It's a fair question and it deserves a real answer rather than reassurance. Visitor numbers have more than tripled, from around 37,000 a year in 2007 to roughly 137,000 to 140,000 for the 2025 to 2026 season. That's genuine growth. What limits it is physical: berths and ships are finite, new vessels come slowly, and a jump to 300,000 isn't realistic on current capacity.
The rules are more restrictive than most people assume. No more than 100 people ashore at one site at one time, sites booked between ships so two vessels aren't on the same beach, minimum wildlife distances, biosecurity checks on everything going ashore, and site closures when guides find a beach too densely packed with animals.
The growth curve is worth understanding. It was steady from 2007 to about 2014, reaching 50,000 to 60,000. Then the internet, social media and email marketing accelerated it, and post-COVID the demographic shifted younger and more active alongside the traditional traveller.
We're not going to tell you the impact is zero. Ships burn fuel and getting there means long-haul flights. What we'd say is that the sector is more tightly regulated than most tourism, and a large share of people who go come back more invested in protecting the place than they were beforehand.