Overtourism but still not so problematic! Attitudes of Swedish Archipelago residents with link to social carrying capacity

Although tourism is a crucial driver of economic development within local communities, the ramifications of tourism can also entail adverse effects like impinging upon the quality of life for residents as in cases of overtourism (Baldin et al., 2024). Peeters et al. (2018, p. 15) define this complex phenomenon in the following way: “Overtourism describes the situation in which the impact of tourism, at certain times and in certain locations, exceeds physical, ecological, social, economic, psychological, and/or political capacity thresholds”. Such repercussions may entail unsustainable tourism that might impact on host community’s perception of tourists and tourism development.

Earlier research on overtourism has been mostly focusing on urban areas (e.g. Gonzalez et al., 2018), but some scholars also have paid attention to this phenomenon in rural and peripheral areas (e.g. Oklevik et al., 2019) as well as on islands (e.g. Kafa and Korkmaz, 2021). Further, research on overtourism in islands including residents’ attitudes towards sustainable tourism development has mostly been focusing on warm-water islands and archipelagos (e.g. Agius et al., 2019; Rodriguez and Rodriguez, 2023; Woosnam et al., 2023), while “cold water islands” like Scandinavian islands have been less visible. The conditions and issues in these low-density cold-water islands differ from high-density warm-water islands as the concept of sustainability as well as tourism development differs from destination to destination (Renfors, 2021) which make these small islands interesting to be studied. This research aims to fill this gap through focusing on the conditions in two major Swedish archipelago regions, namely Stockholm and Gothenburg. These are adjacent to the two largest Swedish metropolitan areas, which also receive most tourists in Sweden. The two archipelago regions have a very large number of islands, and a part of their inhabited islands are among the most tourist visited islands in Sweden and are heavily dependent of summer tourism (Rytkönen et al., 2021).

Although research on rural overtourism by Nordic scholars has increased in number (e.g. Oklevik et al., 2019), few recent works on island overtourism come from Iceland and concern the situation in this state island (e.g. Saeporsdotir et al., 2020) and not small islands and archipelagos. Hence, the purpose of this study is to provide an empirical analysis of the perceptions held by residents in two selected Swedish archipelagos mentioned above regarding overtourism and the influx of tourists to their islands. These attitudes are important for tourism development (Thyne et al., 2022). In this regard, the concept of social carrying capacity (SCC), i.e. perception of impact of increased number of tourists to these islands (bin Yusoh et al., 2021), is of relevance to be investigated. Further, the local context matters, since different places with different preconditions might experience different pathways of tourism development (Atun et al., 2019). This paper contributes to the existing research on sustainable tourism through information on overtourism in cold-water islands in a Scandinavian context. The research looks for answers to the following questions:

1. Which perceptions do residents in Stockholm and Gothenburg archipelago environments have towards the existence of overtourism on their islands?

2. What do these perceptions tell us about the SCC in these archipelagos?

3. Based on these perceptions, what are the prospects of a future tourism development in these archipelagos?

Sweden with over 267,000 islands has the largest number of islands in the world (Statista, 2024). It is a typical archipelago country with thousands of small islands in Mainland Lakes and off the coast in northeast, east, southeast and southwest. Only a very small share of these islands has permanent residents (SCB, 2014) and access to some kind of service that attract visitors and tourists to these islands accessed via public ferry line transport. Stockholm archipelago has approximately 10.000 inhabitants (siko.org.se, 2024) while Gothenburg’s northern and southern archipelagos has almost 18.000 inhabitants (Källgård, 2022) (Supplementary material 1 and 2). As shown by Google Maps, the Stockholm archipelago has more islands, and they are more distanced from the mainland compared to Gothenburg archipelago.

