Overtourism Movements and Tourism Phobia in the Light of Media Coverage

Abstract

Tourism, which is one of the world's largest industries, has been tending to unwittingly\rendanger its own existence since 2012 when the number of international tourists rose to\rover 1 billion. One of the top challenges facing tourism in the 21st century is tourism phobia\rand the upward trend of the phobia in recent years. Anti-tourism movements have been\rrolled out in Barcelona and Venice under the motto \"this is not tourism, this is invasion\",\rleading to a ripple effect across Europe. The momentum of anti-tourism movements has\rattracted the interest of academics of tourism, and it has been argued that it is of priority for\rfurther studies. Anti-tourism movements led by local people result from overcrowding,\rnoise, infrastructural problems and similar challenges. The majority of people consider\rtourism not something that brings about benefits but a detrimental activity. In addition, such\rmovements wreak their anger on tourists, the least responsible party among the\rstakeholders. Tourism phobia is the fear, aversion or social rejection that the local citizens\rfeel in a destination towards tourists. One of the reasons behind tourism phobia's rise around\rthe world is media coverage without a question. How tourism phobia is interpreted and\rnarrated by media outlets is of capital importance as they have a direct influence on\rindividuals, groups of people and a society as a whole. To this end, the study, which relies\ron a descriptive analysis, addresses 16 news reports covered by international media outlets\rabout anti-tourism movements and tourism phobia. The analysis pointed to four main\rthemes in advent of overtourism, effects of overtourism and tourism phobia, anti-tourism\rpropagandas, measures and limitations, and a total of 20 thematic codes of those codes.