Nature of overtourism and its management Hnin Lei (Tourism)

Nature of overtourism and its management

Hnin Lei (Tourism)

Meaning of overtourism

The word overtourism is very popular in the today’s countries with developed tourism industry. Overtourism is interrelated with the word overcrowding which means larger arrivals of tourists at a destination or one site than the carrying capacity. In fact, overtourism is a bad impact of tourism industry with minus attitude for lifestyle of local people from a designation and tour experience of travellers.

Reward or penalty

Fame may be a reward or a penalty in tourism industry. It means that if a tourist destination is popular among the travellers, advantages will emerge there with larger number of visitors to the destination, development of infrastructures, more employment opportunities and improvement of social economic status of the local people. On one hand, local people may face degradation of destinations based on larger number of tourists more than the carrying capacity, gradual degradation of natural environments, interference of tourists in privacy of the locals, fear of arrivals of globetrotters, and tourism phobia with regard to the fame of destination.

Root causes of overtourism

The fame is one of the root causes for visits of larger number of tourists than the carrying capacity at a destination. It is because it may be based on placing emphasis on quantity of tourists more than the qualification, running of many cheap airlines, lack of good tourism policies and plentiful of online travel agent-OTA.

The countries suffering impacts of overtourism

The places with much overtourism are the most interesting and the largest arrivals of tourists. Impacts of overtourism vary in countries and destinations. The countries suffering from impacts of overtourism are facing the locals opposing tourism services, lack of capacity to perfectly meet the needs of tourists, mushrooming of infrastructures, and threats to cultural heritages. For example, major tour cities in Europe such as Amsterdam, Barcelona and Venice have adopted and are implementing the new policies for tourism industry in order to control the overtourism because of growing number of tourist arrivals year after year. Moreover, the Maya Beach in Thailand which was famous due to the film The Beach was recently closed as it needed to make repairs for deterioration of ecosystem although number of tourist arrival was high.

The Borocay Beach is one of the most beautiful beaches in the Philippines. The Travel+Leisure honoured the beach as the best beach in 2012. Although the beach scored more than 2 million of tourist arrivals, weak management and acts of globetrotters caused degradation to environment, damage to beauties of the beach by undisciplined littering of tourists. That was why the beach restricted travelling for six months to be able to repair the damaged. Consequently, those relying on the beach faced disadvantages of businesses. At the same time, incomes earned from tourism industry declined in the Philippines. However, the Philippines government reduced flights from airlines, performed educative programmes for ensuring responsible tourists and sustainable destinations and kept garbage vans for systematic littering.

Likewise, tourist arrivals are increasing in the Republic of Korea year by year. Number of tourist arrivals hit 13 million in the country in 2017. In this regard, the overtourism happened in Bukchon Hanok Village of the Republic of Korea. In fact, Bukchon is a peaceful and tranquil village grouping Korean traditional houses. At the village, travellers would have the opportunities of hiring Korean traditional costumes to wondering around traditional houses and observe traditional culture and customs of Korea. Thus, Bukchon Hanok Village became the best travelling area. Initially, local people accepted the visits of travellers but they opposed the tourism industry without welcoming the tourists by erecting signboards bearing “Tourists, go home”, and “Your tourism kills my neighbourhood”. Mainly, acts of tourists harmed freedom of locals because of increasing prices of land plots and rental charges in the village, noisy of guests, and undisciplined acts.

At present, the Korean government implements the bilaterally convenient programmes between the locals and tourists with the limited number of tourist arrivals to the village, and with the appointment of volunteers to remind the tourists in order to notice directives of “Silence here” for hushing and peacefully visiting. Moreover, the Korean government is using various ways and means for solving the problems by searching new destinations and by holding the meetings on coordination for overtourism.

