Sustainability is an ambitious goal, responsible behaviour the way. Sustainability is increasingly discussed in the tourism sector, but achieving it seems to be more distant with the growing number of travellers. Experts from the World Economic Forum predict that global tourism in 2024 will not only reach pre-pandemic levels but likely surpass them.
What responsible tourism means and what steps can cities take against overtourism?
Being responsible can lead to be sustainable
The term “sustainability” has become so overused in various sectors that it is now can be seemed both a buzzword and an elusive goal. Despite its three dimensions – economic, ecological, and social – often, we struggle to grasp its true meaning. In the context of tourism, a term responsible tourism has been emerged and defined during the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Cape Town. Responsible tourism aims to address the challenges posed by overtourism and promote sustainable practices. It is connected with positive action that we take to make tourism better from which benefits communities and destination itself.
According to Harold Goodwing, the one who drafted Cape Town Declaration, responsible tourism is about “making better places for people to live in and better places for people to visit.” Responsible tourism requires that operators, hoteliers, governments, local people and tourists take responsibility, take an action to make tourism more sustainable through concrete actions and afterwards being transparent what and how they achieve.
Minimalizing impact and making local´s benefit
Recognising that responsible tourism takes many forms, that different destinations and stakeholders will have different priorities. Developing local policies and guidelines through multi-stakeholder processes is essential for fostering responsible tourism. According to mentioned Declaration, responsible tourism has several characteristics:
- minimises negative economic, environmental, and social impacts;
- generates greater economic benefits for local people and enhances the well-being of host communities, improves working conditions and access to the industry;
- involves local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances;
- makes positive contributions to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity;
- provides more enjoyable experiences for tourists through more meaningful connections with local people, and a greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues;
- provides access for physically challenged people;
- and is culturally sensitive, engenders respect between tourists and hosts, and builds local pride and confidence.
Strategies to manage mass tourism
Overtourism is the opposite, a consequence of a failure to manage tourism sustainably. Despite overtourism being a widespread issue, it lacks simple and global solutions. Each location is affected differently and must grapple with specific challenges. Despite this, there are several strategies and concrete examples how cities deal with overtourism all over the Europe.
Limit transportation options
Managing transportation options helps prevent destinations from becoming overwhelmed. This can involve regulating or reducing the number of flights or cruise ships allowed to arrive on a given day. By limiting entries, destinations can directly control the influx of tourists to a region or city.
Great example can be found in Dubrovnik, Croatia which puts cap on daily cruise ship arrivals. With the aim of limiting the number of passengers the Dubrovnik port authority have signed an agreement on join booking according to 2+1 principle, which means booking two large cruise ships at the port and one large cruise ship in front of the Old City. This system allows monitoring of the most exposed days in a year and the number of passengers is limited and cruise call refused, if necessary. According to Cruise Ship Berthing Policy, the maximum number of cruise passenger visiting the inner City of Dubrovnik during the whole year cannot exceed the expected 4000 passengers/ visitors simultaneously. New measures were introduced considering huge demand for Dubrovnik as one of the most attractive destinations in the Mediterranean.
Short-term rentals regulations
One of the reasons which stands behind overtourism is affordable accommodation which came with platforms offering it such as Booking, Homeway or Airbnb. Regulating these short-term rentals is one major challenge for all tourist destination if they want to prevent unaffordable housing for locals. Many European cities are already taking steps to regulate short-term rentals by using different approaches.
Portuguese government in reaction of country´s housing crisis and rising property prices ban a new licence for Airbnb and other short-term holiday rentals. It was implemented in several major cities, including Lisbon, Porto and Faro. Along with this they increased funding for social housing projects and provided incentives for property owners to convert short-term rentals in long-term rentals.
Since 2024 Andalucía is also implementing stricter licensing requirements for tourist accommodations. Owners of properties are facing a more rigorous application process which can include comprehensive property inspections, adherence to enhanced safety standards and proof of adequate insurance coverage. Those steps should help to provide only high standards of quality and safety for visitors. In urban centres with higher density of rentals the regulations are expected to be more stringent.
Barcelona is not only one of the most visited cities in Europe but also one of the leaders in regulations short-term rental platforms, being the sole major urban centre on the continent prohibiting the rental of individual rooms. Currently, more than 10 000 houses are listed as short-term rentals which helped push up rents by 68% in the city. City council now aims to make from Barcelona first Airbnb-free zone by 2029 by not renewing expired licenses.
Spatial and town planning
Local governments are able also to control the sitting of accommodation as well as other services. Depending on national planning policy framework they can shape the city´s shape and avoid what sociologists’ call “Disneyfication” of cities – where authenticity and local character are lost due to excessive commercialization and standardization.
For instance, Amsterdam municipality introduced a zoning plan “Shop Diversity Centre”. It aims to counteract a monoculture in the city centre by prohibiting new tourist shops that mainly target tourists and day visitors, such as souvenir shops. This zoning plan helps prevent tourist shops from dominating the streets and ensures a more diverse range of functions in the city centre.
Managing overtourism is indeed a multi-faced challenge and there are many other ways how to do it. Each locality is a bit different and different strategies can be applied, such as carrying capacity limits, entrance fees, de-marketing or even closures. To sum up, promoting responsible tourism practices, setting effective management strategies and local policies are crucial how to make this sector sustainable. In the Capacity2Transform project, we monitor and draw inspiration from these examples of good practice in Central European regions to contribute to the development of tourism which goes towards sustainability.
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