How Overtourism Threatens Large Urban Areas: A Case Study of the City of Wrocław, Poland

Abstract

Excessive tourist traffic concentration in cities of high tourist attractiveness often leads to overtourism, manifested, among others, by overcrowding in appealing areas and means of transport, rising prices, or degradation of natural and cultural resources. The effects of an excessive number of tourists include an unfavourable change in the local community's attitude towards tourists. The paper determines the extent and forms of overtourism symptoms in Wrocław, Poland. The research allowed for the identification of negative and positive effects of tourist traffic in Wrocław as perceived by three groups of respondents: experts, Wrocław residents: key experts from the scientific, administrative, planning, and business communities; people directly involved in tourist services; and students of tourism. The crucial part was direct research, conducted in November 2019 with a questionnaire technique. The results confirm symptoms of overtourism in Wrocław, but the threat is not significant. The article shows specific potential overtourism threat factors; the respondents' opinions did not significantly differ between the groups. The presented findings and conclusions may be useful in developing the tourism policy of this and other cities, especially regarding sustainable development of tourism and the potential threat imposed by overtourism. The methodology may be used in similar comparative studies in other cities.

Tourism Impacts, Tourism-Phobia and Gentrification in Historic Centers: The Cases of Málaga (Spain) and Gdansk (Poland)

“…The strong concentration of tourists also affects other Polish tourist destinations and attractions such as the historic center of Warsaw, Zakopane and Morskie Oko lake (Tatra Mountains), Kazimierz Dolny (Vistula river), Sopot Pier (Baltic sea), the salt mines of Wieliczka and the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum (Krakow), the castles of Wawel and Malbork [21] and the city of Wroclaw [43]. Tourist activity in the city of Gdansk [44] has also been studied.…”

Rozwój pasażerskiego transportu lotniczego w Polsce w latach 1989–2019 – jego skutki dla portów lotniczych i implikacje dla miast

“…Wyraźny wzrost liczby turystów widoczny był w Warszawie, Krakowie, Gdańsku, Wrocławiu i Poznaniu. W latach 2016-2019 ruch turystyczny był tak duży, że zaczęto obserwować zjawisko nazwane turystyfikacją zabytkowych centrów, prowadzące do zmian funkcjonalnych i społecznych (Kowalczyk-Anioł, 2019a;Kubicki, 2017), a w przypadku Warszawy i Krakowa nawet zjawisko overtourismu, przyczyniające się do powstawania konfliktów społecznych pomiędzy stałymi mieszkańcami miast a turystami (Fedyk, Sołtysik, Olearnik, Barwicka, Mucha, 2020;Szromek, Kruczek, Walas, 2020;Zmyślony, Pilarczyk, 2020). Nadmierny rozwój turystyki w ścisłych centrach miast przyczyniał się do niekorzystnych, z punktu widzenia mieszkańców, zmian.…”

A Population Game Model for the Expansion of Airbnb in the City of Venice

“…Additionally, albeit urban tourism represents a driving force in the development of many cities [1], the unregulated expansion of this industry during the past decades has given rise to several negative externalities [3] which reshape any city's economic, social and spatial landscapes [3,4]. With overtourism principally occurring in urban areas [5], massive tourism flows put historic areas of cities at particularly great risk [6], resulting in crowding phenomena which test not only the resilience of the local housing market and the environmental assets but jeopardize the city's heritage and the quality of life of its residents [7,8]. Amongst these urban areas, the historic centers of European Art Cities, which compose almost half of UNESCOs World Heritage Site list (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/stat accessed on 30 March 2021), have been the epicenters of overtourism [9].…”