This studys main goal is to find an answer to the question of what the potential is for mitigating overtourism to nature based sports tourism. The studys objective is to explore the phenomenon of overtourism and how this has affected the tourism industry. This will be followed by a case study of Prague being the example of the destination suffering from overtourism and an in-depth exploration of the potential of mitigating the overtourism in Prague to nature-based sports tourism.

The Covid-19 pandemic which is still ongoing at the time of writing has had significant impacts on the tourism industry globally. This situation may offer a chance to improve the sector regarding sustainability. Therefore, this thesis has researched the impacts that the pandemic has had on the tourism industry in Iceland with regards to the opportunity to make it more sustainable. Qualitative results from an open-ended questionnaire sent to stakeholders of companies in the tourism industry in Iceland were analyzed and compared to secondary data gathered from reliable databases in the industry. The study shows that there is an opportunity to improve the tourism industry in Iceland, but that lack of incentive from the government is problematic in stakeholders opinions. The future of tourism in Iceland postCovid-19 depends on how the pandemic unfolds and the demand for tourism after it.

Tourism is a worldwide phenomenon and an important industry. In recent years, however, questions have arisen surrounding whether tourism can be harmful to destinations when exceeding their capacities. Visby is a medieval seaside town and a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Gotland, a Swedish island. With 900 000 annual visitors, Visby is one of the most visited destinations in the country, and tourism is an important part of the island’s economy. With the heavy flow of tourists and second homeowners in Visby, especially during summer season, signs and effects of overtourism have become prevalent. Locals in Visby are struggling with housing issues, large seasonal pressure, et cetera, affecting their livelihoods and community. One of the root causes is believed to be unsustainable tourism patterns. This thesis looks at how overtourism could affect residents’ sense of place belonging and community. Local university students at Campus Gotland were chosen as the focus group and were asked about their views on their place belonging and community in relation to consequences brought by tourism via a survey. The results show indications that tourism-related seasonal differences and housing issues may be affecting the students’ sense of place belonging and community negatively.

Die Dissertation zeigt am Fallbeispiel Berlin, wie stadttouristische Konflikte politisch-administrativ (ent-)problematisiert werden. Die Forschung zur Governance konflikthafter touristischer Phänomene (z. B. Gewerbe-Monostrukturierung) betreibt bislang v. a. good governance-Kritik, oder sie thematisiert die Konflikt-Governance zeitdiagnostisch als Ausdruck unternehmerischer/postpolitischer Stadtpolitiken. Demgegenüber greift die Dissertation das konzeptuell etablierte Postulat auf, bereits die Deutung zu bearbeitender Probleme als zentralen Aspekt von Governance zu verstehen. In der empirisch-analytischen Anwendung wird der Governance-Begriff als „Sehhilfe“ zur differenzierten Beschreibung von problembezogenen Governance-Arrangements herangezogen. Mittels einer Dokumentenanalyse und einer Ethnografie der Tourismusmanagement-Praxis werden sechs einschlägige Techniken der (Ent-)Problematisierung tourismusbedingter Konflikte herausgearbeitet: 1. die geschichtliche Naturalisierung von Interessenskonflikten, 2. die moralische Begrenzung von Debattierbarkeit, 3. die statistische Definition von Problemwahrnehmung, 4. die konzeptuelle Regulierung von Rechenschaftspflichten, 5. die partizipatorische Thematisierung von Problemen und 6. die begriffliche Konsensualisierung von Lösungen. Das Zusammenwirken dieser Governance-Techniken wird in Anlehnung an Mariana Valverde als ein Seeing Like a Tourist City betitelt: Probleme eines konflikthaften Tourismus sind nicht gegeben, sie werden politisch-administrativ mit diversen (teils widersprüchlichen) komplexitätsreduzierenden Mitteln geformt (u. a. moralisch, statistisch, geschichtlich), kontextspezifisch artikuliert (u. a. öffentlich-medial, in Partizipationsforen), verfahrensförmig negiert und nicht zuletzt in Abhängigkeit verfügbarer Lösungen hervorgebracht. Anwendungsorientiert gewendet macht die Dissertation das Zusammenwirken der o. g. Techniken als aktives Verwalten tourismusbedingter Konflikte (an-)greifbar. / The thesis explores how conflictive urban tourism phenomena (e. g. commercial gentrification) are (de-)problematized by governmental actors in Berlin. Hitherto, research on “overtourism”-governance has been dominated by good governance criticism; alternatively, governance of conflict-prone urban tourism is discussed as manifestation of an entrepreneurial or post-political urban governance. The thesis, however, seizes on the conceptual claim to understand the way in which tourism conflicts are framed, constructed or contested by governmental bodies as key aspect of governance. Employing the notion of governance as analytical lens to comprehensively describe problem-oriented governance settings, six key techniques used to (de-)problematize tourism-induced conflicts haven been identified (building on document analysis and an ethnography of destination management practice): 1. Mobilising history to naturalise conflicts; 2. Limiting the debate about conflict-prone tourism under moral aspects; 3. Defining the perception of problems statistically; 4. Adjusting accountability conceptually; 5. Addressing problems by means of participatory forums; 6. Achieving consensual solutions by notions (e. g. “sustainability”). Referring to Valverde the combination of the governance techniques is dubbed as Seeing Like a Tourist City: problems of conflictive tourism do not exist a priori, but are constructed in an active political-administrative way. Problems of conflictive tourism are framed by (in part contractionary) ways of knowing (morally, statistically, by legends); conflicts are represented in highly context-specific manners, they are denied by administrative proceedings and intimately linked to the availability of solutions. The combination of the above-mentioned governance techniques represents an “active administration” of tourism conflicts; the „busy“ but noncommittal governance remains in well-established patterns of (discursively) reconciling problems and solutions.

