The Socio-Economic Significance of Overtourism and Strategies for Mitigating Its Impact (2018–2024)

Abstract

Tourism is now a key factor in the growth of the global and regional economy; nevertheless, the sheer acceleration in the development of tourist flows has led to the emergence of the so-called overtourism phenomenon, which causes huge socio-economic pressures on destinations. This paper analyses the socio-economic importance of overtourism and evaluates strategies designed to curb the undesirable effects of overtourism within the timeframe of 2018-2024. Although there is an already existing literature that recognizes the advantages and disadvantages of tourism, there has still been a gap regarding the systematic association between economic benefits and social costs and policy efficacy of various destinations. In order to fill this gap, the article employs a comparative and qualitative approach to analysis by synthesizing secondary data on international organizations and scholarly research and recorded case studies in Europe and Asia. The indicators of economic parameters, housing markets, infrastructure load, quality of life, and the governance responses are analyzed. The results show that despite the significant role that tourism plays in terms of GDP, employment and fiscal revenues, there is overconcentration of the visitors resulting in increased cost of living, scarcity of houses, overload of infrastructure, social conflict, and the increase in susceptibility to external shocks. The measures, in the form of regulation of short-term rentals, taxes imposed on the tourist, visitor numbers, redistribution of space and seasons, reforms in destination management, have proven to be successful at least partially, especially when combined and not used independently. The findings suggest that quality-based policies in tourism that focus on quality but not quantity can alleviate the social pressure but leave the economic value. The paper concludes that to ensure sustainable tourism development, adaptive and data-driven governance and engagement of local communities is necessary. The implications can be applied to the policymakers who wish to strike the right balance between economic gains and social welfare and long-term resiliency of destinations.