Too much of a good thing : the impact of over-tourism on a small village

• Autor(a) principal: Viegas, Sara Alexandra Gonçalves
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/29714
• topic: Tourism; Over-tourism; Sustainable tourism; Sintra; Turismo; Excesso de turismo; Turismo sustentável; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

Abstract: In the last few years, tourism has become a very big industry in the world. With more and more people being able to travel, destinations are attracting more tourists. Over-tourism is not a new concept, some authors have already studied the consequences of over-tourism in touristic destinations. But the symptoms only started to be felt in recent years. This dissertation aims to study the impact of over-tourism on a small village from the perception of tourists. The objective is to identify the experiences and perceptions of tourists regarding Sintra and to understand how over-tourism affects them. Through analysing web-based reviews of tourists, 7 major themes were found; “palace”, “Sintra”, “time”, “beautiful”, “park”, “entrance”, and “rooms”. The themes were divided into three groups, monuments, location and over-tourism. Each group describing a part of the experience in Sintra, concluding that over-tourism does influence the tourist experience. Most positive reviews talked about how beautiful the town is and how it is worth to visit the monuments. However, most negative reviews were connected to over-tourism, especially the theme “time”, describing long queues and over-crowded monuments and transports and how that ruins the experience. Therefore, there is evidence that over-tourism is influencing tourists’ perceptions of Sintra. The goal of this dissertation is to help countries, local communities and tourism managers to understand the problem of over-tourism and create a more sustainable strategy for tourism in the future. The research contributes to the literature by analysing a small village classified as world heritage.