From controlled degrowth to controlled staying: rethinking overtourism through climate immobilities

Tourism’s rebound after COVID-19 has intensified pressures in destinations already strained by overtourism and climate risk. This article examines Vietnam’s heritage towns and coastal resorts through the overlooked lens of climate immobility, showing how the freedom of tourists to circulate depends on the enforced staying of residents. Drawing on 84 interviews, 36 tourist elicitations, computational text analysis, and exploratory agent-based simulation, the study demonstrates how tourists anchor discourses of authenticity and responsibility, while residents absorb the hidden labour and vulnerability required to sustain them. Officials and small enterprises reproduce stewardship rhetoric but rarely redistribute these burdens. Integrating mobility justice with climate immobility reframes overtourism as a relational system of uneven mobility rather than an excess of visitors alone. The concept of controlled staying is proposed as a complement to controlled degrowth, emphasising governance measures that reduce vulnerability, recognise immobility labour, and secure dignified conditions for those who remain. These findings contribute directly to the Sustainable Development Goals: safeguarding urban liveability (SDG 11), advancing responsible consumption (SDG 12), addressing climate action (SDG 13), and protecting coastal and terrestrial ecosystems (SDGs 14–15). A climate-just stewardship agenda is required to sustain destinations not only for those who travel, but also for those compelled to stay.