Co-opting overtourism: tourism stakeholders’ use of the perceptions of overtourism in their power struggles

Abstract

Many tourism destinations are facing overtourism situations, where the increase in visitors negatively impacts on residents’ life. Even if the perceptions of overtourism amongst residents have been analysed, the use of that perception by other key stakeholders remains largely unexplored. The discursive co-optation of the concept of overtourism amongst supply-side stakeholders, governmental and civil society stakeholders, provide a unique insight to discuss the use of power through tourism-related discourses and to face societal challenges in tourism destinations. Taking Majorca (Spain) as a case study, we carry out semi-structured interviews to government officials, tourism suppliers (e.g., hoteliers, cruise companies, intermediaries, holiday rentals), NGOs and researchers, to analyse how the perception of overtourism is used by those actors to promote their own agenda, often in opposition to the interests of other stakeholders. The article offers a dual contribution: on the one hand, it shows how the term “overtourism” is co-opted by supply-side stakeholders to justify their own interests and strengthen their agendas. On the other hand, we argue that the lack of consensus on how to address overtourism shows the limits of stakeholder theory to solve societal challenges, and the need of perspectives of social justice to build consensuses around the issue of overtourism.