Die Thesis befasst sich mit gegenwärtigen Regulierungsmaßnahmen gegen den Overtourism in europäischen Städetedestinationen (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Venedig). Ein Demarketingmix für Destinationen wurde entwickelt, der als Maßnahmenkatalog verwendet werden kann. Diese Arbeit führt Touristiker in das Thema des Demarketings ein und zeigt Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten im Destinationskontext auf. Entscheidern in Destinationen werden Kenntnisse über Tools und Best Practise Beispiele geliefert, wie sie den Overtourism in ihren Städten angehen können.:1 Forschungsportrait 1.1 Motivation und Zielsetzung 1.2 Aufbau der Arbeit und Forschungsvorgehen 2 Aktueller Forschungsstand zum Demarketing 2.1 Definitionen 2.2 Bedeutung 2.3 Entwicklung 2.4 Formen und Arten des Demarketing 2.5 Der Demarketing-Prozess (Vier-Phasen-Modell) 2.6 Anwendungsfeld Tourismus (Destinationen) 3 Problem Overtourism 3.1 Begriffsbestimmung 3.2 Entstehungsursachen 3.3 Charakteristiken 3.4 Ausprägung des Overtourism in ausgewählten Beispielstädten 3.5 Zukunftsaussichten 4 Benchmarkanalyse von Maßnahmen und Regulierungsansätzen in Städten 4.1 Auswahl der Kriterien 4.2 Amsterdam 4.3 Barcelona 4.4 Berlin 4.5 Venedig 4.6 Resümee 5 Potenziale und Grenzen des Einsatzes von Demarketing in Destinationen 6 Praktische Implementierung 6.1 Überblick und Aufbau des Demarketingmix 6.2 Instrumente Produkt 6.3 Instrumente Preis 6.4 Instrumente Kommunikation 6.5 Instrumente Vertrieb 7 Fazit und kritische Würdigung

Syftet och målet med denna studie var dels att undersöka fenomenet överturism genom att titta närmare på större europeiska städer såsom Barcelona och Venedig. Men även gå på djupet med hur detta fenomen har uppstått och ifall det kan appliceras på vår egen hemstad Stockholm, och specifikt Gamla Stan. Genom att genomföra kvalitativa intervjuer med både näringsidkare och lokalbefolkning hoppas vi få en bättre förståelse för hur avtrycket av turister manifesterar sig i överturism och ifall det finns en generell attityd gentemot detta. Vi bör ha i åtanke att, generellt sett så kommer turister till Gamla stan (som är en huvudattraktion för de miljoner besökare Sverige årligen tar emot) med all säkerhet att spendera tid på ön, på grund av dess centrala läge och möjligheten att gå igenom stan på så pass kort tid. Utöver det ekonomiska avtryck som detta medför har det också en påverkan på lokalbefolkningen, som möts av ett ökande antal besökare för varje år, särskilt under de tre sommarmånaderna. Medan fler ur lokalbefolkningen ser turisterna som orörliga objekt och i vissa fall störningsmoment så erkänner näringsidkare turisternas betydelse för deras verksamhet, och att affärsrörelser på något sätt är beroende av turister då de säkrar deras överlevnad. / The purpose and aim of this study is to through carefully examining the phenomenon of overtourism by looking closely at other major European destinations such as Barcelona, Venice, Dubrovnik and Santorini, go in depth with how this phenomenonhas appeared and perhaps if it can be applied to our home city of Stockholm, and specifically the Old Town, “Gamla Stan”. By conducting qualitative interviews with both business owners and residents we hope to get a better understanding of how the impact of tourists applies itself and if there is a certain attitude towards this. Not only is it clear that this phenomenonhas brought changes to many destinations over the last few years. In Barcelona the attitude towards tourist has reached almost violent levels, with some cases of locals attacking tourists and targeting traveling group with slogans etc, We have to consider that in general, people that visit Gamla Stan, which is a major attraction for the millions of tourists that travel to Stockholm every year, almost certainly will spend at least some time on this island because of its central location and convenient walk-through possibilities. Besides the economic imprint this also affects the local residents, who are faced with a growing number of visitors, especiallyin the three summer months.

This study investigates host community attitudes towards tourism in South Tyrol’s Puster Valley in Italy along with predispositions against the emerging phenomenon of overtourism and explores the factors influencing its formations, as similar research in the same European context with a more mature tourism industry is still underdeveloped. Applying quantitative methods, data was collected through an online survey between May and June 2021. A total of 17 attitude statements were analyzed using IBM’s SPSS and the results indicate that tourism impacts in the valley are perceived evenly throughout the whole community while it was proven with Social Exchange Theory that people involved within the tourism industry are less inclined to perceive negative impacts. Choosing the Pragser Wildsee as a case, the analysis further reveals that overtourism is not only affecting residents in its vicinity put has more far-reaching consequences. Even the results not being very surprising, the study is confirming tourism-related issues and suggests more need in investigating resident attitudes in similar environments.