Visitor Pressure: Understanding and Managing Overtourism in European Cities
Long before overtourism became a household word, ETFI and Breda University of Applied Sciences studied visitor pressure in European cities. The project mapped the issue, developed scenarios for how it might evolve and designed strategies to help cities manage it.
Project duration: 2014 – 2019
The challenge
Many city destinations face growing tension between residents and visitors. After completing his PhD on how residents experience tourism, Albert Postma saw frustrations rise in cities such as Venice and Barcelona.
Cities needed a better understanding of visitor pressure and practical ways to anticipate and manage it.
Our approach
After a pilot in Riga, Berlin and Amsterdam, the study was carried out under CELTH for the destination organisations of six major European cities, and later seven smaller ones, including Tallinn, Salzburg, Ghent and Bruges. It combined a literature review, expert interviews, interviews with residents by International Tourism Management students, surveys among more than 400 residents per city, and scenario workshops with the destination organisations.
The impact
The project resulted in strategies and concrete measures for managing visitor pressure, and two reports published by UN Tourism (UNWTO) in 2018 and 2019. The 2018 article by Koens, Postma and Papp in the journal Sustainability is one of the most cited academic articles on overtourism.
The project also led to a special issue of the Journal of Tourism Futures, spin-off studies for Hamburg and the European Parliament, and lasting collaborations with UN Tourism, CityDNA, ETOA, WTTC, the European Travel Commission and the Travel Foundation. Read the first UNWTO report: https://doi.org/10.18111/9789284420070
What could we discover together?
Whether you have a research question, a project idea or an interest in collaborating, we'd love to hear from you.
Contact our team!