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A compilation of data on tourism flows between source markets and destinations, powered by Telefonica

Tourism Flows – Source markets and Destinations - Project powered by Telefónica

In order to better understand tourism flows between source markets and destinations, the World Tourism Organization  (UNWTO) together with Telefonica has launched a dashboard on Source markets and destinations.

The dashboard includes data on:

• Arrivals and overnight stays by source market
• Top 10 destinations by source market
• Arrivals and overnight stays by destinations
• Top 10 source markets by destination

FLOWS - analysis    of tourist flows

Tourist destination managers, service providers, researchers want to better understand tourist flows: what impact traffic flows have, when occur traffic peaks, what are the seasonal effects, which areas are more / less congested with tourists, how the weather, holidays and other events affect. With the help of analyses and forecasts, they could prepare for periods of increased visits, adjust marketing activities, service offerings or resources allocation. Today, the study of tourist mobility is largely based on surveys, physical observation and guesswork based on past experience.

About FLOWS

FLOWS is one of the four pillars of Tourism 4.0. It will enable GDPR compliant advanced analyses and forecasts of tourist movements based on anonymised data from a multitude of different sources (traffic counters, data from mobile operators, freely accessible Wi-Fi networks, tourist tax, vignettes sold, water and energy consumption, waste, social media posts, etc.). A simple user interface will display traffic flows: excessive traffic loads, seasonal deviations, entrances / exits to destination, movement within the destination, etc. It will be possible to display the analyses in the selected time interval (year, month, week, day), forecasts based on historical data, weighted by special parameters (weekend, weather, national or holiday in other countries, etc.).

Example of visualisation of tourist flows analysis at the country level and for selected region/destination:

Based on these analyses and forecasts, tourist destinations and service providers can adequately prepare for periods of increased number of visits , redirect tourist flows to less congested areas and thus ensure a greater positive impact of tourism and a balanced sustainable development.

FLOWS will also complement the solutions of other providers , e.g. itineraries, reservation systems, revenue management systems, etc. For an optimal performance the system localisation is crucial to allow measuring, analysis and prediction that improves in time. With FLOWS, tourism providers, destination managers and researchers can better understand and manage person flows in overcrowded periods as well as lock-down time to maybe allow partial mobility of travellers to desired zones.

In addition to FLOWS, Tourism 4.0 also consists of T4.0 Core (a collaboration platform from which it draws various data), CIT (redirection of flows through incentives / rewards) and TIM (which knows the destination carrying capacity limits and tells when a destination will be overloaded).

Everyone with aspiration to support better understanding and optimisation of movement in specific areas is welcome to join us and share knowledge and experiences.

Mountaineering 4.0  project brings innovative technologies to the Alpine environment. The Alpine Association of Slovenia, CIPRA Slovenia and Alpine Club Tržič are setting up a footfall monitoring system for the visit of hiking trails. The system collects real-time data on visits to five popular destinations to enable a better understanding of the visits in the Alpine area and to support the sustainable rerouting of Alpine flows.

Arctur and T4.0 partners set up the system of 30 footfall sensors on five destinations: Vršič, Lovrenška jezera, Storžič, Osp and Kum. The collected data show for the first time the actual visit to the Slovenian mountains. The data on the hiking trails visit will also be included in the maPZS application and combined with other relevant and available data: i.e. weather, traffic, mountain accidents, and overnight stays.

Have an idea? Or just want to know more? 

Get in touch!

D3HUB Project Launches Survey to Shape the Future of European Tourism

Open Call for municipalities and tourist destinations

Tourism 4.0 at the European Social Innovation Forum

5DCulture project meeting in Ferrara

BeyondSnow project’s second Newsletter

CulturalDeTour webinars and acceleration programme

TEMS project first newsletter: Pioneering the Future of European Media

MEDS Academy Kick-off

BeyondSnow: Revolutionizing Snow Management in Alpine Regions

Tourism 4.0 Champions Sustainable Practices at ‘It’s About People 2024’ Conference

Tourbit’s final conference in Barcelona

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Exploring the psychological dynamics of the flow experience in tourism: a comparative study of the pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic periods

• Published: 08 May 2024

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• Xuejiao Lin 1   na1 ,
• Jiajun Feng 1   na1 ,
• Qian Yang 1 &
• Guoqing Guo 1  

