"Overtourism is a complex issue that requires a multifaceted approach to address, including regulation, education, and community engagement, to mitigate its social, environmental, and economic impacts."

"Sustainable tourism development should consider the balance between tourism and urban operation, as well as ecological and social factors, to mitigate the negative impacts of overtourism and promote responsible tourism management."

Vietnam's tourism green transformation should focus on green planning and zero waste to address environmental degradation and safety hazards associated with unmanaged tourism operations.

The tourism sector accounts for 8.1% of the global carbon footprint, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, highlighting the need for increased efficiency and decoupling of growth from energy consumption to reduce its environmental impact.

Taiwan's outdoor resource proposals should incorporate a cross-departmental committee and a sustainable spirit to address overtourism and climate crisis effectively.

Hong Kong's tourism industry is struggling due to a lack of innovation and unique features, leading to a reliance on price wars and potentially low-quality tourist experiences.

Overtourism can cause problems such as traffic congestion, as seen in the experience of Xiao Li, who faced significantly increased travel time due to a large number of tourists.

Overtourism in European cities leads to social consequences such as rising rents and soaring property prices, which push out local tenants to make way for holiday rentals.

Overtourism is a significant challenge in Hawaii, where the tourism industry's rebound after the pandemic has raised concerns about economic and environmental impacts, including illegal vacation rentals and threats to marine life.

Overtourism leads to a decline in the quality of life for locals and causes environmental damage due to the overwhelming number of tourists in certain areas.

"Overtourism is a complex issue that requires a multifaceted approach to address, including regulation, education, and community engagement, to mitigate its social, environmental, and economic impacts."

