community unable to access their own beach, according to locals.
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