Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
sustainability
Article
Is Overtourism Overused? Understanding the Impact
of Tourism in a City Context
Ko Koens 1, 2, * , Albert Postma 3and Bernadett Papp 3
1Hotel and Facility Management, Breda University of Applied Sciences, PO Box 3917, 4800 DX Breda,
The Netherlands
2School of Tourism and Hospitality, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg 2092, South Africa
3European Tourism Futures Institute, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, PO Box 1298,
8900 CG Leeuwarden
, The Netherlands; albert.postma@stenden.nl (A.P.); bernadett.papp@stenden.nl (B.P.)
*Correspondence: koens.k@buas.nl; Tel.: +31-6-4544-0674
Received: 1 November 2018; Accepted: 20 November 2018; Published: 23 November 2018
Abstract:
In less than two years, the concept of overtourism has come to prominence as one of the
most discussed issues with regards to tourism in popular media and, increasingly, academia. In spite
of its popularity, the term is still not clearly delineated and remains open to multiple interpretations.
The current paper aims to provide more clarity with regard to what overtourism entails by placing
the concept in a historical context and presenting results from a qualitative investigation among
80 stakeholders in 13 European cities. Results highlight that overtourism describes an issue that
is multidimensional and complex. Not only are the issues caused by tourism and nontourism
stakeholders, but they should also be viewed in the context of wider societal and city developments.
The article concludes by arguing that while the debate on overtourism has drawn attention again to the
old problem of managing negative tourism impacts, it is not well conceptualized. Seven overtourism
myths are identified that may inhibit a well-rounded understanding of the concept. To further a
contextualized understanding of overtourism, the paper calls for researchers from other disciplines
to engage with the topic to come to new insights.
Keywords:
city tourism; tourismphobia; tourism impacts; sustainable tourism; carrying capacity;
overtourism; urban planning; governance; destination management; touristification
1. The Rise of Overtourism
Cities provide visitors with a range of multifunctional, complex, multiuser environments. They are
able to simultaneously host increasing numbers of domestic and international leisure tourists, but also
business tourists and people visiting friends and relatives (VFR). The fact that cities tend to have good
infrastructure facilities and already host a diverse and dynamic population suggests that they will
better cope with increasing tourist numbers than other destinations. Indeed, until recently, tourism was
seen as one of the more sustainable economic growth strategies for cities. Particularly in the aftermath
of the economic crisis of 2008, it was viewed as an important driver for economic recovery or growth
and it was given plenty of scope to develop, thus reinforcing the relative importance of the industry in
city destinations [1].
However, in the last years, the perception of city tourism has changed dramatically.
Public transportation, infrastructure, roads, museums, attractions and other services that were
primarily created for local use suffer under increasing tourist numbers. The growing popularity
of online accommodation services (e.g., AirBnB, HomeAway, Uber) and a desire to see ‘real’ and
‘authentic’ everyday city life has meant that tourism activities become further intertwined with local
life, also outside of the main tourist areas in cities [
2
]. Such developments have led to an increasingly
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384; doi:10.3390/su10124384 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 2 of 15
vocal call from residents and local stakeholders to deal with tourism growth and protests have been
observed in multiple high profile destinations (e.g., Barcelona, Venice). Although the issue is most
prominent in European cities, similar sentiments have been reported in other destinations too, for
example tropical islands, backpacker ghettos, or even slums [
3
]. To describe these tourism disturbances,
the term ‘overtourism’ has rapidly been popularized.
In academia, overtourism has become commonplace overnight, too. Whereas it was largely
nonexistent prior to 2017, no less than four Special Issues of academic journals and three edited books
on the topic will come out in 2018 and 2019. The marketability and popularity of the term overtourism
appears to be at least partially accountable for its entry in academia, rather than its explanatory value,
as exemplified by a recent paper that uses the term overtourism in its title, yet does not mention it in
the main text at all [
4
]. More problematic is the fact that the term actually can be considered ‘fuzzy’ in
that it is ill-defined, lacks clarity, and is highly difficult to operationalize [
5
]. As such, it may possibly
be used as a vehicle for recycling existing ideas or to obfuscate agency and responsibility [6,7].
The current paper aims to provide more clarity to the overtourism debate by presenting results
from a qualitative investigation among 80 stakeholders in 13 European cities. It seeks to provide an
understanding of the different ways in which overtourism manifests itself in a city context, the issues
underlying it, as well as ways of dealing with it. It reveals overtourism to be a highly complex,
opaque phenomenon, which can be oversimplified by stakeholders. Particularly when overtourism has
not clearly manifested itself, this may limit their willingness to engage with more radical innovations
to prevent the negative impacts of tourism from spiraling out of control. In order to reduce confusion
and allow for clearer debates, it is therefore necessary to better delineate overtourism and address
some myths that appear to have become associated with the phenomenon.
2. A Concise History of Tourism’s Impacts
The term overtourism largely arose from media discourses without much theoretical grounding.
The issue it describes—an excessive negative impact of tourism on the host communities and/or
natural environment—has been a critical concern within academia for many years, though. While it
goes beyond the scope of this paper to provide a full overview of all work on the subject, it is useful to
highlight a number of key insights.
As early as the 1960s, authors already discussed the ways in which tourism negatively affected
destinations [
8
,
9
]. This culminated in concepts such as Doxey’s irridex model [
10
], Butler’s tourist
life cycle [
11
] and Pizam’s description on the social costs to destination communities [
12
]. A common
thread in this early work was that excessive tourism concentrations led to harm to the local environment
and negative attitudes among residents in urban and rural areas. In the 1980s, discussions regarding
the carrying capacity of a destination moved this debate forward. The idea is to find the limit with
regards to the number of tourists who could visit without serious negative consequences, which may be
higher or lower depending on the physical characteristics of the city and residents’ attitude, loyalty and
pride [13].
While carrying capacity continues to be a popular concept to appreciate the negative consequences
of tourism, the usefulness of this perspective has been questioned. The main issue is its focus on tourism
numbers, which brings with it that negative effects are equated with mass tourism or increasing visitor
numbers [
14
]. In fact, as early as 1979, Rosenow and Pulsipher [
15
] recognized three main underlying
different causes of what they called visitor ‘overkill’: (1) Too many visitors, possibly aggravated
by seasonality; (2) Too much adverse visitor impact (e.g., noise, rowdiness and other annoyances);
(3) Too much physical impact of the visitor economy (e.g., touristified city centers and destruction
of natural resources). Later research confirmed that visitor behavior, timing, concentration, location,
experience with tourism, local etiquette, etcetera are indeed as important as tourist numbers [
16
,
17
].