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Content: Security or traffic, where is the transformation path of net red spots?
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Source: New Beijing News
With the spread of social media platforms, more and more destinations are being packaged as “online red spots ” to the front of the stage, and the challenges follow.
According to the latest data disclosed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of China, in the seven days of the National Day holiday in 2022, the country's domestic tourism traveled 422 million person-times, achieving domestic tourism revenue of 287.21 billion yuan.
Affected by the epidemic, the travel radius of domestic tourists has been greatly shortened, and the surrounding tourism fever has continued to rise, and "digging nearby attractions" has become a hard demand for public leisure and entertainment, and has also become a new "traffic password".
The travel radius is greatly shortened, and tourists are keen to punch in the red spots.
This 11th Golden Week, photography enthusiast Xiao Li specially went to the net red scenic spots (that is, some of the characteristics of the scenic spots themselves are magnified under the role of the network, thus being sought after) to take photos.
As early as before the holiday, Xiao Li was "planted grass" by various Qikongqiao travel notes on Xiaohong Books (that is, when you see the introduction of attractions of interest, it will be included in the travel goals).
The Qikongqiao Flower Sea, located in Changping District of Beijing, has always been a popular spot in Beijing, and the continuous strips of Aster are beautiful and attract a large number of tourists every year.
Xiao Li picked a good day and asked friends to go with him.
Unexpectedly, after arriving in the field, Xiao Li found that the area of the Aster was not as large as expected, and because of the rain, the Aster flower has fallen a lot.
In addition to the large number of tourists, Xiao Li's actual experience is not as dreamy as the "planting grass" notes.
On the return trip, Xiao Li was blocked by traffic to "tired": "When I came to the road for an hour, when I went back for two and a half hours, there were really too many people on holidays." And after arriving home, Xiao Li learned from other notes that this year's Aster area is not as good as in previous years.
Like Xiao Li, in recent years, the number of tourists who are keen on online red spots is increasing, and the situation of "turning over" has also occurred.
Affected by the epidemic, the travel radius of domestic tourists has been greatly shortened, and the popularity of surrounding and intra-provincial travel has continued to rise.
According to the "China Tourism Scenic Area Development Report (2021)" released by the China Tourism Research Institute, the average travel distance of tourists during the National Day holiday fell from 213 kilometers in 2020 to 141.3 kilometers in 2021; the average recreational radius of tourist destinations shrank from 14.2 kilometers in 2020 to 13.1 kilometers in 2021.
Among them, the growth trend of tourist attractions close to the main source market is obvious, while the reception and comprehensive tourism income of natural resources and historical and cultural resources oriented to the medium and long distance tourism market are obviously declining.
The rise of neighborhood tours such as urban leisure tours and rural tours in the suburbs has made scenic spots close to daily life such as community parks, urban parks, country parks, theme parks, and ancient towns and villages increasingly become the first choice of ordinary people.
The report proposed that in the era of mass tourism, tourist attractions are the core carrier of tourism; and in the era of well-off tourism, tourist attractions may be attractions containing all life content.
“Digging around the attractions ” becomes hard demand and“ traffic password ”
In this context, "digging around the attractions" has become a hard demand for public leisure and entertainment, and has also become a new "traffic password".
Some good-looking photos and videos, combined with vivid introductions, and with the help of social media platforms such as Little Red Book and TikTok, are packed into “Internet Red ” attractions, and affect the travel decisions of a large number of users. In 2019, travel related content has become the fastest growing category of Little Red Book.
According to the "Analysis Report on the Development of China's Tourism Industry in the First Half of 2020" released by Bida Consulting, Xiaohongshu has become the most commonly used online travel decision-making platform for users with 63.7%; TikTok ranks second, accounting for 56.5%.
At the same time, the definition of net red attractions is also increasingly broad, from Xi'an, Chongqing and other cities, to Anaya, super Wen and friends and other projects, and even a strange tree in Beijing Olympic Forest Park, can become a "net red" card point.
At present, the search for "playing cards" on the small red book platform has more than 1.52 million related notes; the topic of "playing cards in online red spots" of TikTok has reached 7.66 billion plays.
Zhang Jinshan, an associate professor at Beijing United University's School of Tourism, said: "At present, many online red spots are more suitable for a kind of trendy, fashionable, niche attractions or novelties that meet netizens' pursuit and popularity, and in the short term, they quickly attract outside attention through new media platforms such as Tikyin, Xiaohongshu, WeChat, and Weibo."
Under the hot tourist, the "net red effect" of the scenic spots should not be underestimated.
According to public reports, in March this year, a statue of the Shigao Zhai scenic spot in Jinan rose seven times over the weekend because it was accused of resembling the athlete Wu Dajing, and in August, the local government imposed traffic control on some roads because a female artist had previously posted photos of the sunrise in the mountains on social platforms.
In the course of operation, scenic spots are also increasingly paying attention to the "fermentation" of online word-of-mouth.
For example, not long ago, tourist Xiao Wu saw a net red park in Beijing that opened last year.
At the end of the field card is ready to leave, the park staff specifically told her, hoping that she can "Aite" the park to interact with the park after releasing photos and videos in the small red book, Weibo and TikTok.
- There's a problem.
Online red marketing industry chain: big blogger appearance fee of hundreds of thousands of yuan
The red net effect is also a double-edged sword.
In October last year, the small red book "filter attractions" related topics on the hot search, triggering a heated discussion outside.
Netizens have shared that they were attracted by the photos in the notes to go to the attractions to punch, but after they actually arrived, they found that the experience is far from the photos.
Subsequently, the small red book publicly apologized, admitted that there are some users of excessive beautification of notes, and said that it has launched a series of operational activities to encourage the small red book publisher to do useful rather than beautification sharing; when everyone searches a scenic spot, it will also provide a richer search associative words, "avoiding the pit" and other content for more display; and will try to launch scenic spot scoring list, step on the list and other products, to facilitate users to obtain more diversified information.
Red marketing has also become a mature industry chain.
According to a relevant practitioner, the brand side often through "paving", that is, find a lot of vegetarian bloggers to publish information, creating a "beautiful here", "this thing is very useful" environment.
After finding the blogger, the brand will provide cooperation precautions, shooting highlights and so on.
If it is an offline search shop, the brand will also arrange staff to cooperate.
