Carrying capacity, mass tourism, and overtourism

Scroll down for posts that have been tagged with “Car­ry­ing capa­city & mass tour­ism & overtourism”.

Accord­ing to the Bio­logy Dic­tion­ary: “In bio­logy, the concept of car­ry­ing capa­city relates the num­ber of organ­isms which can sur­vive to the resources with­in an eco­sys­tem. Eco­sys­tems can­not exceed their car­ry­ing capa­city [for long].” Some travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers refer to a des­tin­a­tion’s sus­tain­able capa­city to receive vis­it­ors as its ‘car­ry­ing capacity’.

Mass tour­ism is char­ac­ter­ised by large con­cen­tra­tions of tour­ists at the same place at the same time. The travel & tour­ism industry facil­it­ates mass tour­ism through organ­ised group tours, pack­age deals, shore vis­its by cruise ship pas­sen­gers, and sim­il­ar practices.

Over­tour­ism is the per­cep­tion, espe­cially among res­id­ents, of too much tour­ism at a des­tin­a­tion or simply too many vis­it­ors to a place. Envir­on­ment­al car­ry­ing capa­cit­ies not­with­stand­ing, over­tour­ism is sub­ject­ive. There need not be indus­tri­al-scale mass tour­ism for a host com­munity to feel the effects of over­tour­ism. Mass tour­ism, for example, is often the cause of over­tour­ism in ‘nor­mal’ neigh­bour­hoods, but not in des­tin­a­tions or attrac­tions that have been planned and pur­pose-built to receive large num­bers of tour­ists, whose res­id­ent pop­u­la­tions wel­come the eco­nom­ic oppor­tun­it­ies mass tour­ism brings.

Over­tour­ism can be ter­rible for res­id­ents who per­ceive it. Yet open-hearted, wel­com­ing, hos­pit­able people find it dif­fi­cult to turn people away. And, sim­il­ar to immig­ra­tion debates in some parts of the world, when some do find voice to call for restric­tions, it’s easy for oth­ers to label them as some kind of an ‘anti-’ or an ‘-ist’ or a ‘-phobe’.

“The phe­nomen­on of ‘over­tour­ism’, about which there are always lots of com­plaints, is a symp­tom of an unhealthy depend­ence on tour­ism for jobs and eco­nom­ic activ­ity. We know that, yet this depend­ence is why little gets done to solve the prob­lem. It is polit­ic­ally and eco­nom­ic­ally dif­fi­cult to solve because the with­draw­al symp­toms are rough.” _ Dav­id Gill­banks in “As we sit out COVID-19, let’s think about a fair & fail-safe treat­ment or vac­cine for over­tour­ism”.

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A matter of taste: Travellers, tourists, and ‘tourism for peace’

November 4, 2024
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Travellers, tourists, and tourism for peace ... Picture of flat tyre with peace sign hub cap by Charles Pickrell (CC0) via Unsplash.

Does being a ‘trav­el­ler’ or a ‘tour­ist’ have any­thing to do with ‘tour­ism for peace’? Jim Butcher ques­tions Fabio Car­bone’s cari­ca­ture of arrog­ant tour­ists and his claim that only trav­el­lers hold the keys to world peace.  A grand claim Fabio Car­bone, glob­al ambas­sad­or of the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute of Peace Through Tour­ism (a notion endorsed by the United Nations […]

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Three critics walk into a bar …

September 10, 2024

Three critics walk into a bar … "Good Tourism" Insight Bites. Sign photos by Steve Allison via Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/bar-led-signage-LRx-y4bRdMA

Three crit­ics — a set­tler colo­ni­al­ism crit­ic, an illeg­al immig­ra­tion crit­ic, and a mass tour­ism crit­ic — walk into a bar …  Is this the set-up for a joke or a real pos­sib­il­ity? What shared con­cerns might they dis­cuss, and where might their per­spect­ives diverge? It’s a “Good Tour­ism” Insight Bites ques­tion. Your cor­res­pond­ent put the ques­tion to the travel & tour­ism stake­hold­ers in […]

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Can we manage mass tourism for sustainable, equitable, and progressive outcomes?

July 30, 2024
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Can we manage mass tourism for sustainable, equitable, progressive outcomes? Image generated by Copilot.

If one assumes that mass tour­ism is unavoid­able without an author­it­ari­an crack­down on mobil­ity, what should be done about it? Kev­in Phun sug­gests that in every chal­lenge lies an oppor­tun­ity, and pro­poses how we might man­age mass tour­ism for sus­tain­able, equit­able, and pro­gress­ive out­comes. In less than two hours’ time (as I write this), I will […]

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Prof Valeria Minghetti on peer review, overtourism, regenerative tourism, and how to succeed


Professor Valeria Minghetti: "[B]e curious. Never stop asking yourself questions. Curiosity and the desire to find solutions is what makes a difference ..."

“Nev­er stop ask­ing your­self ques­tions. Curi­os­ity and the desire to find solu­tions is what makes a dif­fer­ence,” accord­ing to Valer­ia Minghetti. Such an atti­tude will take young­sters a long way in travel & tour­ism, she reck­ons. And it must be redoubled at the very highest levels of aca­demia and industry. Saverio F Ber­to­lu­cci inter­viewed Prof Minghetti […]

Read More Prof Valeria Minghetti on peer review, overtourism, regenerative tourism, and how to succeed

Venice ‘bookable’: Italians lose freedom of movement

May 8, 2024
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Are Venice’s new day-tripper rules and regulations having the desired effect? Or are they unreasonably restricting Italians' freedom of movement? Venice carnival masks image by Leo (CC0) via Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/venice-mask-venice-venice-carnival-4764619/ "GT" added "Halt!"

Are Venice’s new day-trip­per rules hav­ing the desired effect? Or are they unreas­on­ably restrict­ing Itali­ans’ free­dom of move­ment? This is Domin­ic Standish’s second “Good Tour­ism” Insight at the invit­a­tion of Tourism’s Hori­zon, a “GT” Insight Part­ner. [You too can write a “GT” Insight. Your organ­isa­tion can also become a “GT” Part­ner.] Book­ings and fees Since April 25, […]

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Emil Kukalj on balanced tourism, overtourism, ideology, pragmatism, and possibility


Emil Kukalj on balanced tourism, overtourism, pragmatism, and possibility

Emil Kukalj reck­ons ideo­logy is only use­ful if it is action­able and leads to net pos­it­ive res­ults. Saverio F Ber­to­lu­cci inter­viewed Mr Kukalj for a Tourism’s Hori­zon Inter­view. For this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, Mr Ber­to­lu­cci reflects. [The full tran­script is on Substack.] Who is Emil Kukalj? I was delighted to dis­cuss research and devel­op­ment with an estab­lished figure […]

Read More Emil Kukalj on balanced tourism, overtourism, ideology, pragmatism, and possibility