MIXED-METHODS INVESTIGATION OF OVERTOURISM READINESS: INTEGRATING TOURIST DISPERSION AND TOUR OPERATOR PRACTICES FOR STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK DEVELOPMENT
Keywords:
overtourism, tourist dispersal strategies, sustainable tourism development, destination management, tour operators, travel agencies, PINSTDFAbstract
The rapid concentration of tourists in a limited number of Philippine destinations has intensified overtourism-related pressures on infrastructure, the environment, and visitor experience, yet localized, statistically grounded evidence on how tourism intermediaries respond to these pressures remains scarce. This study examined the level of overtourism and the extent of implementation of tourist dispersal strategies among tour operators and travel agencies in the National Capital Region (NCR) and selected provincial areas of the Philippines, and explored the lived experiences that underlie these responses. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. In the quantitative phase, a researcher-developed, expert-validated questionnaire (overall Cronbach's alpha = 0.909) was administered to 136 purposively sampled tour operators and travel agency representatives. In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 key informants selected through criterion-based purposive sampling, and analyzed thematically following Braun and Clarke's (2006) six-phase approach. Overtourism conditions were rated "strongly evident" across tourist concentration (M = 3.64, SD = 0.55), environmental and infrastructure pressure (M = 3.56, SD = 0.57), and visitor experience and satisfaction (M = 3.65, SD = 0.54). Tourist dispersal strategies were "highly implemented," particularly through digital platforms and marketing (M = 3.66, SD = 0.51), itinerary diversification (M = 3.60, SD = 0.53), and promotion of secondary destinations (M = 3.50, SD = 0.59). A Spearman rank-order correlation revealed a strong, positive, and statistically significant relationship between overtourism conditions and dispersal-strategy implementation (ρ = 0.713, p < .001), leading to rejection of the null hypothesis. Thematic analysis of the interviews yielded five themes: operational congestion and service pressure, infrastructure and capacity constraints, emotional and customer-relationship strain, adaptive strategic responses, and a divergent view of overtourism as both an opportunity and a challenge. Triangulation of the two strands showed convergence on the severity and operational nature of overtourism, complementarity in explaining how and why dispersal strategies are adopted, and divergence in stakeholder attitudes toward rising visitor volumes. Building on these integrated findings, the study proposes the Philippine Integrated National Sustainability Tourist Dispersion Framework (PINSTDF), which combines destination diversification, smart tourism management, infrastructure development, collaborative governance, sustainability management, and community participation. The findings position tour operators and travel agencies not as passive intermediaries but as active agents of tourist redistribution, and offer an evidence-based, theoretically grounded framework to guide policymakers and industry stakeholders toward more balanced and resilient tourism development in the Philippines.
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