COTRI Director Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt discusses overtourism on Germany’s ZDF

COTRI Director Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt made an appearance as part of a German-language documentary broadcast ‘Sommer, Sonne, Urlaubsglück’ (‘Summer, Sun, Vacation Happiness’), which was shown on Monday May, 21^st on ZDF.

As part of a wider piece on the topic of overtourism in various worldwide destinations, Prof. Arlt is interviewed in Hallstatt, Austria, a small town that has started to attract large numbers of Chinese visitors in recent years following the creation of an identically similar town in China.

Discussing the solutions to the problems caused by overtourism, Prof. Arlt suggests to the programme presenter that it is crucial to implement measures to spread the burden of excessive visitor numbers to placate locals in order to avoid potential backlash from residents. This issue is, of course, particularly acute in a small destination such as Hallstatt, which lacks the infrastructure of larger cities that are better-experienced in receiving large numbers of visitors.

Otherwise, should overtourism reach the point that locals begin to retaliate against visitors, they will end up sending the message that visitors are ‘not welcome’ in their destination and consequently drive all tourism business away, to the detriment of the local economy.

‘Sommer, Sonne, Urlaubsglück’ is available on the ZDF media player at: https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/sommer-sonne-urlaubsglueck-100.html.

Prof Arlt’s interview can be found at ’41:20′

Source: ZDF Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, ‘Sommer, Sonne, Urlaubsglück