Overtourism in Coastal Territories in the Perspective of Cruise Tourism: The Role of Human Capital

Introduction

Tourism is an activity made by people and oriented to people. The quality of the touristic experience is strongly conditioned by how host communities welcome visitors and by the generosity they show when sharing local tangible and intangible heritage. The tourists’ profile has been changing over time and today they are increasingly privileging experiences of proximity to local communities, experiences marked by the authenticity, genuineness and uniqueness of strongly preserved cultures and identities. The uniqueness and quality of these relationships are also related to their scale. When in the so called “invaded” territories there is an unbalanced relationship between residents and visitors’ antibodies can be generated in hosting communities compromising the quality of the touristic experience for both. This process tends to be accentuated when visitors assume behaviours that conflict with local habits and culture.

The increasing numbers of tourism on a global scale and the perspective that this trend will remains in the near future, or even accentuate, clash with the interests of both parties involved in this relationship – tourists and host people - as they do not allow both to take advantages of their positive impacts. Instead of that, this fact can enhance its harmful effects, namely at the environmental and sociocultural levels. This will surely be one of the great challenges of the future of tourism: managing a growing demand for tourist destinations and enabling quality experiences that are compatible with the tourist profile and his expectations. In short, it is crucial to ensure sustainable tourism development by managing the human capital of tourism, bearing in mind that host populations are increasingly the main tourism resource in a territory and the tourism professionals are the front line in welcoming and well dealing with tourists. It is also important do not forget that visitors, in their quantitative but mainly behavioural dimensions, are fundamental premises for the healthy perpetuation of this relationship.

Overtourism is a direct consequence of uncontrolled and sometimes too fast tourism development that is not ruled by the values of sustainability. The unreasonable ambition of the territories and their managers blinds them to the potential for self-destruction that tourism has inside itself. The disrespect for the carrying capacity of tourism destinations, in its multiple dimensions, can culminate in extreme situations that jeopardize the quality of life of the host communities, the quality of the touristic experience of the visitors and the preservation and continuity of the cultural and natural resources. In coastal territories, where natural and infrastructural conditions permit Cruise Tourism, its impact, combined with that of all other tourism products, easily leads to overtourism situations.

Although the European Union’s Blue Growth Strategy identifies maritime and coastal tourism - in which cruise tourism fits - as a product with high potential for sustainable employment and growth, playing a key role in building an intelligent and inclusive Europe, countless examples highlight the darker side of some destinations' success. Cities like Venice, Dubrovnik, Barcelona, or Lisbon, are port of call for big cruises, which means tourist demand situations that strongly threats the sustainability of these destinations and generates feelings of dislike expressed publicly and ostensibly. These situations often force governments to implement legal measures to deal with such an uncontrolled demand of these territories by the tourism sector. With the technical and technological developments applied to passenger ships, some of them currently present themselves as real floating cities, carrying over than 5,000 tourists. One of the best examples is Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas, which has capacity to receive 5,518 passengers and ranks number one in the world's largest cruises that visit territories in a time and space-focused manner.