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Overtourism is an emerging concept and a perennial process every destination is going through. It is a cyclic phenomenon derived from the destination, retained in the destination and at last demised by the destination. It's a kind of ‘tourism illness’ spreading rapidly in every destination in the present scenario. The status of overtourism in every destination has been caused by the tourist, of the tourist and for the tourist. In the context of religious places in Odisha, overtourism is a ‘disorder’ that cannot be mitigated, as religiosity, faith and spiritualism have propelled and governed people's sentiment and emotion. Hence ambiguity arises out of making an intrigue situation between a myth or a spiritual sojourn bounded by faith and belief. This chapter significantly contributes by unfolding the existing literature by providing the origin and evolution of overtourism, various stated definitions by the different authors, causes and consequences, and overtourism in religious destinations by adopting an exploratory study, particularly in case of the Golden triangle of Odisha.

This paper aims to unpack personal narratives of local residents in relation to the effects of overtourism in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The paper uses Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus to understand how local residents cope with temporal overtourism.

Findings were gathered from observations and interviews. Interviews were conducted with 12 informants, consisting of local small-to-medium enterprise tourism entrepreneurs, local informal tourism workers and a group of locals uninvolved in tourism.

The paper has two key findings. First, locals uninvolved in tourism show empathetic behavior toward the locals involved in tourism despite their experiencing negative effects of tourism. The involved locals, for their part, were aware of the importance of resolving issues with the uninvolved locals through regular communication so as to secure the sustained future of tourism. Second, the use of social capital by involved and uninvolved locals reflects the local Javanese culture and value system in which social harmony and integration are paramount.

Local habitus forms and informs locals’ perceptions on temporal overtourism issues. It enables an understanding on how locals manage the effects of overtourism in Yogyakarta. The habitus, which is greatly influenced by Javanese values, creates attitudes and behaviors which are empathetic and tolerant.

To avoid the potential conflict when overtourism explicitly or implicitly frustrates locals, policy should be formulated by taking into account the findings of this paper on the local habitus. The study contributes to the overtourism debate by looking at the inter-relationship of local social structures and cultural context with local responses to temporal overtourism.

Using the concept of habitus, this research deepens existing understanding on the local responses toward overtourism. This research expects to theoretically enrich and complexify debates on tourism–habitus nexus in tourism studies.