SOY00411 Tourism Essay: Over-tourism, Global Issue and Solutions

This essay addresses the critical global issue of over-tourism, examining its causes, impacts, and potential solutions. The essay defines over-tourism as a consequence of excessive visitor numbers, leading to environmental degradation, congestion, and strain on local resources. It explores factors contributing to over-tourism, such as cheap flights and the tourism industry's focus on growth. The essay references relevant models like the SRT model to illustrate sustainable tourism pillars, and suggests responsible tourism approaches, government regulations, and stakeholder collaboration as potential solutions. It concludes by emphasizing the need to understand and manage over-tourism effectively to mitigate its negative consequences and promote sustainable practices. The essay uses relevant theories, models, and references to support its arguments.

Running Head: OVERTOURISM
Overtourism
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Topic- Over-tourism as one globally serious issue
Tourism has been previously considered as one such benign activity since then beginning
and it has undoubtedly brought in wealth to the rural communities that are forgotten, have
supported blow of the financial crisis and have conserved the endangered species critically. The
potential benefits of Tourism are quite clear but with the beginning of the year 2017, the travel
industry, the media and the government have realised and focused on the negative influences of
the holiday industry giving rise to the term ‘over-tourism’ (Abbasian, Onn and Strömberg 2019).
It has become obvious over the past years in certain popular destinations such as Venice,
Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam and other destinations. There are some indications that tourism
destinations such as Byron Bay, Bali and the local residents are being less tolerant of the foreign
tourists due to the impacts they are bringing. There are of course many destinations, which
consider tourism to one of the most important and positive component of the local community
and economy (Agyeiwaah 2019). In this essay, the reason behind over-tourism being a serious
issue will be explained. It will then suggest some ways through which the relevant tourism
stakeholder oraganizations could help in addressing this issue. The essay will make use of
relevant model and theories and support the data with relevant references following a brief
conclusion.
In simple words, the over-tourism actually happens when there are good number of such
visitors of a specific destination. The growing number of the tourists have been identified by the
local residents of the destinations when the narrow roads started being jammed with the
vehicles of the tourists. It is also when the wildlife started being scared and the environment
started being degraded signifying the extremity of tourism.

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The travel industry is focused on the growth like any other industry having no such
concern for the impacts. There have been uncontrolled growth for decades and finally it has
crossed the real threshold. Also, in many of the destinations, the tourism has created huge
problem rather than benefits. It can take many forms and it is not only a big city issue but also
has documented in the national parks and the wilderness and places such as Isle of Skye
(Responsibletravel.com 2020). The number of the visitors are developing fast and it will leave its
consequences on everyone statin with a person living in a famous tourist city to a person who has
visited few landmarks or the beaches.
Hence, over-tourism is not a new issue, the term was first used in the year 2012 though
did not hit the headlines sooner than 2017. It made the news in 2017 through the backlash from
the local residents that had not happened before. There was a clearly visible drip feed of the
tourism in the areas such as Venice, Barcelona, Dubrovnik, Skye and Iceland with many others.
There are many key contributing factors of the over-tourism which will vary from one place to
another (Responsibletravel.com 2020). The local government and the national government along
with the tourist board have believed that more is always better. In addition, in the tourism
industry success is measured by the increased number of tourists in that place. The number
consists of all including the cruise ship passengers, the resort guests, the duty free shoppers, the
high-end visitors or the backpackers.
Another significant issue is the availability of certain cheap flights that have saturated
Europe specifically in the recent days. It has become cheaper to travel from London to morocco
through flight than travelling from London to Manchester leading to over-travelling and over-
tourism. The cheaper costs are available when the VAT or the Tax are not being charged on the

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aviation fuel along with a subsidy that saves billions of pounds every year in the UK (Insch
2019).
The cruise ships are further allowed in burning a different type of cheap and polluting
fuel cutting down the costs. The giant cruise ships are extremely contributing a factor in terms of
the over-tourism. There are thousands of the passengers who spill out at the port-cities every day
during returning to the ship on time (Alexis 2017).. Notably, the passengers make the crowd at
the monuments, the historic streets, the shops, cafes having created an excessive congestion.
However, there are certain ways of avoiding the over-tourism and the most significant
one is the responsible tourism. The responsible tourism actually forms better places for the
residents along with the tourists through emphasizing on ‘sustainability’. In its definition, it is
just the opposite of over-tourism diminishing the quality of the life for the local people initiating
some extremely negative experience for the visitors (Koh and Fakfare 2019). The over-tourism
mostly deals with a case of the numbers but following a more responsible approach can help in
mitigating all of the negative effects. In such cases, the solution can be traveling as a responsible
tourist and travelling in some ways that maximise the positive impacts having minimized the
negative ones. The places as Italy, Spain, Croatia, Iceland have recently been in the news in the
form of over-tourism victims and it is excessively localised (Ram and Hall 2018). It is found
that Barcelona has been rammed and many of the residents are fed up understandably. On the
other hand, Spain is extremely large a country having such a less crowd of tourist. The
responsible traveling not only helps in avoiding the over-tourism but also provides a strong
connection with the residents of the land.

