Creating Strategies to Mitigate the Adverse Effects of Overtourism in Rural Destinations: Experience from the Czech Republic

Abstract

Overtourism is appearing more and more often in large world-famous cities and in many rural regions, where the infrastructure capacity is insufficient for large numbers of visitors. In rural communities, this creates resistance to tourism, traffic congestion, or damage to nature. Therefore, destinations experiencing tourism growth must have a strategy to prevent and limit the harmful effects of overtourism. The article presents a methodology that first identifies manifestations of overtourism in a destination and then uses a standardized procedure to evaluate the usability of different types of strategies in a selected destination. This procedure should lead to the creation of a comprehensive plan guaranteeing the sustainable development of tourism in the destination. The use of the methodology is explained at 12 rural locations in the Czech Republic, which were selected concerning the diversity of manifestations of overtourism.