The paper begins by acknowledging the controversies surrounding mass tourism and the inadequacy of terms like "sustainable tourism." It focuses on the dominant form of modern tourism, characterized by significant material and immaterial transformations to increase accommodation capacity and location branding, often leading to conflicts. The authors cite widespread resistance to overtourism globally, contrasting the often-proclaimed benefits of job creation with the negative impacts on local well-being, the built environment, and the natural environment. They highlight the problems of touristification, including gentrification, privatization of public spaces, and precarious working conditions, ultimately threatening the survival of the social fabric and urban texture. Emergency policies, often implemented belatedly, are criticized for their lack of democratic processes. The authors emphasize the lack of a systemic perspective in addressing these issues, noting that economically tempting "compromises" rarely achieve long-term solutions. They introduce the concept of resilience, highlighting the vulnerability of touristified destinations, which function as economic monocultures, susceptible to external shocks like pandemics or economic crises. The paper challenges the effectiveness and desirability of tourism as a primary economic engine, arguing that the concept of sustainability, as the ability to maintain something without diminution, is often disregarded. It proposes that the notion of resilience, the ability to resist and adapt to disruptions, is equally important, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which served as a turning point to rethink societies and economies.

The authors review existing literature on tourism's ecological impacts and calls for reducing tourist flows to address both ecological and social concerns. However, they note a relative lack of literature on the economic and social resilience of tourist destinations. The paper references various studies examining the negative effects of overtourism, touristification, and gentrification, and contrasts these with the often-unrealistic narratives of job creation and economic benefits promoted by governments and unions. The literature on systems thinking and its applications in various fields, from social sciences to environmental studies, is also reviewed, emphasizing the importance of understanding systemic leverage points for effective intervention. The authors highlight the limitations of existing approaches, such as those focusing on static indicators or simple causal loops, arguing that a comprehensive systemic perspective is needed to capture the dynamic interactions and feedback loops within a tourist city.

The study employs a systems thinking (ST) approach, using the energy systems language and stock-and-flow symbols to develop a descriptive framework of a tourist city. This approach, drawing on the work of Howard T. Odum, allows for the description and quantification of the dynamic operation of complex systems. The authors clarify that their methodology differs from approaches like System Network Analysis, emphasizing the focus on a limited number of state variables to model resource flows and feedback networks. A systemic diagram is created, including stocks, flows, and processes relevant to the operation of the tourist city system. The diagram encompasses various resources like matter, energy, information, labor, and economic flows. The boundary of the system distinguishes between external drivers and internal processes, defining inflows and outflows. The authors explain the concept of leverage points—systemic places where small changes can have significant effects on the whole system—as crucial for identifying effective points of intervention. The methodology is adaptable to different tourist destinations but prioritizes the urban level, specifically highlighting the role of the tourism sector. The research involved a five-year monitoring of news, participation in public debates and meetings, direct exchanges with stakeholders, and contributions to academic and non-academic events.

The paper presents a systemic diagram of a tourist city, illustrating the resource inflows and outflows and metabolic structure. The diagram distinguishes between elements common to all cities (blue) and those specific to tourist cities (red). Key elements include the local environment, urban assets, urban life and general economy, the tourism industry, and monetary flows. The authors identify two crucial leverage points: (a) the city's image, which attracts tourists but is negatively affected by touristification; and (b) the competition for urban assets between residents and the tourism industry, leading to gentrification and population expulsion. The diagram illustrates how the tourism industry diverts resources from the urban life and general economy, creating reinforcing feedback loops that perpetuate touristification. This process weakens the city's culture and well-being, potentially leading to a self-destroying feedback. The study highlights the dependence of tourist cities on external inputs, including capital and labor, which reduces resilience and increases vulnerability to external shocks. The authors analyze monetary flows, showing that a significant portion of profits generated by tourism flows out of the city, leaving only limited economic benefits for the local population. Sensors in the diagram (F, fleeing money; M, economic monoculture sensor) highlight the leakage of profits and the city's overdependence on the tourism sector. The analysis of Venice, Rome, and Naples reveals variations in the severity and manifestations of touristification, highlighting the generalizability of the systemic model. Venice is presented as an extreme case, where a significant portion of housing is dedicated to tourists, leading to the expulsion of residents and the degradation of the local environment. The authors examine various proposed “solutions” for managing overtourism in Venice, such as access barriers and taxes, concluding that these often fail to address the underlying systemic problems and may even worsen the situation. These measures often prioritize profit maximization over the well-being of residents.

The findings demonstrate that the pursuit of profit maximization in tourist cities undermines the long-term well-being of residents and the sustainability of the urban environment. The systemic model highlights the interconnectedness of economic, social, and ecological factors and the importance of understanding feedback loops in shaping the dynamics of touristification. The discussion emphasizes that the concept of "sustainable tourism" within a capitalist economic framework is often a misnomer, as the inherent pursuit of profit maximization inevitably leads to unsustainable practices. The study challenges the dominant narrative that tourism is the only path to economic growth in certain contexts, arguing that this view often overlooks alternative, more sustainable options. The authors emphasize the need to shift priorities from profit maximization to the well-being of residents, proposing a fundamental rethinking of the goals and structures of tourist cities.

The paper concludes that a systemic understanding is crucial for developing effective strategies to manage tourism and enhance the resilience of tourist cities. The proposed systemic diagram serves as a valuable tool for analyzing the complexities of urban tourism and identifying leverage points for intervention. The authors highlight the necessity of shifting priorities towards the well-being of residents and the long-term sustainability of the city, rather than solely focusing on profit maximization. They suggest that future research should focus on quantitative modeling of the system dynamics, exploring different scenarios and the effectiveness of various interventions to achieve a more sustainable and just balance between tourism and urban life.

The study primarily uses a qualitative systems thinking approach, focusing on conceptual modeling. While the systemic diagram provides a valuable framework for understanding the complexities of tourist cities, it lacks quantitative analysis of the specific flows and feedback loops. The case study focuses mainly on Venice, Rome, and Naples, limiting the generalizability of the findings to other contexts. Further research is needed to test and refine the model using data from a wider range of tourist destinations with varying characteristics.