1. Overtourism: When is There Too Much Tourism?

2. What is Overtourism?
“Overtourism describes destinations where hosts or guests, locals or visitors, feel that there are too many visitors and that the quality of life in the area or the quality of the experience has deteriorated unacceptably. It is the opposite of Responsible Tourism which is about using tourism to make better places to live in and better places to visit. Often both visitors and guests experience the deterioration concurrently.”
Responsible Tourism Partnership.com

3. Understanding the different types of tourism destination models

4. Mass vs Alternative Destination Models

5. Tourism models

6. Tourism Destination Characteristics
Mass Tourism
Alternative Tourism
An organized movement of large numbers of people to specialized locations.
Masses of people going to popular tourist destinations.
People touring places and things other than usual tourist attractions.
It involves uncrowded locations and non-peak holiday seasons.
Characterized by individual activities and tourists’ desire to experience local culture and environment.

7. Where is Catalina Island?
Is the mass tourism model sustainable?

8. The Causes Strong Economy
From a political perspective, much has been made about a slow economic recovery, but viewed from a tourism perspective, the economy has been very strong which serves as an important backdrop to stimulating travel.
All key economic indicators have been positive include unemployment, personal income growth, and inflation.
This coupled with low gas prices and improved consumer confidence has enabled consumers to travel more.

9. The Causes Proximity to Markets
Except for the extreme northern part of the state, every destination is within close proximity to major population.
The urbanization and resulting population increase of San Diego, Los Angeles/Orange County, Bay Area, and the Sacramento/Central Valley area provide an ample supply of population (and potential visitors).
As such, as the population has grown in these markets, so too has weekend demand. Naturally, without a corresponding increase in infrastructure--including roads, parking lots, hotels, etc.
This results in a strong over demand during weekends and high demand seasonal travel.

10. The Causes
Technology
The second element that has facilitated the surge in tourism is the relentless, transformative impact of technology.
Emerging and existing digital technologies, like Expedia, Trivago, Travelocity and others are changing the way visitors travel and engage a destination. Comparing prices and shopping for the best value have never been easier
Airbnb has become the biggest provider in that category and offers consumer lodging choices they did not have just five years ago.

11. The Causes Asocial and Demographic Changes
Maybe one of the biggest and least recognized factors that have spurred growth in travel is the increase in California’s population. Population has grown significantly to approximately 40 million people up from 27 Million people in 2010 and 34 million at the turn of the century.

12. California Population and Travel Spending

13. Growth in travel spending has also fueled growth in industry employment to just shy of 1.1M jobs and tax revenue to $17.1B. While not all of California's growth in travel spending, employment and taxes is a result of population growth, a lot is.
Visit California estimates that approximately 74%. It is assumed as the population has grown so too has travel spending, but so has related negative travel impacts.

14. Implications
The tragedy of the commons is an economic problem in which every individual
tries to reap the greatest benefit from a given resource.
As the demand for the resource overwhelms the supply, every individual
who consumes an additional unit directly harms others who can no longer enjoy the benefits.
Investopedia.

15. Implications Traffic Local crowding Housing prices
Local labor for tourism

16. How to Respond Do not be seen as part of the problem.
Review where and when you are spending tourism promotion dollars.
Rethink spending and hard dollars in property feeder markets that will drive weekend business.
It might be time to leave these markets to the private sector as most businesses have strong database and digital programs of frequent users which, more than likely, are in feeder markets.
Continued investment by DMO’s may actually contribute to the problem!

17. How to Respond
Invest in longer stay destination markets that include mid-week visitation. Have your organization solve both marketing challenges and avoid potential political issues at the same time.
Look to shift demand to non-busy days of the week and non-busy times of the year. This is a tough strategy to build, but you must start somewhere. Take a three to five-year view and work to shift the demand away from peak times.
Be honest with potential visitors. Let them know that peak times can be challenging and educate them on the potential of visiting during off peak times.