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As a positive psychological resource, the concept of the flow experience has attracted significant attention across various domains. However, there remain gaps in our understanding of the underlying psychological processes governing the flow experience as well as its relevance and potential applications within the tourism industry. This study aims to address these gaps by exploring the interrelationships among the different dimensions of the flow experience and providing empirical evidence for the psychological process thereof. Specifically, this study considers the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as an external environmental variable by collecting data from tourists who visited the same destination before and after the pandemic. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that the pandemic exerted a significant influence on the factors initiating the flow experience, the degree of process control, and tourists’ perceptions of time during their experience. In light of these findings, we recommend that tourism industry managers be vigilant regarding changes in tourists’ psychological states during the post-pandemic recovery phase and consider offering high-quality services as a means to enhance tourist satisfaction and foster loyalty.

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Health Psychology, Positive Psychology, and the Tourist

Evaluating the Post-pandemic Tourist Experience: A Scale for Tourist Experience in Valparaíso, Chile

Positive Psychology and Tourism: Positive Tourism

For more details, see here. The trend is described in the figure “Total COVID-19 cases reported to WHO (weekly)” in Section “Trends in COVID-19 cases, World”.

For more details, see here. The statistics since 2020 were not chosen because the development of tourism was greatly hindered by the COVID-19 pandemics.

To maintain consistent terminology with Henseler et al. ( 2016 ), we refer to composites in our test of measurement invariance while referring to constructs in a structural model analysis.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those who have supported and assisted us throughout the completion of this research.

First, we are grateful to the participants of this research for sharing their experiences and opinions, particularly during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, we acknowledge the valuable contributions of our research team members and colleagues in the data collection and analysis process.

This research is supported by the major planning project “History of Chinese Marketing Thought” at Renmin University of China (Project Number: 22XNLG08).

Author information

Xuejiao Lin and Jiajun Feng contributed equally to this paper.

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Marketing, School of Business, Renmin University of China, No. 59 Zhongguancun Avenue, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

Xuejiao Lin, Jiajun Feng, Qian Yang & Guoqing Guo

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Contributions

Xuejiao Lin: Writing original draft, Investigation, Conceptualization. Jiajun Feng: Writing original draft, Data curation, Methodology. Qian Yang: Writing original draft, Conceptualization. Guoqing Guo: Editing and polishing, Project administration.

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Correspondence to Guoqing Guo .

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Lin, X., Feng, J., Yang, Q. et al. Exploring the psychological dynamics of the flow experience in tourism: a comparative study of the pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic periods. Curr Psychol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06079-1

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Published : 08 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06079-1

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What's the problem with overtourism?

With visitor numbers around the world increasing towards pre-pandemic levels, the issue of overtourism is once again rearing its head.

When locals in the charming Austrian lakeside village of Hallstatt staged a blockade of the main access tunnel, brandishing placards asking visitors to ‘think of the children’, it highlighted what can happen when places start to feel overrun by tourists. Hallstatt has just 800 residents but has opened its doors to around 10,000 visitors a day — a population increase of over 1,000%. And it’s just one of a growing number of places where residents are up in arms at the influx of travellers.

The term ‘overtourism’ is relatively new, having been coined over a decade ago to highlight the spiralling numbers of visitors taking a toll on cities, landmarks and landscapes. As tourist numbers worldwide return towards pre-pandemic levels, the debate around what constitutes ‘too many’ visitors continues. While many destinations, reliant on the income that tourism brings, are still keen for arrivals, a handful of major cities and sites are now imposing bans, fines, taxes and time-slot systems, and, in some cases, even launching campaigns of discouragement in a bid to curb tourist numbers.

What is overtourism?

In essence, overtourism is too many people in one place at any given time. While there isn’t a definitive figure stipulating the number of visitors allowed, an accumulation of economic, social and environmental factors determine if and how numbers are creeping up.

