**1. Introduction**

In recent years, the contemporary discussion on the negative effects of tourism development in cities has unfolded under the label of overtourism, stemming from an increasing and uncontrolled tourists' flow concentration in urban centers [1–3]. The phenomenon is characterized primarily in a social context as there are, most of all, the residents who "suffer the consequences of temporary and seasonal tourism peaks, which have enforced permanent changes to their lifestyles, access to amenities and general well-being" [4]. Despite the discussion of whether or not the overtourism syndrome is new and limited to a few destinations and urban centers [1,2,5,6], many experts indicate the occurrence of open social conflicts. It seems to be the most characteristic constituent and manifestation of overtourism [7–9]. As Goodwin [3] noted, in circumstances of unacceptable deterioration of residents' quality of life (and also visitors' experiences) in the area, they take measures against it. In addition, the dynamic course of conflicts, their political overtones, and global media coverage are stressed [10,11]. This is why overtourism (or at least its "social landscape") is associated synonymously with such terms as tourismphobia [12] and anti-tourism [13].

The problem is crucial as the danger for destinations affected by overtourism can lead to the creation of a protracted social conflict [14], fostered by changing actors and the lack of a clear beginning and end. Thus, responsible urban tourism governance requires the ability to diagnose the conflict and conflict management [15,16] and work out the tailored-made solutions for managing overtourism. However, the nature of overtourism is complex, and its causes, range, and intensity are always conditioned by the local context [2,8,9]. Therefore, despite the efforts in [17], the literature lacks universal and commonly agreed methods and tools for measuring the phenomenon, while it is easier to propose techniques for limiting or preventing its development [18,19]. Therefore, even if the debate on overtourism seems to be exploited and even overused, it still lacks conceptual precision in its delineation of constituent elements and processes [1,2]. In this context, focusing on social tensions and the conflicts related thereto, overtourism opens avenues to reach the core of the phenomenon and also to learn about the most important and burning issues arising from it. As an indispensable part of social life, conflicts emanate errors or side effects of changes taking place in cities, calling for the need for corrections [9,15,20–23]. Therefore, by recognizing the cause and nature of social conflicts arising in cities potentially or actually affected by overtourism, one can explore the characteristics of the phenomenon itself profoundly.

This article aims to frame the overtourism discussion into the social conflict theory by adopting conflict deconstructing methods in order to diagnose the constructs and intensity of disputes associated with overtourism. Hence, we answer Kreiner's, Shmueli's, and Ben Gal's [24] call who state that tourism literature is "in need of a systematic theory of conflict in tourism that addresses factors such as the nature of the conflict, conflict management, conflict resolution, and conflict mitigation". In pursuit of this aim, this study addresses the following two research questions: (1) To what extent has the heuristic power of the conflict theory been used in overtourism discourse, including the delineation of social conflict types? and (2) How can the state and intensity of overtourism be measured by the nature of social conflicts referring to urban tourism development?

Thus, we have conducted a review of the extant literature on tourism to recognize the relationships between tourism development and conflict theory, as well as identify approaches, strategies, and tools developed to address overtourism issues. In the empirical section, we apply the multidimensional Circle of Conflict (CC) model, adapted from Moore [25], to diagnose the disputes related to urban tourism development. As overtourism is a particular city context-dependent phenomenon, we adopt the case study method by conducting field research in two Polish cities to verify the model, i.e., in Krakow and Poznan.

We contribute to a better understanding of the overtourism development mechanism and its management by including the social conflict theory in the discussion. We also propose and verify a method and tool for diagnosing the potential and actual disputes related to overtourism, assuming that overtourism is a social phenomenon, and thus it manifests through social conflicts. According to the findings, the presence of the phenomenon could be identified by studying the structure of the social conflicts related to it. Thus, the deconstruction of functional sources of conflicts expand the knowledge of the overtourism development process.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: First, the Materials and Methods Section is introduced. Next, the Systematic Literature Review Section presents a literature review, starting with the nature of social conflicts, then analyzing the conflict approaches in urban tourism development studies and focusing on strategies and tools used to manage the excessive tourism in cities. On the basis of the conclusions resulting from the theory, the local contexts and the findings of the study are presented, divided into two sections, the Krakow section and the Poznan section. The Discussion and Conclusions Section confront the findings with the existing literature. Finally, the contributions of this study are highlighted, as well as limitations of the study and roads for further research.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

The study applied both secondary and primary sources of information and data. In order to address the question, "To what extent the heuristic power of the conflict theory has been used in overtourism discourse (including the delineation of social conflict types)?", the traditional selection of narrative literature was conducted, focusing on such areas as social conflicts, tourism development, and overtourism.

