Overtourism, defined by the Collins Dictionary as: “The phenomenon of a popular destination or sight becoming overrun with tourists in an unsustainable way” (www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/19794/Overtourism) is not a new phenomenon, but only started to get traction (media and public opinion’s attention) over summer 2017 (Séraphin et al., 2018). Overtourism: excess, discontents and measures in travel and tourism provides a comprehensive overview of overtourism as a phenomenon. Its focus is on the roots of overtourism, and its consequences. To do so, a variety of destinations across the world have been selected. What fleshes out from research on overtourism is the Janus-faced character of the tourism industry (Sanchez and Adams, 2008).
The design of the book makes it suitable for students (tourism, geography, history, etc.), and also for practitioners across the industry. One of the best features of overtourism: excess, discontents and measures in travel and tourism are the illustrations through international case studies, such as Venice, Majorca, Galapagos, Kyoto, Iceland, Costa Rica, Amsterdam, Africa, Brazil, Portugal and Australia. This book is also a “one-stop-shop”, as it is one of the only two currently existing books (the other one being Overtourism: Issues, Realities and Solutions, by Dodds and Butler (Eds), 2019) on overtourism, that can bring scholars, students and practitioners alike up to speed with accessible, and easy to understand, overview of recent research on overtourism. The only limitations of this book are the “In focus” sections. I found them particularly distractive. Additionally, they do not add any particular insight into the investigated topic.
Chapter 1, 4 and 6, could be entitled: Background to overtourism. Taking Venice as an example, chapter 1, not only provides a definition of overtourism, namely: “An occurrence of far too many visitors for a particular destination to absorb over a given period” (Visentin and Bertocchi, 2019, p. 20), but also a list of warning signs that destinations have reached or about to reach the tipping point of overtourism (depopulation of the city; increase in tourist demand; and increase of offerings to tourists). As for chapter 4 and 6, they offer a didactic, even pedagogical approach of overtourism that can bring anyone interested in this phenomenon up to speed.
Chapter 2, 5, 8 and 9, are mainly discussing the consequences of overtourism. Gentrification; the development of short-term accommodation; water shortage; and the impacts on young residents have been the key focus areas.
Chapter 3, 7 and 10 are shedding light on the fact that overtourism as a phenomenon can happen anywhere in the world, such as wild and protected areas (such as the Galapagos); places you would not think tourists would go because marginal and dangerous (such as Brazilian Favelas); and because they are remote (such as Greenland). For Ioannides (2019), it is naïve to think that some destinations are lying well beyond the reach of international tourism. The intensification of recent touristification processes being one of the main reasons of this phenomenon (Da Cunha, 2019).
This book is of importance because we did not know, and still do not know enough about how and why overtourism symptoms are occurring and what can be done about them. On that basis, the editors are suggesting that empirical research on the impacts of overtourism with a focus on indices related to governance; environment; social capital; planning; cultural heritage; and local communities should be carried out. Equally important, they are encouraging a holistic approach of the tourism system and the involvement of all stakeholders in future research.
