Search Results (120)

The rapid rebound of global tourism post-pandemic has intensified pressure on destinations like Istanbul and Athens, bringing overtourism debates into sharp focus. This study examined how five sustainability dimensions (economic, environmental, sociocultural, political, technological) shape residents’ overtourism perceptions and tourism support. Using PLS-SEM analysis of 285 long-term residents’ responses, this study reveals contrasting patterns between cities. In Athens, heightened awareness of environmental, economic, and sociocultural sustainability directly increases overtourism perceptions, subsequently reducing tourism support. Istanbul presents a counterpoint: environmental sustainability concerns alleviate overtourism perceptions, though without significant impact on tourism backing. Notably, political and technological dimensions show no statistically significant effects in either context. These findings demonstrate how sustainability perceptions are locally mediated, with identical factors producing divergent outcomes across cultural contexts. The study advances sustainable tourism literature by: (1) empirically validating context-dependent variations in resident attitudes, and (2) proposing a community-centered evaluation framework for policymakers. Recent study emphasizes the necessity of destination-specific strategies that prioritize residents’ nuanced sustainability concerns over generic tourism management approaches. Full article

Cultural heritage in insular regions faces increasing challenges due to overtourism, seasonal economies, and insufficient protection frameworks. This study investigates the adaptive reuse of Sarakina Mansion, a deteriorated 18th-century estate on the island of Zakynthos, as a model for integrating cultural heritage preservation with sustainable tourism. The research addresses the gap in localized strategies for heritage-led development in the context of islands with overtourism. Through a qualitative case study methodology—including site analysis, archival research, and stakeholder interviews—this paper explores how abandoned cultural assets can be reactivated to foster community engagement and diversify tourism models. Two distinct SWOT analyses were conducted as follows: one at the territorial level (Zakynthos Island) and another focused on the island’s cultural heritage. The findings highlight key obstacles such as environmental degradation and policy fragmentation, but they also reveal opportunities for adaptive reuse grounded in local identity and sustainable practices. The proposed reuse scenario for Sarakina promotes partial structural stabilization and community-driven cultural programming, aiming to create a hybrid open-air cultural hub. This study contributes a replicable framework for reimagining neglected heritage assets in overtourism-affected areas, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Full article

As the global urbanization process accelerates, rural settlements in China are facing the challenges of rural hollowing and widening urban–rural disparities. The establishment of the national scenic area system has made scenic settlements a primary direction for tourism development. However, industrial transformation has led to significant restructuring of the human–land relationship and the spatial functions of these settlements, resulting in issues such as over-tourism, ecological degradation, and cultural loss. This paper focuses on the Mosuo settlements around Lugu Lake, selecting nine villages, including Gesha Village, Wuzhiluo Village, and Daluoshui Village, to explore the formation and expression of Mosuo spatial concepts. Through spatial measurement, area statistics, and the analysis of development paths, the core of the research is to propose that “there is consistency between conceptual order and spatial form,” revealing the multi-dimensional evolutionary mechanism of Mosuo settlement spatial morphology under the intertwining of traditional concepts, market logic, and institutional policies, providing a replicable Chinese reference for global cultural heritage rural areas. Full article

In response to growing concerns about overtourism and the need for sustainable heritage tourism, this study investigates how external environmental stimuli affect tourists’ perceived value and behavioral intentions in historic urban environments. Using the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) model as the theoretical framework, and based on 275 valid questionnaires collected from five major sites in the Historic Center of Macau, this study explores the direct and indirect relationships among four types of environmental stimuli (physical factors, social activities, environmental atmosphere, and information and services), perceived value, and behavioral intentions. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate that all four stimuli significantly influence perceived value and behavioral intentions. Among them, physical factors exert the strongest influence on perceived value (β = 0.291, p < 0.001), while social activities are the most influential predictor of behavioral intentions (β = 0.225, p < 0.01). Perceived value plays a significant mediating role in all relationships, with the largest mediation effect found in the path from physical factors to behavioral intentions (27.99%), followed by environmental atmosphere (24.80%), information and services (22.62%), and social activities (11.66%). These findings validate the applicability of the SOR model in heritage tourism contexts and highlight the central role of perceived value in shaping tourist behavior. Theoretically, this study advances our understanding of how multidimensional environmental stimuli contribute to value-based decision-making in tourism. Practically, it provides actionable insights for urban planners and heritage managers to design environments that promote deeper engagement and foster sustainable tourist behavior in high-density historic destinations like Macau. Full article

