Influence of the Residents’ Perception of Overtourism on the Selection of Innovative Anti-Overtourism Solutions

Abstract

With a constantly and rapidly increasing number of publications, modern expertise on overtourism is becoming increasingly complete. However, a subject that has not been sufficiently presented in the literature thus far is the issue of identifying groups of inhabitants of various destinations that are most severely affected by overtourism and the perception of innovative remedial solutions. In numerous previous publications that analyzed the impact of overtourism on the inhabitants of destinations, the inhabitants were most often treated as a homogeneous group. Therefore, the main goal of this article is to describe the phenomenon of overtourism from the perspective of residents of two Polish tourist destinations and propose innovative solutions to the problem of tourist overcrowding, dedicated to areas with different specificities. Empirical research was conducted among the inhabitants of popular destinations in Poland—Kraków and Białka Tatrzańska—where overtourism has been noted in the scientific literature in recent years. The results allow us to outline significant differences in how the impact of overtourism is perceived by the inhabitants of a large city and a peripheral tourist resort. Additionally, the research demonstrated that respondents who live in the central part of a tourist destination much more clearly perceive their exposure to the effects of overtourism than the inhabitants of other parts, and that this phenomenon is more evident in cities than in resorts. According to the diagnosis of the situation, it was proposed to implement open innovations in the nature of preventive solutions.