To present the developed research paths on social conflicts within overtourism discourse, a systematic literature review was applied. Two scientific databases were used, Web of Science (Thomson Reuters) and Scopus (Elsevier). The bases were chosen because of the vast number of confirmed high-quality journals [26]. The research included only scientific articles indexed in both databases, dated on 14 November 2019. The procedure consisted of the following steps: First, the search terms were selected and included "overtourism and conflict\*", "overtourism and protest\*", and "overtourism and dispute\*". Secondly, to assess a volume of available studies, an initial scanning was conducted, accessing the Web of Science and Scopus databases. As a result, 24 records were yielded, which included at least one of the mentioned research phrases in the title, abstract, or keywords. After sieving the material and removing duplicates, 11 papers were considered for detailed content analysis (for the listing see Appendix A). The analysis focused mainly on recognizing the conflicts' triggers and tools incorporated to address the particular matters. The retrieved works presented both empirical and theoretical articles, released from 2017 to 2019. The 11 core studies were also complemented by other studies relevant to the research problem, which were selected arbitrarily by the authors.

For the empirical layer of the study, the Moore's [25] Circle of Conflict model was applied as the conceptual framework. The model is rooted in the conflict orientation perspective, which recognizes the perspectives the conflict parties identify and understands the issues and objectives of the conflict, and places these issues within the context of the conflict. According to the author, the model has a universal nature and can be adapted to every type of conflict situation and intervention level. In the tourism field, the model was used for the deconstruction of conflicts in the process of spatial planning for tourism in Troia-Melides Coast, Portugal [27], and for the assessment of key actors' predispositions in urban tourism systems for managing the mediation process within conflicts caused by overtourism [16].

According to the model, the conflicts are usually caused by many coinciding factors. Only a few of them relate to the main problem domain. However, the characteristic feature of every type of collective conflicts is their reference to universal aspects of interpersonal relationships. Thus, it is crucial to identify them and adopt appropriate methods and tools of intervention. The model identifies the following components of universal conflict dimensions [25]: values, relationship, data, structural matters, and interests. As it is impossible to weigh their importance (only their intensity could be assessed) or study them separately, in the model they are presented as a circle of conflict (see Figure 1). Moore claims that a conceptual or "conflict map" is needed to work effectively on conflicts. Such a conflict map details why the conflict occurs, identifies barriers to settlement, and indicates procedures to manage or resolve the dispute. That is why the recognition of parties' attitudes, relationships between them, shared and opposite values, the extent to which they can access and interpret information, their interests, and structural conditions of conflicts is more important than the recognition of the actual merits behind them. Nevertheless, convergences and discrepancies between all the causes are significant. The model can be applied to diagnose the conflicts, and also to propose intervention tasks according to the identified conflict cause types.

**Figure 1.** The Circle of Conflicts in the tourism context, adapted from Moore [25].

To verify the Circle of Conflict model [25] as a method for diagnosing and deconstructing disputes associated with overtourism, we used a two case-based approach. The case study method lets a researcher explain the rich context of the studied phenomenon and create analytical generalization [28,29]. We decided to research two Polish cities, Krakow and Poznan, which are similar in population potential, but at the same time they differ in the context of tourism potential. Thus, the cities were chosen on the basis of the following three criteria: (1) the size of the city, (2) connectivity, and (3) the tourism potential (see Table 1). Both cities are major metro areas of comparable size of more than one million inhabitants. The differences in other spheres are significant. The connectivity and tourism indicators are 3.5 times higher in Krakow than in Poznan. Moreover, the review of public reports, official documents, local press, and electronic media allowed us to evaluate the extent of overtourism issues experienced in both cities. In Krakow, the dispute related to overcrowding and tourismification of historical areas was manifested as a public issue; meanwhile, in Poznan, overtourism was discussed as a potential threat. We argue that these different overtourism development stages are the rationale base for verifying the proposed method.


**Table 1.** Selected statistics for metropolitan areas of Krakow and Poznan.

Sources: references [30–34].

In each city the representatives of the key institutions involved in tourism planning and management were interviewed, using the structured interview method [35]. The researchers in both cities used the same instruction to follow the logic of questions. The interviews were conducted with the representatives (managing directors or public officials) of key entities (public, private, and non-profit) engaged in a tourism destination. At first, the informants were selected purposefully based on the knowledge of the researchers of tourism governance in both cities. Additionally, the snowball method was applied to yield the samples.