This study examines how social media platforms influence tourism marketing strategies, consumer perceptions, and travel behaviors, addressing their sustainability implications. It aims to evaluate the current state of research on social media in tourism marketing, identify dominant trends, assess empirical evidence of impact, and critically highlight research gaps. The analysis focuses on three core marketing outcomes: destination image, travel intention, and user engagement—and includes a section examining sustainability considerations across environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions. The study uses a systematic critical review of 147 peer-reviewed academic articles published between 2015 and 2025, combined with a meta-analysis of 38 quantitative studies that report statistical effect sizes. The meta-analysis uses a random-effects model to compare the influence of different platforms and study contexts. Moderator variables include geographic region, platform type, and methodological design. Findings show that social media marketing has a statistically significant positive effect on destination image (Cohen’s d = 0.61), travel intention (d = 0.54), and user engagement (d = 0.43). The analysis also reveals geographic bias, limited research on emerging platforms, and a lack of longitudinal and ethical inquiry. Findings suggest that tourism researchers and marketers may have to adopt more context-sensitive, interdisciplinary, and ethical approaches. Critical sustainability concerns emerge, including “overtourism”, cultural commodification, digital inequities, and algorithmic biases. Further studies may focus on specific platform-related behaviors, long-term impacts, and integrated online strategies appropriate for global tourism diversity. Lastly, this paper advocates for context-sensitive, interdisciplinary, and ethically grounded approaches to ensure sustainable digital tourism marketing strategies. Full article

This study analyses the economic impact of tourism in Iceland, focusing on its contributions to GDP, employment, and foreign currency earnings. This study employs descriptive and comparative secondary data analysis based on available statistics and an extensive literature review to assess the sector’s development, resilience, and sustainability within global and national contexts. The findings confirm that tourism is a key pillar of Iceland’s economy, surpassing traditional export industries in value and generating significant employment opportunities. However, the sector’s volatility exposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and its dependence on international markets reveal structural vulnerabilities that threaten a sustainable future. Beyond economic considerations, this study critically engages with the growing pressures of over-tourism, seasonality, and environmental degradation, particularly in ecologically sensitive areas. Recent scholarship and policy shifts emphasise the need for sustainability indicators, equitable taxation mechanisms, and participatory governance to guide Iceland’s tourism development. This research highlights that balancing economic growth with environmental limits and community well-being is essential for building a more resilient and future-proof tourism model. These insights help inform policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers in aligning tourism strategies with sustainability and diversification goals. Full article

Within China’s “Central China Rising” strategy, urban tourismification operates as a production mode that reconfigures spatial, economic, and ecological systems—mirroring global overtourism challenges seen in Barcelona and Venice, where rapid infrastructure development often prioritizes economic gains over ecological resilience (cf. Lines 43–46). This study examines 80 central Chinese cities (2010–2021), proposing the Urban Tourismification–Transportation Quality–Ecological Resilience System (UTTES) framework. Using entropy weighting, improved coupling coordination degree (CCD), GM (1,1) forecasting, and spatial Durbin models, we analyze coordination relationships, driving factors, and mechanisms. Key findings reveal the following: (1) UTTES coordination peaked in 2019 (pre-COVID), showing a spatial “center-periphery” gradient with provincial capitals leading. (2) Projections indicate transportation efficiency as a critical bottleneck—most cities will achieve good coordination post-2026. (3) Economic activity, social restructuring, and policy support drive the system, with spatial spillovers creating dual-path mechanisms (economic growth vs. manufacturing/environmental barriers). The UTTES framework advances a replicable methodology for diagnosing Tourism–Transportation–Ecology synergies in rapidly developing regions, integrating multidimensional indicators to balance environmental governance and tourism dynamics. Full article