In addition, whereas the impact of tourists on the physical environment can be determined, this is more
difficult for the social environment, which is based on the tolerance of the host community towards
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 3 of 15
tourists. Not only is this a subjective concept, which is difficult to measure within ever-changing
individuals, but also the tolerance levels among residents with different interests do differ [14,18].
Alternative perspectives, such as the levels of acceptable change framework (LAC),
provide greater nuance [
19
]. LAC seeks to appreciate the extent to which the impacts of tourism
remain acceptable to local stakeholders in relation to the main issues and concerns. In times of financial
need, for example, people may be more tolerant of negative impacts, due to the potential economic
benefits of tourism. The benefit of the debates around the LAC framework and similar impact-based
approaches is that the emphasis has shifted from numbers to one that is based more on perceived
benefits and disadvantages [
20
–
22
]. These insights have led to different schools of thought on the
ways of managing tourism, in addition to limiting visitor numbers. The first, championed by UNWTO,
focuses on increasing the capacity of tourist activities. Capacity can be increased by enlarging the
physical capacity of activities, through ‘smart’ technological solutions [
23
–
26
] or by making the local
community gain financially by stimulating entrepreneurship [
27
]. Another school of thought highlights
the variety of tourism stakeholders that are involved with and are impacted upon by tourism and the
importance of the politics of tourism, power relations and citizen participation, given that benefits and
disadvantages are often not spread evenly among stakeholders [
28
]. It views the limits of a destination
as dynamic, contested, and constantly reconstructed in a local context. This largely aligns with some
of the systems-oriented approaches to urban tourism that were put forward in the 1990s [
17
,
29
–
31
].
These pointed to the fact that that while “tourists make use of almost all urban features, they make
an exclusive use of almost none” and, as such, a more integrative approach would be beneficial [
32
].
However, in spite of calls, much work on tourism impacts remains exclusively focused on the tourism
industry [33,34].
From the late 1990s onwards, the emphasis of work on dealing with tourism impacts shifted.
Whereas with carrying capacity, LAC and similar approaches, government and policymakers had a
significant role to play in managing and regulating tourism, this changed towards a more hands-off
perspective, which put more emphasis on the responsibility of industry actors and individual tourists
(e.g., certain conceptualizations of responsible and pro-poor tourism) [
6
,
27
]. The focus here is on
allowing “the market to act as a form of governance”, with government withdrawing from direct
involvement and instead seeking “to encourage the tourism industry to move in particular directions”
through, for example, financial incentives and education [
35
]. Such work has been criticized for putting
too much responsibility onto actors who lack the resources (e.g., small tourism business owners) or
knowledge (e.g., tourists) to act in a sustainable way [
3
,
36
]. However, tourism academia, both in
research and education, has continued to follow this trend and relinquished its role in “pressing the
industry and governing authorities to be more responsible and accountable” [37–39].
Perhaps because of this, the debate regarding overtourism developed outside of tourism academia.
Its first use dates back to the early 2000s, when it was used to describe the danger of overusing natural
resources [
40
,
41
]. About a decade later, the term was introduced in tourism media [
42
], but it took
until late 2016 for it to take off as a counterpart of the Spanish term ‘Turismofobia’ to describe the
outcry among residents in response to the unfettered growth of tourism [
43
]. Overtourism as a
term has proven very marketable and was trademarked by online travel magazine Skift in 2018
(registration number 5494076). The UNWTO definition of overtourism now is “the impact of tourism
on a destination, or parts thereof, that excessively influences perceived quality of life of citizens and/or
quality of visitors’ experiences in a negative way” [26].
Defined in this way, overtourism is similar in its representation of the issue compared to earlier
conceptualizations. However, while only a limited set of literature is available that associates itself
with overtourism (or tourismphobia) and much of it is explorative in nature, some differences can be
observed. Current work is more focused on the relation between tourism and its wider city context and
the political aspects of excessive tourism growth [
43
–
46
]. The issues related to overtourism are viewed
in the light of the interplay of tourism and urban change [
47
–
50
]. On this matter, reference can be
made to the upcoming discourse regarding tourism gentrification, which describes the transformation
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 4 of 15
of mostly middle-class neighborhoods into tourism enclaves that are marked by “a proliferation of
corporate entertainment and tourism venues” [
51
]. Whilst coming to the issue from a somewhat
different angle, this discourse overlaps with overtourism in that both describe an exclusion of residents
and other local stakeholders and the touristification and museumfication of popular tourist areas [
52
].
In dealing with overtourism issues, the authors of these recent publications emphasize the need for
regulation and government leadership. This perceived need is in clear contrast to the more hands-off
and self-governance perspectives that have dominated tourism discourses for several decades [
24
,
48
],
although there is still relatively little clarification of how new policy arrangements could be made to
work in practice.
3. Methodology
This study is based on work performed in two research projects regarding overtourism. Over a
period of two years, qualitative research was performed in 13 European cities. The first research project
ran from 2015–2017 and focused on six large and well-known tourist cities (Amsterdam, Barcelona,
Berlin, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Munich). Cities were chosen on the basis that they were prime tourist
cities in their countries, which already did or were likely to suffer from overtourism in the near
future. The idea was that different aspects of overtourism would be visible in these cities, but also a
wide variety of strategies to deal with the issue. The second project, which ran from 2017–2018 used
the same methodology to investigate tourism in smaller cities or cities with less tourism (Antwerp,
Bruges, Ghent, Leuven, Mechelen, Salzburg, Tallinn), as this might shed a closer light on other aspects
of overtourism and potential ways of managing the issue. The research was exploratory in nature,
with an emphasis on the perception and ways of managing overtourism as well as causes underlying it,
rather than directly comparing cities or measuring carrying capacities or values of acceptable change.
In each city, five to ten stakeholders were identified in cooperation with the city’s government or
the local destination management organization. Participants were purposefully chosen to represent
a range of stakeholders (residents, tourism businesses, transport service providers, policymakers
and politicians). This resulted in a total of 86 participants (Appendix A), who were interviewed
face-to-face (63), via Skype (16) or by phone (5). Two cooperated by answering a set of questions via
email. The interviews were semi structured in nature, using a topic list as a basis. This provided the
interviewers with structure, whilst allowing for the flexibility needed to customize interviews to the
context and interests of the interviewee. Interviews were held by seven interviewers, who received
instructions with regards to the subject and the topic list to ensure a similar style of interviewing.
