WebinarOnline
The destination lifecycle revisited: Navigating overtourism and fostering sustainable growth in a post-pandemic world
Friday, 15 January 2027
How can lifecycle thinking help destinations respond to overtourism, changing demand and environmental limits?
About this event
Destinations may experience growth, consolidation, renewal or decline, but their trajectories rarely follow a simple sequence. This webinar revisits destination life cycle theory in relation to overtourism, climate vulnerability and structural changes following the pandemic. It considers how established models can support diagnosis without being treated as fixed predictions. Particular attention will be given to the spatial and seasonal character of tourism pressure, since conditions can differ sharply among neighbourhoods, attractions and resident groups within one destination.
Panellists will analyse market diversification, longer seasons, visitor dispersal and destination repositioning. The discussion will ask whether these strategies reduce pressure or move environmental and social costs to places with less capacity to manage them. It will examine housing, infrastructure, public space, ecosystem limits and resident attitudes as evidence of destination health. Growth will be considered as one possible objective rather than an unquestioned measure of success, and alternatives such as stabilisation or managed reduction will be discussed.
Participants will gain diagnostic tools for comparing visitor demand with social and ecological capacity. They will learn to identify relevant scales of analysis, establish locally meaningful thresholds and evaluate how interventions affect different communities over time. The session will also consider governance arrangements that allow policy to change when evidence indicates that a strategy is failing. Delegates will be equipped to use life cycle concepts critically while developing destination policies based on resident wellbeing, environmental limits and the quality rather than the volume of tourism activity. This makes theoretical models useful for practical policy decisions.
Featured speakers
RB
Richard Butler
Professor Emeritus · University of Strathclyde