Identifying the sustainability indicators of overtourism and undertourism in Majorca

Abstract

This paper is a first attempt to propose a multidimensional study of overtourism and undertourism in Majorca, a Spanish island and one of the world’s leading mass tourist destinations. The study was conducted before and after the pandemic started through a survey to local stakeholders. They were asked for their perceptions of overtourism and undertourism, what problems these phenomena generate, which sustainability indicator might be used to measure each problem, and, lastly, what solutions they suggest. Three main dimensions were taken (economy and demography, culture, and ecology) to classify the problems, sustainability indicators, and solutions. The main conclusion is the stakeholders’ consensus that both situations are the outcome of an economy based on a tourism monoculture and they view the stoppage brought about by the pandemic as being an opportunity to restructure the current tourism model, mainly by tackling labor conditions, the wellbeing of local residents, and ecological resilience. The sustainability indicators proposed by the respondents could contribute to the establishment of a monitoring system of the problems generated by overtourism and undertourism. Most of these indicators are available in official statistics, but there are others that need to be developed ad hoc.

KEYWORDS:

• Indicators
• overtourism
• undertourism
• stakeholders
• COVID-19
• Majorca

Additional information

Funding

This paper is financed by the European European Regional Development Fund of the European Union, and the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Government to the project “Overtourism in Spanish Coastal Destinations. Tourism Degrowth Strategies” (RTI2018-094844-B-C31).

Notes on contributors

Macià Blázquez-Salom

Dr. Macià Blázquez-Salom is professor in Geography at the University of the Balearic Islands. His research interests include tourism territorial planning and nature conservation from a sustainability perspective. He has been visiting scholar in several European and Central American universities. His most recent publications deal with urban and regional planning regulation and the expansion of the Balearic Islands’ hotel chains in Central America and the Caribbean.

Magdalena Cladera

Magdalena Cladera is associate professor at the Department of Applied Economics, at the University of the Balearic Islands. Her teaching fields are Statistics and Econometrics, in both undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research interests are microeconometric modelling of tourism demand and statistical analysis of teaching in higher education.

Maria Sard

Dra. Maria Sard, associate professor at the Department of Applied Economics at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), degree in Economics (1997) and PhD in Economics and Business (2006) at the same university. She is member of the Consell econòmic i social (CES) of the Balearic Islands. Teaching experience, at level of grade and post grade, in different subjects such as microeconomics, macroeconomics and tourism economics. Researcher specializing in issues related to tourism economics, especially in intermediaries and prices. She has published several papers in journals such as Tourism Management and Tourism Economics.