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That's true, I guess I'm conflating "overtourism" specifically with a wider push discouraging people from travel to decrease carbon emissions. You make a fair point, there is plenty of the world left to experience beyond the big hubs like Paris and Rome.

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Look at it this way: why is the desire of today's middle class to travel by air more important than the survival of civilization tomorrow?

Travel imposes heavy costs on the world, in its current carbon based form. It's only affordable because we pass these costs on to the future.

It's not just the desire to travel by air, it's the economics. When I first moved to Germany I looked into doing a few trips by train, but the flights were much cheaper.

That definitely sounds like a failure of regulation. Taxes should be levied, and probably also subsidies put in place (from those taxes), so that train travel is cheaper than air travel. Train travel doesn't require nearly as much energy as air travel, per passenger.

Right. OP was arguing we shouldn't price in externalities because it would conflict with the desire to travel by air.

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