Outdoor Solutions for the Seasonal Concentration of Tourism Demand in Northern Portugal

Measures that address the seasonality, one of the identified overtourism direct causes, allow making a critical reflection on the application of control policies and monitoring regional measures crucial on a sector with such importance at the regional development analysis. The measures should stimulate or reduce tourism demand during low or peak seasons, respectively, generating a better distribution of tourism flows and eliminating potential overtourism situations. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the development of a Gini Index to analyse the distribution of the seasonality in northern Portugal and through it control current public measures in practice and suggest the implementation of different and more effective policy measures. For instance, the ones that make a clear bet on outdoor tourism activities. It will be used in the Gini Index, by the tourists' market of origin measured by the overnight stays in hotel establishments. The results showed the high seasonal concentration of tourist flows.

Perceived Impacts of Running Events in Protected Areas

This chapter reflects upon the reality associated with running sports events in protected areas, in particular at the Peneda Gerês National Park (PNPG), with a particular focus on the Trans Peneda-Gerês (TPG), and understands its impacts within a sustainable tourism development perspective. With the diversity of landscapes and natural resources, and its characteristic villages, PNPG, as many other protected areas in Portugal, has a strong potential for Outdoor Sports/Tourism, offering some of Portugal's best running trails. As such, a considerable number of running events are currently being hosted. Based on a research process which includes both questionnaires and interviews, the authors propose to identify the profile and behavior of 2019 TPG edition's participants, and to assess local stakeholders' perception of economic, environmental, and social impacts, and to contribute to the discussion from a sustainable development perspective of the creation and management of tourism-related sports events, namely running, in protected areas.

Lisbon Historic Quarters

This chapter contributes to the emergent debate about sustainable tourism versus overtourism, in the context of urban development. The study underlines, on one hand, the growing importance of tourism in the historic quarters of Lisbon, and on the other hand the rise of overtourism and its effects on residents' quality of life. Consequently, there is the analysis and debate regarding the policies responses of the Lisbon Council in the framework of an integrated urban rehabilitation in Lisbon's historic quarters and the Lisbon Council Strategy.

Collaborative Lodging in Puerto Vallarta

The collaborative lodging has expanded globally, driven by companies that through digital platforms enlist the properties of individuals to integrate them into the market of tourist accommodation, a situation that has generated wide socio-economic and territorial problems in the main tourist destinations in the world. This chapter analyzes who receives the benefits of the collaborative lodging, as well as the negative impacts it generates in Puerto Vallarta, through an analysis of the behavior of the offer, as well as in-depth interviews with hosts registered in the Airbnb platform.

Overtourism

The concept of overtourism has been popularly discussed in recent years, upon local residents starting to recognize the tourism disturbances in some high-profile destinations. For a sustainable tourism development, it is crucial to investigate potential impacts of overtourism towards the local residents living in the destination. Thus, this chapter employs the existing academic work on quality of life (QoL) concepts, to examine the correlations between residents' perception of tourism's impact to them in material, community, emotional, and health & safety life domains, and their satisfaction with QoL in corresponding life domains, and their overall life satisfaction. This chapter involves a survey taken place in Macau, which represents a case of plausible overtourism. The research reveals that residents who perceived more negative impact from tourism on QoL, were more unsatisfied with QoL. Thus, tourism planners and policy makers should be aware of such threat on sustainable tourism development and search out a solution balancing different stakeholders in overtourism destinations.

Perceptions and Opinions of the Host Community Regarding Overtourism in the Tourist-Historic City

In the last few years, the number of visitors in historic cities has grown, resulting in a situation labeled ‘overtourism'. In these tourist-historic cities, tourism is one of the main local economic foundations. This chapter asks whether the social carrying capacity of the host community has been exceeded, through a case study in Toledo, Spain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. The methodology employed is a survey to residents in the city. The main findings show that the residents do not perceive the overtourism situation in the city as something serious. However, some impacts such as the historic centre becoming a museum for tourists, or the traffic congestion derived from overcrowding in both the traffic and pedestrian flow are clearly perceived by the host community. It is the residents in the historic centre those who manifest a more negative opinion of touristic development. This chapter may be of interest to academics, decision makers, and those responsible for tourism in historic cities.

In Search of Overtourism Indicators in Urban Centres

Urban tourism is in constant growth. The increase in the number of tourists has a special impact on historic centres. Some problems related to overcrowding arise in these spaces, which represent important challenges for urban management. This chapter reflects on the need to define overtourism indicators that allow dimensioning the phenomenon and its impacts. But it also involves a deep reflection on the limits of application of these indicators. These limits derive from the absence of reference values and the operational difficulties to obtain data. First of all, the state of the art regarding the indicators is made. Secondly, based on a review of the existing bibliography, the next section raises some indicators of activity and tourism specialization. The focus is on European cities and the application of these indicators is shown in the historic centre of Madrid. Another section also looks at the perception of the phenomenon by different local stakeholders due to the absence of commonly accepted overtourism values, referring to these perceptions as valuation criteria.

The Development of a Scale to Measure Tourism-Phobia

The Balearic Islands in general, and Majorca in particular play a significant role in Spanish tourism but the tremendous growth in the number of tourists has led to the deterioration of the environment, a notable decrease in tourist satisfaction, and is having a negative impact on the welfare of residents. Aversion to and rejection of tourism among residents is popularly called tourism-phobia. This chapter studies the negative aspects which over-tourism is causing in the perception of both native and foreign residents of Majorca, as well as to propose a scale developed to measure tourism-phobia. Data for the study was gathered through a questionnaire, with a total of 149 valid responses. An exploratory factor analysis revealed four main underlying dimensions of tourism-phobia encompassing a number of different variables. The aim is for the scale to be used as part of continuous analysis of sustainable tourism development in Majorca, as well as in other destinations saturated by tourism.

Methods of Published Articles on Overtourism

Studies on overtourism have been growing in the last decade. This article aims to understand the characteristics of the international scientific literature that links the theme Smart Cities in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, from 1998 to 2018. The established methodology was a bibliometric survey. The sample was composed of 24 articles selected in WOS and Scopus. The survey results show that the year with the most publications was 2018. The most relevant article is: “Understanding and overcoming the negative impacts of tourism in city destinations: a conceptual model and strategic framework” by A. Postma, & D. Schmuecker, published in the Journal of Tourism Futures in 2017 with 10 citations. Thus, future studies should expand the search for articles on the topics in other bases as well as national and international scientific events.

Vacation Rentals, Tourism, and International Migration

The growing presence of vacation rentals and international residential migrations are two phenomena determining the recent dynamics and urban structure of most Spanish Mediterranean and island cities. Tourists and migrants tend to be interested in the same urban spaces, and this tends to trigger gentrification, either by changes in the uses of real estate, or driven by the prospects perceived by owners of earning money. This chapter analyses these new mobility flows and urban dynamics in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a city with enormous tourism potential located in the outermost regions of European. The chapter analyses the development of tourism in the city and recent transformations in tourism amenities available, including holiday lets. The chapter studies the changes in the resident population paying special attention to foreigners and finally, to reveal the peculiarities and emerging conflicts inherent to tourism gentrification.