“Wish you weren’t here” – the overtourism phenomenon

The paper is focused on the multilayered phenomenon of overtourism, which is in certain attractive tourist destinations increasingly considered as excessive or harmful. Huge challenges in the daily life of local communities as well as the negative impact on the unique and precious environment and, consequentially, steadily growing anti-tourism sentiments are pushing political decision makers on local and regional levels to act with the aim of reducing tourism influx to some destinations. The research points at key drivers that causes overtourism (traditionally strong seasonality of tourist demand, the growth of world middle-income class with more time and money to be spent for travel, the emergence of low-carriers, new types of accommodations, the possibility of self-organized low-budget holidays, a huge impact of the social media/platforms). To the internationally known examples of overtourism (Venice, Dubrovnik, Amsterdam, Machu Pichu, Oahu, Galapagos, Nepal and Altamira) and countermeasures (such as entry tax to the cities/destinations and states, ban of cruise ships, high daily tourist tax, reduction of hotels and short-term rentals of private accommodations, ‘respect the city’ campaigns, discouraging certain types of tourists’ behavior, obligatory booking and specific time slot for visiting certain attractions), we added two examples of potentially overtourism sites in Slovenia. Keywords: Overtourism, negative impacts, countermeasures