Finally, the content published by the blogger needs to be reviewed by the brand and confirmed that there are no problems before publishing.
"The prices of these bloggers vary from person to person, especially small bloggers who have only a few thousand or 10,000 followers, send a ticket or spend a few hundred yuan, they may be willing to go."
Fans of hundreds of thousands or even millions of big bloggers, attendance fees can be hundreds of thousands of yuan, "said the practitioners.
In addition, the Beijing News shell financial reporter also found in the investigation, in order to do marketing promotion, the sale of social platform accounts is also common.
According to a person who bought and sold a platform account, the account he sold was a live powder account, and many were unreal accounts.
In the price details, the accounts of 10,000 fans are more than 3,000 yuan or less, the account price of more than 20,000 fans began to rise, and the account price of 190,000 fans is as high as 75,000 yuan.
These sellers have also launched sub-account labels such as “shop search ”,“ beauty ”, and “male blogger ”, and provide various services such as powder suggestions, drop-down, and SEO.
The undeveloped "green land" of net red belt fire, there are many security risks
The safety of the red spots also needs to be addressed urgently.
In August this year, a flash flood near Longcaogou, Longmenshan Town, Pengzhou City, Sichuan Province, caused many casualties.
In July last year, 90 donkey friends who went to Yanyang Mountain in Jiangxi Province to play in the "bull nostrils" were trapped after more than six hours of rescue and were finally transferred to a safe place.
With the spread of camping fever, the behavior of tourists visiting undeveloped and unmanaged "wild" scenic spots to experience nature has been further exacerbated, which has caused safety hazards.
Beijing Daily shell financial reporter saw in the field visit, a river in Beijing has become this year's summer small red book, the United States group and other platforms of Beijing camping hot "punch point", and this place is not developed and managed scenic spots, not only no public toilets, garbage cans and protective facilities, but also no managers and lifeguards, safety problems are difficult to ensure.
However, there are still many people camping and playing paddle board here, and many parents can also be seen on the network platform to let children play directly in the water.
In addition, the arrival of a large number of tourists has also damaged the local ecological environment, and the residual garbage has also affected the lives of local residents.
In the campsite recommendation, "niche", "no one" and "no one" are popular keywords.
Zhang Jinshan said: "net red natural has the characteristics of exploring unknown, recommended novelty, under the guidance of net red, those countryside, undeveloped, or even inaccessible scenes, areas were unearthed, driven by net red, become a popular punching place."
These areas, which were caught on fire by the Internet, were undeveloped 'green land' at the beginning, and lacked formal management, so there were many security risks.
- Solution
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a plan to strengthen the supervision of private scenic spots
In September, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued a special rectification work plan for the problem of private “scenic spots ” (hereinafter referred to as the“ plan ”), announcing that the special rectification work for private “scenic spots ” will be carried out from September to November this year.
According to the plan, the target of private "scenic spots" is to provide tourists with tour services and carry out tourism business activities in certain places or regions without permission from relevant departments, mainly including unlicensed operation, disturbing the order of the tourism market, unauthorized collection of ticket fees, illegal construction of tourist facilities, destruction of the ecological environment, and unauthorized operation of high-risk tourism projects, and the existence of tourism safety hazards.
According to the plan, all localities should conduct a comprehensive investigation of the problem of private "scenic spots" in the jurisdiction according to the scope of rectification, and immediately carry out rectification and reform according to law and regulations according to the results of the investigation.
For the "wild" scenic spots that are unmanaged, developed and operated, relevant departments in various localities are also strengthening management.
For example, a "net red" abandoned mine in the suburbs of Beijing and camping along the river have been taken by the local authorities to organize security personnel to manage and persuade tourists to leave.
Before the arrival of the 11th Golden Week, the Beijing Municipal Emergency Management Bureau and the Beijing Municipal Water Bureau issued a joint initiative calling on tourists to legally and legally choose camping areas and pay close attention to camping safety.
In addition, Beijing Yanqing District also issued the "Yanqing District Tent Camping Management Guide (Trial)" for more than 10 scenic spots that are included in the industry management of the District Cultural and Tourism Bureau and have legal operating qualifications, becoming the first scenic tent camping management guide in Beijing.
Timely transformation and innovation of scenic spots, constantly follow up the new demand of tourists
In the view of the industry, the relevant situation also reflects the current soaring demand for travel and tourism products between a large gap and contradictions. "The existing formal scenic spots based on norms and safety management requirements, it is difficult to provide a site to meet the high demand for camping."
In this case, it is necessary to encourage the development of chain camping business enterprises, encourage regular scenic spots to provide sites suitable for tourists' camping needs, encourage villages and towns to develop rural camping leisure projects, increase the number of safe managed camping sites, and maximize the gap between camping needs and camping safety.
At present, the relevant tourism development in various places is also constantly following up the new tourism needs of tourists.
For example, in recent years, Hangzhou has a number of "net red mining holes" out of the circle, which have been developed by the local area and equipped with amusement facilities.
Beijing's "niche" ice waterfall scenic spot melon grassland also developed this year, and equipped with security personnel management.
In addition, more and more bloggers are also adding safety tips to their recommendations.
Under the background of the current normalization of epidemic prevention and control, scenic spots should also be transformed and developed in a timely manner.
Zhou Mingqi, founder of Jingjian Think Tank, said that cultural and tourism products adapted to the post-epidemic consumer environment are mainly divided into two categories: excellent tourism destinations and short-term, high-frequency and daily suburban products.
In the past few years, the tourism industry has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. It has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. It has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. The main characteristics of the short-term vacation demand of residents of large cities with certain spending power include convenient transportation, 1-3 hours by car; characteristic accommodation, that is, hotel design combined with local style; rich content experience and parent-child interaction, and amusement projects combined with theme design. ”
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"Sustainable tourism development should consider the balance between tourism and urban operation, as well as ecological and social factors, to mitigate the negative impacts of overtourism and promote responsible tourism management."