Archipelagos consist of many small islands close to each other (Bardolet and Sheldon, 2008), and their dimension is significant in overtourism research since archipelagos are extra sensitive to tourism development compared to other places. The characteristics of archipelagos that differ from mainland urban and coastal places attract many tourists and visitors to the islands, who look for remoteness, pureness and authentic experiences, in contrast to mass-tourists in urban and coastal destinations (d’Hauteserre, 2016). In similarity with rural environments (Bohac and Drápela, 2021), these places are more traditional, welcoming and calmer than urban environments. Archipelagos in other words have high value for visitors and tourists. Many islands (e.g. those in the Mediterranean or Caribbeans) are economically dependent on millions of tourists’ arrivals yearly (Mazzola et al., 2019; Peterson, 2020), and tourism is beneficial for the islanders’ living standard.

Authors (e.g. Alberts and Baldachinno, 2017; Hoarau, 2022) state that tourism might not be a good idea for small islands’ development since it makes them extra dependent and vulnerable. Different destinations with different attributes suffer differently from overtourism (Saeporsdotir et al., 2020). Rural, costal and island environments with their limited service, transport, infrastructure and their sensitive natural areas suffer more from overtourism than urban environments do (Bohac and Drápela, 2021). Islands and archipelagos suffer especially from lack of accessibility compared to places in mainland (Dropsy et al., 2020). Separation from mainland, transportation issues together with seasonality are major challenges for these places, their residents and visitors, irrespective of whether access is made through sea or air transport (Ankre and Nilsson, 2015; Baldacchino and Ferreira, 2015).

Archipelagos with small islands are most vulnerable destinations due to small population and size, lack of natural resources, industries and workplaces, control by politics (see, e.g. Agius et al., 2021). Too many tourists on a very small island with very small population can cause increased pressure on the island’s inhabitants and their resources, feelings of disturbance of too many tourists, congestion and competition, rise of negative attitudes towards tourists, risk for negative sociocultural encounters between locals and tourists, increased prices and so on (Butler and Dodds, 2022). Other negative impacts that normally concern larger islands can be tourism phobia, loss of local identity and dependence on tourism monoculture (Blázquez-Salom et al., 2023. See also Majdak and de Almeida, 2022; Vordoubas, 2020).

Residents and their attitudes towards sustainable tourism development and overtourism have been investigated in earlier studies that have dealt with positive or negative impacts of tourism development on the place and its inhabitants (e.g. Adie and Falk, 2021; Berselli et al., 2022; Eusébio et al., 2018; Moreira Gregori et al., 2022; Ribeiro et al., 2017, 2025). These include small or large islands like Phuket (Tuntipisitkul et al., 2021), state islands, e.g. Iceland (Saeporsdotir et al., 2020) and Malta (Briguglio and Avellino, 2019), as well as archipelagos, and locals have been most important target groups.

Although overtourism creates negative reactions among host destinations, there is a range of research with contradictory results on it especially in the context of islands. García-Buades et al. (2022) in their study on Alcúdia in Majorca discovered that residents, despite their perception of overtourism and its consequences, were satisfied with their lives. Majdak et al.’s (2022) study in Portuguese Madeira Island confirmed that a pre-dominant majority of locals wanted to receive more tourists even though overtourism could result in negative consequences. Moreira Gregori et al.’s (2022) study in Gran Canaria confirmed that the island residents were generally positive to the existing mass tourism that they believed to bring prosperity to their island. In another study in Majorca (Blázquez-Salom et al., 2023), the authors concluded that local tourism stakeholders consider both overtourism and undertourism as unsustainable development that need to be tackled. In their study on Portuguese Azores archipelago that is heavily dependent on tourism, Ribeiro et al. (2025) discovered that despite the residents’ awareness of costs of tourism development in their archipelago, still a large majority showed optimism for more development. On the other hand, Kim et al.’s (2020) study in Korean Jeju Island showed that the residents’ perception of negative impacts of overtourism was considered to affect their quality of life. Also, Briguglio and Avellino (2019) in their study on Malta addressed several important negative impact factors of overtourism that despite the benefits of such development could do more harm than good. On the contrary, results by Kafa and Korkmaz (2021) showed that residents of Turkish Gökceada Island perceived that benefits of overtourism outweigh the disadvantages.