Interviews lasted approximately 40–60 min and were held in English or the native tongue of the
participant. Interviews were analyzed, by listening to the recordings and writing down key points
on an answer sheet, which contained the main topics of the study—perspective on overtourism,
manifestation of potential issues, governance, future vision and developments. As a secondary source
of data gathering, short interviews were held with 150 residents in the first six cities. The interviewed
residents lived in the city center as well as the areas directly bordering the city center. Interviewers
rang the bell or knocked on the door at random in these different parts of these areas, and approached
people in the street, to get a more diverse sample. The goal of the interviews was to appreciate how
residents experienced their encounters with tourism. Interviews were performed by students and
were not recorded. Instead, short notes were taken of the main points that were discussed. Due to time
constraints, it was not possible to perform this research in the final seven cities. As such, results were
used mainly to provide context, rather than a primary source of information.
Results were compared and contrasted, which enabled the identification of emerging patterns on
different parameters regarding the perception and management of overtourism. In cases of factual
ambiguities, the results were discussed with city representatives to clarify matters. After each research
project, a session was held with participating city representatives in a meeting room near Schiphol
Airport, the Netherlands. The first of these sessions took place in December 2016 and the second took
place in January 2018. For the second session, representatives from the cities that participated in the
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 5 of 15
first research project were also invited. The idea of the meetings was to discuss findings and jointly
further understanding of the topic. This was done by means of a discussion of the research results,
but also through a short ‘scenario planning’ workshop to get shared insights of new developments
and potential future issues and solutions related to overtourism.
4. Causes of Disturbance
The discussions with stakeholders revealed that what is now called overtourism is actually an
accumulation of different impacts and perceptions that relate both to tourist behavior as well as
actions by, and encounters with stakeholders as well as changes to the social, economic and physical
environment. As such, it encapsulates a complex and multidimensional concept. The three different
causes of disturbance as discussed by Rosenow and Pulsipher [
15
]—overcrowding in city’s public
spaces, tourists’ behavior and physical touristification—can all be identified, but interviewees also
recognized displacement due to AirBnB and similar platforms and excessive pressure on the local
environment as separate causes of concern (Table 1). While interviewees mostly appreciated the fact
that these issues have different impacts, spatial distribution and causes, overtourism increasingly
became an overarching denominator for all as the research progressed. This made some participants
conflate causes and effects of different issues or even play down the importance of overtourism. Indeed,
participants preferred to talk about visitor pressure, as this was deemed more neutral and did not limit
itself to tourism, but also other visitors.
Table 1. Issues that are attributed to tourism.
Issue Type of Impact Spatial Distribution
Overcrowding in city’s public
spaces
Overcrowding on streets and
pavements, as well as public
transport, heavy traffic, loss of
local identity
Tourist hotspots and newly
developing tourist areas
Pervasiveness of visitor impact
due to inappropriate behavior
Noise, disturbance, loss of local
identity
Tourist hotspots and newly
developing tourist areas
Physical touristification of city
centers and other often-visited
areas
Loss of amenities for residents due
to mono-culture of tourist shops
and facilities
Tourist hotspots and city centers
Residents pushed out of
residential areas due to AirBnB
and similar platforms
Less availability of housing, loss of
sense of community and security
Throughout city, mainly near
tourist hotspots
Pressure on local environment Increased waste, water use, air
pollution
Throughout the city, near specific
sites (harbor, road junctions)
Source: Interviews, Reference [15].
With regards to overcrowding, the spring months are commonly most problematic due to the
combined presence of tourists, residents and day visitors. In the peak summer months, many residents
move out of the city, thus ‘freeing’ up space for tourists. The fact that the tourist season has been
prolonged in recent years, to mitigate overcrowding or to stimulate more economic opportunities,
has meant that the sense of crowdedness now is observed nearly year-round. This has further
contributed to residents’ sense of touristification and the feeling that the local identity of the city is
lost. While issues with overcrowding and tourists’ behavior historically have been most noticeable
around tourist hotspots, interviewees noted that even in crowded cities, it was fairly easy to find streets
where hardly any tourists ventured. Rather than absolute visitor numbers, they argued that concerns
were most pronounced with rapid relative and/or unexpected growth. This can be observed in newly
developing tourist areas, which receive relatively few tourists, but often have limited tourist facilities
and a residential population that is neither used to nor desires tourism growth. Without sufficient
consultation, growth here can cause problems. The advent of Instagram and other social media has
meant that unplanned tourism to these locations can increase (e.g., if they are mentioned by a popular
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 6 of 15
influencer). In addition, sea and river cruise tourism is seen as a (potential) problem in cities like
Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bruges, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Salzburg and Tallinn, as it causes large numbers
of people to venture into the cities at set times, thus clogging up the city. Findings like this confirm
criticisms on using carrying capacity as an ‘objective’ means for measuring tourism impacts and serve
as a point of caution for city authorities that seek to manage tourism by spreading visitors in time or
place or seek cruise tourism growth.
Whereas overcrowding can at least to an extent be monitored and measured objectively, it is more
difficult to measure the impact of the inappropriate behavior of tourists. Here, individual excesses can
have a strong impact on long-term perceptions, even when objective disruption levels remain the same
or decrease. One resident shared that she was aware that she lived in a tourist area, and knew that this
would give some disturbance, but seeing someone urinate against her house decreased her tolerance
of tourism and increased her awareness of tourism annoyances. Another example is the so-called
beer-bike—a multipassenger human-powered vehicle, equipped with a beer tap—which has become a
symbol for overtourism, even in cities where they are rarely seen. The advent of social media has made
it easier to share these sentiments and bring opponents together, frustrating policymakers, who note
that relatively insignificant issues are blown out of proportion due to a combination of social media
and a willing press. Residential action groups, on the other hand, note that their misgivings were
previously ignored by laissez-faire governments and that these developments have merely helped to
redress the balance.
Physical touristification of city centers and other tourist areas is related mostly to the changing
retail landscape, which increasingly gets tailored to fun-shopping and food consumption rather
than local shops. The impact of AirBnB and similar accommodation providers can be seen as
a new and slightly different form of touristification. Although private house rental has a long
history, internet providers such as AirBnB have caused an explosive growth of such accommodation
offerings. Contrary to other forms of physical touristification, AirBnB and similar providers
impact neighborhoods throughout the city, leading to a displacement of people rather than services.
In addition, residents complain about noise, but also a more general sense of insecurity as they never
are quite certain who inhabits these rented properties.
The fact that the increase of visitors to a city puts more pressure on the local environment
(e.g., waste and water management) was mentioned only by a limited number of interviewees.
The issues that were mentioned relate mostly to local environmental issues that are already problematic.
