City tourism has been booming for years. As a result, the number of tourists per inhabitant increases in many city destinations. This can lead to conflicts over the simultaneous (over-)use of spaces, ...often referred to as overtourism. Therefore, many studies of over-visited city destinations focus on the social carrying capacity. Whereas many studies investigate one aspect created by overtourism, the present study concentrates on the city as a whole with all its distinct tourist phenomena. Against this background the social carrying capacity of Munich is analyzed by focusing on the perception and evaluation of different forms of tourism in Munich and their specific impact on the daily life of the inhabitants. A survey conducted in 2018 identifies how the inhabitants of Munich perceive different forms of urban tourism, how much they feel disturbed by them and how they react to them, for example by avoiding the identified tourist spaces. The paper outlines that there are different forms of overtourism, and the phenomenon tends to be more complex than the term suggests, and that it is crucial to differentiate between the various forms of urban tourism depending on the number of tourists, their characteristics, and their spatial and temporal distribution.
Reject or select: Mapping destination choice Karl, Marion; Reintinger, Christine; Schmude, Jürgen
Annals of tourism research,
September 2015, 2015-09-00, Volume:
54
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
•Set theory is used in a quantitative survey to map destination choice.•An index to measure tourists’ familiarity towards a destination is developed.•Choice structures are analysed in regard to ...alternative types of destinations.•A tourist typology is developed according to destination choice set structure.
The purpose of this study is to empirically explore tourists’ destination choice processes. Destination choices are investigated using a combination of data on destinations and on tourists’ individual destination choices. Data were collected in Munich/Germany in 2013 using personal interviews; 622 interviews were completed. This approach allows detecting reasons for the rejection or selection of certain types of destinations during the destination choice process. Results show that tourists often start the destination choice process with various combinations of destination types but act similarly when choosing the final destination. The investigation of tourist and destination characteristics results in a tourist typology that varies in regard to similarity and type of alternative destinations at different stages of the destination choice process.
For years, Barcelona has been a city torn between economic success in tourism through increasing numbers of tourists and protest against the rising pressure on the city due to tourism. Resistance to ...the increasing social and ecological pressure exerted by intensive tourism in the city grew especially in the last ten years prior to the COVID- 19 pandemic, and voices emerged that actively demanded a degrowth transition of the tourism sector. This paper studies the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quest for a sustainable degrowth transformation of Barcelona’s tourism model. In this regard, the central developments in Barcelona’s tourism sector since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed and the implications of these developments for the degrowth movement in the city are outlined. Within the context of the qualitative content analysis, the different social and economic perspectives of the degrowth debate in tourism in Barcelona are contrasted and classified. The central research results outline that the measures taken so far for a more sustainable tourism since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic are mainly of a technical nature and do not have systemic-transformative components. Accordingly, there are reasons to believe that a return to the growth-oriented tourism model is prioritized, and so far, no indications point to the initiation of a degrowth transition.
Over the next decades the ski tourism industry in the Alps must deal with two major challenges. First, demographic change will lead to aging skiers and declining skier demand. Second, climate change ...will result in a decreasing number of operating days and optimal ski days, reduced snow reliability and increasing operating costs in some destinations. Both impact factors cause a change in travel behavior of ski tourists. Effects on skier demand have been quantified for Austria, though not for the German Alps, but previous publications lack any quantification of the resulting consequences on future turnover at destinations or compensation for losses. This demand side study addresses this gap using the example of the Sudelfeld ski area in Bavaria, German Alps. It estimates the impact of climate and demographic change on skier days (first entries) and future turnover at the destination. Furthermore, it presents a rough indication on how many non-skiing tourists have to be won by the destination to substitute for the calculated changes in demand. The results demonstrate that climate change will have a solely negative impact on skier demand for the 2030s and 2040s (−13.5% to −31.1%) compared to demographic change (+1.6% to −31.1%). This causes a change of the destination's turnover from +11.8% up to −56.4% (values adjusted to inflation) in the same period compared to the average of the last four winter seasons. Thus, adaptation measures need to be identified to reduce potential economic losses in the next decades.
•Based on two scenarios for the 2030s and 2040s the study calculates to what extent climate and demographic change impact the number of skier days and the destination's turnover in the case study Sudelfeld ski area in Bayrischzell, German Alps. This calculation provides useful information for ski tourism stakeholders about potential economic consequences and can be used as a valuable indication for future investments and alternative offers.•The number of non-skiing tourists the destination needs to acquire in order to compensate for the decreasing skier demand is calculated in order to inform the destination managers.•The concept can be transferred to other ski destinations. The study aims to inspire other destination managers and ski tourism stakeholders to use it.•Tourism associations and ski tourism stakeholders need to identify individual adaptation measures for their destination that meet both the challenges of climate and demographic change.
