Mass Tourism Management in Sintra World Heritage Site: The Role of Tourist Guides

Information is power. Tourist guides hold this power as information givers, representatives of the tourists in the sites they visit and vice versa, and they can also persuade the tourists to do what is more convenient in each situation, thus contributing to sustainability through their interpretation. Arguably, in a situation of mass tourism, they can be very helpful. Mass tourism is viewed negatively by various intellectual currents and some critics in the field. It is usually associated with a lack of interest in culture, and it is understood as harmful to nature. It is in opposition to alternative, responsible, and sustainable forms of tourism. Mass tourism is defined as the movement of large numbers of organised tourists to popular holiday destinations for recreational purposes. This definition of mass tourism is outdated because there are new ways of travelling. In post-modernity, tourists do not typically use the services of a DMC, they prefer to resort to the Internet, and travel with low-cost airlines using transports that are not the tourist coach - a symbol of organised travel. The town of Sintra, near Lisbon, has become an example of mass tourism, especially in 2019 and 2022, with two atypical intermediate years, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In some cases, the situation has become unsustainable, given the overcrowding of the most visited spaces and the damage caused to natural and cultural assets, not to mention the local community’s possible identity loss. Challenged by the contamination exerted by mass tourism in Sintra, classified since 1995 as a World Heritage site, this study’s main objective is to understand how tourist guides can help to avoid the concentration of tourists and propose containment measures aiming at mitigating the problem, therefore avoiding the decay of the town, and providing for the regeneration of its heritage. The methodology adopted in this investigation uses direct observation and the semi-directive interview technique, with open-ended questions. Interviews were carried out in April and May 2023, with different stakeholders, some being responsible for Sintra’s heritage and representatives of DMCs, tourist guides and gate keepers. Analysis of the interviews consisted of transcription, and comparison of information through summary tables. This analysis allows us to better understand the role of tourist guides in solving many of the problems of mass tourism and even overtourism.