[Music] one of the questions I get most often when I speak at travel and tourism conferences what's the difference between over tourism and unbalanced tourism so today I thought I'd take just a few minutes and tackle that one [Music] I think we can all relate to traffic so let's use that for comparison if we're talking about a traffic jam or traffic congestion that usually happens in most cities and it usually happens along specific stretches of road at certain times of the day now if you're sitting in a traffic jam that road at that time of
day is experiencing the equivalent of over tourism this is very similar to a long line of people waiting to enter an attraction or crowds at a specific Beach or walking street it's just too many people in one place at one time a day which is more than the natural capacity of it can handle unbalanced tourism would be like the city's roads Management's holistic view of the traffic jam as they consider other options to balance out the demand on that road they might consider things like increasing the number of buses ferries frequency of subways price of
Subway tickets adding a bicycle lane maybe adding an express lane in the for carpooling or a tunnel that allows through traffic a direct way to cross the City Underground those would be tools to alleviate the congestion so while over tourism describes a specific overcrowding event unbalanced tourism is more of a Management's view that considers all the demands and possibilities about how to fix it using other tools and resources because the crowding isn't everywhere unless it is now in some fairly rare cases some cities at certain times of day and Peak seasons are so inundated with
tourists that the entire city like Venice or Dubrovnik or san gimignano is overrun and there's almost no place to escape the crowds in such situations you could say the entire city is suffering from over tourism but here's the problem for those cities that have tourism congestion here and there at certain times a day in peak season which is to say almost all cities they should be using visitor management techniques like Dynamic pricing and time ticketed entry and pop-up mini attractions like food truck tastings to help disperse the crowds instead they compare themselves to the worst
case scenarios like Venice or Dubrovnik and they say well that's over tourism and we don't have that so we don't really need to fix it and that would be a mistake no one likes crowds of tourists so as tourism continues to grow destinations need to dedicate more time and effort to spreading out visitors and relieving congestion with careful planning Community engagement infrastructure development and Regulatory measures to ensure that tourism contributes positively to a destination's economy and environment while still delivering the highest possible quality of life to the locals as well as a great visitor experience
that's it until next time
