On November 10-11, 2022 Prof. Gert-Jan Hospers and Sebastian Amrhein organised a successful multi-sited workshop on Overtourism in Europe, taking place both in Kleve at the University of Applied Science, just across the border and at the Radboud University Nijmegen. 
During the Covid-19 crisis, the problem of overtourism seemed to have disappeared… What a relief for some places. 
It also made us aware of the forgotten qualities of these tourist places. At the same time new touristic places, especially those away from the crowded hotspots were (re)discovered. The countryside resorts or individual accommodations were popular for staycations. But currently, overtourism is back again. and maybe in the first instance in even more severe forms as there is a real need for catching up/meeting up and breaking out of our Covid-19 isolation again.
Maybe this is also a crucial window of opportunity to release measures to curb overtourism structurally. To do so one needs a thorough understanding of what overtourism really is and what causes and effects it has, beyond the superficial and unscrutinised impression that this is a bad thing, even though we all also experience how enriching, recuperative and socially rewarding touristic experiences are. At the same time, for many others, it is also a highly needed source of income. So we need to be careful about oversimplifying and (pre-)judging overtourism.
In the same way, as migration is thought to be the cause of everything evil in our society in the eyes of many right-wing populists, we need to be careful about blaming overtourism for everything evil at the touristic hotspots, as that might distract us from the real causes of some of the problems. For example at some destinations, we notice the precarious working conditions of the workers in the tourist industry, but often migration and employment laws, and not the tourists themselves are the real cause. Sometimes we also observe that certain groups are very expressive about their opposition to tourism, while others who are less vocal are much more ambivalent in their opinion, or are more dependent and cannot allow themselves to be critical, resulting in rather one-sided perspectives. The Covid-19 crisis in tourism therefore can also be rather revealing about the real character of the effects of overtourism or the real reasons for the opposition to overtourism. This kind of critical stance towards the phenomenon of overtourism was also the starting point of this small expert workshop, with the aim to search for the real and core aspects of overtourism, in the hope to find better and more effective ways to cope with it and to make these tourist destinations to better and (socially and ecologically) more sustainable places.
It is therefore certainly useful to first critically deconstruct the way ‘overtourism’ is used in the different debates. What is really meant or unstated implied with the term ‘overtourism’? (Eva Erdmenger). Did we leave out the host community in the way tourism was propagated? (Andreas Kagermeier). What role do digital platforms play in overtourism? (Sina Hardaker). The local circumstances of overtourism may also differ from place to place (Amsterdam, Prague, and many more of the usual iconic touristic hotspots, but also small places such as Giethoorn or Beuningen) were addressed by several of the speakers (Fabian Weber, Miroslav Roncak, Gert-Jan Hospers). This also lead to the discussion of different modes of dealing and coping with the return of overtourism after the pandemic (Jürgen Schmude, Lola Kuenen, Robert Fletcher), e.g. by focussing on more quality tourism, which then also coined the question of where the others should go? or by co-designing the tourist attractions together with the local community (Roos Gerritsma). Finally, also those aspects which might only sideways be related to tourism but are often central aspects of the opposition against overtourism, such as the bad labour conditions (Moritz Langer) or the circumstances which make protest more or less vocal (Sebastian Amrhein) mentioned above were discussed, providing a much more nuanced picture of today’s overtourism and the way they constitute the quality of places.
It doesn’t take long before the woman at the hotel reception pulls out a city map of Porto. Look, she says, there’s the Old Town and the Douro, there’s the harbour and here, by the way, the pride evident in her voice, is the world’s most beautiful bookshop: Livraria Lello.
It sounds fantastic and the place looks even more amazing in the photos. It’s located in a two-story, neo-Gothic building with lots of dark wood, an abundance of old books, ornamentation and stained glass, and a curved staircase right in the middle. It was opened in 1906, a cathedral of books, a dream for voracious bookworms from all over the world. When traveling, we often look more for the beauty of the past than that of the present. We may even buy a book for vacation reading, to while away evenings on the Atlantic coast. It has been said that J.K. Rowling often visited the Livraria when she lived in Porto at the beginning of the 1990s, a time when she taught English and began dreaming up the Harry Potter series.
Porto is not a big city — with just over 200,000 inhabitants, the Old Town is easily manageable. The first thing you notice when approaching the Livraria Lello is the long line in front of it. Young Japanese travelers, Scandinavian backpackers, families from France, couples from China, Americans and Germans.
The bookstore is every bit is as beautiful as the one in the photos, even if it’s not much of a bookstore these days. No one browses through the merchandise here. They all seem to be taking pictures with their smartphones — photos that look exactly like the more than 7,000 images already posted on TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel website, where Livraria is listed as one of the city’s top sightseeing attractions.