STERNA

Overtourism doesn’t just crowd a destination, it dilutes it. Across the globe, the unique soul of a city is being traded for mass-market appeal. The pressure to capitalise on tourist influxes turns historic neighbourhoods into carbon copies of one another. 

We see it everywhere. Local bakeries, grocery stores and workshops are replaced with luggage storage, shops filled with mass-produced souvenirs and Instagrammable brunch spots serving the same menu, no matter where you are in the world. The unique essence of a place is softened until every destination feels identical. 

“When the bakery that has fed a neighbourhood for generations becomes a bubble tea shop for tourists, the locals stop feeling like hosts and start feeling like extras in a movie they didn’t audition for,” says Akmal Pulat, founder and CEO of the responsible travel company GEOTREND. Based in the South Caucasus, GEOTREND curates responsible, private tours designed to protect local communities while fostering authentic connection.

With over a decade in the industry, Pulat joins STERNA to discuss overcoming overtourism and to reveal a new, technologically enhanced solution for the modern traveller. 

Steering a different course

The negative repercussions experienced in the world’s most popular destinations serve as a warning for others headed down the same path. In Tbilisi, the most prominent warning sign Pulat sees is the retail displacement of the daily essentials. “It’s the exact same symptom that signaled the breaking point in Barcelona,” notes Pulat.

“In Tbilisi, we are seeing this monoculture creep into the historic districts. The warning sign isn’t just the crowd; it’s the loss of the invisible economy. Once a neighbourhood loses its functional diversity (like the local farmer shop, cobbler, neighbourhood tavern, or traditional bakery), then it loses its resilience,” he adds.

The GEOTREND founder believes that the  biggest outdated mindset that needs to change, is the belief that volume equals success. For decades, tourism boards have been focussed on the total number of arrivals each year. However, Pulat explains that they need to start thinking about how to distribute intent across the destination’s local gems. 

“It’s a shift from quantity (arrivals) to value (sustainability and local impact). If destinations continue to ignore the invisible economy of local shops, artisans, and off-path hospitality providers just to keep the main landmark busy, they aren’t growing. Instead they are liquidating the very soul of the place,” Pulat states.

A hunger for hidden gems

In a positive shift, Pulat has witnessed the gradual decline of the checklist mentality over the past decade. When he first started out in the industry, the majority of travellers in the Caucasus wanted to go to the hotspots.  

However today, he shares, “there is a visible growing hunger for exclusivity. I see more travellers rejecting the ‘Instagram-famous’ spots in favour of authenticity. They are asking for the village with unmarked ateliers and a family makes a unique type of cheese that’s been handed down for generations.

“They aren’t looking for a standard guided tour, instead they are looking for an admission into a local reality. More travellers want to support the local economy and find the off-the-beaten-path experience. But the current popular tools only point them back to the crowds.”

Seeing these trends, Pulat realised travellers need a smarter way to find what they’re already looking for. 

Is agentic geospatial AI the solution?

According to Statista, social media has become the main resource for travel inspiration. In 2024, the most popular hashtag on Instagram was “travel”. That same year, 40% of people used LLMs like ChatGPT for holiday research. The problem is the algorithms end up pushing the same destinations and suggestions to the forefront.

To counteract this, bringing more hidden gems into the mix and diluting the flow of traffic, GEOTREND is building an agentic geospatial AI. 

Using a proprietary integrated rating of sustainability, local establishments will be ranked by their contribution to the community and environment, rather than public popularity. A gamified element will reward travellers with discounts and benefits when using the app to visit local, independent institutions. An additional contribution will go to the establishment itself.

How to avoid locals becoming zoo attractions

The fear is that by guiding people to quieter, local spots, you end up ruining these places too. So how can you support local businesses without ‘loving them to death’? Pulat answers: “Our agentic geospatial AI addresses this through a ‘controlled discovery’. It will act as a digital steward, monitoring live neighbourhood density and preserving the balance between visitor discovery and local life. If data suggests that a location is reaching its optimal capacity, the AI will naturally reduce its visibility in search results.”

He expresses the importance of avoiding a living neighbourhood becoming a museum exhibit. Instead, it’s about quality over quantity: the platform aims to help small businesses thrive with a smaller number of respectful, high-value guests who genuinely want to support the business.

“By focusing on the story of the craft and the direct community impact of the visit, we make the off-path choice feel like a VIP upgrade. When you provide a traveller with a sense of agency and the feeling that they are hacking the system to find the real soul of the city, they don’t feel diverted, they feel like they’ve won,” explains Pulat.

Turning tourism into a circular economy

For the travel and tourism industry to thrive in the future, it needs to adopt a more circular economy. Solely focussing on the revenue and tourist tax is extractive, and the traveller feels no connection to the impact. 

An alternative solution is creating a system where the traveller’s behaviour generates a contribution to the future of the location. “The act of visiting becomes the act of investing,” says Pulat.

“We want to move from an extractive economy, where a traveler takes a photo and leaves, to a restorative one, where the very presence of a conscious traveller provides the resources for a local business to evolve and be sustainable. That is the only way tourism remains viable in the 21st century,” concludes Pulat.