When the “normal” tourist flow is transformed to overtourism, a series of social, cultural, ecological and economic problems can appear (Butler and Dodds, 2022; Dodds and Butler, 2019). The concept of SCC that is included in Butler’s (1980) destination life cycle theory serves to be linked to the following study. Since Butler in his model illustrated carrying capacity as a critical phase of tourism development in any destination, SCC can be used to address sustainable/un-sustainable tourism development in a destination. Butler claims that carrying capacity is the optimal balance between supply and demand in a destination, but above this point, problems become more and larger when the number of visitors strongly exceeds the number of residents in the consolidation stage, and the peak of tourism is reached in the stagnation stage. This imbalance sets pressure on the residents and their resources and gradually results in their irritations, protests and restrictions against more tourism.

SCC, referring to the number of visitors, is firstly about use of local resources which determines the destination’s thresholds or limits of tourist numbers. It includes social, cultural, environmental and economic aspects of this situation (bin Yusoh et al., 2021). The SCC can be assessed from the point of view of both residents and visitors/tourists (Joshi and Dahal, 2019). The first one concerns social interaction between residents and tourists and a maximum ceiling of tourist numbers that does not impact the residents’ quality of life negatively, while the latter concerns interaction between tourists themselves and that the maximum ceiling of tourist numbers does not affect their experiences negatively (Joshi and Dahal, 2019). Authors (e.g. Saveriades, 2000; Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021) apply it to residents, investigating the place’s tolerance limits for receiving tourists and permitting use of local resources as perceived by the residents. It means that positive or negative perceptions of locals about current development of tourism in their places can be used as indicators for how challenging this development can be for them and what a sustainable tourism development should look like in the future (Gonzalez et al., 2018; Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021).

To measure SCC, authors use indicators of SCC (e.g. maximum number of visitors accepted, number of visitor activities and visitors involved in them, conflict, encounter, noise, crime, higher prices, traffic, pollution, congestion, lack of parking and drink water, and satisfaction/irritation) that can be applied differently with link to different perspectives (hosts or visitors themselves) (Brandolini and Mosseti, 2004; Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021). Brandolini and Mosseti (2004) emphasise that only those indicators that have a consequence on the social-cultural environment are adequate to use. A method to quantitatively measure SCC is based on visitor density either per m² or per 1,000 inhabitants, while a qualitative measurement is based on the individuals’ own perception of the overcrowd (bin Yusoh et al., 2021; Brandolini and Mosseti, 2004). Authors (e.g. bin Yusoh et al., 2021; Saveriades, 2000), however, add that SCC is generally difficult to measure especially the qualitative one since it is based on individuals’ subjective attitudes and their value aspects. In most earlier studies, authors measured SCC quantitatively with a link to different values/scales of overcrowd (e.g. Pulido-Fernández et al., 2025), while a few studies (e.g. Saveriades, 2000) assessed it qualitatively through linking to respondents’ subjective attitudes defined in aspects, feelings and behaviours.

The methodological approach in this exploratory study is mixed based on an online survey with 477 complete questionnaires and six in-depth interviews with archipelago residents in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Prior to starting the survey, participants were informed of the study’s aims/objectives and the right to refuse participation or withdraw from the study at any time. The authors confirmed that this study adheres to the relevant ethical guidelines for human subjects, and that the anonymity and confidentiality of the participants were maintained throughout the study. This study’s procedures were reviewed and approved by the university’s Ethics Review Board. In the survey both quantitative (close-set) and qualitative (open-ended and follow up) questions were used aiming at getting some kind of notion on representativeness but also deeper insights on the issue. Also, the interviews were conducted to get deeper insights on the issue (Creswell and Creswell, 2023) and more verification and validation of the survey results, although these six persons would not be considered as representatives. The questionnaire that was in Swedish was designed in collaboration with Stockholm Archipelago and its user-friendliness was first tested in Autumn 2023 with several persons with post-secondary education. To reach our target groups, we used convenience sampling through an online survey (Ball, 2019). Finally, the link was placed at about 50 relevant pages on Facebook and LinkedIn active in these two regions.

