Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(with few exceptions) in current academic debates on mobility, consumption, globalisation,
innovation and creativity (see Anton Clavé and González Reverté, 2007; Sheller and Urry,
2004). Moreover, this prevailing view considers mass tourism as the most banal, most alien-
ating and having the most extreme environmental negative effects of all forms of tourism
(for a fundamental ideological view against mass tourism, see the classic work of Turner and
Ash, 1975).
Attention to mass tourism in research has focused on tracing the specifi c history of local
destinations (see, for instance, Walton, 2000 or Cirer, 2009); design of development models
(Gormsen, 1981, 1997; Miossec, 1977); analysis of the life cycle of local and regional destina-
tions (see some of the papers compiled by Butler, 2006a, 2006b; or, from a different perspec-
tive, Andriotis, 2006); impact analysis (Jennings, 2004); management issues (Agarwal and
Shaw, 2007); analysis of the restructuring processes of mass coastal destinations (Agarwal,
2002); evaluation of the global extent of mass coastal tourism (Duhamel and Violier, 2009);
and, more recently, post-structural approaches (see Lew
et al.
, 2004; Gale in
Chapter 4 o
f this
volume) including research on the cultural dimensions of mass tourism in coastal destinations
(Obrador Pons
et al.
, 2009).
A critical contribution to the understanding of mass tourism was undertaken by the MIT
team (Equipe MIT) (2002, 2004) in France. Their arguments are an in-depth approximation
of tourism's capacity to allow places to emerge with new systems of actors and new social
and urban practices (see also Stock, 2003). This vision incorporates newly emergent issues
such as:
1. The role of cultural capital and creativity as elements for catalysing innovative practices
and processes; economic restructuring; value generation; and the creation of destinations
as competitive 'sustainable' environments.
2. The challenge of sustainability and the competitiveness.
3. Problems of mobility associated with the development of tourism activity and changes in
the leisure styles of tourists.
4. New social dynamics between residents, tourists and immigrants in destinations.
Taking a complementary approach, three Spanish research groups have come to focus on
analysing the state of mass tourism to take into account the role of mass tourism in the
dynamics of global capitalism, the clearly urban nature of mass coastal destinations and the
extreme importance of renovation/restructuring processes of existing, consolidated tourist
destinations (Anton Clavé
et al.
, 2011).
Residential mobility and competitiveness in mass coastal destinations
Mobility (or mobilities) can be seen as an emergent paradigm within the social sciences (see
Gale, Duncan and Casado-Diaz in
Chapters 4,
14
and
15 o
f this volume). It is linked to the
existence of spatial preferences among people, generates fl uid relations between spaces and
can contextualise with effi ciency the dynamics of mass coastal tourism destinations as inte-
grated and opened-up systems (Hall, 2005c). In fact, accessibility to every single destination
is considered by authors such as Russo and van der Borg (2002) as one of the key determi-
nants of sectoral and inter-place competitiveness. We know, in this respect, about the spatial
effects of the growth in airport fl ows; the environmental impacts of the growth in tourist
arrivals; their interrelationships with climate change issues; the socio-economic transforma-
tion of destination regions due to improvements in communication and transport systems; or