For example, a lack of water is already a problem in Barcelona in summer, yet it is exacerbated by
tourists who use a disproportionate amount of it. An exception here is the air pollution caused by
cruises, which was seen as a pure tourism problem. Long-term global issues like climate change were
not so much related to overtourism, suggesting that it is related predominantly to a city context.
5. Managing Overtourism in a City Context
In line with earlier findings on overtourism, interviewees in this research were keen to point out
that while developments in travel and tourism receive most attention, the issues related to tourism are
at least partially caused by developments outside of tourism. A wide variety of changes in the social,
economic and physical environment, as well as infringements on resident’s quality of life, may also
be attributed to tourism [
17
]. A summary of mentioned tourism, city and societal developments that
have contributed to an increased pressure on city resources in recent years is provided in Table 2.
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 7 of 15
Table 2. Developments contributing to issues related to tourism.
Issue Tourism Related Developments City and Societal Developments
Overcrowding in city’s public
spaces
Rise of tourist numbers; cheaper
flights, increase of cruise tourism
Increase of residents and
commuters; flexible work
arrangements; increase of
residential leisure; increase of
online shopping
Pervasiveness of visitor impact
Rise of tourist numbers; tourists
moving deeper into city in search
for authentic experiences; increase
of cruise tourism; tourism
spreading policies
Increase of residential leisure;
greater connectedness of residents
due to social media; popularity of
Instagram and social networks
Physical touristification
Rise of tourist numbers; increased
dominance of large tourism
businesses
Real estate speculation; city
modernization; increased costs of
city amenities; limitations on
restrictions of urban planning
Residents pushed out of
residential areas
Rise of tourist numbers; rise of
online platforms like AirBnB;
tourist desire for authentic
experiences;
Real-estate speculation; increase of
internet holiday booking;
residential gentrification; rising
costs of living; limitations on
restrictions of urban planning
Pressure on local environment Rise of tourist numbers; greater
use of resources per tourist
Increase of residents and
commuters; increase of extreme
weather events.
Source: Interviews, Reference [2,17,43,49,50].
While international tourists are often the most visible group to contribute to perceptions of
overtourism, a large and growing number of people also use the physical space in cities for other
purposes. Day visitors constitute up to 50% of the people that visit the city for leisure purposes.
While these visitors blend in relatively well and are often not viewed as tourists by residents, they also
cause overcrowding and annoyances. In addition, the growing popularity of the city as a place to
live, work and for leisure means that the number of residents, commuters and day visitors using city
infrastructure facilities has increased by up to 10% each year in the participating cities. These groups
make use of city space and infrastructure on a daily basis and contribute to an increased perception of
crowdedness year-round, as expressed by an interviewee in Salzburg:
“Some of the underlying problems have nothing to do with tourism. If there is a rainy day you will
have traffic jams in town. Too many people are driving in. If you add a couple of thousands of tourists
it breaks down.”
If residents are forced to move out of the city due to tourism gentrification, this puts further
pressure on city infrastructure:
“People are leaving the city [because] rental prices are way too high. There are many people moving to
the surroundings and then commute by car every day. It is a circle that never ends.”
The perception of crowdedness in the city is further augmented by the fact that more flexible
work arrangements have made it more common for residents to visit the city and use its retail and
hospitality facilities during daytime when most tourists also come to a city. Indeed, behavioral patterns,
particularly of middle class urban dwellers, can be nearly indistinguishable from those of tourists [
50
].
In a similar vein, waste and water use also increase due to greater use by city stakeholders outside
of tourism, and media attention for both has increased due to increasing environmental awareness.
The strong increase of online shopping further impacts the perceived crowdedness, as an increasing
number of different delivery vehicles clog up roads and cause congestion and pollution. In other
words, an increasing number of different types of city users and services compete for a limited set of
city space and facilities.
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 8 of 15
To an extent, tourism may be used as a scapegoat by the daily users of the city. It simply is often
impossible to determine whether disturbance is caused by a resident or a tourist. In Amsterdam,
the example was given of people who were noisy aboard a boat in the canals in the evening.
Residents are inclined to put the blame on tourists here. However, it is difficult for tourists to
rent a boat in the evening and such disturbance is more likely, therefore, to be caused by local actors.
The impact of the touristification of city centers and online accommodation platforms also
needs further clarification. Undoubtedly, tourism has strongly impacted city centers and suburban
neighborhoods, but this impact can at least partially be attributed to real-estate developments. After the
economic crisis of 2008 and the subsequent crash of the real-estate market, it became more attractive for
house owners to rent out properties to tourists, rather than sell them at a loss (see also [
53
]). In Portugal,
the economic bailout after the crisis by the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF was given on
the condition that the rental market had to be opened up to the free market. This drastically increased
rental prices that had previously been kept artificially low to provide lower-income households with
higher quality housing. When the economy started to recover, real-estate speculation, particularly in
capital cities, began to drive up house and rental prices and further reduced the number of properties
available for local shops and residents. As such, touristification is, at least partially, the visible effect of
other, underlying issues.
These examples highlight that overtourism cannot be dealt with sufficiently by focusing
on tourism alone. Instead, policy actions are required that take into account wider city usage.
However, in the investigated cities, the emphasis remains on increasing the carrying capacity by
developing the tourist industry and its attractions or mitigating the negative impacts. In cities
where overtourism is not an issue, tourism growth still mostly goes unquestioned, even when new
ways of management are discussed [
54
]. In addition, interviewees noted that within the current
political climate, the emphasis remains on economic or voluntary arrangements. This confirms earlier
findings, which emphasize voluntary and economic measures in managing tourism impacts (e.g.,
admission charges, education) [
26
,
55
]. At the same time, the number of stakeholders in the cities who
advocate a need to curb growth and increase regulation is on the rise, possibly also driven by the fact
that antitourism sentiments prominently featured in the last municipal elections in Amsterdam and
Barcelona. Measures have been implemented or are considered to regulate traffic (e.g., coach free zones),
regulate tourist behavior (e.g., strict regulation in tourist hotspots at night), manage disturbance caused
by tourist groups (e.g., use of earphones to listen to tour guides), tax cruise ships and day-visitors,
etcetera. Particular efforts are made to regulate providers such as AirBnB through, for example,
a limitation on the number of days a property can be rented out, the fact that a house-owner needs to
live in the rented place, taxation, registration systems, etcetera. Although policy measures and legal
regulations have up to now had difficulty keeping up with the rapid developments within this sector,
interviewees argued that progress is being made with such measures.
The complexity of overtourism reveals itself again when looking at the effects of policy measures.
