*4.3. The Concentration of Investments in Cities and Overtourism*

The year-on-year increase in tourist traffic causes that many cities in the world face the problem of excessive numbers of tourists. Pressure on urban centers resulting from tourism has led to the popularization of the term "overtourism." Despite its popularity, the term is still not clearly defined and even interpreted differently. This is due to the fact that it describes a multidimensional and complex problem that concerns not only stakeholders from the tourism and non-tourism industry, but also requires a broader view of it in the context of social and urban development [49]. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) defines overtourism as the impact of tourism on a destination, or parts thereof, that excessively influences perceived quality of life of citizens and/or quality of visitor experiences in a negative way [19]. The rapid development of tourism is now an important problem concerning mainly urban population. An example is southern Europe, where the number of protests and social movements against the wave of tourists who flood attractive tourist cities is growing. The dissatisfaction of city residents has led to the emergence of organizations, such as the Assembly of Neighborhoods for Sustainable Tourism (ABTS) and the Network of Southern European Cities against tourism (SET). Tourist organizations have published a number of reports in which they describe ways of dealing with overtourism [50,51], which now constitutes an important problem for tourism development. In this respect, this part of the article will focus on the investment attractiveness of cities

and investment gaps in the context of excessive investment and the threat of overtourism. For this purpose, 30 cities with the greatest potential investment attractiveness and the highest increase in the number of accommodation sites were selected for detailed analysis and case study. 31% of all accommodation sites in Poland are located in these cities (Table 11). They also comprised 51% of newly created accommodation sites in the years 2012–2017. However, these cities differ in many features, including the number of citizens, economic functions, natural and anthropogenic values. The analysed group included 15 cities that perform mainly economic and social functions in the regions. They are characterized by an above-average number of inhabitants, as well as numerous cultural values and historic sites. Another 15 cities are distinguished primarily by natural values related to the seaside or mountain location. The specificity of these values above all determined the formation of various forms of leisure tourism.


**Table 11.** Accommodation infrastructure by types of municipalities.

Source: Author's own elaboration.

Cities with the largest investments differ from each other, due to their natural and anthropogenic values. Investors choose both large voivodship cities, such as Warszawa, Kraków, Gda ´nsk, Pozna ´n, Toru ´n, Rzeszów, Legnica, as well as smaller cities located in the coastal zone: Władysławowo, Kołobrzeg, Krynica Morska, Swinouj´ ´ scie, and in the mountainous areas: Szklarska Por˛eba, Polanica-Zdrój, Karpacz (Table 12).

The comparison of the results of potential investment attractiveness with actual investments indicates that investors are not always interested in areas with high potential investment attractiveness. This is confirmed by the relatively low value of the correlation coefficient at the level of *r* = 0.47 (Table 6) between the number of newly created accommodation sites and the investment attractiveness indicator. It is also worth emphasizing the seasonality of demand in tourism and its impact on investment. Cities retain their tourism attractiveness for most of the year, while coastal and lakeside towns attract tourists mainly in summer during the holiday season. This has an impact on the nature of tourism development and tourism income. The high concentration of demand in the summer months means that investors in cities and large coastal cities are increasing their accommodation base, hoping for an increase in income. This can also be explained by the intense development in the coastal belt and the increasingly frequent phenomenon of overinvestment and overtourism. The intensive development of the accommodation base may lead to a situation in which a given location begins to lose its original tourist attractiveness.

Crowded promenades, museums, restaurants, and swimming pools, traffic jams, noise, littering streets, intense nightlife, and in some cases increased crime, make attractive cities a holiday horror for both residents and tourists. Monitoring this phenomenon is currently an important aspect of managing tourism development and assessing the real investment attractiveness of cities.


**Table 12.** Real investment attractiveness in cities–list of the most attractive.

Source: Author's own elaboration based on statistical data of Central Statistical Office in Poland.

#### **5. Discussion and Final Conclusions**

The obtained research results on the factors of development of real tourism investments correspond to the results obtained by other researchers [23,25,27,31]; however, only in relation to cities. It turned out that the key factors determining tourism investments in cities are the degree of urbanization and the level of economic development. In particular, this concerns the examined microclimate of technical and social infrastructure, as well as tourist attractions. At the same time, it was observed that in the case of rural municipalities, this regularity was not confirmed. In this case, the determinants of real tourism investments were mainly natural values. This applies especially to rural municipalities located in the coastal belt and in mountainous areas.

