My interest in Overtourism started when I first heard about it in my first year of study. It was a concept I had heard thrown around a couple of times, but it started to really pique my interest as I continued my studies. I realized that I had encountered Overtourism when I was traveling in 2018, especially in Barcelona, one of the cities that faces the most Overtourism in the world. I remember the streets being overrun by tourists and noticed that they had a bike rental service that was created only for locals as it had been difficult for them to drive in the city due to tourism. In another past class, I brought up Amsterdam as I read an article stating they were removing the famous Amsterdam sign with the hope it would not put Amsterdam as a high priority location for younger and reckless tourists to visit. There were also many locals that stated they had to move away from the city as it was changing to fit the tourist needs rather than the local needs and that it had become a city a family could not be raised in. The removal of this sign was a form of demarketing the city in order to combat Overtourism. In this course, we also learned about strategies to lessen Overtourism which include reducing the use, modifying the location of use, modify the timing, visitor education, site hardening, and rehabilitation of resources. By starting to incorporate even one of these strategies, it will set a course for the destination to be less overrun by visitors, more sustainable, and be available for future use.

On November 16 we had Kellee Caton speak about Ecotourism and transformative tourism and it was one of my favorite lectures I have had over the semester. Kellee defined ecotourism as tourism in a natural setting, with the goal to support conservation, benefit local communities, and educate tourists. Transformative takes the ecotourism idea but is more personalized to each individual as it is a travel experience that changes the perspective of the traveler and allows them to grow from the experience. Kellee also brought up the commodification of nature but also the idea of last chance tourism and how that type of tourism is a destroyed ecosystem in which capitalism will commodify it and profit from it. What I found the most interesting from her lecture was what feeds care into ecotourism. This includes enhancement, deep sensory engagement, the quiet and alternate experience of time. Enchantment focuses on the ethics of ecotourism to involve an effective dimension to make and inspire us. Deep sensory engagement is about becoming engaged in your surrounding without any abstract concepts so on can be fully immersed. Having quiet allows an individual to locate themselves relative to their surroundings and also become more immersed. An alternate experience of time is when there is more reliance on the outdoor environment to determine the seasonality and time of day. By entering into these states, one can experience ecotourism and transformative tourism as it cuts out the abstract elements and allows one to be fully immersed in their environment and grow.