Overtourism Regulation in Saint Petersburg Based on the Experience of the World Cultural Destinations

This thesis is devoted to the study of the world cultural destinations' practices to overcome overtourism. The aim of the thesis was to evaluate different methods for combating overtourism and their applicability in the case of Saint Petersburg. It was hypothesized that cultural megalopolises like Saint Petersburg need a system of measures to prevent excess tourist flows. The master thesis consists of 3 chapters. The first chapter presents the theory of overtourism, describes its impact on urban cultural destinations and gives the classification of existing methods and tools for managing excess tourist flows. The second chapter presents the methodology which includes the sample of research and descriptive benchmarking of regulative methods used for combating overtourism. The third chapter includes the overview of tourist flows in Saint Petersburg and recommendations for introducing measures and tools for excess tourist flows regulation in Saint Petersburg. The basis for recommendations development were the obtained results of the study and 5 in-depth interviews regarding applied and planned tools of overtourism regulation in Saint Petersburg with the experts of tourism and hospitality industry. Key words: tourist flows, overtourism, cultural tourism, urban tourism, Saint Petersburg, overcrowding, destinations.