surtourisme

Surtourisme, or overtourism, is a phenomenon in which the volume of tourists and their activities in a destination exceed the ability of the place to manage them without causing negative effects for residents, visitors, and the environment. The term, commonly used in French and international tourism discourse, describes crowded cities, fragile ecosystems, and degraded quality of life when visitor pressure outpaces housing, transport, services, and governance.

Causes include rising global travel, low-cost carriers, social media-driven discovery of destinations, seasonal peaks, and insufficient planning or capacity constraints. Economic benefits can be large but uneven, often concentrated in a few sectors while residents face higher costs and disruption.

Impacts include overcrowding in public spaces, rising rents and property prices due to short-term rentals, longer queues and congestion, pollution, waste, traffic, noise, and erosion of cultural heritage and local character. Social tensions may arise between residents and visitors, and local services can become strained.

Indicators: high occupancy rates, rapid price inflation, increased length of stay variability, negative resident sentiment, crowding metrics, and constraints on infrastructure.

Responses vary: visitor management policies, caps on visitors or cruise ships, quotas for day-trippers, tourism taxes, zoning and cap on tourist accommodations, investment in public infrastructure, promotion of less-visited areas, and community-led planning. Critiques note that overtourism can reflect governance failures rather than a simple tourism growth issue and advocate inclusive planning and sustainable tourism strategies.