Design is one of the newer concepts emerging in tourism research. This study provides an empirical examination of the way tourism-related community place qualities influence residents’ place value. Using a mail survey of residents in a community tourism planning process for sustainability, data were collected on perceptions regarding place qualities (community design features) and evaluations of place value (quality of life). The Place Value Framework was applied to guide the measurement of concepts and analysis. Data were collected using a mail survey of community residents from the tax assessor’s database of those who owned a house, with a final sample of 376. Data were analyzed using principal component factor analysis and MANOVA. The results support a relationship between residents’ perceptions about place qualities in their community and evaluation(s) of place value. The Tourism Place Value Framework has the potential to be applied in other research contexts. Investments in new or modified place qualities can be considered by researchers and communities to influence positive, neutral, or negative resident evaluations of place value. Full article

The Canary Islands have long been a major European destination for mass tourism, often associated with ‘sun-and-beach’ vacations. Critiques of mass tourism have intensified in recent years, as reflected in the 2024 protests in the Canary Islands, which linked mass tourism to economic inequalities and concerns about sustainability. Through the case example of Icelandic tourism to the Canary Islands, this research asks two questions: (a) why mass tourism destinations are appealing, and (b) how these reasons can be more fully understood within a broader geopolitical and structural context. The research methods include a survey conducted in Iceland in 2022 and an analysis of media coverage in Iceland related to the Canary Islands from 2017 to 2022. Survey data indicate that the islands are primarily perceived as an easily accessible, well-established holiday destination. Simultaneously, an analysis of media discussions reveals a limited discourse on the islands in Icelandic media, mainly focusing on tourism. The results illustrate how specific destinations become desirable by prioritizing infrastructure associated with mass tourism, where tourism’s impact on host communities, economies, and environments tends to be invisible. Full article

This research aims to analyze the spatial and temporal distribution of residents and tourists in an urban context, assessing the risk of overtourism. To achieve this, a tourist city is conceptualized as a complex system and examined through an agent-based model (ABM), which simulates the interactions between heterogeneous agents and their environment. This computational approach enables the exploration of emergent spatial-temporal patterns and facilitates the interpretation of overtourism as a real-world experiment. The case study focuses on Santa Marta (Colombia), a well-established coastal destination currently facing potential entry into a phase of tourism decline if management remains reactive. Simulation results reveal a high risk of overtourism and illustrate the differentiated effects of two plausible management strategies at distinct spatial scales. Additionally, this study proposes a tourism intensity indicator, addressing the problem of overestimating tourism pressure in existing metrics. The proposed model offers a valuable decision-support tool for assessing impacts and designing proactive management measures in destinations experiencing rapid tourist growth across multiple spatial and temporal dimensions. Full article

This study focuses on the interplay between ecological, demographic, and developmental factors while examining the changes in wild greens (WGs) uses in Corfu from 1970 to 2024. A comparative analysis of historical and contemporary datasets reveals a decline in WG species from 58 (belonging to 47 genera and 18 families) in 1971 to 42 species (37 genera, 16 families) in 2024. The reduction in cropland and, therefore, the herbaceous vegetation has significantly contributed to this loss, alongside urbanisation, demographic shifts, and the rise of tourism-driven economies. Changes in climatic factors, like a 1.5 °C increase in temperature and reduced rainfall, further affect plant biodiversity. Shifts in the occupations of local populations (from farming to touristic services), the declining role of women-centred foraging, and the pervasive influence of formal botanical education may have altered the cultural landscape of WG use. This study underlines the urgent need to integrate traditional ecological knowledge into conservation strategies to mitigate biodiversity loss and sustain cultural heritage. Full article

