With the explicit objective of comparing the impact of the global mass tourism industry in these city-cases, and while tracking the public debate regarding the management of the tourism industry, this research is based on a qualitative analysis of:
• media texts (published in various newspapers around the world, printed and online);
• publications in social media (including YouTube and Twitter);
• participant-observation of protest acts;
• visual documentation of both the impacts of mass tourism and the protest and dissent acts orchestrated by local inhabitants;
• participation in community meetings;
• review of specialized reports created by corporations, NGOs, local goverments or international bodies such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO);
• interviews and informal conversations with activists, local authorities, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders of the global tourism industry.
Through the analysis of these varied discourses and narratives, the main results of the RIGHTS UP project are a better understanding of the motivations of local activists for engaging in protest act against global mass tourism, which seem to be mainly associated to two key subjects: the lack of affordable housing and the transformation of the economic tissue of the neighborhoods (for example, to fulfill the needs of visitors instead of the needs of the local inhabitants). The RIGHTS UP project also helps to demystify the idea that local authorities are mainly responsible for the ‘overtourism’ crisis, by pointing out the complex political and economic forces at play at the global scale. In this sense, there is a power struggle between major global corporations and national and local authorities that are unable to fully-manage tourism as an industry. This analysis also addresses the transformation and commodification of the city, which is re-framed as a ‘tourist destination’, as part of a broader discussion on the notion of the ‘right to the city’. Finally, the RIGHTS UP project also examines some of the strategies and policies set in place by local authorities in order to regulate the so-called ‘disorderly behavior’ of tourists, while bringing into question both the scope and limits of these campaigns, and theorizing about the impact that these measure have for the overall management of shared public spaces.
It is expected that these results will impact the discussion on both the management of tourism at the city and national level, while also contributing to deconstruct the stereotypes frequently associated with ‘protesters’. In this sense, the social movements engaging in criticism of the global tourism industry are highly diverse, they seem to have specialized in the issues affecting their communities, they actively produce information to counteract official narratives about both mass tourism and their protests acts, and they foster a diverse narrative about the city and its future (for example, the city as a lived space instead of as a commodity for profiting). These narratives contradicts common views about the protesters, oftentimes also promoted by local and national authorities, which depict them as ‘ignorant’ or 'radical'. The RIGHTS UP project calls into question media buzzwords such as 'overtourism' and 'tourism-phobia', and explains the political uses associated to these terms.