There are the wide-reaching effects, such as climate change. Coral reefs, like the Great Barrier Reef and Maya Bay, Thailand, made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio film, The Beach , are being degraded from visitors snorkelling, diving and touching the corals, as well as tour boats anchoring in the waters. And 2030 transport-related carbon emissions from tourism are expected to grow 25% from 2016 levels, representing an increase from 5% to 5.3% of all man-made emissions, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO). More localised issues are affecting locals, too. Renters are being evicted by landlords in favour of turning properties into holiday lets, and house prices are escalating as a result. As visitors and rental properties outnumber local residents, communities are being lost. And, skyrocketing prices, excessive queues, crowded beaches, exorbitant noise levels, damage at historical sites and the ramifications to nature as people overwhelm or stray from official paths are also reasons the positives of tourism can have a negative impact.

Conversely, ‘undertourism’ is a term applied to less-frequented destinations, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic. The economic, social and environmental benefits of tourism aren't always passed on to those with plenty of capacity and, while tourist boards are always keen for visitors to visit their lesser-known attractions, it’s a more sustainable and rewarding experience for both residents and visitors.

What’s the main problem with it?

Overcrowding is an issue for both locals and tourists. It can ruin the experience of sightseeing for those trapped in long queues, unable to visit museums, galleries and sites without advance booking, incurring escalating costs for basics like food, drink and hotels, and faced with the inability to experience the wonder of a place in relative solitude. The absence of any real regulations has seen places take it upon themselves to try and establish some form of crowd control, meaning no cohesion and no real solution.

Justin Francis, co-founder and CEO of Responsible Travel, a tour operator that focuses on more sustainable travel, says “Social media has concentrated tourism in hotspots and exacerbated the problem, and tourist numbers globally are increasing while destinations have a finite capacity. Until local people are properly consulted about what they want and don’t want from tourism, we’ll see more protests.”

A French start up, Murmuration, which monitors the environmental impact of tourism by using satellite data, states that 80% of travellers visit just 10% of the world's tourism destinations, meaning bigger crowds in fewer spots. And, the UNWTO predicts that by 2030, the number of worldwide tourists, which peaked at 1.5 billion in 2019, will reach 1.8 billion,   likely leading to greater pressure on already popular spots and more objection from locals.

Who has been protesting?

Of the 800 residents in the UNESCO-listed village of Hallstatt, around 100 turned out in August to show their displeasure and to push for a cap on daily visitors and a curfew on tour coach arrivals.

Elsewhere, residents in Venice fought long and hard for a ban on cruise ships, with protest flags often draped from windows. In 2021, large cruise ships over 25,000 tonnes were banned from using the main Giudecca Canal, leaving only smaller passenger ferries and freight vessels able to dock.

In France, the Marseille Provence Cruise Club introduced a flow management system for cruise line passengers in 2020, easing congestion around the popular Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde Basilica. A Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) spokesperson said, “Coaches are limited to four per ship during the morning or afternoon at the Basilica to ensure a good visitor experience and safety for residents and local businesses. This is a voluntary arrangement respected by cruise lines.”

While in Orkney, Scotland, residents have been up in arms at the number of cruise ships docking on its shores. At the beginning of 2023, the local council confirmed that 214 cruise ship calls were scheduled for the year, bringing around £15 million in revenue to the islands. Following backlash from locals, the council has since proposed a plan to restrict the number of ships on any day.

What steps are being taken?  

City taxes have become increasingly popular, with Barcelona increasing its nightly levy in April 2023 — which was originally introduced in 2012 and varies depending on the type of accommodation — and Venice expects to charge day-trippers a €5 fee from 2024.

In Amsterdam this summer, the city council voted to ban cruise ships, while the mayor, Femke Halsema, commissioned a campaign of discouragement, asking young British men who planned to have a 'vacation from morals’ to stay away. In Rome, sitting at popular sites, such as the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, has been restricted by the authorities.

And in Kenya’s Maasai Mara, meanwhile, the Narok County governor has introduced on-the-spot fines for off-roading. He also plans to double nightly park fees in peak season.

What are the forecasts for global tourism?  

During the Covid pandemic, tourism was one of the hardest-hit industries — according to UNWTO, international tourist arrivals dropped 72% in 2020. However, traveller numbers have since been rapidly increasing, with double the number of people venturing abroad in the first three months of 2023 than in the same period in 2022. And, according to the World Travel Tourism Council, the tourism sector is expected to reach £7.5 trillion this year, 95% of its pre-pandemic levels.

