Cinque Terre through the Eyes of Guidebooks (1840s-2010s): From Rugged Gems to (Overcrowded) Instagram Icons

Purpose – This article examines how tourist guidebooks can contribute to interpreting the evolution of a tourist destination and its image, by offering a long-term and regularly updated view over the place they describe. A case study is proposed, which analyses the Cinque Terre—in the eastern Ligurian Riviera—from the mid-19th century to the present. While the area is now internationally associated with debates on overtourism, its long-term transformation from isolated rural villages to a highly frequented destination remains insufficiently analysed through historical sources. By situating the Cinque Terre within the broader evolution of modern tourism and its representations, the study highlights the role of guidebooks not only as descriptive tools but also as agents influencing perceptions, expectations and visitor behaviour. The aim is to reconstruct how portrayals of the landscape, accessibility, services and visitor experience have changed, and to identify early signals of tourism pressure that emerged in guidebooks before becoming evident to local stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach – The research employs a qualitative, comparative analysis of a corpus of guidebooks published between the 1840s and the 2010s, including Murray, Baedeker (1877; 1906; 1913), Touring Club Italiano, and, later, Lonely Planet, Routard and Rick Steves. These sources, selected for their differing editorial traditions and readerships, allow for a diachronic examination of recurring themes, evaluative criteria and narrative shifts. The analysis focuses on representations of isolation, landscape character, mobility constraints, accommodation availability and tourist flows, tracing how these elements evolved in relation to infrastructural development and changing travel practices. Attention is also paid to explicit warnings regarding environmental risks and congestion, which began to arise well before overtourism entered public discourse. Originality/value – By adopting a long-term approach, the paper shows that guidebooks can serve as early indicators of critical tensions linked to tourism growth, anticipating concerns later acknowledged by policymakers and scholars. The study contributes to tourism historiography by demonstrating the analytical value of guidebooks in understanding destination evolution and in capturing changing tourist sensibilities. Practical implications – The findings suggest that guidebooks offer insights that may support destination management, particularly in fragile environments such as the Cinque Terre. Their external, independent perspective can help identify early warning signals of imbalance between visitor flows, local communities and landscape conservation, informing strategies aimed at mitigating overtourism and promoting sustainable mobility.