It is revealed that these have been, at times, different than expected. For example, in Bruges, city-center
parking tariffs were raised aggressively to make tourists and day-visitors contribute more to the city
budget. In practice, this led to perceptions of touristification at the expense of residents. Tourists were
willing and able to pay the higher parking tariffs, but regular users now had to park outside of the city
center. Another example is the great faith that is put in smart or technological solutions as a means to
more efficiently measure impacts and steer tourism to maximize its carrying capacity. As discussed
previously, tourism capacity is but one element of overtourism. In addition, city governments are
already overloaded with apps and technological solutions that they need to promote and/or implement,
also to deal with issues outside of tourism.
One issue that policymakers agreed on was the difficulty they had in implementing policies
to deal with overtourism, also because it is not a tourism-only problem. Management measures
that take into account the wider city policy structure will require cooperation between multiple city
departments and other stakeholders, including residents. The remit of tourism policy makers or other
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 9 of 15
tourism stakeholders is too limited to successfully initiate such measures. As such, interviewees
noted that it was key to get tourism more established as an integral part of city development.
Amsterdam is experimenting with such an approach by means of a separate entity titled ‘City in
Balance’. Although commendable, the program has only few committed employees and other
stakeholders argued they were still insufficiently consulted. This perceived lack of consultation
reiterates one of the most often mentioned challenges for dealing with overtourism, namely to get
stakeholders from within and outside of tourism involved to work together and come up with joint
city-wide solutions.
6. Discussion
Within a very short time, overtourism has become the ‘de facto’ descriptor for excessive negative
tourism impacts. The issues it describes are similar to those discussed in earlier studies [
13
,
15
,
16
],
although these are perceived as a problem now in a greater number of cities and they can be also
observed beyond tourist hotspots and city centers. The debate surrounding overtourism has helped
to draw attention to the negative consequences of unconstrained tourism growth. In doing so, it has
pointed towards limitations of market-oriented voluntary approaches to effectively deal with this
issue [
1
]. Instead, possibilities for more regulatory, government-led approaches to manage tourism that
seemed to have gone out of fashion since the start of the century were up for discussion again [
16
,
56
].
The results show that the impacts of tourism are diverse, complex and multifaceted and that
the term overtourism fails to fully encapsulate this complexity. Overtourism suggests a certain kind
of uniformity of tourism impacts and implies that cities have a carrying capacity that tourism can
overshoot. This can be an issue when seeking solutions, as it hinders a common understanding
between different stakeholders of the specific nature of the problem(s) within the local context [
14
].
Such an understanding is particularly important because overtourism is not caused by tourism
alone and successful management strategies will require cooperation with stakeholders outside of
tourism, including residents [
57
]. More neutral terminology, like ‘visitor pressure’—preferred by most
interviewees—or already existing concepts, such as ‘levels of acceptable change’ or ‘carrying capacity’,
would appear more helpful when trying to appreciate the impact of tourism on city destinations.
Earlier work has already highlighted the importance of the urban context and the place of tourism
in urban planning [
46
–
48
,
50
]. However, the results from this research indicated that the issues can also
be rooted in wider societal developments, like changing lifestyles and seemingly unrelated things,
like the increase of internet shopping and social media. This suggests that overtourism should no
longer be perceived as a tourism problem or as an urban problem, but rather as a social problem within
a city context.
These nuances are still largely lacking in the current discussions on overtourism and this may
have led to what can best be described as ‘overtourism myths’. These myths may well have acted as a
focal point to raise awareness, create coalitions and popularize the concept of overtourism, but moving
forward, they can also promulgate falsehoods and inhibit further understanding [
58
]. At least seven
myths cropped up during the research, which will be shortly reviewed to help demystify the term and
lead to a more well-rounded understanding:
1.
Overtourism is not a recent phenomenon—In spite of the recent increase of attention to overtourism,
the underlying issues on which it is predicated are not new, even if they may be more intense
and expressed in new ways (e.g., sharing economy platforms);
2.
Overtourism is not the same as mass tourism—Whilst increasing tourist numbers are a cause of
overtourism, some areas are able to cope with large numbers of tourists. It is about perceived
tourism encounters, environmental changes and infringements on people’s lives [
17
]. Indeed,
even a small absolute increase of tourist numbers in newly developing tourist areas can have
great negative impacts;
3.
Overtourism impacts are not city-wide—Overtourism is predominantly observed in (increasingly)
popular parts of the city, at a certain time or during certain events. Even though this means that
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 10 of 15
there are areas with limited tourism activity, residents can still perceive overtourism. It is not a
concept that can be objectively measured;
4.
Overtourism is not a tourism-only problem—Overtourism is caused by an overuse of the resources,
infrastructure, or facilities of a destination, or parts thereof. Tourists share these with residents,
commuters and day visitors and their numbers have also increased in recent years. In addition,
wider societal trends and events (e.g., the global crisis of 2008, real-estate speculation, increase of
internet use for shopping and/or social media) have also contributed to the issues now associated
with overtourism;
5.
Technological or smart solutions alone will not solve overtourism—The importance of technological
solutions to combat overtourism should not be overestimated, given that the issue of overtourism
is largely social in nature—different groups of city users sharing and competing for the same
space. In addition, new technologies also lead to or intensify specific issues in the city (e.g.,
sharing economy accommodation platforms);
6.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for overtourism—The way in which overtourism manifests itself,
as well as the possibilities for dealing with the issues strongly depend on the city context and
solutions need to be made to fit this local context. To achieve this, stakeholders need to engage
with each other to come to inclusive solutions;
7.
Overtourism is not just an issue in cities—Much of the discussion regarding overtourism focuses on
the tourist city context, but it can also be observed in rural or island destinations.
To prevent myths like these from continuing to color the debate on overtourism, it is recommended
that academic researchers continue to engage with the issue, both through direct interaction with
stakeholders [
59
], but also by building a strong body of academic output that informs teaching [
60
–
62
].
The literature review has already shown that there is a rich history of work to form the basis for
future work. It is recommended not to let this work go to waste and to build on it rather than start
a new overtourism discourse. Having said that, future research should not limit itself to rehashing
the earlier work. There is a need for more advanced analytical frameworks and process-oriented
research that shed a new light on the role of tourism for future city development and the complex
interactions between residents, commuters, tourists and other stakeholders [
63
]. Results indicate that
misunderstandings and lack of communication between these stakeholders are one of the main issues
that hinder solutions.
