Overtourism: Issues, Risk and Responsibility

Tourism has become a sector in which many countries and destinations compete to attract tourists due to its contribution to world revenues. As a result of the competitive environment of tourism and promotion efforts to captivate more and more tourists lead to a human concentration above the carrying capacity in destinations. Density in tourist inflows causes, on the one hand, enhancing destination popularity but on the other hand complaints about crowding both tourists and local communities. The negative effects of tourism like deterioration of the culture, damage to the local language, noise pollution, tensions caused by crowds in daily life, increase in the cost of living, incidents of violence, the widespread use of drugs, pressures due to overcrowding in public spaces are risky issues for both local community and tourists. This situation will adversely affect the quality of life of locals, which is an important stakeholder for the development of tourism. Overtourism, which has emerged as a concept outcome of excessive tourism demand, affects tourist experiences as well as the quality of life. The footprint effect caused by crowding in sensitive areas can damage historical sites, cultural heritage, environmental quality, and scenery. Given these components as the main sources of attraction of tourism, it is obvious that the benefit of the tourist from the destination will decrease. Considering all these factors, the main purpose of this study is to define the concept of over tourism, to reveal the issues related to overtourism as carrying capacity, density and overcrowding, to determine the outputs of overtourism in terms of local people, tourists, environment and socio-cultural aspects. Finally, the measures to be taken to prevent the negative effects of overtourism will be discussed within the framework of marketing, managerial, and tourist’s aspects.