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”.
Tags are informal. The “Good Tourism” Blog tries not to get bogged down with terminology and definitions, so you may disagree with tags applied (or not applied) to a post. If so, please feel free to comment on any post you think has been incorrectly or insufficiently tagged. “GT” encourages good-faith debate and discussion.
How many tourism academics observe the industry as tourists? Melanie Kay Smith does. Dr Smith enjoys regular trips to the Greek islands. Her experiences and conversations over the past two COVID-affected summers have highlighted to her some of the problems caused by imposed limits on tourism. It’s a “Good Tourism” Insight. [Thanks to Jim Butcher for inviting […]
Read More Mass tourism Corfu: With or without you?
Nearly everyone wants to escape their everyday and take a holiday, including working people with small budgets and limited time. Does that mean they, and those who cater to them, are terrible people? Jim Butcher doesn’t think so. In his third “Good Tourism” Insight, Dr Butcher paints mass tourism in a progressive light and defends […]
Read More In praise of holiday Fordism & why it’s misanthropic to malign mass tourism
What if the ‘mass’ travel & tourism activities of cities and citizens were ‘sustainable’? Could any of it be counted as ‘ecotourism’? Sudipta K Sarkar explores these questions in this “Good Tourism” Insight. [Thanks to Jim Butcher for inviting Dr Sarkar to write a “GT” Insight.] After more than a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, […]
Read More Wild urban spaces: Rethinking ecotourism as a mass tourism product
Places that rely on travel & tourism are located all over the world, in nations at different stages of economic development and often vastly different population sizes. When international travel shuts down it is no wonder then that they have different experiences. Development specialist Jada Lindblom compares two destinations close to her heart in this […]
Read More Overs & unders: Contrasting destination outcomes during COVID-19
Arizona’s great outdoors is a draw for people escaping COVID lockdown. While the state’s cities and tourist towns reap the economic rewards, some places only see the downside as the masses pass through. How can tourism policy-makers account for the potential negative effects of inbound travel on those just outside a destination? It’s a “Good […]
Read More On the fringes: When the City of Sedona’s tourism policy failed the urban outskirts
From a facilitator of potentially damaging masses to a mere tinkerer at the economic margins of a place, travel & tourism can be anything a destination chooses it to be. In this “Good Tourism” Insight, Peter Smith suggests that mass tourism may offer more to the world’s poorest stakeholders than many commentators acknowledge. [Thanks to Jim Butcher for […]
Read More For the sake of the world’s poor, might the risk of overtourism be worth it?