A recommendation to achieve this is for tourism scholars to engage more with other disciplines
and vice versa. This includes discussions on (tourism) gentrification, the right to the city, transformative
changes, etcetera. Current discourses on these issues are largely informed by thinking from other
domains (human geography, urban planning, innovation studies), which may hold the key to new
avenues of research and frameworks to deal with overtourism. It is promising that several contributions
have already started to bring in such thinking [
47
,
48
,
50
,
52
]. A promising line of work deals with
social innovation, where concepts like inclusiveness and resilience are increasingly recognized as
important for a long-term sustainable development of tourism destinations [
64
,
65
]. Still, many avenues
are still left unexplored. Microanalyses of specific impacts are one example of this. A recent study
on the influence of overtourism on the quality of employment has provided highly useful insights
already [
66
]. The combined efforts from scholars from such different disciplinary backgrounds will
be key to better understanding the role of tourism in a city context as well as the (im)possibilities of
managing overtourism.
Author Contributions:
All authors made equal contributions to the research design, analysis, and
conceptualization. K.K. had the lead in writing, reviewing, and editing, with support from A.P. and B.P. All authors
read and approved the final manuscript. Conceptualization, K.K. and A.P.; Data curation, K.K., A.P., and B.P.;
Formal analysis, K.K., A.P., and B.P.; Funding acquisition, K.K. and A.P.; Investigation, K.K., A.P., and B.P.;
Methodology, K.K., A.P., and B.P.; Project administration, K.K., A.P., and B.P.; Writing—original draft, K.K., A.P.,
and B.P.; Writing—review and editing, K.K., A.P., and B.P.
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 11 of 15
Funding:
This research was funded by the Dutch Center of Expertise Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality
(CELTH—www.celth.nl), in cooperation with partners in the participating cities (DMOs, city government),
Vlaamse Kunsteden, and the European Tourism Association.
Acknowledgments:
This report would not have been possible without the valuable support of the cities and the
European Tourism Association (ETOA)—with particular acknowledgement to the late Nick Greenfield.
Conflicts of Interest:
The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses,
or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.
Appendix A
Table A1. List of interviewees.
Name City Organization/Company
1 AMS1 Amsterdam WeCity App
2 AMS2 Amsterdam Stad in Balans
3 AMS3 Amsterdam Iamsterdam
4 AMS4 Amsterdam Vereniging Amsterdam City
5 AMS5 Amsterdam Stadsregio Amsterdam
6 AMS6 Amsterdam G250 Buurttop de pijp
7 AMS7 Amsterdam Freelance author
8 ANT1 Antwerp Building Today for Tomorrow
9 ANT2 Antwerp MAS Museum
10 ANT3 Antwerp Visit Antwerpen
11 ANT4 Antwerp Antwerp Hotel Association
12 ANT5 Antwerp Stad Antwerpen
13 ANT6 Antwerp Visit Antwerpen
14 ANT7 Antwerp Touristram
15 ANT8 Antwerp Touristram
16 BAR1 Barcelona Independent consultant
17 BAR2 Barcelona Turisme Sant Ignasi
18 BAR3 Barcelona Turisme de Barcelona
19 BAR4 Barcelona Trade Union UGT
20 BAR5 Barcelona Associaciód’Apartaments Turístics de Barcelona
21 BER1 Berlin Berliner Senat
22 BER2 Berlin Senat Neukoelln
23 BER3 Berlin Senat Charlottenburg
24 BER4 Berlin VisitBerlin
25 BER5 Berlin Sofitel/Kurfuerstendamm
26 BER6 Berlin Friedrichsstadtpalast
27 BER7 Berlin Stadtentwicklung Berlin
28 BRU1 Bruges Interparking NV
29 BRU2 Bruges Stad Bruges
30 BRU3 Bruges Visit Bruges
31 BRU4 Bruges Kenniscentrum Toerisme en Horeca
32 BRU5 Bruges Hello Bruges
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 12 of 15
Table A1. Cont.
Name City Organization/Company
33 COP1 Copenhagen Tourist Office, formerly WoCo
34 COP2 Copenhagen Roskilde University
35 COP3 Copenhagen Strømma Danmark A/S
36 COP4 Copenhagen Wonderful Copenhagen
37 COP5 Copenhagen Tivoli A/S
38 COP6 Copenhagen Turismens Vækstråd
39 GHE1 Ghent Visit Gent
40 GHE2 Ghent Horeca Vlanderen
41 GHE3 Ghent Stad Gent
42 GHE4 Ghent Stad Gent
43 GHE5 Ghent Stad Gent
44 GHE6 Ghent Sint-Baafs Cathedral
45 LEU1 Leuven Visit Leuven
46 LEU2 Leuven Visit Leuven
47 LEU3 Leuven Leuvenement
48 LEU4 Leuven De Lijn
49 LEU5 Leuven Stad Leuven
50 LEU6 Leuven Stad Leuven
51 LEU7 Leuven Leuven Leisure
52 LIS1 Lisbon Turismo de Lisboa—Visitor and Convention Bureau
53 LIS2 Lisbon Câmara Municipal de Lisboa
54 LIS3 Lisbon Associação da Hotelaria, Restauração e Similares de Portugal
55 LIS4 Lisbon União de Associações do Comércio e Serviços
56 LIS5 Lisbon Associação Renovar a Mouraria
57 MEC1 Mechelen Kazerne Dossin
58 MEC2 Mechelen Visit Mechelen
59 MEC3 Mechelen Stad Mechelen
60 MEC4 Mechelen Stad Mechelen
61 MEC5 Mechelen Stad Mechelen
62 MEC6 Mechelen Stad Mechelen
63 MUN1 Munich Tourismuskommission Munchen
64 MUN2 Munich Munich Airports
65 MUN3 Munich Director of the DMO Munich Tourism
66 MUN4 Munich Referat fuer Arbeit und Wirtschaft Munchen
67 MUN5 Munich Allianz Arena
68 MUN6 Munich City Partner Munich (Retail Marketing Association)
69 SAL1 Salzburg Salzburg Christmas Market
70 SAL2 Salzburg Panorama Tours and Travel GmbH
71 SAL3 Salzburg Salzburg AG
72 SAL4 Salzburg Salzburg AG
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 13 of 15
Table A1. Cont.
Name City Organization/Company
73 SAL5 Salzburg Hohensalzburg Fortress
74 SAL6 Salzburg Tourismus Salzburg GmbH
75 SAL7 Salzburg Tourismus Salzburg GmbH
76 SAL8 Salzburg Helbrunn Palace
77 SAL9 Salzburg City of Salzburg
78 TAL1 Tallinn Estonian Folk Art and Craft Union
79 TAL2 Tallinn Estonian Travel & Tourism Association
80 TAL3 Tallinn Port of Tallinn
81 TAL4 Tallinn National Heritage Protection Unit
82 TAL5 Tallinn Tallinn Urban Planning Department
83 TAL6 Tallinn Tallinn City Administrations
84 TAL7 Tallinn Tallinn City Tourist Office & Convention Bureau
85 TAL8 Tallinn Tallinn City Tourist Office & Convention Bureau
86 TAL9 Tallinn Society of the Tallinn Old Town
References
1.
