Next‐generation cellular networks are expected to support various multimedia services over IP networks with high spectral efficiency. In these networks, hotspot cells can occur when available wireless resources at some location are not sufficient to sustain the needs of users. The hotspot cell can potentially lead to blocked or dropped calls, which can deteriorate the service quality for users. A group of users enjoying multimedia services could move around in the networks generating heavy flows of traffic. This situation can generate a hotspot cell which has a short lifespan of only a few minutes. If there is a steady increase in the number of these users, the hotspot cell which has a short lifespan will occur more frequently in the overall service area. In this paper, we propose a handover‐based traffic management scheme which can effectively deal with hotspot cells in next‐generation cellular networks. With our scheme, the current serving cell can recognize the traffic load status of the target cell in advance, before handover execution. Then, according to the load status, it adaptively controls the handover time. The handover‐based traffic management scheme can effectively and flexibly handle hotspot cells in the networks. Acceptable service quality can also be supported as users continuously maintain communication links. In the simulation results, we find that our scheme generates a smaller number of hotspot cells and supports higher service quality than the schemes compared. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.