Issues and Strategies of Overtourism Assignment 2022

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Issues and strategies of overtourism
Name
(Affiliation Institutions)

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The changing patterns of demands, availability of cheap transportation options to tourism
destinations and more affluent middle-class generation has led to the contemporary issue of
overtourism which is experienced in diverse countries. Seraphin, Sheeran and Pilato (2018.)
defined the term Overtourism as the perceived overcrowding or congestion that occurs as a result
of excess tourists leading to conflicts with local people. As a result of that overtourism has
become an important issue in the current tourism in some parts of the worlds. The focus of this
essay is to find out the possible reasons behind overtourism in important tourists hotspots. This
essay is going to take the scenario of Barcelona as the case study where the tourism industry is
on the verge of a collapse due to the overtourism. As a matter of fact, this essay also tries to
depict a clear insight into the issue by investigating some significant factors responsible behind
the issue.
Over recent years, Overloading of the available resources has remained to be a
significant issue resulting from the issue of overtourism. Bardhan, Kurisu and Hanaki (2015
p.55-56) argued that whenever a population increases by a margin, the possibility of resource
depleting also increases by a margin. Bardhan, Kurisu and Hanaki theory is applicable to the
overtourism context that whenever the number of tourists increases in a particular destination,
the competition of available resources also increases. For example, Barcelona city has
experienced an issue of overloading of the available resources as a result of overtourism in has
significantly grown over the recent areas. A research conducted by Martín Martín, Guaita
Martinez and Salinas Fernández (2018 p. 2851) show that during the peak holiday season,
destination Barcelona host over 30 million overnight visitors in each year when compared to the
resident population of 1,625,137 as per 2017. The concern growth of tourist’s population in
Barcelona city has led to over-pressurization of available resources such as infrastructure as well

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as environmental concern like increased land, water and air pollution. Positively, the overtourism
issues have facilitated to the growth of social movements like Network of South European Cities
tourism (SET) and Assembly of Neighborhoods for sustainable tourism (ABTS) that campaigned
against overtourism and rights for local residence.
The tourist companies are trying to utilize the existing resources in such a manner that
will cost detrimental for Barcelona to manage such a huge tourist boom in the peak tourist
seasons. For example, as a result of overtourism in some region, Airbnb has been criticized by
various overtourism activists and agencies for displacing residences and reducing the
affordability of housing (Koens, Postma and Papp, 2018 p.4384). Moreover, it can be stated that
the cruise ships, duty free shopping, exclusive resorts are also considered to be important aspect
to deliver a considerable amount of impetus to the overtourism practice in Barcelona. The travel
agencies and agents are not aware of the detrimental impact on Barcelona due to overtourism.
For instance, during the tourism peak seasons, the local and international cruise industry delivers
millions of tourists annually and thousands daily to destination ports. With little being returned
to communities, the general cruise activities create both visual and physical pollution (Lamers,
Eijgelaar and Amelung, 2015). Even the city council declared an environmental emergency in
2019 where the ‘Most polluted ports in Europe’, Barcelona is suffocated with high amount of
sulphur oxide and carcinogenic nitrogen oxide coming from the visiting cruise ships (Burgen
2018).
As the towns and cities transform to accommodate diverse tourists, the international
supply chain also become successful which coincides with rising costs for local communities as
well as property speculations. From the research of Ledsom (2019) it was found that the local
residents were mostly the victim of tourist boom in Barcelona. In one hand, with the