In the questionnaire, the authors clearly stated that only people with connection to these two archipelago regions, i.e. through residence or job (locals, entrepreneurs, second-home owners and commuters) were asked to participate. Therefore, the selection of these two archipelagos including their residents was purposive. However, the selection of respondents was arbitrary since the survey link was placed on many social platforms, and we had no idea on who would answer. In this regard, there is little risk of bias (Ball, 2019). In the questionnaire, the authors gave a short introduction to the respondents that the investigation was about overtourism in Stockholm and Gothenburg Archipelagos. Through their participation in the survey, the respondents assured they were older than 18. The number of 477 completed questionnaires means that this survey can be assumed to be rather representative for the two regions, as circa of 28,000 inhabitants live on these islands (Källgård, 2022; Siko.org.se, 2024). After the deadline, we received the complete survey in a SPSS report with all quantitative data in bar-charts and qualitative data in running text.

The personal interviews were unstructured but inspired by achieved results from the survey. In the questionnaire, we asked the respondents to participate in our individual interviews. Six residents (4 women, 2 men) ultimately responded to us, even though we had the ambition to interview more people. The interviews (one was done simultaneously with two residents) were conducted on Zoom in December 2023, recorded and then transcribed. They took on average 60 minutes each.

The quantitative data in the study come from the online survey’s demographic questions 1–7 (Gender, Age, Occupation, Education, Living/working environment, Housing situation, Income). Questions 8 and 11 were about their perception of the number of visitors respectively prospects of tourism. Scales used in close-ended questions are nominal, with the exception of the age-range question which is on ordinal level. Questions were not formatted on previous research instruments. In the trade-off between non-response problems with larger questionnaire and non-replication of previous studies with a smaller questionnaire, we found that the comparatively small amount of existing research and a need to cater to our partner’s requirements were dominant arguments and opted for our own questionnaire design.

The qualitative data in the study come firstly from the survey’s follow-up question 9 (whether large number of visitors create/not create problems), open-ended question 10 (time of peak and pattern of visitors), follow-up questions 12–14 (justification of whether tourism creates/not creates problem in the future respectively suggestion to solutions), and questions 15 (additional information from respondents) and question 16 (researchers’ request to participate in personal interviews) (Supplementary material 6). The other part of the qualitative data comes from the researchers non-structured interviews with six respondents mentioned above.

Content analysis, frequently used by social- and medical scientists, has been employed to analyse the data. Here the researcher describes, explains and analyses the quantitative data (manifest content) with figures and numbers but also interpret the results qualitatively. The researcher also highlights categories, patterns or themes that are recurrent, or subjectively interpret latent content, i.e. meanings that are hidden in a text (Camprubí and Coromina, 2016; Gheyle and Jacobs, 2017; Kleinheksel et al., 2020; Vaismoradi and Snelgrove, 2019; Vaismoradi et al., 2013). The study was inductive from the beginning (Kygnäs, 2020); the survey design was based on no earlier research, and the authors had no purpose to test any theories. Based on the questionnaires and personal interviews, three core areas were important to focus on in this inductive process (Kygnäs, 2020):

1. Archipelago peoples’ perception of increased number of tourists/visitors during the peak season to get an understanding of existence of overtourism on their islands,

2. Problems caused by these increased numbers to get an understanding of the negative impacts of overtourism and the state of SCC in these archipelagos,