Russo, A.P.; Scarnato, A. “Barcelona in common”: A new urban regime for the 21st-century tourist city?
J. Urban Aff. 2018,40, 455–474. [CrossRef]
2.
Pappalepore, I.; Maitland, R.; Smith, A. Prosuming creative urban areas. Evidence from East London.
Ann. Tour. Res. 2014,44, 227–240. [CrossRef]
3.
Koens, K.; Thomas, R. “You know that’s a rip-off”: Policies and practices surrounding micro-enterprises and
poverty alleviation in South African township tourism. J. Sustain. Tour. 2016,24, 1641–1654. [CrossRef]
4.
Muler Gonzalez, V.; Coromina, L.; Galí, N. Overtourism: Residents’ perceptions of tourism impact as an
indicator of resident social carrying capacity—Case study of a Spanish heritage town. Tour. Rev.
2018
.
[CrossRef]
5.
Markusen, A. Fuzzy Concepts, Scanty Evidence, Policy Distance: The Case for Rigour and Policy Relevance
in Critical Regional Studies. Reg. Stud. 2003,37, 701–717. [CrossRef]
6.
Scheyvens, R. Pro-Poor Tourism: Is There Value Beyond the Rhetoric? Tour. Recreat. Res.
2009
,34, 191–196.
[CrossRef]
7. Harrison, D. Pro-poor Tourism: A critique. Third World Q. 2008,29, 851–868. [CrossRef]
8. Forster, J. The sociological consequences of tourism. Int. J. Comp. Sociol. 1964,5, 217–227. [CrossRef]
9. Wagar, J.A. The carrying capacity of wild lands for recreation. For. Sci. 1964,10, a0001.
10.
Doxey, G. A causation theory of visitor–resident irritants, methodology and research inferences. The impact
of tourism. In Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference Proceedings of the Travel Research Association,
San Diego, CA, USA, 8–11 September 1975.
11.
Butler, R. The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution: Implications for Management of Resources.
Can. Geogr. Géographe Can. 1980,24, 5–12. [CrossRef]
12.
Pizam, A. Tourism’s Impacts: The Social Costs to the Destination Community as Perceived by Its Residents.
J. Travel Res. 1978,16, 8–12. [CrossRef]
13.
Van der Borg, J.; Costa, P.; Gotti, G. Tourism in European heritage cities. Ann. Tour. Res.
1996
,23, 306–321.
[CrossRef]
14.
McCool, S.F.; Lime, D.W. Tourism carrying capacity: Tempting fantasy or useful reality? J. Sustain. Tour.
2001,9, 372–388. [CrossRef]
15.
Rosenow, J.E.; Pulsipher, G.L. Tourism the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Media Productions & Marketing:
Lincoln, NE, USA, 1979; 264p.
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 14 of 15
16.
Lindberg, K.; McCool, S.; Stankey, G. Rethinking Carrying Capactiy. Ann. Tour. Res.
1997
,24, 461–465.
[CrossRef]
17.
Postma, A. “When the Tourists Flew in”: Critical Encounters in the Development of Tourism; Groningen: s.n.;
University of Groningen: Groningen, The Netherlands, 2013; ISBN 978-90-367-6213-7.
18.
Saveriades, A. Establishing the social tourism carrying capacity for the tourist resorts of the east coast of the
Republic of Cyprus. Tour. Manag. 2000,21, 147–156. [CrossRef]
19.
McCool, S.F. Planning For Sustainable Nature Dependent Tourism Development. Tour. Recreat. Res.
1994
,19,
51–55. [CrossRef]
20.
Frauman, E.; Banks, S. Gateway community resident perceptions of tourism development: Incorporating
Importance-Performance Analysis into a Limits of Acceptable Change framework. Tour. Manag.
2011
,32,
128–140. [CrossRef]
21.
Mansfeld, Y.; Jonas, A. Evaluating the Socio-Cultural Carrying Capacity of Rural Tourism Communities:
A ‘Value Stretch’ Approach. Tijdschr. Voor Econ. En Soc. Geogr. 2006,97, 583–601. [CrossRef]
22.
Nijs, V. Resident Attitudes towards Tourism; Testing the Resident Empowerment through Tourism Scale
(RETS) in Bruges. Master’s Thesis, MODUL University, Vienna, Austria, 2017.
23.
East, D.; Osborne, P.; Kemp, S.; Woodfine, T. Combining GPS & survey data improves understanding of
visitor behaviour. Tour. Manag. 2017,61, 307–320.
24.
Pearce, P.L. Limiting overtourism; the desirable new behaviours of the smart tourist. In Proceedings of
the Tourism Intelligence Forum (t-Forum) Global Exchange Conference 2018, Palma de Mallorca, Spain,
11–13 March 2018.
25.
UNWTO (Ed.) Tourism Congestion Management at Natural and Cultural Sites: A Guidebook; World Tourism
Organization: Madrid, Spain, 2004; ISBN 978-92-844-0763-7.
26.
UNWTO. Overtourism? Understanding and Managing Urban Tourism Growth beyond Perceptions; UNWTO:
Madrid, Spain, 2018.
27. Scheyvens, R. Exploring the Tourism-Poverty Nexus. Curr. Issues Tour. 2007,10, 231–254. [CrossRef]
28.
Bianchi, R.V. The ‘Critical Turn’ in Tourism Studies: A Radical Critique. Tour. Geogr.
2009
,11, 484–504.
[CrossRef]
29. Jansen-Verbeke, M. Urban Toruism: Managing Resources and Visitors. In Tourism, Development and Growth:
The Challenge of Sustainability; Wahab, S., Pigram, J.J.J., Eds.; Routledge: London, UK, 1997.
30.
Page, S.; Hall, C.M. Managing Urban Tourism, 1st ed.; Prentice Hall: Harlow, UK, 2002; ISBN 978-0-13-027286-7.
31.
Van den Berg, L.; Van der Borg, J.; Van der Meer, J. Urban Tourism: Performance and Strategies in Eight European
Cities; Avebury: Aldershot, UK, 1995.
32.
Ashworth, G.; Page, S.J. Urban tourism research: Recent progress and current paradoxes. Tour. Manag.
2011
,
32, 1–15. [CrossRef]
33.
