Abstract
Overtourism refers not only to situations in which carrying capacity levels have been exceeded, but also to those in which tourists and residents share negative feelings of discomfort and other emotions, loss of quality of life and unpleasant experiences in their activities of daily life. The growing number of places struggling with the problem of overtourism suggests that brand new approaches are required to minimize the effects of excessive tourism. However, the impacts of overtourism are place-specific and a one-size-fits-all approach is inappropriate. Many destinations still have a considerable margin to manoeuvre but are nonetheless heading towards increasingly unsustainable levels of tourists per square kilometer. Such regions have time to take some pre-emptive measures based on principles of sustainable development using greener and energy-saving technologies. Over the past few decades, degrowth has arisen as an unorthodox approach based on principles of fairness and social and environmental justice. In certain areas, such as island economies, the economic dynamics remain largely dependent on the tourism sector, which forces the local actors to think and act differently. In this study, we analyze the strategies employed by Madeira to counter the negative effects of oversaturation in a pre-emptive way. The findings of this case study, based on the data at the county level, are enhanced by a panel data analysis of a number of relevant explanatory variables explaining the dispersion of tourists to the rural hinterland. The results suggest that the development of the rural hinterland has proven capable of exerting a progressively positive influence well beyond the borders of the rural hinterland by accommodating a growing share of the increasing numbers of tourists welcomed in the region in the 2002–2019 period, at the expense of the main capital city. This study confirms the importance and potential of the development of the rural hinterland to tackle overtourism in the main tourism areas. In terms of recommendations, it is suggested that local operators and policy-makers must develop efforts to research new ways to adopt energy-saving projects and develop tourisms products that incorporate eco-friendly behaviors.
Highlights
Before March 2020, it was not rare to read media reports on the issues of overtourism, antitourism or tourismophobia, based on examples of overcrowded places such as Barcelona and other major cities
Residents in major urban areas have experienced the negative effects of tourism development, such as rising rents and unaffordable housing leading to their displacement from the areas where they were born and grew up to the suburbs or other cities; noise and litter; access restrictions and degradation of the social fabric of local communities; along with changing neighborhood characteristics due to phenomena such as gentrification [6,7]
Our results suggest that the rural hinterland is the main beneficiary of the increased number of tourists recorded at the regional level, which points to the capacity of the tourist system to reduce the existing pressures on natural resources and urban facilities in the main tourist destinations, such as Funchal
Summary
Before March 2020, it was not rare to read media reports on the issues of overtourism, antitourism or tourismophobia, based on examples of overcrowded places such as Barcelona and other major cities. As a result of such developments with far-reaching political implications, a number of destinations accelerated the inputting of measures based both on economic taxation and non-market parameters to manage overtourism. Residents in major urban areas have experienced the negative effects of tourism development, such as rising rents and unaffordable housing leading to their displacement from the areas where they were born and grew up to the suburbs or other cities; noise and litter; access restrictions and degradation of the social fabric of local communities; along with changing neighborhood characteristics due to phenomena such as gentrification [6,7]. In a number of cases, the local residents have been forced to see “conversion of these neighborhoods into urban theme parks of a touristic nature”
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