La sostenibilidad turística a debate

Abstract

The Working Group on Geography of Tourism, Leisure and Recreation of the Spanish Geographical Association organizes biennial Colloquia since its inception in 1989, more than thirty years ago. Its current Permanent Commission ends its mandate in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, after a tumultuous summer for mass tourism businesses. This monographic volume reflects the academic debate on the sustainability of tourism, in the transition from overtourist to undertourism, from overtourism to undertourism. It has been structured in two main axes. The first refers to tourism sustainability: theoretical framework, diagnostic indicators, planning and management proposals. The second analyzes the spatio-temporal models of overtourism and undertourism. Within the first axis, hot topics are reflected, such as: Spain's dying interior areas, coastal tourist destinations, territorial inequalities, landscape as a strategy for inland and nature tourism, tourist pressures in urban centers, urban planning as an instrument for organizing tourist activity, theme parks, evaluation of tourism sustainability, land stewardship, consequences of oversaturation in socioenvironmental aspects, public responses in scenarios of overtourism, megaprojects... Multiple problems are addressed from the second axis as well: job insecurity, citizen participation as an essential element in the social dimension of the Smart Destination, smart rural tourism, the future of the sun and sand resorts, gentrification processes and tourism, cultural tourism, tourist use of housing in rural areas, charter companies in Spain, inland tourism, case study analysis that can be extrapolated to other places such as the commercial gentrification of public space, such as terraces of bars and restaurants in historical centers, LGTB tourism as a new source of tourism development, the relationship between frequentation and the evolution of the beach surface extent, urban overtourism and demographic changes, new tourist dynamics on the Camino de Santiago, reflections on living environments and tourist destinations, tourism and inequality or analysis of more global characteristics such as the analysis and evolution of changes in the use of coastal land in Spain.