Vietnam's tourism green transformation should focus on green planning and zero waste to address environmental degradation and safety hazards associated with unmanaged tourism operations.

The tourism sector accounts for 8.1% of the global carbon footprint, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, highlighting the need for increased efficiency and decoupling of growth from energy consumption to reduce its environmental impact.

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Content: Featured ArticlesInternational
World Travel and Tourism Summit reveals global climate footprint data for travel and tourism
Regions _ Followers
The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) has launched environmental and social research on the climate footprint of the global travel and tourism industry.
This came during the 22nd World Summit of the World Travel and Tourism Council, organized by the World Travel and Tourism Council in cooperation with the Global Center for Tourism Sustainability in the capital Riyadh.
Environmental and social research covers 185 countries on all continents, the first of its kind at the international level, and will be updated annually with the latest figures, including measures that monitor the sector ’ s impact on a range of indicators, including pollutants, energy sources and water use, as well as social data, age data and gender wages in jobs related to the travel and tourism sector. Accuracy.
Julia Simpson, President and CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), announced in her opening speech the results of Environmental and Social Research (ESR).
One of the largest research projects, the World Travel and Tourism Council will be able to provide accurate reports and track the impact of various industry activities on the environment.
She explained that the tourism and travel sector is making great strides in decarbonization, stressing a focus in increasing the production of sustainable aviation fuel supported by government incentives, and also to greater use of renewable energy in national public electricity grids so as to promote the use of sustainable energy in hotel rooms.
The sector ’ s 8.1% share of the carbon footprint can be impacted by becoming more efficient and decoupling growth from the amount of energy consumed starting today, she said, noting that every decision and every step towards change will lead to a better and brighter future for all.
For his part, His Excellency the Minister of Tourism, Mr. Ahmed Al-Khatib, expressed his pleasure for the participation of the World Travel and Tourism Council in this important research that will follow the impact of future activities, stressing that the Kingdom recognizes that travelers and investors want policies that promote sustainability in the sector and that the Kingdom has embarked on a phase to make it a leader in the field of sustainable tourism.
“Within the framework of the Saudi Green Initiative, we launched more than 60 initiatives last year to achieve this goal, the first batch of initiatives was investments in the green economy worth more than $186 billion, ” he said.
Previous estimates have indicated that the global travel and tourism sector is responsible for up to 11% of all global emissions, however, leading research by the World Travel and Tourism Council shows that the sector ’ s total greenhouse gas emissions reached only 8.1% in 2019 globally. Thermal.
These emissions have continued to decline continuously since 2010, as a result of technological developments, as well as the introduction of a number of energy efficiency measures to activities within the sector. Between 2010 and 2019, the GDP of the tourism and travel sector grew at a rate of 4.3% annually, while its environmental impact increased by only 2.4%.
The World Travel and Tourism Council will continue to release new data on the sector ’ s performance in these indicators over the course of 2023.
Governments around the world will have a tool to guide their decision-making and more accurately accelerate the process of environmental change.
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Taiwan's outdoor resource proposals should incorporate a cross-departmental committee and a sustainable spirit to address overtourism and climate crisis effectively.

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Content: Chairman of the Board of Directors and Editors
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Mohamad Elbaz
Editor-in-Chief
Wael Lotfy
Chairman of the Board of Directors and Editors
I'm sorry.
Mohamad Elbaz
Editor-in-Chief
Wael Lotfy
The Guardian: Tourism contributes significantly to the climate crisis
It is a terrible paradox of the climate crisis that some of the most beautiful – and popular – places in the world are also the most vulnerable, especially as most of them have poor infrastructure, which means that with rising temperatures, increasing weather extremes, drying up water sources and the death of natural habitats, these places face another devastating loss, especially tourists.
Tourism contributes significantly to the climate crisis – around 8% of global emissions – and hordes of visitors cause many problems, including excessive development and degradation of natural areas.
The revenue generated by tourists can bring enormous economic benefits to these destinations, and many do not own other forms of industry or otherwise rely on extractive industries such as mining or logging.
She added that tourism can also spread awareness of environmental problems, such as bleaching coral reefs or endangered animal species, and provide funding for conservation efforts.
This complex relationship was highlighted during the coronavirus outbreak, when tourism stopped, carbon emissions dropped, wildlife flourished, and leatherback turtles in Thailand laid the largest number of eggs in two decades, but all this has come at a cost, with the global tourism industry taking a heavy toll, triggering an emergency in developing countries, families struggling to find food, illegal logging in some places has increased, and overfishing has increased.
As the rebuilding of tourism begins, it has become impossible to ignore that the future of the industry is inextricably linked to the climate crisis.
Instead of becoming a major cause of the climate crisis, tourism can be used to raise awareness, increase tourism resources and improve infrastructure.