3. Prospects of future tourism development in the archipelagos with a link to SCC, based on the two first themes above.

The content analysis followed its standard process, that is familiarisation with the content through repeated reviews, coding of the content, categorizing/theming, validation and conclusion. In accordance with the process, the data were repeatedly reviewed by both authors until consensus on codes were achieved in order to secure intercoder reliability (Neuendorf, 2017), central codes/keywords were highlighted, and the categories, themes, patterns were verified by all authors (Vaismoradi et al., 2013). This measure increases coding reliability (Neuendorf, 2017). It also increases the validity of identified themes (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Also, re-connection to earlier research was provided continuously as well as using quotations to highlight important results. In all steps, with all authors involved, the purpose and research questions were guiding to keep the red thread, tie similar pieces of data, and do rigorous coding to achieve validity and reliability for the results (Vaismoradi and Snelgrove, 2019). The quantitative data (manifest data in figures and numbers) were interpreted directly, while the qualitative data (running text) were interpreted through reviewing the text several times and catching obvious but also hidden (latent) meanings in the expressions (Vaismoradi et al., 2013; Vaismoradi and Snelgrove, 2019).

As shown in Table 1, most of the respondents are women and a predominant majority of them are either in the middle or upper middle age or entered the pension age. Only 1/3 of them have called themselves retired, while the rest has either a job in public or private sector or are self-employed or students. The respondents are well-educated, and a majority have an academic education. They are mostly permanent residents followed by second-home owners, and they represent almost equally Stockholm and Gothenburg Archipelagos. Almost half of them have employment outside the archipelago, while a minor part has their employment in the archipelago. The rest are mostly retired, but a part of them still has a part time paid activity.

We asked the respondents “Is the number of visitors ever so great on your island that it creates problems for other visitors or residents?” and the answers exhibited different patterns. First, a narrow majority (52%) replied YES (Swedish Ja) and 48% answered NO (Swedish Nej) (Supplementary material 3). A direct interpretation of this manifest content would be that the general opinion of the existence of overtourism (Peeters et al., 2018) in these islands is close to tolerance limits. Based on SCC (bin Yusoh et al., 2021; Joshi and Dahal, 2019; Pulido-Fernández et al., 2025), it means that the residents have a rather moderate view on the criticality of number of tourists in relation to the destination threshold, and it is not alarming yet.

The second pattern was that while a pre-dominant majority of residents in Gothenburg Archipelago (Supplementary material 4, green chart) agreed that large number of visitors creates problems, a predominant majority of residents in Stockholm Archipelago (Blue chart) disagreed. It means that residents of Gothenburg Archipelago perceive the current situation as a sign of overtourism to much higher extent than residents of Stockholm Archipelago. It also means that while large number of visitors in Gothenburg Archipelago is perceived to exceed the SCC, the threshold limits in Stockholm Archipelago is still positive. The reason for the more hesitant Gothenburgian attitude is not readily discernible from this research but may be linked to accessibility issues – Stockholm archipelago has a much larger width than that of Gothenburg. The latter is also more densely populated. In turn, these two factors may exhibit commuting distance and economic dependence on tourism as interacting variables on overtourism. If the majority have their sustenance from other sources than tourism, tolerance may be lower towards tourism downsides. Also, a fear of loss of island-ness (cf. Ankre and Nilsson, 2015) due to too anticipated accessibility improvements may be at hand.

To the strategic question if they believe that tourism creates problem for them and their islands in the future, a pre-dominant majority (67%) answered NO (Swedish Nej) in both regions (Supplementary material 5). This optimism towards the future of tourism in these archipelagos is quite a different result than that in the earlier question (Supplementary material 3). With link to a future sustainable tourism development (Gonzalez et al., 2018; Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021) and SCC (bin Yusoh et al., 2021; Brandolini and Mossetti, 2004; Joshi and Dahal, 2019; Pulido-Fernández et al., 2025) and despite all facts above, the residents confirm that the destination both has potential capacity to tourism expansion and threshold to receive more visitors. However, residents in Gothenburg archipelago were again a little more sceptical here than residents in Stockholm archipelago.

The respondents confirmed in a follow-up question that the greatest number of visitors come to their islands during the summer, mostly during July–August, when the number of visitors sometimes is up to ten times the island’s population. Further, they confirmed that the visitors are mostly daily domestic or international visitors coming by public ferry boats, but to a lesser extent also visitors coming with own private boats or cars, and also guests to second-home owners that stay overnight.

