Tell Me Where to Go: An Experiment in Spreading Visitor Flows in The Netherlands

Cities attracting large numbers of tourists increasingly face crowding and public resistance to tourism growth. As a result, governments strive to spread tourists from the best-known attractions to less-visited locations to improve both residents’ and tourists’ quality of life. Evidence of success and best practices herein is largely anecdotal, and the effects on tourist experience are also unknown. Thus, we undertook a randomized 2 × 2 experiment in the province of Overijssel (The Netherlands), wherein tourists staying at vacation parks near small and mid-sized cities were exposed to informat... Mehr ...