In the interview guideline, there were two questions that referred to overtourism and five questions that discussed the nature and dynamics of conflicts concerning tourism development in each city (see Appendix B). The core of the interview was the informants' assessment of the causative element of the conflicts they recognized, as Furlong [36] notes, "managing conflict effectively is a simple two-step process that starts with how we assess the conflict we are facing, followed by what action (or inaction) we decide to take to address it". The informants were asked to rate (with a five-grade scale, where 1 referred to the lowest intensity and 5 referred to the highest intensity), and then justify or discuss the intensity of each causative factor of disputes forming five universal conflict meta-categories (dimensions), i.e., values, relationship, data, structural matters, and interests. The factors and their characteristics were derived from the CC model [25]. Due to the complex nature of overtourism and the number of factors forming meta-categories (16 in total), the grade element was applied to structuralize the interviews and to help the informants relate each assessment to other answers. As the CC model does not impose the form of measurement, the grading is a rarely used technique [16,25]. Most researchers focused on open questions, limiting the number of the discussed issues [27].

In addition to the main questions, the researchers were provided with ancillary options for refining the respective topics. The informants were able to assess the intensity of occurrence of conflict causes, according to the meta-categories (dimensions) of the CC model [25]. Additionally, two questions about the informants' organizational affiliation were used for coding purposes. In the interview guideline, we used open questions and rating questions; however, the interview consisted mainly of the informants' comments. For the interview design template, see Appendix B.

The research was carried in two rounds as follows: March to April 2018 in Krakow, and May to June 2019 in Poznan. Eventually, we conducted 15 interviews in total (given by 19 informants in total), including 6 in Krakow and 9 in Poznan. The most extended interview lasted 80 min and the shortest one 31 min. On collating the results, we conducted the descriptive and substantive content analysis. Two researchers read every interview. Given the low number of interviews and the nature of the problem and the need for generalization, the use of advanced methods of data analysis appeared to be unjustified.

#### **3. Systematic Literature Study**

#### *3.1. Social Conflict: Theoretical Perspectives and Applications*

Conflict is a term popularly used in contemporary colloquial, journalistic, and scientific language. The systematic studies started in the 1950s and led, among other things, to the rise of the science of conflict [37]. Taking into account the disciplines for which conflict is an essential issue, Adamus-Matuszy ´nska [38] listed the following research perspectives and approaches to this issue: (1) psychological perspective (including psychodynamic concepts); (2) psychosocial approach (from Georg Simmel's considerations, through Morton Deutsch's studies, to Axel Honneth's thoughts); (3) sociological perspective, developed in the 1950s in response to Talcott Parsons' functionalism (i.e., the works by Lewis Coser and Ralf Dahrendorf which are still the dominant paradigms in sociology); (4) political approach (socio-political, with John Burton and Johan Galtung as representatives); (5) economic approach (Kenneth E. Boulding); and (6) ecological approach.

As Boulding [39] and Coleman [40] point out, the complexity and multidimensionality of conflicts require an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the causes of conflict and the possibilities of resolving it. However, as Druckman notes [41], such an approach is associated with controversies. The result varies, among others, from the relationship between a basic and an applied research (or the theory and practice), the presence, since Wittgenstein–Popper dispute, of an epistemological dilemma, between a positivist and constructivist attitude towards knowledge, or a methodological dilemma.

Still, the most popular approaches to social conflict and also in tourism studies (see [15,27,42,43]) evoke Simmel's, Marx's, or Dahrendorf's approaches, and especially Lewis A. Coser's [44] framework [38]. According to the latter approach [44], conflict-generating mechanisms refer to

access to power and resources in a structured society. Thus, conflict does not always have to cause social change, and the play between entities does not always have a zero-sum response, which means that a victory of one entity does not always take place to the detriment of the other. Therefore, two kinds of social conflict can be distinguished, internal and external. The former concerns purposes, values, and interests. If it does not concern the foundations of local social relationships, it is positively functional for the structure of society (it rectifies problems associated with the system of power or an axio-normative system). The conflict reaching the fundamental values of a specific group carries a severe risk of destroying it. External conflicts are associated with the external enemy mechanism directed towards another group, i.e., a majority group can be perceived as hostile to goals, needs, and aims of minority groups. The presence of the enemy is perceived as a reason for power to defend a group's values and interests. Coser [44] also distinguishes between non-realistic and realistic conflict. The former, the stimulated one, aims at releasing tension and preserving the structure of a group rather than producing specific results. The latter derives from a situation in which failing to meet the specific needs brings about frustration with an objective and a real source. In Coser's view, social conflict creates various associations and coalitions, which, in effect, provide a structure for a broader social environment.

As far as the tourism studies perspective is considered, the most important recent founders of social conflict conceptualization should also be showcased as follows:


As already mentioned, there is a need, among modern conflict researchers, to apply an interdisciplinary approach in the conflict analysis process (see [38]). As Honneth [47] argues, interpreting conflict only in a political perspective or as concerning economic redistribution is short-term oriented as it does not reach the "moral grammar of social conflicts". As Furlong [36] stresses, it is not possible to resolve the conflict effectively without having an ability to translate conflict theory into models and tools that help to diagnose the specific conflict correctly and choose the suitable, tailor-made actions and effective interventions.
