Urban Tourism
ATLAS Special Interest Group
Urban Tourism
The coordinators for this Special Interest Group are:
Melanie Kay Smith – Budapest University of Economics and Business, Hungary
Ko Koens – InHolland University of Applied Sciences, Netherlands
Manuela Gutberlet – SRH University, Germany
Ilaria Pappalepore – University of Westminster, United Kingdom
Before the COVID 19 pandemic struck cities were seeing strong increases in visitor numbers. This can be attributed to cities being easily accessible via low-cost-carriers, but also due to the growth of business tourism and the increasing attention of people for cities as places of leisure. Cities, on their part, have also developed, and now offer a wider variety of hospitality and leisure experiences than ever for visitors and residents (e.g. due to Airbnb and the rise of facilities catering for the ‘experience economy’).
The growth did come at a cost though. The resurgence of the critical discussion regarding negative tourism impacts and externalities in the form of overtourism, can be at least partially attributed to the experiences in often-visited (European) city destinations. Most initial academic contributions on overtourism built on earlier work on tourism impacts as they described the issues that came with tourism and including the ways to deal with this, often using single-case studies. However, more recently, more conceptual contributions have been suggested, related to concepts such as degrowth, tourism transformations, mobilities, city hospitality or placemaking.
As tourism seeks to rebuild after the pandemic, cities can be useful places to experiment and investigate. With its wide range of stakeholders, diverse offerings and activities, cities are well suited to act as incubators for innovations in tourism, thus advancing knowledge on both tourism development in cities and beyond, but also on life in cities and urban planning.
Within the Urban Tourism Special Interest Group we seek to contribute to the academic debate on urban tourism, and build relationships with an eye on joint projects that may can help with knowledge development.
If you want to contact the SIG coordinator, please fill in the form HERE
If you want to join this SIG, please fill in the form HERE
ATLAS SIG Soundbite 8 – Urban Tourism
In the ATLAS SIG Soundbites series the different ATLAS Special Interest Groups tell about their SIG.
Annual review of activities – 2026
The Urban Tourism SIG group has been quite active this year. At the last annual ATLAS conference In Vila Seca, we organised a very successful and well-attended Special Track on Liveable Cities, Tourism and Transformation. There were 13 presentations which focused on a combination of themes, including wellbeing and quality of life of different segments of urban populations, transformational and de-growth approaches to city tourism management, and tourist city mobilities. There was also a SIG meeting which 12 members attended where we discussed joint projects and potential methodologies.
Since the conference, we have tried to keep the momentum of the SIG going in terms of joint research planning for liveable cities and publications relating to transformational city development. We organised an online meeting on 6th November 2025 to discuss the indicators that have been collected to measure liveability in cities and to discuss stakeholder interviews and existing and potential research. We also discussed potential publications such as a Special Issue of International Journal of Tourism Cities (e.g. Liveable Cities and Tourism) or with University of Westminster Press (e.g. a book of case studies). We organised an online methodology meeting on 15th April 2026 to discuss the statements that might be included in a resident questionnaire about tourism and liveability, as well as a Q-methdology design for stakeholders. It is hoped that the former questionnaire will be finalised and distributed by summer 2026, whereas the Q-methodology will be implemented in autumn or winter.
Ilaria Pappelapore and Ko Koens have been actively co-ordinating a sub-group of the SIG, whose members have been working on research, case studies and publications relating to post-growth policy transformations in tourism cities. Since its inception at the 2024 annual conference in Breda, this project has now grown to include 15 active participants across 10 cities, with most case study teams having already completed a substantial part of the fieldwork and analysis. The comparative methodology combines document analysis of key tourism policy documents from the past 5–6 years with interviews with policy makers and other stakeholders in each city, and ethics approval was secured prior to data collection. The group has held regular online meetings to maintain progress and coordination, and discussions are now focusing on publication strategies. This topic will be the subject of the Special Track at the ATLAS annual conference in Leeds (2026) entitled Transitions and Transformations in Urban Tourism. Although the focus is partly on policy and governance, we also welcome research on broader issues relating to liveability, including a resident perspective. Thank you very much to Ilaria for all of her efforts!
Ko Koens, Manuela Gutberlet and Melanie Smith recorded an ATLAS podcast about the SIG in January 2026, which can be accessed if potential members would like to hear more about our activities.