Hong Kong's tourism industry is struggling due to a lack of innovation and unique features, leading to a reliance on price wars and potentially low-quality tourist experiences.

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Content: Tourists and groups are routed tourist cities can not withstand repeated "toss"
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Source: New Beijing News
Author: Yang Jinsong
A number of incidents involving the loss of the rights and interests of tourists have aroused widespread concern among the Chinese public.
In the Beihai Sea, tourists ate four cauliflower 1,500 yuan (RMB, the same below, about 300 Singapore dollars) in silver beach; in Guilin, tourists did not give room cards because of shopping standards, and recently, in Heilongjiang snow village, there are media reports, tourists in addition to the verbal stimulation of tour guides, the original free scenic spots are also listed by travel agencies on the charge of the item.
In the relatively concentrated period of time, across the north and south, violations of the rights and interests of tourists occurred one after another, not only hit the hearts of people eager to travel after the epidemic, but also significantly affected the local image and the recovery process of the tourism industry.
In particular, the snowy countryside, after many rectification, has now exploded such incidents that damage the rights and interests of tourists, and the damage to local tourism brands can not be underestimated.
The recovery of the tourism market, its tourism obstinate disease can not also follow the "return to the river".
At present, it is the key window for rebuilding the imagination and experience of tourism, reshaping the tourism market and industry, and it is also an important stage for the "backlog" of tourism consumption demand to start to release.
Improving the tourism experience requires all-round "strict control"
In fact, over the past three years, many changes have taken place, but the high quality requirements of tourists for tourism products and services have not changed.
Only by fully understanding and meeting the high requirements of tourists, can we form a good "first impression" after opening up, giving tourists more confidence, but also giving the tourism industry more development of the bottom and space to move.
Snow countryside and other events, is not simply to take a single measure can be completely resolved, to better curb the harm of tourists' rights and interests of the incident, should start from many aspects, with comprehensive measures to deal with.
The first basic work is the comprehensive and complete "strict control" of the whole process.
After these recent incidents that harm the rights and interests of tourists, relevant departments in various places have promptly investigated and punished illegal acts.
The management responded positively, sending a good signal and also responding to public expectations.
At the same time, the successive occurrence of these incidents also shows that there is still a lot of room for improvement in "strict control".
In particular, some places are the focus of attention, which is more likely to trigger people's associations.
For example, the scene of tourist activities is diverse, there are scenic spots, there are hotels, there are restaurants, there are stations, airports, and there are shops and theaters.
It can be said that as a foreign lifestyle, tourists inevitably involve all aspects of the destination.
Among them, no matter which aspect of the short board, it is likely to affect the experience of tourists.
This means that in addition to the tourism management department, many departments such as industry and commerce, transportation, and public security are also required to participate in it and work together for a better living space shared by residents and tourists.
Especially at a time when the proportion of individual travelers and free travel is increasing.
For the tourism sector, although it is responsible for guarding the soil, its powers are limited and it is often powerless.
There is a need for closer coordination, information-sharing and joint action among management.
In the process of supervision, it is also necessary to fight ahead of time and do a good job of prevention.
Especially before the peak season, clarify and eliminate the risk points of problems, formulate a perfect plan to quickly deal with the negative impact, and realize the allocation of sufficient resources.
The guide service evaluation should be determined by the tourists.
The operation mode of the travel agency and the handling of the relationship between the tour guide of the travel agency are also closely related to the experience of the tourists.
If the travel agency lacks product innovation ability, the product homogeneity is serious, and mainly relies on the price war to attract tourists.
At that low price, some tour guides have to earn income through tourist shopping and self-funded projects.
In order to achieve the expected revenue target, the high level of service quality is naturally impossible to talk about, and even some more extreme cases will appear.
Of course, both the Tourism Law and the Action Plan for Strengthening the Construction and Management of Tour Guides (2021-2023), issued in 2021, are committed to improving the service quality of travel agencies and improving the ecology of the tour guide industry.
It is necessary to break the "mutual injury" game between travel agencies, tour guides and tourists, on the one hand, implement the existing laws and policies, and take back the time delayed by the epidemic, and on the other hand, create a tourism evaluation system based on tourists' evaluation.
Do a good job in optimizing the employment environment, protecting legitimate rights and interests, improving the incentive mechanism and enhancing professional identity, so that tourism practitioners can truly get rid of the dependence on low-price competition and return commission as the main channel of profit.
To better protect the legitimate rights and interests of tourists and tour guides, it is also necessary to further eliminate information asymmetry, promote credit supervision, and strive to build a good tourism industry, so as to promote tourism to compete at a high level and at a high level.
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Overtourism can cause problems such as traffic congestion, as seen in the experience of Xiao Li, who faced significantly increased travel time due to a large number of tourists.

