Article 15 January 2025
Michael Tarrant, Mikell Gleason, Steven Boyd and Tony Wellington
https://doi.org/10.54175/hsustain4010001
We adopt a normative model of crowd tolerance (expressed as a willingness to support more or fewer tourists) as a proxy for overtourism. Consistent with Social Exchange Theory, it is proposed that a person will perceive
We adopt a normative model of crowd tolerance (expressed as a willingness to support more or fewer tourists) as a proxy for overtourism. Consistent with Social Exchange Theory, it is proposed that a person will perceive the impacts of tourism at a destination as positive or negative depending on the extent to which they view visitor levels as under or over a threshold that they expect or support (i.e., their norms or tolerance level). A total of 420 residents and 1048 visitors completed a survey interview in the tourist shire of Noosa between 2022 and 2024. Results show that residents and visitors differed significantly on many of the perceived tourism impacts, with long-term residents less favorable to the positive impacts than visitors. There was broad consensus across both residents and tourists, and the highest level of agreement, with negative impacts (especially that tourism contributes to traffic and parking congestion, and higher prices). The lowest levels of agreement with positive tourism impacts were found for “over tourists” (respondents who supported a fewer number of tourists). Implications for sustainable destination management are discussed in the context of the Quadruple Bottom Line, including efforts that enable tourism communities to grow well using a guardianship ethos and collective action of Gifts and Gains.
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Volume 4 (2025), Issue 1, pp. 1–15