Overtourism and Tourism Education

Since 2017, the term ‘overtourism’ has become the buzzword for destinations suffering the strain of tourism. It is a critical issue for the 21st century and beyond, and to date has only been examined from a tourism industry perspective. This book takes a different stand by investigating overtourism from a tourism education perspective.

The recent global COVID-19 pandemic was expected to halt travel and, arguably, overtourism. However, industry experts and researchers share the opinion that instead of declining, overtourism is simply experiencing a shift, with a swarm of ‘second home’ and domestic travel that is likely to engulf many tourism destinations. Against this backdrop, the issue of overtourism remains relevant and studies on ways to cultivate responsible consumer mindsets to deal with overtourism and other sustainability issues in the tourism industry are called for. This book focuses on education as a transformative and strategic tool to tackle overtourism and related negative impacts. It presents original research on the topics of overtourism, education, and sustainability, and puts forward a range of practical and transformative tourism education strategies to mitigate overtourism and to promote the sustainable development of destinations.

This book will be of great interest to upper-level students, researchers, and academics in tourism, development studies, cultural studies, and sustainability, as well as professionals in the field of tourism management.