As a follow-up question, the respondents were asked to justify in text whether increased number of visitors would create/not create problem for other visitors or for themselves. Most of them (mainly from Gothenburg Archipelago) did so and gave more than one reason. The large number of visitors is perceived to create various problems also among many who initially have been positive towards current tourism on their islands but refer to problems with increased visitors’ flow (see Figures 1 and 2).

The most recurrent pattern from the pre-dominant majority of the responses, as shown in Figure 1, is connected to the public transport by ferry boats. Lack of departures, that in turn results in long queues, long waiting hours, crowding on the boats, lack of seats, but also lack of place for their cars and bikes on the boats are mentioned frequently. Since the island residents, that in many cases are daily commuters to the city, but also health care staff have no priority boarding the boats, it makes the situation problematic for them.

The issue of ferry boats facilitates critical reflection on SCC (e.g. Brandolini and Mossetti, 2004; Saveriades, 2000; Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021) regarding the number of tourists and their impact on current resources inside the destination. These boats that are owned by companies in Stockholm and Gothenburg and operate between various islands do not belong to the islands’ current resources and stand outside their physical places. This result indicates that SCC might not function properly here, since the number of visitors is problematic outside the islands firsthand, on the boats to or from the islands. Visitors, on the other hand, put pressure mainly on regional boat traffic and not on the islands’ own resources.

The same critical reflection with respect to SCC can be applied for traffic congestion from city to the port and lack of parking and berths in the port that were mentioned by many respondents but have not been a dominant pattern. Many of these commuting islanders are in a rush to go to the port, then continue to the islands. Here, they compete with archipelago visitors that during the peak season come to the port by car, bus, tram or bike to take boats to their islands.

On the island, crowding everywhere (restaurants, coffee shops, food stores, beaches) and car congestion has also been mentioned by many islanders: “There is a lack of parking for daytime bathers and then cars end up everywhere and are in the way and it becomes cramped for other daily traffic.” Several of them mentioned that the occupation of public spaces by the visitors prevent them to socialise on their own islands.

Other perceived problems by many respondents are wear and tear, damage and littering that include water shortage, pressure on the sewage system, littering, limited number of public toilets, trash cans and recycling sites, and damage to the nature as consequences. The current infrastructure cannot serve the big number of visitors during the peak season: “Infrastructure not enough to take care of so many visits. Water, sewage, toilets, restaurants, and transport have too little capacity, and the island is too small.” Large number of visitors also disturb locals and animals in their everyday lives: “Mobile outdoor life causes problems such as wear and tear on nature, littering, damage to cultivated crops, disturbed and stressed domestic animals, etc.”.

The remaining problem scenarios (lack of parking and berths on the island, lack of foodstuffs, bad behaviour of visitors) have been mentioned many times but less frequently than the earlier mentioned problems. The visitors that come by their own cars/caravans or boats to the islands compete with the islanders on parking and berths since a part of the islanders use their cars and boats on the island. Further, shortage of foodstuff is explained by limited number of food stores that result in increased food prices. Many respondents also complain about behaviour of some visitors that are perceived to be rude, unpleasant, loud and drunk. They use the nature as toilet and make up fire there, walk in the middle of the narrow driveways where cars are to be passing, intrude on the residents’ plots and cultivated land, throw their trash everywhere and occupy privately-owned berths on the islands without permission.

Finally, several respondents mentioned an increased criminality (e.g. theft) as a problem.

As is shown by columns to the left in Figure 2, a majority of those who do not believe increased number of visitors during peak season would create problems has a clear welcoming tone towards visitors. The most frequent reason seems to be the economic significance of tourism that outweigh its potential disadvantages (Kafa and Korkmaz, 2021); it creates prosperity for the island and is crucial for the islanders’ sustenance: “We are completely dependent on visitors. Without visitors, no living archipelago.” Then, many emphasise that the island is big and have place for more people, have necessary service to receive more visitors and is not exploited yet: “There is place for many more. Most of the island is not exploited.” Also, increased number of visitors seems to have a positive impact on the islanders’ psychological wellbeing. The island is desolate during the long calm winter season so it would be nice to receive more visitors during the peak season: “It’s just nice with tourists and makes the island less desolate … …”. In agreement with some respondents in Figure 1, many believe that the problem is rather visitors with bad behaviour and not their number, which can mean that they are still open to receive more “careful visitors”. On the other hand, many have simply no concern about number of visitors since their island is either small, lacks all necessary service, lacks attractions and public transport, or it is privately owned. These practical issues may not motivate visitors to visit their islands (columns to the right).