Between one-quarter and one-third of the population in developed economies do not travel, but our understanding of this group is rather limited. Studies looking at constraints and motivation often ...treat non-travelers as an homogeneous group compared to a spectrum of traveler types. Non-travel is also often implied as being a deficit rather than a voluntary decision. A mixed-method approach is applied in this study to explicitly explore the variety within non-travelers in general and voluntary non-travelers in particular. Qualitative interviews with non-travelers were used to gain a more in-depth understanding of the underlying reasons for non-travel. Non-travelers were then segmented based on constraints and motivation in a large-scale survey representative for Germany. The resulting non-traveler typology clearly shows distinct non-travelers types. By adding a pro non-travel preference instead of using deficit-oriented arguments, voluntary types of non-travelers were identified. This implies that non-travel is not necessarily something people want to overcome.
Recent EU environmental and spatial policies notably strive towards the development paradigm of green growth and economic competitiveness. However, operationalizing spatial policies through ...growth-driven GDP logics promotes an unequal race towards narrowly defined developmental ‘success’, while perpetuating social, economic and environmental inequalities. Meanwhile, the EU’s territorial cohesion approach has remained a conceptual ‘black box’, its apparent inadequacy for notably mitigating territorial disparities leading to renewed questions about territorial policy’s relevance, delivery and evaluation. In this paper, we add to calls for redesigning territorial cohesion by proposing a turn towards spatial justice for territorial sustainability. Pointing out the need to refocus on regional capabilities and alternative development trajectories, we argue that the ‘right to not catch up’ enables a more locally meaningful and globally sustainable development. Drawing from regional statistics, policy analyses and an empirical case study of three European Territorial Cooperation programs in the heterogeneous Austrian-Czech-Slovak-Hungarian border region, we illustrate how current EU spatial policy approaches evolve in regional practice and why current policy aims fall short for sustainable transformations. Through interrogating development discourses and their alternatives, we contribute to emerging new perspectives on sustainable territorial development at the European as well as at regional levels.
Climate change affects both the supply and the demand side of winter tourism. So far, few demand‐side studies exist in the field of climate change impact research. Those investigating the tourists' ...behavioural response to climate change concentrated exclusively on ski tourists in various countries, except for the highly vulnerable German market. This study conducted a survey (n = 751) in two German destinations to investigate the reaction behaviour of winter tourists to climate change, differentiated according to day and overnight guests. Findings show that not only weather, snow and operating conditions determine the reaction behaviour, but also lifestyle or sociodemographic aspects.
Non-travellers or infrequent travellers have been largely neglected by (tourism) academic research. There is a lack of knowledge about why they don't travel much as well as about their activities on ...holiday and the related economic impact on their living environment. The exploratory study analyses the economic impact of non-travellers and infrequent travellers due to their activities for the Department of Vaucluse (France), an important source area and destination in national tourism. The analysis of the socio-demographic structure shows that this group, sometimes associated to the phenomenon of staycation, is heterogeneously composed. Financial, occupational and health conditions are major constraints, while a lack of motivation is of secondary importance. It shows that their economic impact is important and spatially differentiated.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to global disruptions - especially in tourism. As a result, travel participation decreased. Thus, the proportion of Germans (18-85a) travelling (≥5d) between March and ...December decreased from 76% in 2019 to 56% in 2020. To better understand who travels during the COVID-19 pandemic or not, we used two population-representative surveys of the German-speaking residential population. Applying a Gradient Boosting Machine, we compared the pandemic year 2020 (n = 5,823) with the non-pandemic year 2019 (n = 7,366). Considering 12 sociodemographic variables in two models, we predict their relative influence on the probability of leisure travel participation in the respective years. The 2019 model shows a relatively high accuracy (71%), whereas the accuracy of the 2020 model decreases to 59%, indicating that the variables used have lost importance. Results show, e.g. that household income and age are the two most important predictors for travel participation. However, their importance reversed due to the pandemic, with age being the most relevant predictor for travel participation during COVID-19. Using Partial Dependence Plots, we compare the direction, impact, and functional form of all variables regarding travel participation for both years - and thus identify who travels during the pandemic.
The tourism sector faces severe challenges due to the economic impacts from changing natural environments as seen with the increased frequency of natural disasters. Therefore, analyses of disaster ...impacts models are necessary for managing successful tourism recovery. Typically, disaster assessments are conducted on a countrywide level, which can lead to imbalanced recovery processes, and a distorted distribution of recovery financing or subsidies. We address the challenges of recovery using the tourism disaster management framework by Faulkner. To calculate precise damage assessments, we develop a micro-level assessment model to analyze and understand disaster impacts at the micro-level supporting tourism recovery in an affected destination. We examine economic consequences of a disaster at a small regional scale arguing recovery from a natural disaster is more difficult in individual areas because of differences in geographic location or infrastructure development. The island of Dominica is chosen as an example for the model using statistical data from the tourism sector to outline and detail the consequences of a disaster specifically for communities. The results highlight the importance of damage assessments on a small-scale level, such as communities in order to distinguish between individual regions facing severe changes for resident livelihoods and the local tourism sector. We argue that only after identifying regional impacts it is possible to apply adequate governmental subsidies and development strategies for a country's tourism sector and residents in a continuously changing environment in the hopes of mitigating future financial losses and future climate change impacts.
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