While the tourism industry is forecast to represent 11.6% of the global economy by 2033, it’s also predicted that an increasing number of people will show more interest in travelling more sustainably. In a 2022 survey by Booking.com, 64% of the people asked said they would be prepared to stay away from busy tourist sites to avoid adding to congestion.

Are there any solutions?  

There are ways to better manage tourism by promoting more off-season travel, limiting numbers where possible and having greater regulation within the industry. Encouraging more sustainable travel and finding solutions to reduce friction between residents and tourists could also have positive impacts. Promoting alternative, less-visited spots to redirect travellers may also offer some benefits.

Harold Goodwin, emeritus professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, says, “Overtourism is a function of visitor volumes, but also of conflicting behaviours, crowding in inappropriate places and privacy. Social anthropologists talk about frontstage and backstage spaces. Tourists are rarely welcome in backstage spaces. To manage crowds, it’s first necessary to analyse and determine the causes of them.

Francis adds: “However, we must be careful not to just recreate the same problems elsewhere. The most important thing is to form a clear strategy, in consultation with local people about what a place wants or needs from tourism.”

As it stands, overtourism is a seasonal issue for a small number of destinations. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, a range of measures are clearly an option depending on the scale of the problem. For the majority of the world, tourism remains a force for good with many benefits beyond simple economic growth.

Related Topics

• OVERTOURISM
• SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

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What is overtourism and how can we overcome it? 

The issue of overtourism has become a major concern due to the surge in travel following the pandemic. Image:  Reuters/Manuel Silvestri (ITALY - Tags: ENTERTAINMENT)

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• Overtourism has once again become a concern, particularly after the rebound of international travel post-pandemic.
• Communities in popular destinations worldwide have expressed concerns over excess tourism on their doorstep.
• Here we outline the complexities of overtourism and the possible measures that can be taken to address the problem.

The term ‘overtourism’ has re-emerged as tourism recovery has surged around the globe. But already in 2019, angst over excessive tourism growth was so high that the UN World Tourism Organization called for “such growth to be managed responsibly so as to best seize the opportunities tourism can generate for communities around the world”.

This was especially evident in cities like Barcelona, where anti-tourism sentiment built up in response to pent-up frustration about rapid and unyielding tourism growth. Similar local frustration emerged in other famous cities, including Amsterdam , Venice , London , Kyoto and Dubrovnik .

While the pandemic was expected to usher in a new normal where responsible and sustainable travel would emerge, this shift was evidently short-lived, as demand surged in 2022 and 2023 after travel restrictions eased.

Have you read?

Ten principles for sustainable destinations: charting a new path forward for travel and tourism.

This has been witnessed over the recent Northern Hemisphere summer season, during which popular destinations heaved under the pressure of pent-up post-pandemic demand , with grassroots communities articulating over-tourism concerns.

Concerns over excess tourism have not only been seen in popular cities but also on the islands of Hawaii and Greece , beaches in Spain , national parks in the United States and Africa , and places off the beaten track like Japan ’s less explored regions.

What is overtourism?

The term overtourism was employed by Freya Petersen in 2001, who lamented the excesses of tourism development and governance deficits in the city of Pompei. Her sentiments are increasingly familiar among tourists in other top tourism destinations more than 20 years later.

Overtourism is more than a journalistic device to arouse host community anxiety or demonize tourists through anti-tourism activism. It is also more than simply being a question of management – although poor or lax governance most definitely accentuates the problem.

Governments at all levels must be decisive and firm about policy responses that control the nature of tourist demand and not merely give in to profits that flow from tourist expenditure and investment.

Overtourism is often oversimplified as being a problem of too many tourists. While that may well be an underlying symptom of excess, it fails to acknowledge the myriad factors at play.

In its simplest iteration, overtourism results from tourist demand exceeding the carrying capacity of host communities in a destination. Too often, the tourism supply chain stimulates demand, giving little thought to the capacity of destinations and the ripple effects on the well-being of local communities.

Overtourism is arguably a social phenomenon too. In China and India, two of the most populated countries where space is a premium, crowded places are socially accepted and overtourism concerns are rarely articulated, if at all. This suggests that cultural expectations of personal space and expectations of exclusivity differ.