When the respondents got the chance to develop their answers in writing, concerning whether tourism creates problems for them and their islands in the future (Supplementary material 5), the patterns were almost like answers to the questions above on problem scenarios, i.e. the sceptical minority referred to the unsolved problems mentioned above that need to be tackled:

Nevertheless, the optimistic majority who believed that tourism would not create problem in the future reasoned among others around tourism’s importance for the island’s prosperity, that the island is big and there is capacity to receive more tourists, and so on.

In both groups, many respondents emphasised that it is necessary to give all visitors information in a systematic way concerning behaviour and codes of conduct before they arrive at the islands. This information reduces the risk of conflicts and creates more pleasant experiences for both visitors and residents.

The interviewees confirm generally all information that has come from the survey concerning overtourism during the peak season July–August in some of the inhabited islands. They add that this increased number has a pressure on the islands and their residents, although most visitors are daily visitors. Still, they are generally positive to a tourism development in an ordered and controlled form that includes both summer and year-round tourism. They especially emphasise year-round tourism with overnight stays, that can be attractive for foreigners, but they state that before that, all existing problems on the islands need to be solved by the municipalities to increase the real capacity. Firstly, the number of public boat departures should be increased, and the residents should be given priority boarding. This could possibly be administered through a certificate of residency or a priority ticket for residents. Then, some increase of number of accommodations, restaurants and shops would be good to consider for a part of the islands. Further, the urgent problems of water and sewage, sanitation, waste management, parking should be measured and addressed. They also should address the minority of visitors that show unsustainable behaviour towards the residents, the nature, birds and animals, that they believe is the result of lacking knowledge of the visitors. Therefore, they request a kind of introduction to all visitors before arriving at the islands, on how to visit archipelagos in a sustainable way.

This paper has treated three important issues in Swedish Stockholm and Gothenburg Archipelagos, namely overtourism in these regions, SCC of tourism on their islands and a future tourism development through the lens of archipelago residents. Even though overtourism happens in many of these islands during July–August (Peeters et al., 2018) and increased number of visitors put pressure on residents and their resources (bin Yusoh et al., 2021), still the residents show tolerance to the current tourism and a positive attitude towards a future development of it (Gonzalez et al., 2018). However, the local context matters here (Atun et al., 2019; Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021), since residents in these two archipelago regions show little difference in perceptions in some regards which might depend on difference in current conditions for the two archipelago regions. Does it depend on accessibility and proximity (Ankre and Nilsson, 2015) as islands outside Gothenburg are closer to the mainland, and relatively more accessible and less distanced for visitors compared to the islands outside Stockholm? Is it because visitors in Gothenburg can much easier reach the ferry boat ports by bike, tram and bus? Is it because much more people are living permanently in Gothenburg Archipelago, while those in Stockholm are both permanent and second-home residents? And how come there is such a large acceptance of visitation levels despite them obviously exhausting present level of resources? Is it because they weigh in the economic and social upsides of visitation – or perhaps acceptance in the light of the long-standing freedom to roam in the Swedish legislation? Also, what measures can be taken to alleviate the burden – Is it not so much over tourism as under investment? These issues nevertheless need to be further investigated.

