Is overtourism overused? Understanding the impact 2 of tourism in a city context 3

: In less than two years, the concept of overtourism has come to prominence as one of the 12 most discussed issues with regards to tourism in popular media, and increasingly academia. In spite 13 of its popularity, the term is still not clearly delineated and remains open to multiple interpretations. The current paper aims to provide more clarity with regards to what overtourism entails by placing 15 the concept in a historical context and presenting results from a qualitative investigation among 80 16 stakeholders in 13 European cities. Results highlight that overtourism describes an issue that is 17 multidimensional and complex. Not only are the issue caused by tourism and non-tourism 18 stakeholders but they should also be viewed in the context of wider societal and city developments. 19 The article concludes by arguing that while the debate on overtourism has drawn attention again to 20 the old problem of managing negative tourism impacts, it is not well conceptualized. Seven 21 overtourism myths are identified that may inhibit a well-rounded understanding of the concept. To 22 further a contextualized understanding of overtourism, the paper calls for researchers from other 23 disciplines to engage with the topic to come to new insights.

prominent in European cities, similar sentiments have been reported in other destinations too, for example tropical islands, backpacker ghettos or even slums [3]. To describe these tourism disturbances, the term 'overtourism' has rapidly been popularized.
In academia overtourism has become commonplace overnight too. Whereas it was largely allowing "the market to act as a form of governance", with government withdrawing from direct 118 involvement and instead seeking "to encourage the tourism industry to move in particular direction" 119 through, for example, financial incentives and education [35]. Such work has been criticized for 120 putting too much responsibility on to actors who lack the resources (e.g. small tourism business 121 owners) or knowledge (e.g. tourists) to act in a sustainable way [3,36]. However, tourism academia, 122 both in research and education, has continued to follow this trend and relinquished its role in 123 "pressing the industry and governing authorities to be more responsible and accountable" [37][38][39].
Perhaps because of this, the debate regarding overtourism developed outside of tourism 125 academia. Its first use dates back to the early 2000s when it was used to describe the danger of 126 overusing natural resources [40,41]. About a decade later, the term was introduced in tourism media 127 [42], but it took until late 2016 for it to take off as a counterpart of the Spanish term 'Turismofobia' to 128 describe the outcry among residents in response to the unfettered growth of tourism [43].

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Overtourism as a term has proven very marketable and was trademarked by online travel magazine 130 Skift in 2018 (registration number 5494076). The UNWTO definition of overtourism now is "the reference can be made to the upcoming discourse regarding tourism gentrification, which describes 140 the transformation of mostly middle-class neighborhoods into tourism enclaves that are marked by 141 "a proliferation of corporate entertainment and tourism venues" [51]. Whilst coming to the issue from the exclusion of residents and other local stakeholders, as well as touristification and museumfication dominated tourism discourses in previous years [24,48], albeit that there is still relatively little clarification on how such new policy arrangements could be made to work in practice.
prime tourist cities in their countries, which already did or were likely to suffer from overtourism in 155 the near future. The idea was that different aspects of overtourism would be visible in these cities, 156 but also a wide variety of strategies to deal with the issue. The second project, which ran from 2017 -

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In each city five to ten stakeholders were identified in cooperation with the city's government 174 key points on an answer sheet, which contained the main topics of the study -perspective on overtourism, manifestation of potential issues, governance, future vision and developments. As a 176 secondary source of data gathering short interviews were held with 150 residents in the first six cities.

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The interviewed residents lived in the city center as well as the areas directly bordering the city center.

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Interviewers rang the bell or knocked on the door at random in these different parts of these areas to 179 get a more diverse sample. The goal of the interviews was to appreciate how residents experienced 180 tourism encounters. Interviews were performed by students and were not recorded. Instead, short 181 notes were taken of the main points that were discussed. Due to time constraints, it was not possible 182 to perform this research in the final seven cities. As such results were used mainly to provide context, 183 rather than be a primary source of information.
Results were compared and contrasted, which enabled identification of emerging patterns on 185 different parameters regarding the perception and management of overtourism. In case of factual 186 ambiguities, the results were discussed with city representatives to clarify matters. After each 187 research project a session was held with participating city representatives in a meeting room near 188 Schiphol Airport, the Netherlands. The first of these sessions took place December 2016 and the 189 second took place January 2018. For the second session, representatives from the cities that 190 participated in the first research project were also invited. The idea of the meetings was to discuss 191 findings and jointly further understanding of the topic. This was done by means of a discussion of 192 the research results, but also through a short 'scenario planning' workshop to get shared insights of 193 new developments and potential future issues and solutions related to overtourism.
The discussions with stakeholders revealed that what is now called overtourism, actually is an actions by stakeholders and changes to the social, economic and physical environment. As such it 199 encapsulates to be a complex and multidimensional concept. The three different causes of tourists' behavior and physical touristification -can all be identified, but interviewees also 202 recognized displacement due to AirBnB and similar platforms and excessive pressure on the local 203 environment as separate causes of concern (Table 1). While interviewees mostly appreciated the fact 204 that these issues have different impacts, spatial distribution and causes, overtourism increasingly 205 became an overarching denominator for all as the research progressed. This made some participants 206 conflate causes and effects of different issues or even play down the importance of overtourism.

