Hello Mass Tourism! Tourism boom (and bust) in Urban Governance

Over 16 million travellers visit the Netherlands every year, contributing around 10 billion euros to the Dutch economy. In 2017 tourism arrivals in the Netherlands grew by 11%, and are expected to grow further. Most tourists travel no further than Amsterdam. Political parties, local administrations, police, journalists, and local residents increasingly see it as a problem and agree that it is something that needs to be dealt with. Different policies are created and implemented to decrease the pressure on the inner-city.

In this project we contribute to the increasing body of knowledge on mass tourism and specifically to the literatures focusing on local governance aimed to tackle the perceived problems caused by tourism. We aim to deepen the understanding of tourism and the possibilities and limits to coordinate, regulate, steer and control it in Urban Governance by answering the following questions:

1. What is the public support for the increasing presence of tourists and tourism as a growing sector? By answering this question, we aim to map the increasing tensions between different stakeholders in and over places.

2. How is tourism as a problem defined, by whom and why? Who is responsible for the agenda setting of tourism as a problem? How is tourism problematized? What are the reality effects of these problem framings? To answer these questions, we analyse the consequences of different problem framings about the way the tourism is dealt with in urban governance.

3. Which attempts are taken to influence tourism and are these attempts successful? How is mass tourism coordinated, regulated, steered and controlled by governments, companies, citizens and NGOs?

4. How does mass tourism materialise in places, spaces and landscapes? What are the social and spatial consequences of the presence of tourists/tourism? Using research by design we try to envision alternative scenarios, visions and solutions.

More information about partners:

Dr. Ko Koens is a Lecturer at NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences. He has published in academic journals and is editor of the books “Slum Tourism: Poverty, Power and Ethics” and “Tourism and Geographies of Inequality: The New Global Slumming Phenomenon”. His main research interests are slum tourism, urban tourism and hospitality as well as other forms of sustainable, responsible and eco-tourism in Europe, Latin America and Africa, with a specific focus on small businesses and entrepreneurship.

Sven Waterreus is a consultant and researcher on sustainable tourism development with a strong belief in the connecting power of tourism and a special attention on the link of tourism with local development and natural resources preservation in the broadest sense of the word. Sven current research focuses on the attempts, possibilities and limits to steer, coordinate and regulate tourism in Amsterdam.