A socio-psychological conceptualisation of overtourism

Stefan Gössling; Scott McCabe; Ning Chris Chen

doi:10.1016/j.annals.2020.102976

A socio-psychological conceptualisation of overtourism

Ann Tour Res. 2020 Sep:84:102976. doi: 10.1016/j.annals.2020.102976. Epub 2020 Jun 20.

Authors

Stefan Gössling^{1

2

3}, Scott McCabe⁴, Ning Chris Chen⁵

Affiliations

¹ Western Norway Research Institute, PO Box 163, 6851 Sogndal, Norway.
² Service Management and Service Studies, Lund University, Box 882, 25108 Helsingborg, Sweden.
³ School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, 391 82 Kalmar, Sweden.
⁴ Nottingham University Business School, Jubilee campus, Wollaton Rd, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
⁵ Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand.

Abstract

Tourist pressure on local populations, also termed 'overtourism', has received much attention in the global media, as tensions related to social, economic or environmental change have grown in many destinations. While protests against tourists and tourism development have existed for decades, these are now often more organised, vocal, and politically active. As a phenomenon associated with residents' negative views of tourism development outcomes, socio-psychological foundations of overtourism have so far been insufficiently considered. This paper summarises the historical background on crowding and attitudes of residents to tourism, to then discuss social psychological theories connected to place change in order to explain anti-tourism sentiment.

Keywords: Crowding; Overtourism; Resident attitudes; Social density; Social psychology.