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Is Overtourism Overused? Understanding the Impact of Tourism in a City Context
Open accessAbstract
In less than two years, the concept of overtourism has come to prominence as one of the most discussed issues with regards to tourism in popular media and, increasingly, academia. In spite of its popularity, the term is still not clearly delineated and remains open to multiple interpretations. The current paper aims to provide more clarity with regard to what overtourism entails by placing the concept in a historical context and presenting results from a qualitative investigation among 80 stakeholders in 13 European cities. Results highlight that overtourism describes an issue that is multidimensional and complex. Not only are the issues caused by tourism and nontourism stakeholders, but they should also be viewed in the context of wider societal and city developments. The article concludes by arguing that while the debate on overtourism has drawn attention again to the old problem of managing negative tourism impacts, it is not well conceptualized. Seven overtourism myths are identified that may inhibit a well-rounded understanding of the concept. To further a contextualized understanding of overtourism, the paper calls for researchers from other disciplines to engage with the topic to come to new insights.
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“In light of these limitations, the concept of the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) has been proposed, which focuses on the maximum level of alteration that residents of a destination are willing to tolerate [4].”
From Agent-Based Model Applied for the Study of Overtourism in an Urban Context (2025) · cites this paper as [4]
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“TCC establishes a theoretical threshold beyond which tourism pressures become unsustainable; we can see this approach in Koens et al. [4], UNWTO [10], WTTC and McKin-sey&Company [15]”
From Agent-Based Model Applied for the Study of Overtourism in an Urban Context (2025) · cites this paper as [4]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Koens, K., Postma, A., & Papp, B.
- Affiliations
- Breda University of Applied Sciences (NL)
- NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Koens, Ko
- Venue
- Sustainability
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2018-11-23
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 4384
- ISSN
- 2071-1050 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2901793307
- Cited by
- 918
- References
- 52
- Citations by year
- 2026: 193 · 2025: 133 · 2024: 85 · 2023: 93 · 2022: 89 · 2021: 130 · 2020: 125 · 2019: 68 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 198.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- dx.doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Breda University of Applied Sciences Portal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Breda University of Applied Sciences Portal (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Initial work co-funded by participating cities and ETOA (-)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management › Diverse Aspects of Tourism Research
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Sport and Mega-Event Impacts
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Urbanism, Landscape, and Tourism Studies
- Keywords
- overtourism, urban tourism, stakeholder perspectives, urban development, European cities, tourism management
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