A policy proposal to deal with excessive cultural tourism

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a proposal to deal with cultural overtourism causing substantial negative effects. They burden the local population, tourists, and the natural environment by overcrowding, vandalism, and pollution. While at present tourism is suppressed by governments due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it will likely become a major issue again in the future. Our proposal allows us to think about the way cultural tourism should be organized in the future and how to mitigate the negative externalities affecting cultural heritage as well as the local population and the natural environment. As an innovation to overcome these problems, the heavily visited historical sites are to be replicated in a suitable nearby location. Advanced digital technology such as augmented and virtual reality, holograms, and digital twins are to be used to make the cultural sites attractive to all sorts of tourists.

KEYWORDS:

• Overtourism
• innovation
• Revived Original
• copy
• digital technology

Subject classification codes:

• D62
• P48
• Z10
• Z18
• Z38
• Z30

Acknowledgements

We are grateful for helpful suggestions to Karlis Briviba, Reiner Eichenberger, René L. Frey, Jonas Friedrich, Jürg Helbing, David Iselin, Vanessa Kasties, Wolf Linder, Margit Osterloh, Bernd Roeck, Eric Scheidegger, Andreas Spillmann, Armin Steuernagel, and Alois Stutzer.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).