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Overtourism, Environmental Degradation and Governance in Small Islands with Special Reference to Malta

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Shaping the Future of Small Islands

Abstract

This chapter briefly reviews the literature on tourism carrying capacity, sustainable tourism and overtourism, three concepts interlinked with each other, and are often used to stress the costs of tourism development as well as the need for good environmental governance. In the literature, environmental degradation is viewed as one of the downsides of tourism. The chapter presents an overview of the Maltese tourist industry and reports on a survey relating to overtourism in Malta. The results of the survey indicate that most respondents were of the view that overtourism exists in Malta leading to environmental degradation, and this in spite of the lip-service given to sustainable tourism in official government policy statements.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Mulvihill (2016), Scicluna (2017) and Dodds (2007) for a list of tourism downsides in Malta.

  2. 2.

    Low-cost carriers operate from a large number of airports and the name “Malta” is shown on the screens showing arrivals and departure. This serves to make thousands of passengers aware of Malta as a low-cost carrier destination.

  3. 3.

    The MHRA is an association representing the owners of tourism business establishments. More information is Available on line at: http://mhra.org.mt/sample-page/about-the-mhra/

  4. 4.

    https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140617/local/mhra-suggests-setting-maximum-carrying-capacity-for-malta-as-it-calls.523836

  5. 5.

    Available on line at: https://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20180518/local/mhra-tourism-warning.679389

  6. 6.

    Available on line at: https://www.um.edu.mt/newspoint/events/umevents/2017/12/tourismcarrying-capacityinmalta

  7. 7.

    The survey was distributed through Facebook, using a number of Facebook Group sites in Malta. The target of 400 responses by Maltese residents aged 18 and over was set in line with accepted statistical procedure relating to the size of the sample in relation to the population, and once this number of respondents was reached, no further responses were considered. On the advantages and disadvantages of using on-line questionnaires, see Stern et al. (2017) and Kuru and Pasek (2016).

  8. 8.

    In all categories the difference between the proportion of those who agreed and those who disagreed was statistically significant at the 5% level.

  9. 9.

    The manner in which the responses were measured is explained in Briguglio and Avellino (2019).

  10. 10.

    In Malta, the number of tourists in 2018 was about five times the size of the population, rendering Malta as a destination with one of the highest tourist densities in the world. According to Smith (2017), basing on United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) 2014 Statistics, the destinations with the highest tourism density per capita were almost all small islands, with Malta ranking 14th in the world.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Malta, Msida, Malta

    Lino Briguglio & Marie Avellino

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  1. Lino Briguglio
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  2. Marie Avellino
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Correspondence to Lino Briguglio .

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  1. Indian Ocean Commission, Ebène, Mauritius

    John Laing Roberts

  2. Amrita Center for Economics & Governance, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University, Kollam, Kerala, India

    Shyam Nath  & Yeti Nisha Madhoo  & 

  3. ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Satya Paul

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Briguglio, L., Avellino, M. (2021). Overtourism, Environmental Degradation and Governance in Small Islands with Special Reference to Malta. In: Roberts, J.L., Nath, S., Paul, S., Madhoo, Y.N. (eds) Shaping the Future of Small Islands. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4883-3_17

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