One of the most successful tourism segments in the digital platform economy is that of the free guided walking tours (or free tours). As has been the case with the main driver of tourism activity on platforms, short-term holiday rentals, free tour activity is beginning to be associated with negative impacts in some of the destinations where it is spreading rapidly. Although the platform economy is generating increasing academic interest, the free tour model remains largely unexplored area in the literature. This research examines how such activity affects cultural destinations, its major contribution being the association of the impacts they produce (especially in terms of massification) with destination life-cycle phases. Focusing on the largest Free Tours platform operating in Spain, GuruWalk, the methodology used analyses the impact that this activity produces in six cultural destinations at different stages of their tourism development on two of the dimensions with respect to sustainability: the territorial dimension and the governance or political dimension. The research confirms that the impacts differ according to the tourist destination’s maturity, concluding that such activity contributes to the increase of tourist agglomerations and the overcrowding of cultural destinations in their middle and mature life cycles. The results help to understand the differences that such activity generates in each destination depending on the phase of its life cycle, and to implement, if necessary, corrective measures. To this end, the importance of the role of local governance on free tour activity is highlighted, even though very few examples are identified at national level.

Jorge Rivera-García; Asunción Fernández-Villarán; Ricardo Pastor-Ruiz
UOC; Universidad de Deusto; Universidad Nebrija

 
ID Abstract: 74