Mark Tanzer warned that the issue would be “increasingly pressing on major tourist destinations” due to the success of sites such as Airbnb and the emergence of new source markets.

“If left uncontrolled, tourism can kill tourism,” said Tanzer at the Abta Travel Matters conference in London last week.

“We are working with overseas destinations to try to make them aware that passenger arrival numbers are not everything,” he added.

“The ultimate measure should be the value of tourism and not the volume of tourism. At some point they may have to start looking at a mechanism to manage numbers.”

Tanzer highlighted New York City as one destination that was starting to put limits on the letting out of private apartments through sites such as Airbnb.

Laws in the Big Apple already prevent owners from renting their apartments for less than 30 days, and proposals to ban online adverts for short-term apartment rentals have already been passed by New York’s state legislature, which puts it on the path to becoming law.

“There’s a growing perception about some level of controlling bed nights,” said Tanzer. “Hotels have licences but it’s very difficult in an uncontrolled peer-to-peer environment to achieve that.”

Tanzer used Florence as the example of a destination that was struggling to cope with visitor numbers, which was “putting a strain on the city and its residents”.

“These are very high-profile city destinations which will have to come to terms with this soon,” he said. “You may get an increase in footfall but you will not get the value.”

Abta chairman Noel Josephides also repeated his call for sharing economy providers to face the same level of regulation as the established travel industry.

“We must ensure that there is fair and properly regulated tax, and health and safety, and then our so-called disruptors would not be so disruptive if they were regulated in the same fashion as the legacy industry,” he told the conference.