Six strategies to reduce overtourism and move to community-focused tourism planning
Last year, the number of tourists worldwide grew to record levels, but this came at a cost: increasing tourism’s contribution to global emissions and fuelling ‘overtourism’ in some of the world’s most popular destinations.
Whilst tourism can cause economic growth and cultural exchange, overtourism increases risks, affecting the lives of local people and travellers. Reports from destinations such as Hawaii and Venice highlighted the impacts of visitor growth on locals, including overcrowding, strained resources, pollution, environmental damage, social tensions between locals and tourists, and reduced quality of life. Plus, if not carefully managed, much of the income from tourists is likely to ‘leak’ from the destination, meaning that local people lose out (see our recent report ‘Creating equitable destinations: How to manage and distribute tourism’s value to better serve communities’).
One of the main strategies available to tourism destinations to better manage tourism is to move to ‘stewardship’, where local people are put at the heart of tourism planning and management. Many destinations have traditionally focused on promoting tourism growth without properly planning the services and resources needed to support visitors. What’s more, local communities don’t always have a say in decisions about the tourism strategy in their area. This has led to a mismatch between destination capacity and the number of tourists that arrive, creating bad feeling among the people affected.
We’ve set out six strategies destinations can try to reduce overtourism and move to a more community-focused stewardship approach to tourist industry planning, development and management.
- Engaging local communities
Local people are often the first to feel the negative impacts of overtourism, and they need to be involved in finding solutions. Overtourism means different things in different places and to different people: for example, it may be an issue of housing availability or costs, rowdy behaviour or traffic congestion. We need to involve residents in decisions and make sure they benefit from welcoming visitors. Community-based tourism, where local people provide services to travellers, can also help to distribute the benefits more fairly.
In Barcelona, one of the most famous destinations facing overtourism, residents have been asked for their views about the impact of tourism on their daily lives, and this will be taken into account by the tourist industry and the city government. By November 2028, visitors won’t be able to rent apartments for short-term lets. As a city that has a population of 1.6 million but has, on average, 32 million visitors a year, this cannot come soon enough for Barcelona’s people.
- Introducing visitor limits
One of the simplest ways to reduce overtourism is to limit the number of visitors allowed at popular sites at any given time. This can be done through ticketing systems, reservations, and daily visitor caps – for example, Machu Picchu in Peru has introduced timed entry tickets to control the number of visitors, helping to protect the site from degradation.
Introducing destination-wide controls is harder, but options include limits on airport and cruise port arrivals, and controlling the availability of accommodation, especially housing used as short-term lets through platforms like Airbnb. For example, in Venice there are limits on the size and number of group tours, with only 25 people per tour, and guides aren’t allowed to use megaphones.
- Promoting alternative destinations
To reduce the pressure on overcrowded places, tourist boards can promote alternatives that offer similar experiences but with fewer visitors. This not only helps disperse tourists, but also helps lesser-known regions to develop as holiday destinations. Of course, this strategy risks simply spreading the problems to other places, so it needs to be carefully managed to make sure these quieter spots are well prepared, have the facilities to cope, and can limit visitor numbers to a manageable level.
In the Netherlands, visitors are encouraged to look beyond Amsterdam city breaks and try nearby alternatives like Haarlem and Alkmaar; meanwhile, in Barcelona, the city has shifted its marketing strategy to promote the city’s cultural and historical attractions to a more specific audience.
Visitors can also be nudged towards less popular sites, with apps to provide live information about busy times or queue lengths and serve up options for quieter places nearby. Museum and attraction passes help encourage guests to visit some more unusual or underfunded places on offer, alongside the big-hitters.
- Encouraging off-season, off-peak travel
Destinations can manage tourist flows by promoting off-season travel through marketing campaigns. This not only helps reduce overcrowding during peak seasons, but also helps balance tourism income and job opportunities throughout the year.
However, residents often view the off-season as a chance to reclaim their neighbourhood and enjoy some respite from the busiest times. Smoothing out the peak demand across the day can also be useful; for instance, Dubrovnik schedules cruise disembarkation slots to manage its overtourism crisis.
- Gathering tourism taxes
Tourism taxes can generate income to be reinvest into local infrastructure, conservation and community wellbeing. Sometimes taxes have been introduced as a deterrent to excessive visitors, although there is currently little evidence to suggest this makes a difference. Cities like Amsterdam, Venice and, most recently, Edinburgh have introduced or are planning to introduce tourist taxes to help maintain public spaces and manage the environmental and social impact of tourism.
The most obvious approach is to introduce a charge based on the number of nights stayed, collected by hotels and other accommodation providers. Alternative methods include airport taxes, removing existing VAT abatements, and more creative ways to raise revenue, such as requiring all tourists to add a mandatory public transport pass to their hotel booking.
- Investing in infrastructure and services
Destinations must invest in public facilities and services that can support sustainable tourism. This includes improving waste management, expanding public transport options, and making sure that natural and cultural resources are protected. In Scotland, the Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund (managed by Visit Scotland) distributed grants to rural areas and attractions that faced large numbers of tourists; grants were used to provide or upgrade facilities like car parks, motor home bays, electric vehicle charging points, pathways, and public toilets.
Spending money on green infrastructure, such as renewable energy and water conservation, is also important to reduce tourism’s impact on the environment.
These six strategies can help tackle the urgent issue of overtourism in destinations of any size.
