Is Antarctica subject to overtourism? Views from expedition ship passengers and workers

• Published in: Tourism geographies Vol. 27; no. 5; pp. 1039 - 1056
• Main Authors: Hardy, Anne, Leane, Elizabeth, Marx, Katie, Ooi, Can Seng, Philpott, Carolyn, Nielsen, Hanne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 04.07.2025
• Subjects: Antarctic tourism; Antarctica; Mary Mostafanezhad, University of Hawaii at Mānoa; overtourism; polar tourism; regional tourism; remote locations
• ISSN: 1461-6688; 1470-1340
• DOI: 10.1080/14616688.2025.2504028

The growth of Antarctic tourism has been widely reported in popular media over the last two years. These reports have included those that question whether any tourism should occur at all, those that urge readers to cease their travel plans, and those that call for caps on numbers and enhanced regulations. The term 'overtourism' has been used in some of these media discussions. But what does the concept of overtourism mean in a continent with no permanent residents? In this article, we examine this issue through the lens of visitors to the continent: cruise-ship passengers and employees who visited over the Austral season of 2022-2023. Using semi-structured interviews of 122 passengers and 13 employees on five separate expedition voyages, we explore the attitudes of the largest user group of Antarctica, the tourism industry, towards overtourism. Particularly striking in our results are passengers' and employees' own sense of the risk of overtourism in the region, and the internal tension this creates. Ultimately this paper progresses debates over Antarctic tourism management and extends understandings of the potential indicators of overtourism in remote regions.