Overtourism: Tourism Management and Solutions

Abstract

In recent years, many tourism destinations have faced the problem known as “overtourism”, including several European destinations that face critical issues in developing solutions to cope with the issues they experience. Cities ensure visitors have a wide variety of facilities to interest them, but this can result in attracting too many tourists (Koens, Postma, & Papp, 2018), resulting in significant pressures and rapid urbanisation. The recent growth of tourism in urban areas has brought about a substantially increased demand for urban tourism (UNWTO, 2018). The overtourism phenomenon is defined by Milano, Cheer, and Novelli (2018) as, “the excessive growth of visitors leading to overcrowding in areas where residents suffer the consequences of temporary and seasonal tourism peaks, which have enforced permanent changes to their lifestyles, access to amenities and well-being”. As a result, a drastic shift has been seen in the perceptions of local people of tourism in many destinations due to mass tourism, which has become a significant problem for local residents who react by protesting in the streets (Goodwin, 2017).