Overtourism in European cities leads to social consequences such as rising rents and soaring property prices, which push out local tenants to make way for holiday rentals.

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Sedona Film Festival presents ‘Crowded Out’

“Crowded Out” is a powerful short documentary exploring over-tourism, featuring interviews with local residents and global experts. (Image provided by SIFF)

Originally Published: September 14, 2022 8:43 p.m.

The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the third film in its four-week Sustainable Tourism Film Series. “Crowded Out: The Story of Overtourism” will show on Thursday, Sept. 22 at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre at 4 p.m. The event will also include a selection of “Sustainable Travel: Where Next?” short films along with a panel discussion.

“Crowded Out” is a powerful short documentary exploring overtourism, featuring interviews with local residents and global experts.

Overtourism occurs when there are too many visitors to a particular destination. When rent prices push out local tenants to make way for holiday rentals, when narrow roads become jammed with tourist vehicles, when tourists cannot view landmarks because of the crowds – these are all signs of overtourism.

And it is the backlash from local residents that has made overtourism news. Cities such as Barcelona, Venice and Dubrovnik, and places once thought of as remote such as Iceland and Skye have suffered firsthand, and the protests by local residents have spread.

There has been decades of virtually uncontrolled growth, and it has crossed a threshold: in many destinations, tourism now demonstrably creates more problems than benefits.

This special event will also include a selection of short films from “Sustainable Travel: Where Next?” This series includes short-form documentary films, featuring insightful stories from the global travel and tourism sector showing how they are driving sustainable travel and protecting these precious destinations.

Following the screenings, there will be a panel discussion with representatives the City of Sedona, the Sedona Chamber of Commerce, Keep Sedona Beautiful and the tourism and hospitality industry here.

“Crowded Out: The Story of Overtourism” will be shown at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Thursday, Sept. 22 at 4 p.m. Tickets are $12, or $9 for Film Festival members. For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona. For more information, visit: www.SedonaFilmFestival.org.

The final film in the Sustainable Tourism Series is:

Thursday, Sept. 29 at 4 p.m. “Vendemmia”

Overtourism is a significant challenge in Hawaii, where the tourism industry's rebound after the pandemic has raised concerns about economic and environmental impacts, including illegal vacation rentals and threats to marine life.