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Image 1- SRT model
Source- (Seraphin, Sheeran and Pilato 2018 )
This is the SRT model or the Sustainable Tourism model which distinguishes between three
types of the sustainable tourism pillars such as the socio-cultural, the economic and the
environmental. Additionally, some of the institutions and authors emphasize on the business , the
individual responsibility and the social responsibility for implementing sustainable tourism.
Both of the approaches have been combined with each other in the sustainable-responsible
tourism model that adds the enablers of responsible implementation and sustainability pillars into
one such complete model (Capocchi et al. 2019).
In terms of reducing the negative impacts of over-tourism it can be sad that common
people will have to ensure that their behaviour is beneficial to the maximum for the destination
having followed the responsible tourism approach. However, additionally the involvement and
the support of the important stakeholders are also required for driving a long-term change

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(Seraphin, Sheeran and Pilato 2018 ). The local authorities and the government should look at
certain ways for controlling the number of tourists by increasing the price, banning few cruise
ships, issuing strong permits for certain attractions or gaining control on certain businesses.
It is highly concerning a fact that increasing numbers of the tourists stay as the goal of the
tourist board and bodies as UNWTO. They need to shift their focus increasing revenues and
only then some of the biggest challenges of the industry will be handled. The avoidance of the
over-tourism at the local/national levels is evident. Notably, the Gorilla tracking in the East
Africa is one such example. There are only eight permits allowed per day for tracking the gorilla
family where prices range from US$ 500 TO us $ 750. Significantly, it has not caused outcry
among people and people have rather accepted this limitation and permits continuously sell out
without harming any of the forests or the animals (Responsibletravel.com 2020).
Also, in the Galapagos Island and Antarctica which are exceptionally filled with fragile
habitats and endangered species have put restrictions on the size of the cruise ships along with
the passenger numbers protecting the sustainability of tourism. Therefore, it can be said that the
stakeholders of the tourism industry can unite and make it a success through promoting the
dispersal of the visitors within the city (Responsibletravel.com 2020). They can also promote the
time-based visitor dispersal, stimulate some new attractions and itineraries, enhance the
segmentation of the visitors, ensure that the local communities are properly benefitted by
tourism, improve the infrastructure of cities and the facilities, set some monitoring and the
response measures. The use of the mechanisms for the management of visitor flows can help and
prepare a common strategic vision taking together all the stakeholders. They should bring the
visitors and the residents together too for adopting some planning respecting the limits of the
capacity along with the specificities of the destinations.

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On a concluding note, it can be said that The over-tourism or the anti-tourism is actually
the social protest movement that has emerged because of the hostile reasons through the local
citizens towards the development of tourism and the tourists. It is quite important that the
serious issue of over-tourism/anti-tourism is properly examined and the root causes are well
understood if the impacts of it are to be managed fairly and effectively. In this essay, the reasons
behind over-tourism being a serious issue have been explained. It has then suggested some ways
through which the relevant tourism stakeholder oraganizations could help in addressing this
issue. The essay has also made use of relevant models and theories and support the data with
relevant references following a brief conclusion.

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Reference
Abbasian, S., Onn, G. and Strömberg, P., 2019. Perspectives of Over-tourism in four Pre-
Industrial Historical City Centers: A research idea. In 28th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and
Hospitality Research, Roskilde University, October 23-25, 2019..
Agyeiwaah, E., 2019. Over-tourism and sustainable consumption of resources through sharing:
the role of government. International Journal of Tourism Cities.
Alexis, P., 2017. Over-tourism and anti-tourist sentiment: An exploratory analysis and
discussion. Ovidius University Annals, Economic Sciences Series, 17(2), pp.288-293.
Capocchi, A., Vallone, C., Amaduzzi, A. and Pierotti, M., 2019. Is ‘overtourism’a new issue in
tourism development or just a new term for an already known phenomenon?. Current Issues in
Tourism, pp.1-5.
Hopkins, D., 2020. Sustainable mobility at the interface of transport and tourism: Introduction to
the special issue on ‘Innovative approaches to the study and practice of sustainable transport,
mobility and tourism’. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 28(2), pp.129-143.
Insch, A., 2019. The challenges of over-tourism facing New Zealand: Risks and responses.
Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, p.100378.
Koh, E. and Fakfare, P., 2019. Overcoming “over-tourism”: the closure of Maya Bay.
International Journal of Tourism Cities.
Ram, Y. and Hall, C.M., 2018. Walking tourism in cities: Introducing the special issue.
International Journal of Tourism Cities.

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Responsibletravel.com (2020). Overtourism. What is overtourism and how can we avoid it..
[online] responsibletravel.com. Available at: https://www.responsibletravel.com/copy/what-is-
overtourism [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].
Seraphin, H., Sheeran, P. and Pilato, M., 2018. Over-tourism and the fall of Venice as a
destination. Journal of Destination Marketing & Management, 9, pp.374-376.