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Indeed, participants preferred to talk about visitor pressure, as this was deemed more neutral and 208 did not limit itself to tourism, but also other visitors. Tallinn., as it causes large numbers of people to venture into the cities at set times, thus clogging up measuring tourism impacts and serve as a point of caution for city authorities that seek to manage 232 tourism by spreading visitors in time or place or seek cruise tourism growth.

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Whereas overcrowding can at least to an extent be monitored and measured objectively, it is 234 more difficult to measure the impact of inappropriate behavior of tourists. Here, individual excesses can have a strong impact on long-term perceptions, even when objective disruption levels remain the 236 same or decrease. One resident shared that she was aware that she lived in a tourist area, and knew 237 that this would give some disturbance, but seeing someone urinate against her house decreased her 238 tolerance of tourism and increased her awareness of tourism annoyances. Another example is the so 239 called beer-bike -a multi-passenger human-powered vehicle, equipped with a beer tap -has become 240 a symbol for overtourism tourism, even in cities where they are rarely seen. The advent of social 241 media has made it easier to share these sentiments and bring opponents together, frustrating 242 policymakers, who note that relatively insignificant issues are blown out of proportion due to a 243 combination of social media and a willing press. Residential action groups on the other hand, note 244 that their misgivings previously were ignored by laissez-faire governments on and that these 245 developments have merely help to redress the balance.

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Physical touristification of city centers and other tourist areas is related mostly to the changing 247 retail landscape, which gets tailored increasingly to fun-shopping and food consumption rather than 248 local shops. The impact of AirBnB and similar accommodation providers can be seen as a new form 249 and slightly different from of touristification. Although private house rental has a long history,

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internet providers such as AirBnB has caused an explosive growth of such accommodation offerings.

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Contrary to other forms of physical touristification, AirBnB and the likes impact on neighborhoods 252 throughout the city leading to a displacement of people rather than services. In addition, residents 253 complain about noise, but also a more general sense of insecurity as they never are quite certain who 254 inhabits these rented properties.

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The fact that the increase of visitors to a city puts more pressure on the local environment (e.g.

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To an extent, tourism may be used as a scapegoat by the daily users of the city. It simply often 304 is impossible to determine whether disturbance is caused by a resident or a tourist. In Amsterdam 305 the example was given of people who were noisy aboard a boat in the canals in the evening. Residents 306 are inclined to put the blame on tourists here. However, it is difficult for tourists to rent a boat in the 307 evening and such disturbance is more likely therefore to be caused by local actors.

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The impact of the touristification of city centers and online accommodation platforms also needs 309 further clarification. Undoubtedly, tourism has impacted strongly on city centers and suburban 310 neighborhoods, but this impact can at least partially be attributed to real-estate developments. After 311 the economic crisis of 2008 and the subsequent crash of the real-estate market, it became more attractive for house owners to rent out properties to tourists, rather than sell them at a loss (see also drastically increased rental prices that had previously been kept artificially low to provide lower-316 income households with higher quality housing. When the economy started to recover real-estate speculation, particularly in capital cities began to drive up house and rental prices and further However, in the investigated cities the emphasis remains on increasing the carrying capacity by

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The complexity of overtourism reveals itself again when looking at the effects of policy 340 measures. It is revealed that these have been, at times, different than expected. For example, in Bruges 341 city-center parking tariffs were raised aggressively to make tourists and day-visitors contribute more 342 to the city-budget. In practice this led to perceptions of touristification at the expense of residents.

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Tourists were willing and able to pay the higher parking tariffs, but regular users now had to park 344 outside of the city center. Another example is the great faith that is put on smart or technological 345 solutions as a means more efficiently measure impacts and steer tourism to maximize its carrying 346 capacity. As discussed previously, tourism capacity is but one element of overtourism. In addition 347 city governments already are overloaded with apps and technological solutions that they need to 348 promote and or implement, also to deal with issues outside of tourism.

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One issue that policymakers agreed on was the difficulty they had in implementing policies to 350 deal with overtourism, also because it is not a tourism-only problem. Management measures that 351 take into account the wider city policy structure will require cooperation between multiple city 352 departments and other stakeholders, including residents. The remit of tourism policy makers or other 353 tourism stakeholders is too limited to successfully initiate such measures. As such, interviewees 354 noted that it was key to get tourism more established as an integral part of city development.

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Amsterdam is experimenting with such an approach by means of a separate entity titled 'City in