While the concept of a ‘buffer zone’ is clear and well defined, the role of the buffer zone is vague, especially because a buffer zone—if any—can take on very different sizes and shapes, while their status in terms of protection and rules is very different locally. In this article, we focus on buffer zones in an urban context and explore if these buffer zones have some tourism dedication. The latter is particularly interesting since many urban World Heritage sites suffer from over-tourism. With this, we enter the field of policy, management and governance. Therefore, we analyzed three urban World Heritage sites in Belgium and commented occasionally on two more using text analysis (application and policy documents) as well as interviews (11) of interviewees that are representative of governance and expert groups. The results reveal enormous complexity because buffer zones are considered a must in the application without being well thought-out and therefore suboptimal in terms of policy and management. Streamlining the significance of buffer zones by UNESCO as well as bridging the gap between heritage conservation and tourism on a policy level can prevent the agendas of different stakeholder groups and policy fragmentation from hollowing out its potential. Full article

This paper introduces a novel hybrid forecasting model for tourism demand that combines Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) and Transformer networks, addressing the challenge of capturing both short-term fluctuations and long-term trends in complex tourism data. Unlike traditional models, such as ARIMA, which often struggle with nonlinear patterns, our hybrid approach leverages the sequential learning capabilities of BiLSTM and the self-attention mechanism of the Transformer to effectively model intricate temporal dependencies. Our experiments on Thailand’s domestic tourism data showed that the hybrid model outperformed traditional methods and standalone deep learning models, where it achieved a 12% reduction in the RMSE, a 15% reduction in the MAE, and a 10% increase in the $R^2$. This improved accuracy offers significant practical benefits for sustainable tourism, enabling policymakers and tourism managers to optimize resource allocation, anticipate peak season demand, and develop strategies to mitigate over-tourism. The model’s robustness and adaptability make it a valuable tool for data-driven decision-making in the tourism sector. Full article

This paper aims at addressing sustainability concerns in vulnerable insular territories. Such concerns are due to the rising overtourism phenomenon that affects islands at a rapidly escalating pace and renders sustainable local development of these outstanding areas—from a natural and cultural viewpoint—at stake. Towards this end, this work capitalizes on current literature and attempts to structure a methodological framework and a respective set of indicators’ groups that are capable of assessing dimensions of overtourism in each single tourism destination, thus providing evidence-based and more robust guidelines for articulating policy decisions that can remedy incidents of overtourism. The proposed methodological framework follows a place-based approach and combines tourism demand and supply data with environmental, social, economic and spatial data and respective indicators for assessing the tourism density and intensity of each destination’s tourism pattern and related multi-dimensional impacts. Validation of both the proposed framework and indicators’ groups is conducted in Santorini Island, Greece, i.e., an island that lies at top positions of many lists of destinations, marked as suffering by overtourism. Results show that Santorini Island is confronted with severe overtourism impacts, which are highly affecting its identity, productive model and spatial pattern, while endangering its natural and cultural wealth. Full article

Contemporary challenges in destination management, particularly those related to sustainability, tourism behavior, and mobility, require granular, local-scale data to inform public and private sector decisions. However, the traditional international tourism statistics standards, such as IRTS 2008 and TSA:RMF 2008, have focused on national and, to a lesser extent, regional scales, overlooking local destinations as a relevant level for the measurement and analysis of tourism. As a result, no common conceptual framework has been available for producing statistical information for local destinations, despite tourism impacts being primarily felt at this level. The endorsement by the United Nations in 2024 of the new Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (SF-MST 2024) has addressed this gap, marking a crucial shift toward recognizing local tourism destinations within sustainability measurement. In this conceptual paper, the recent local turn within this new international statistical standard is explored. Furthermore, by comparing SF-MST 2024 with previous documents, an extended conceptual framework for tourism statistics is developed, including the spatial dimension. Finally, in this paper, the implications for the implementation of the framework in local tourism destinations are discussed. Full article