How to control overtourism

The United Nations World Tourism Organization showed the lists that number of international tourists reached 1.4 billion in 2018 and it expected that number of tourists may reach 1.8 billion in 2030. As the tourism industry is the third largest export service of the world, it creates 10.4 percent of global Gross Domestic Products through direct or indirect moves. Global countries emphasize uplift of tourism industry because the business ensures creation of employment opportunities and development of State economy. Hence, those countries competitively manage to develop the tourism industry for catching interest of tourists in order to increase number of tourist arrivals. However, some countries are facing burdens of overtourism, rather than the carrying capacity. The UNWTO, therefore, has adopted and is implementing the tactics for solving the problems of overtourism the most of the countries face. In so doing-

Searching new tourist destinations and new package tours, and enhancement of visits of travellers

Larger number of travellers than the limited causes a massive influx of tourists to significant places in these countries. In order to solve such a problem, the overtourism can be reduced in these countries by searching new interesting destinations in the countries rather than allowing the visits of tourists to only significant places, by informing the foreign tourists about new destinations, and by beefing up the management for travellers to touring the new sites.

Reviewing situations, rules and laws of tourism industry

If overtourism happens in destinations at home, the government needs to review travel time for tourists to the main destinations, set acceptable number of tourists in relevant destinations and enactment of effective laws and rules for reducing impacts from the overtourism. For example, a total of 1.4 million of international tourists paid visits to Machu Picchu recognized as the world’s ancient cultural monument by the UNESCO in Peru in 2016. As from July 2017, the tourism authority of Peru launched the new policy for tourists to book tickets for visiting the monument in one of two sessions which were the morning session from 6 am to 12 noon or the afternoon session from 12 noon to 5.30 pm through the designated routes with the aim of preventing influx of tourists into a single place.

Letting local people know benefits from tourism industry and cooperate with the authorities

The key players to achieve success in tourism industry are local people.  Their keenness in tourism services, heartily welcome to tourists, and clarification on relevant regions to travellers are directly related to the development of tourism industry of the region. As such, local people are allowed to know benefits of tourism industry, to participate in tourism management, and to carry out appropriate moves in line with their wishes in order to beef up participation and cooperation of local people in the tourism industry.

Tourism industry in Myanmar

As Myanmar is full of cultural heritages and environmental heritages, Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan and Inlay are the regions of scoring the highest number of international tourist arrivals. As Myanmar has been practising the open door economic system since 2012, number of tourist arrivals is still high remarkably. A total of 3.55 million of international tourists paid visits to Myanmar in 2018 but such a number is still fewer than those of neighbouring countries. Thus, the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism showed advertisements of tourism services from Myanmar at international tour shows in order to increase number of tourist arrivals and supervised appointment of tour ambassadors to promote digital marketing of tourism services in Myanmar by catching interest of international tourists through social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Moreover, the government allowed visa exemption for those from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Macao starting from 1 October 2018 to ensure inflow of larger travellers from East Asian countries to Myanmar.

According to the Myanmar Tourism Rules enacted on 17 September 2018, regional tourism work committees led by the relevant Region/State Chief Ministers need to take more responsibilities for management of tourist destinations and supervision of businesses related to the tourism industry. As these work committees should observe actual situations of existing destinations and tourism services in their respective areas, they need to create the chances for local people to enjoy fruitful results from the tourism industry while managing necessities to emerge sustainable tourism services which will serve the interest of the people and not to cause undesirable barriers for tourism industry such as overtourism in their destinations.

All in all, it needs to make utmost efforts for emergence of the sustainable tourism industry to be able to inflow globetrotters to the country in developing Myanmar’s tourism industry through various ways and means. Taking lessons from experiences of the countries which face the bad impacts of overtourism and management for destinations to have greater development, Myanmar should place emphasis on creating chances for international travellers to visit destinations in satisfaction, development of social economic status of the people, pleasantness of interesting destinations, and long term development of Myanmar’s tourism industry. That is why all need to join hands among them for ensuring sustainable tourism in the future in line with the motto “Let’s join to develop State tourism industry in the long run”.

Translated by Than Tun Aung

Reference:

-          UNWTO e-library (2018), “Overtourism-Understanding and Managing Urban Tourism Growth beyond Perceptions”

-          Reuters (2018), “Overtourism: Philippines restricts visits to tourist island Borocay”, Times of Manila

-          Da-min, Jung and Min-ho, Jung (2018), “Bukchon residents protect excessive tourism”, The Korea Times