Bornhorst, T.; Brent Ritchie, J.R.; Sheehan, L. Determinants of tourism success for DMOs & destinations:
An empirical examination of stakeholders’ perspectives. Tour. Manag. 2010,31, 572–589.
34.
Maxim, C. Sustainable tourism implementation in urban areas: A case study of London. J. Sustain. Tour.
2016,24, 971–989. [CrossRef]
35.
Hall, C.M. A typology of governance and its implications for tourism policy analysis. J. Sustain. Tour.
2011
,
19, 437–457. [CrossRef]
36.
Leslie, D. (Ed.) Responsible Tourism: Concepts, Theory and Practice; CABI: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2012;
ISBN 978-1-84593-987-8.
37.
Ayikoru, M.; Tribe, J.; Airey, D. Reading Tourism Education: Neoliberalism Unveiled. Ann. Tour. Res.
2009
,
36, 191–221. [CrossRef]
38.
Higgins-Desbiolles, F. More than an “industry”: The forgotten power of tourism as a social force. Tour. Manag.
2006,27, 1192–1208. [CrossRef]
39.
Higgins-Desbiolles, F. Sustainable tourism: Sustaining tourism or something more? Tour. Manag. Perspect.
2018,25, 157–160. [CrossRef]
40.
Nguyen, T.A.; Shadrin, N.V. Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Vietnam: Pattern and Perspectives.
J. Water Resour. Environ. Eng. 2008,23, 297–304.
41.
Nelson, B. God’s Country Or Devil’s Playground: The Best Nature Writing from the Big Bend of Texas; University
of Texas Press: Austin, TX, USA, 2002; ISBN 978-0-292-75580-2.
42. Gerosa Bellows, M. The Buzz in Mexico. National Geographic Travel, January/February 2012.
Sustainability 2018,10, 4384 15 of 15
43.
Milano, C. Overtourism, social unrest and tourismphobia. A controversial debate. PASOS Rev. Tur.
Patrim. Cult. 2018,16, 551–564. [CrossRef]
44. Freytag, T.; Bauder, M. Bottom-up touristification and urban transformations in Paris. Tour. Geogr. 2018,20,
443–460. [CrossRef]
45.
Smith, M.K.; Egedy, T.; Csizmady, A.; Jancsik, A.; Olt, G.; Michalkó, G. Non-planning and tourism
consumption in Budapest’s inner city. Tour. Geogr. 2018,20, 524–548. [CrossRef]
46. Shoval, N. Urban planning and tourism in European cities. Tour. Geogr. 2018,20, 371–376. [CrossRef]
47.
García-Hernández, M.; de la Calle-Vaquero, M.; Yubero, C.; García-Hernández, M.; de la Calle-Vaquero, M.;
Yubero, C. Cultural Heritage and Urban Tourism: Historic City Centres under Pressure. Sustainability
2017
,
9, 1346. [CrossRef]
48.
Nofre, J.; Giordano, E.; Eldridge, A.; Martins, J.C.; Sequera, J. Tourism, nightlife and planning: Challenges
and opportunities for community liveability in La Barceloneta. Tour. Geogr. 2018,20, 377–396. [CrossRef]
49.
Postma, A.; Buda, D.-M.; Gugerell, K. The future of city tourism. J. Tour. Futures
2017
,3, 95–101. [CrossRef]
50.
Novy, J. ‘Destination’ Berlin revisited. From (new) tourism towards a pentagon of mobility and place
consumption. Tour. Geogr. 2018,20, 418–442. [CrossRef]
51.
Gotham, K.F. Tourism Gentrification: The Case of New Orleans’ Vieux Carre (French Quarter). Urban Stud.
2005,42, 1099–1121. [CrossRef]
52.
Gravari-Barbas, M.; Guinand, S. Tourism and Gentrification in Contemporary Metropolises: International
Perspectives; Routledge: London, UK, 2017.
53.
Blanco-Romero, A.; Blázquez-Salom, M.; Cànoves, G. Barcelona, Housing Rent Bubble in a Tourist City.
Social Responses and Local Policies. Sustainability 2018,10, 2043. [CrossRef]
54.
Wonderful Copenhagen. The End of Tourism as We Know It; Towards a Beginning of Localhood Strategy 2020;
Wonderful Copenhagen: Copenhagen, Denmark, 2017.
55.
Garrod, B. Managing Visitor Impacts. In Managing Visitor Attractions: New Directions; Fyall, A., Leask, A.,
Garrod, B., Eds.; Routledge: London, UK, 2008; pp. 165–180, ISBN 978-1-136-38120-1.
56.
Van Der Borg, J. Tourism and urban development: The case of Venice, Italy. Tour. Recreat. Res.
1992
,17, 46–56.
[CrossRef]
57.
Šegota, T.; Mihaliˇc, T.; Kušˇcer, K. The impact of residents’ informedness and involvement on their perceptions
of tourism impacts: The case of Bled. J. Destin. Mark. Manag. 2017,6, 196–206. [CrossRef]
58. McKercher, B.; Prideaux, B. Academic myths of tourism. Ann. Tour. Res. 2014,46, 16–28. [CrossRef]
59.
Melissen, F.; Koens, K. Adding researchers’ behaviour to the research agenda: Bridging the science–policy
gap in sustainable tourism mobility. J. Sustain. Tour. 2016,24, 335–349. [CrossRef]
60.
Thomas, R.; Ormerod, N. The (almost) imperceptible impact of tourism research on policy and practice.
Tour. Manag. 2017,62, 379–389. [CrossRef]
61.
Thomas, R.; Ormerod, N. Founts of knowledge or delusions of grandeur? Limits and illusions of tourism
research impact: A reply to Wood. Tour. Manag. 2017,62, 394–395. [CrossRef]
62.
Wood, R.C. The unspoken question: A response to Thomas and Ormerod. Tour. Manag.
2017
,62, 390–393.
[CrossRef]
63.
Seraphin, H.; Sheeran, P.; Pilato, M. Over-tourism and the fall of Venice as a destination. J. Destin.
Mark. Manag. 2018,9, 374–376. [CrossRef]
64.
Cheer, J.M.; Lew, A. Sustainable tourism development: Towards resilience in tourism. Interaction
2017
,45,
10–15.
65.
Jamal, T.; Camargo, B.A. Sustainable tourism, justice and an ethic of care: Toward the Just Destination.
J. Sustain. Tour. 2014,22, 11–30. [CrossRef]
66.
Walmsley, A. Overtourism and underemployment: A modern labour market dilemma. In Proceedings of
the Responsible Tourism in Destinations 13: Tackling Overtourism—Local Responses, Reykjavik, Iceland,
29–30 September 2017.
©
2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
