The Tap Keeps Running
Diving deeper into visitor spreading
In my last post I used the metaphor of a running tap. The point was simple: when it comes to visitor dispersion, we are rarely dealing with a fixed number of visitors. The tap keeps running.
One small language note: several native speakers told me that “visitor spread” is the more natural term. So that’s what I’ll use from here on. Thank you!
This week, a group of Master’s students at Breda University of Applied Sciences challenged my thinking. And in those conversations (and others I had over the past week), I realised something: people often mean very different things when they talk about “tourism spread”. And many have strong feelings about it too.
So let me clarify how I think about tourism spread as a concept. Which I think might work best in a descriptive sense, rather than as a quick-fix solution.
So let’s dive in.
First. Spreading tourism is not inherently bad. Having criticism on how a concept is used does not mean that I fully reject the concept itself. In my view, it simply depends on what we mean by it. And if we clarify what we mean by using it.
Do we mean small-scale redirection of visitor flows in crowded locations? Yes, amazing stuff. A tough but proven concept, and very useful to make sure that in the moment you can alleviate some pressure. Of course this works. Let’s learn about it and apply it where necessary!
But do we mean a structural solution for crowded places, where we ‘convince people’ to visit other places? Or at different times? Here the concept falls short, for the reasons that I laid out in my last post. The convincing works less well on a large and structural scale, you are not turning off the tap (so new visitors keep coming), and the visitors you want to spread might not be the ones that other destinations need or want.
You see what is happening here already. We go from a focus of one locality on a specific time with one specific issue, to something broader. With many more stakeholders involved. And here the mechanism simply stops working. Because the concept that works on a small scale simply cannot take into account the large-scale complexities of the second case.
But there is another level. We can also use dispersion in a more descriptive sense of what we want to happen, because of those complexities. In this sense, we, as responsible and thoughtful members of the societies that we get the honor to work in tourism for:
Tourism spread becomes less of a tool and more of a way of looking. Tourism is growing, and it will likely keep growing (in the Netherlands alone, we expect an additional 10 million visitors by 2035). Tourism can bring real benefits, but it also comes with real externalities.
And what we call “tourism growth” is not one thing. It is a flow of very different people, with different motivations, values, needs and impacts. Places are not interchangeable either. Some are already beyond capacity and want nothing more. Others may depend on a modest visitor economy just to keep their only supermarket alive.
If we take those realities seriously, then “spreading” is not about moving people around as a trick. It becomes a question of how we distribute benefits where they are wanted and needed, while minimising the negative effects where they are not.
This is also tourism spreading. Not as a micro-solution or a quick and easy-to-understand concept to move beyond tough overtourism discussions. Rather, it is a description of a complicated and complex question that destinations have to deal with. One that might be somewhat tougher to understand, with many, many stakeholders involved on multiple levels.
We should make time to dare to dive deeper into these complicated questions. Not just on dispersion, but also on other container topics. Destination management, sustainability, regeneration, digitalisation are topics that come to mind. They deserve not to be touched on quickly on a conference stage, but to be explored deeply and thoroughly.
And maybe the next step is simply this: when we talk about tourism spread, let’s slow down and ask what we mean. Because, as those Master’s students made very clear to me this week, the answer changes everything.