We also tend not to associate ‘overtourism’ with Africa . But uncontrolled growth in tourist numbers is unsustainable anywhere, whether in an ancient European city or the savannah of a sub-Saharan context.

Overtourism must also have cultural drivers that are intensified when tourists' culture is at odds with that of host communities – this might manifest as breaching of public norms, irritating habits, unacceptable behaviours , place-based displacement and inconsiderate occupation of space.

The issue also comes about when the economic drivers of tourism mean that those who stand to benefit from growth are instead those who pay the price of it, particularly where gentrification and capital accumulation driven from outside results in local resident displacement and marginalization.

Overcoming overtourism excesses

Radical policy measures that break the overtourism cycle are becoming more common. For example, Amsterdam has moved to ban cruise ships by closing the city’s cruise terminal.

Tourism degrowth has long been posited as a remedy to overtourism. While simply cutting back on tourist numbers seems like a logical response, whether the economic trade-offs of fewer tourists will be tolerated is another thing altogether.

The Spanish island of Lanzarote moved to desaturate the island by calling the industry to focus on quality tourism rather than quantity. This shift to quality, or higher yielding, tourists has been mirrored in many other destinations, like Bali , for example.

Dispersing tourists outside hotspots is commonly seen as a means of dealing with too much tourism. However, whether sufficient interest to go off the beaten track can be stimulated might be an immoveable constraint, or simply result in problem shifting .

Demarketing destinations has been applied with varying degrees of success. However, whether it can address the underlying factors in the long run is questioned, particularly as social media influencers and travel writers continue to give attention to touristic hotspots. In France, asking visitors to avoid Mont Saint-Michelle and instead recommending they go elsewhere is evidence of this.

Introducing entry fees and gates to over-tourist places like Venice is another deterrent. This assumes visitors won’t object to paying and that revenues generated are spent on finding solutions rather than getting lost in authorities’ consolidated revenue.

Advocacy and awareness campaigns against overtourism have also been prominent, but whether appeals to tourists asking them to curb irresponsible behaviours have had any impact remains questionable as incidents continue —for example, the Palau Pledge and New Zealand’s Tiaki Promise appeal for more responsible behaviours.

Curtailing the use of the word overtourism is also posited – in the interest of avoiding the rise of moral panics and the swell of anti-tourism social movements, but pretending the phenomenon does not exist, or dwelling on semantics won’t solve the problem .

Solutions to address overtourism

The solutions to dealing adequately with the effects of overtourism are likely to be many and varied and must be tailored to the unique, relevant destination .

The tourism supply chain must also bear its fair share of responsibility. While popular destinations are understandably an easier sell, redirecting tourism beyond popular honeypots like urban heritage sites or overcrowded beaches needs greater impetus to avoid shifting the problem elsewhere.

Local authorities must exercise policy measures that establish capacity limits, then ensure they are upheld, and if not, be held responsible for their inaction .

Meanwhile, tourists themselves should take responsibility for their behaviour and decisions while travelling, as this can make a big difference to the impact on local residents .

Those investing in tourism should support initiatives that elevate local priorities and needs, and not simply exercise a model of maximum extraction for shareholders in the supply chain.

How is the World Economic Forum supporting the development of cities and communities globally?

The Data for the City of Tomorrow report highlighted that in 2023, around 56% of the world is urbanized. Almost 65% of people use the internet. Soon, 75% of the world’s jobs will require digital skills.

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Urban Transformation is at the forefront of advancing public-private collaboration in cities. It enables more resilient and future-ready communities and local economies through green initiatives and the ethical use of data.

Learn more about our impact:

• Net Zero Carbon Cities: Through this initiative, we are sharing more than 200 leading practices to promote sustainability and reducing emissions in urban settings and empower cities to take bold action towards achieving carbon neutrality .
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National tourist offices and destination management organizations must support development that is nuanced and in tune with the local backdrop rather than simply mimicking mass-produced products and experiences.

The way tourist experiences are developed and shaped must be transformed to move away from outright consumerist fantasies to responsible consumption .

The overtourism problem will be solved through a clear-headed, collaborative and case-specific assessment of the many drivers in action. Finally, ignoring historical precedents that have led to the current predicament of overtourism and pinning this on oversimplified prescriptions abandons any chance of more sustainable and equitable tourism futures .

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