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Hawaii faces economic and environmental challenges
As Hawaii ’ s tourism industry rebounded after it was effectively shut down during the pandemic, local politicians, communities, and business leaders revived the central issue of tourism policy discussion: How many visitors are considered too many?
Natalia Hussey-Burdick, a member of the summer state House of Representatives and vice chair of the House Committee on Tourism, has introduced a bill calling for a study of Hawaii ’ s tourist capacity.
The effort comes amid growing concerns about illegal vacation rentals, transportation, and threats to marine life and the environment. “In fact, this is a longstanding concern for all Hawaiian islands and communities. ”
However, not everyone agrees that Hawaii needs research to quantify the tourism industry. In 2019, Hawaii received 10.4 million visitors, which is considered too many, and the tourism industry in Hawaii is overloaded.
Broadly speaking, capacity is the maximum number of visitors a destination can receive without irreparable damage to the environment, infrastructure and community.
Community and environmental groups see this as critical, as do hotel executives, who argue that hosting too many visitors will harm Hawaii ’ s natural and cultural resources, as well as the “aloha spirit, ” and that tourism will be at risk if Hawaii loses those resources and tourists don ’ t want to return.
Hawaii policy makers have worked to address concerns about overtourism.
Before the pandemic, city officials tried to understand the situation of Kailua and Lanikai as tourist destinations, studying the shift from a focus on passenger capacity to a perception of tourism among residents, who were dissatisfied with the daily average of about 15,161 tourists in the two places.
Research shows that more than 65% of residents surveyed in the second half of 2019 agree or strongly agree that tourism increases traffic flow, costs of living, and disrupts the small-town atmosphere.
The same proportion of respondents believe that holiday rentals reduce the supply of housing for locals, and that government decisions on tourism generally benefit tourists rather than local people.
The report was published in June 2020 and received little attention.
At the height of the epidemic, Hawaii closed tourism, tens of thousands of hotel workers lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate was about 17%.
However, in the wake of the pandemic, Hawaii welcomed 9.2 million visitors in 2022, which has recovered to nearly 90% of 2019.
Hawaii hotel operator Jerry Gibson observed that when tourist rental growth, especially in Oahu, is the main reason for the increase in visitor numbers, up to 10 million people, the number of new hotel rooms is small, unable to supply demand, "hotel and tourist rental capacity is different."
Some people believe that the overloading of tourism is not the most important thing, but the threat to the health of the ecosystem. In 2022, the residents of the northern coast of Oahu face an environmental crisis in the Marine Life Reserve, so they are promoting projects that do not focus on tourist capacity but on the impact of tourism on the environment.
Tourism Hawaii also develops a Destination Management Action Plan for each island.
The Oahu community expects to reduce the impact by improving infrastructure and management, and limiting the number of visitors to tourist hotspots.
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Overtourism leads to a decline in the quality of life for locals and causes environmental damage due to the overwhelming number of tourists in certain areas.