Tourism is a complex system, which means that the aim of planning in this field must be the integrated development of all elements of this system, both in the area of demand and supply, as well as in relation to physical and institutional elements [52].

Despite the fact that the phenomenon of overtourism results from an excessive number of tourists, i.e., too high demand, in the case of many types of tourism this phenomenon can also be analyzed from the supply side. This is especially true for seaside holiday tourism. Massive investments related to the creation of new accommodation sites, restaurants, shops and entertainment facilities are largely responsible for tourist traffic in coastal towns. A vicious uncontrolled circle of tourism development is created, in which new investments stimulate the increase in tourist demand (Figure 5). The development of supply increases the tourism attractiveness of the place and encourages tourists to an increased number of trips. Exceeding the tourist capacity creates the aforementioned discomfort in both residents and tourists, as well as the local economic environment.

As previously emphasized, one of the directions of mitigating the effects of overtourism is the use of investment gaps, which arise as a result of not using the potential attractiveness of a given location by investors. Investment attractiveness indicators can be used to assess the investment possibilities of a location.

Tourism investments are characterized by strong concentration. Investors often make decisions based on market observation and supply, hoping to obtain similar location benefits as the competition. Unfortunately, this often leads to overinvestment and the process of withdrawing the investment from the given location. Overinvestment in tourism is one of the reasons for overtoursim. An example of this can be coastal resorts that are under siege of tourists during the summer. During the holiday season, tourist traffic is concentrated in time and space. This situation applies not only to large coastal cities, but also to smaller towns, where the ratio of tourists to residents is very high and has exceeded the critical point.

**Figure 5.** Uncontrolled circle of tourism development. Source: Author's own elaboration.

Cities, due to their specificity, have different values that determine the location of economic activity, which relate to historical conditions, cultural and natural values, as well as the business environment. These conditions determine the development of various forms of tourism, which in some cities occur as individual tourist specialties, or in others as a bundle of tourist attractions and opportunities for the development of various forms of tourism. A set of specific conditions and location factors determines the potential investment attractiveness and provides incentives for investors from the tourism industry.

The presented research results allow for the formulation of several conclusions relating to the current state and future situation on the map of Poland's investment attractiveness for the tourism industry. There is a large spatial diversity of investment attractiveness in Poland. The east-west divide is particularly visible. This is due to the course of existing socio-economic processes, a higher concentration of population density and entrepreneurship in western Poland. In spatial distribution, the high investment attractiveness of cities that act as the centers of regions or subregions can be observed. This phenomenon occurs in regions with different levels of investment attractiveness.

The location of tourist companies is characterized by strong spatial concentration. Almost half of the accommodation sites in Poland are located in large and medium-sized cities. At the same time, the largest number of new accommodation sites were created in cities in the period under review. The observed disproportions between the potential and actual investment attractiveness are worrying. High concentration of investments in cities can lead to overinvestment and the phenomenon of overtourism. One of the directions of actions that can be taken to mitigate its effects is the use of investment gaps and the spatial dispersion of tourist attractions and accommodation sites.

Limitations regarding the smaller study included mainly the availability of data used to present the complex phenomenon of investment attractiveness for tourism. Despite the availability of some indicators in official statistics, there is still a lack of information at the local level regarding many elements of tourism development, transport and natural components. This data could enrich the model and improve its interpretation capabilities.

This paper provides new evidence on investment attractiveness in tourism, as well as the investment gap. Moreover, it responds to the current debate on overtourism, as it indicates investment gaps that can be used in tourism policy and tourism development planning. Finally, it opens a series of new avenues for potential research, for example, searching for a mechanism and conditions for structural changes in tourism, especially the role of diffusion of innovations, innovation gaps in rural tourism [53], cooperation networks and entrepreneurial ecosystems that are conducive to investment.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Data Curation, Writing—Original Draft, Writing—Review & Editing, Visualization, Project administration, Supervision, Investigation: P.Z.; Resources, Formal analysis, Software: P.Z., G.K., E.M.-M.; O.O.

**Funding:** Grzegorz Kwiatkowski and Ove Oklevik.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
