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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Now playing: The tragicomedy of overtourism starring those who should know better

March 6, 2019

Featured image: Why call it tourist season if we can't shoot them? By David Blaikie (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nikonvscanon/1463378771/ "GT" cropped and enhanced it.

The two faces of tour­ism are like sock and buskin, the foot­wear and masks of ancient Greek theatre that rep­res­ent com­edy and tragedy. Accord­ing to Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC) CEO Randy Durb­and, the tragedy is over­tour­ism. And it’s real. It under­mines the joy of travel. It puts the buskin (boot) in. “Sense of place” […]

Read More Now playing: The tragicomedy of overtourism starring those who should know better

Vale Ian Oelrichs, “strategic thinker & visionary”

February 25, 2019
3 Comments

Endemic tourism concept co-creator, Ian Oelrichs, passed away Feb 24, 2019

Co-cre­at­or of the concept of “endem­ic tour­ism”, Ian Oel­richs OAM passed away Feb­ru­ary 24, 2019.  A land­scape archi­tect and urb­an design­er by trade, Mr Oel­richs had more than 40 years of exper­i­ence in devel­op­ment, nat­ur­al resource man­age­ment, and tour­ism. (Linked­In.) In 2011 Mr Oel­richs received the Medal of the Order of Aus­tralia (OAM) hon­our for his […]

Read More Vale Ian Oelrichs, “strategic thinker & visionary”

The cause of overtourism & how tourism can avoid choking on success

February 19, 2019
2 Comments

Tourist go home messages are getting louder and more frequent as overtourism becomes a problem too big to ignore. Image by Duncan Hull (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/29569046192

World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture & Her­it­age (WTACH) Pres­id­ent & CEO Chris Flynn weighs in on the over­tour­ism dis­cus­sion in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight. Mr Flynn iden­ti­fies the cause of over­tour­ism and how the tour­ism industry might avoid more of it. We are hear­ing more and more about “over­tour­ism” and the neg­at­ive impact it is having […]

Read More The cause of overtourism & how tourism can avoid choking on success

Overtourism overturned: How Calviá, Majorca turned its tourism fortunes around

February 8, 2019
6 Comments

Overtourism no more? The beach at Magalluf, a major holiday resort in the municipality of Calviá Wikimedia. By Rafael Ortega Díaz (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia. Cropped and enhanced by "GT". https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1899528

Richard Shep­ard reck­ons “over­tour­ism” is an old prob­lem and that there are plenty of proven solu­tions. As he dis­cusses in this “GT” Insight, all that’s required is the “polit­ic­al and social will” to imple­ment them.  “Tour­ists go home” That’s not a rarely heard sen­ti­ment lately. You might think that over­tour­ism, based on the head­lines this past year, […]

Read More Overtourism overturned: How Calviá, Majorca turned its tourism fortunes around

We’re in the era of overtourism but there is a more sustainable way forward: Professor

February 7, 2019

Overtourism leads to overcrowding. What to do? Bans? Entrance fees? (Image by pierrelaurentdurantin via Pixabay cropped and enhanced by "GT".) https://pixabay.com/en/beach-world-sun-crowd-654641/

Over­tour­ism can be fixed or mit­ig­ated by tak­ing more ser­i­ously the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, accord­ing to Regina Scheyvens of Mas­sey Uni­ver­sity. If you live in a tour­ist des­tin­a­tion, you might dread the hol­i­day inva­sion. Like­wise, dis­gruntled tour­ists com­plain about crowded and pol­luted beaches, nation­al parks or attrac­tions.  Over­tour­ism is now a ser­i­ous issue in many […]

Read More We’re in the era of overtourism but there is a more sustainable way forward: Professor

Goodbye freeloading, hello free thinking; the Travel Foundation asks “Who pays?”

May 26, 2018
3 Comments

Little Venice quay flooded with tourists

When you next go on vaca­tion, who will pay? It’s a simple ques­tion and you may think the answer is obvi­ous: you, the cus­tom­er. But are trav­el­lers cov­er­ing their costs? Experts at a roundtable event organ­ised by Cor­nell Uni­ver­sity were asked that ques­tion and they answered with a resound­ing “no”. All those around the table — aca­dem­ics and representatives […]

Read More Goodbye freeloading, hello free thinking; the Travel Foundation asks “Who pays?”