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Content: Point of view
Lin Chi-yin
Lin Chi-yin: "Traveling Everywhere" and "Over-Travel"
Earlier, the Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, Hsia Baolong, advocated the concept of “travel everywhere ” to fully explore Hong Kong ’ s tourism resources.
To speed up the implementation of the concept, the authorities are planning to set up a "special class" to bring together people inside and outside the Government for in-depth discussions.
In recent days, officials and legislators have expressed their views on the development of "red tourism", exploring new spots in the community, beautifying the streets, and presenting some scenes in the movies.
Simply put, it may be the story behind the attraction, or the accumulated word of mouth on social media, and every tree and grass anywhere can become a tourist attraction.
Of course, the author hopes that the "class" can launch various new ideas; and since the task of the class is to implement the concept of "travel everywhere", then how to implement the concept is the best for Hong Kong, the industry, the community and the public, the class can not ignore.
The University of Hong Kong campus has been forced by tourists, and the school has implemented reservation measures this month.
HKU itself has a complete management structure, and the university can still implement crowd control according to the situation. However, if some scenic spots that go deep into the community or even close to residential buildings are really "red hot", it may not be easy to implement crowd control.
“Everywhere travel ” is a concept, the key to implementation lies in the ability of the authorities to foresee problems. If you rely only on“ see and see ”, it is very likely that good things will turn into bad things.
“Aggressive ” Travel
In 2018, the word “overtourism ” was chosen as the Oxford English Dictionary ’ s word of the year, referring to the negative effects of overloading the area, declining quality of life and environmental damage caused by the influx of tourists to tourist attractions.
For example, Venice, Italy, which has long been affected by “overtourism ”, is not a“ once in a lifetime ” – the local population is only 50,000, and the number of daily tourists has exceeded the local population; during peak season, the number of daily visitors has even doubled.
I have friends who visited the place more than a decade ago, and they all agreed to say that people are crowded and will not go again.
In addition to Venice, some European cities or small islands with a tourism-led economy (such as the Canarias in Spain) also face the problem of job opportunities, high prices, and a homogenization of shops. Multinational companies invest heavily in hotels and holiday cottages, which also lead to higher rents, which locals can ’ t afford.
Even if tourism brings a lot of jobs to the region, it does not mean that the average person can earn a living wage.
People in these places understand the importance of tourism to the local economy, but they do not want the tourism industry to be unlimited, resulting in the resources of the whole place are only for the service of tourists.
"Tourism Hazards" and How to Deal with them
In Japanese society after the epidemic, a similar term, "tourism nuisance", has also appeared to describe problems such as traffic, noise, nuisance, and garbage pollution caused by too many tourists.
This phenomenon, in addition to the popularity of exchange rates, affordable air tickets, and people's desire to travel after the epidemic, social media will also have the effect of focusing on specific hot spots.
In the era of image-led, everyone can follow the picture, some places that were not originally planned as tourist attractions have begun to face sudden overcrowding.
Hong Kong people who love to visit Japan will not be unfamiliar with two “attractions ”: the Daokou near Enojima Electric Railway ’ s Kamakura University Station, and a Lawson convenience store in Kawaguchi-cho.
The former is the "holy place" of the popular manga "When Men are in the bottle". In recent years, the crossing has been congested with traffic due to frequent visits by tourists to "punch", local people can not get on the electric train, and some tourists are dangerous for taking good photos. Lawson is also a "punch" attraction, and the picture is a convenience store with a beautiful view of Mount Fuji. of tourists are constantly crossing the road and parking without permission, causing local residents to feel troubled.
Too many tourists can also lead to a decline in the quality of service, even in Japan, which values the spirit of “work people ”.
When I visited Japan last year, I saw some shops find ways to deal with “tourism hazards ” on their own, such as not allowing diners to take photos in the store, so that after the photos are uploaded to social media, it will cause more people to come and see them; limiting the number of diners to the number of people that the staff can serve, even if the seats are not full.
However, some tourists always find it difficult to understand the intentions behind these arrangements, and I have heard some tourists complain: "Obviously there is still a place, why not let us sit?"
When these conflicts can no longer be handled by businesses and residents themselves, how to strike a balance between “tourism ” and“ public nuisance ” will gradually become a policy issue.
The most extreme way to deal with it is to “eliminate ” popular attractions – coincidentally, the authorities of Kawaguchiko recently erected a 20-meter-long and 2.5-meter-high“ black curtain ” in front of Lawson to drive away tourists who came to take photos.
The reason why the authorities have to take extreme measures is that management alone can not prevent tourists from rushing out of the road, which is actually to "play the spot".
In addition, there are more and more tourist cities and hotspots charging tourists "admission fees" or "admission fees", but this method can not play a large role.
In Venice, for example, the city has been charging a 5 euro entry fee (about HK $42) to “overnight ” travelers since last month.
However, these fees simply cannot curb the huge demand for tourists, and the revenue is mainly used as a financial source to cope with "excessive travel", which can only cure the symptoms, not the root cause.
The Real Meaning of “Travel Everywhere ”
At this point, some people may point out that the above problems will only become problems if we succeed in attracting tourists to Hong Kong; what we have to focus on is how to get more people to come to Hong Kong.
However, how much tourism can bring to a city depends on the management and policies of the city, not on the remedial measures that can be taken.
Although the share of tourism industry in Hong Kong's economy is far less than that of the "tourist city" mentioned above, Hong Kong can't wait to see that other places are looking for countermeasures for the "tourism nuisance", and even start to turn to attack, redefine the tourism industry from the planning level and actively promote tourist education.
In Amsterdam, the Netherlands, for example, the government announced last month that it would ban new hotels and limit the number of cruise ships to return the city to a livable and tourism-friendly city. In Kamakura, Japan, people are no longer concentrated at certain points by decentralizing transportation (such as the launch of electric tricycle rental business) and proactively promoting multiple circumnavigation routes (such as the travel routes at 13 locations of Kamakura Shogunate).
The main disadvantage of post-event remediation is that the difficulty and cost of solving the problem are greatly increased, which will also affect the experience of tourists. More than 10 years ago, the North District of Hong Kong also experienced a pharmacy every few steps, and the situation of residents in the North District driving out water consignors on their own, which hurt the feelings of the people of the two places.
In particular, there are many policy issues that can be foreseen in advance, and we do not have to go through them personally before we know what the problem is (for example, the legal problems faced by cleaners under the garbage levy will not be known until the moment of trial).
Since there is a great deal of experience and policy measures in various places to refer to, the “Special Class ” must also strike a balance between tourism and city operations when formulating tourist routes and supporting packages, otherwise the attraction will only lead to losses. After the city of Kamakura solved the problem of overcrowding of tourists, the tourism industry representative of Kanagawa Prefecture (that is, the seat of Kamakura City) pointed out:“ Attraction is not tourism. ” The amount of time it takes to win is certainly not appropriate.
“Travel Everywhere ” is not just about adding tourist attractions, but promoting quality tourism in a more nuanced and proactive way to avoid problems.
The author is a public policy consultant.
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[Lin Chi-yin]
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