In similarity with other studies (bin Yusoh et al., 2021; Brandolini and Mosseti, 2004; Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021) that assessed SCC through important indicators, many but not a majority of our respondents mentioned crowding, congestion, traffic, damage, littering, water shortage, trashes and lack of parking, risk of conflict and crime that can be considered as negatively impacting indicators. On the contrary, only one indicator, transportation by public ferry boats that also stand outside the archipelagos’ control and ownership distinguishes itself as the only significant impacting indicator. This is our unique contribution with this study compared to the research works above and to other Nordic studies that either dealt with rural overtourism or overtourism in state island of Iceland (e.g. Saeporsdotir et al., 2020). Based on SCC, another conclusion would be that neither tourism itself nor visitors/tourists is the problem, but the infrastructure and service available to the visitors and residents. Here, the number of visitors/tourists plays a major role since all indicators that have been mentioned above by many respondents address this issue. Solving these problems can hopefully result in higher tolerance limit of increased number of visitors especially among residents of Gothenburg Archipelago since residents’ perceptions of how challenging the current tourism development is a determinant of future development (Sünnetçioğlu et al., 2021). In case of gentrification on the islands, which is a common trait in urban overtourism areas, and preliminary anecdotal evidence from other ongoing studies of ours suggest it may be under way, this can be expected to become more accentuated.

Our research has implications for the research community. It contributes theoretically to already existing theories on overtourism, sustainable tourism development in small islands and facilitates to elaborate the concept of SCC in a new context. This also challenges Butler’s (1980) life cycle theory on carrying capacity because these small islands, unlike many other destinations, lack major infrastructures such as airport, train station, bus terminal, large hotels, etc. Previous research about overtourism on cold-water islands is limited in numbers, and our research is another contribution to the research topic globally. A clear result with respect to theory is that SCC needs to take into account aspects outside the destination. The distinction in negative attitudes between Gothenburg and Stockholm Archipelagos point towards four hypotheses as far as the antecedents, requiring further studies: island size, population size, commuting dependency and tourism dependency respectively. Possibly there may also be interaction between these. These should be explored in another study to cast light on whether perceived existing contradictions in the literature are due to the nature of the destination, cultural attitudes or other things. For anonymity reasons, respondents were asked to identify which archipelago they lived in – and not asked to disclose which island they lived on. More detailed empirics may cast light on this. We have also explored through this study how the local context concerning perception of island overtourism matters within a country.

This research also has practical implication for the society. Policy makers should meticulously pinpoint the ideal threshold for the number of visitors to effectively mitigate the perceived challenges experienced by residents. It is imperative that they conduct thorough analyses to strike a balance between promoting tourism and preserving the quality of life for those living in the area. By carefully considering the community’s capacity, infrastructure and environmental sustainability, policy makers may take measures that foster a harmonious co-existence between visitors and residents, ensuring that the benefits of tourism are maximised, while minimising any adverse impacts on the local population and the environment. This could involve regulation, which is an atypical mode of operation in a Swedish context. As governmental bodies are reluctant to regulate business activities and freedom of roaming, other means of affecting behaviour, e.g. through nudging and incentives, would probably have priority. An example would be price discrimination through dynamic pricing on ferries and priority boarding groups. This strategic approach allows for the development of policies that not only attract tourists but also enhance the overall well-being of the community and help to keep a part of the profits of tourism to develop the island creating them.

This study, akin to any research endeavour, possesses limitations that can serve as valuable springboards for future investigations. The limited scope of the study, encompassing two archipelagos and 477 respondents, may not fully encapsulate the diverse landscape of Swedish or Scandinavian/Nordic archipelagos. Future studies should contain both other Scandinavian/Nordic archipelagos but also compare the attitudes of residents in Swedish Archipelago with those in other countries. Also, it may be necessary to discern if island attributes like geographical and population size, and tourism dependence affect residents’ perceptions. This research may have bias since the viewpoint of tourists/visitors has not been included. The sample might be biased since mostly well-educated, women and older people have answered, at odds with the characteristics of the whole population. Therefore, our results should be interpreted cautiously.

This research has been carried out in collaboration with Stockholm Archipelago – a network of municipalities having archipelago in the Stockholm County. The research received no external funding, and there is no conflict of interest in the research.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.