Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
understand tourism and tourists as agents and that offer new perspectives on current social
science theory and geographical debates such as those about identity (Terkenli, 2002), regional
and urban development (Camagni, 2008), or the creation of new forms of 'urbanity'
(Gonzalez Reverté, 2008).
Trends in the transformation of coastal mass destinations
The transformation of mass coastal destinations worldwide has led to their development
into complex urban structures, with renewed landscapes, innovative systems of resource
use and differentiated processes and intensities of land use. All of this has brought about the
emergence of specifi c social, economic and territorial dynamics which, in certain circum-
stances, have provided competitiveness to tourism areas and have even generated dynamics of
spatial innovation and creative development. All of the above notwithstanding, the fact is that
such processes have brought about considerable social and environmental confl icts and, in
particular, have generated new hazards in terms of the future sustainability of destinations. In
fact, mass coastal destinations are highly vulnerable spaces (Dowling and Pforr, 2009). Or
rather, research has also led us to observe the capacity of tourism to build new places with
new productive, social and urban practices that can allow them to overturn conventional
environmental, economic and management approaches as well as juxtapose classic conceptual
models on the evolution of mass tourism in specifi c destinations (see for example the cases
reported in Bramwell, 2004a).
As an illustration we can observe the evolution of mature mass coastal destinations, which
shows in general that those corporate organisations and regulatory structures that developed
rapidly at the moment of the large-scale (and Fordist) emergence of tourism activity (mainly
during the 1960s and 70s in case of the north-western Mediterranean) and that attracted a
standardised and increasing demand, have experienced not only important social changes
since the 1990s, affecting demand and consumption trends, but also technological shifts that
have in turn affected forms of production (see, in the Spanish case, Perelli, 2002), leading to
a new tourism paradigm that many have named as post-Fordist.
However, changes have taken place in mature mass coastal destinations, in some cases
enabling them to maintain their competitiveness, although results have been different and
dependent on many factors. This process has, in fact, generated pessimistic hypotheses about
the relative sustainability of coastal tourism destinations (Knowles and Curtis, 1999) that to
date have not been corroborated in the case of the mass costal destinations - at least not in the
Mediterranean context. On the contrary, these negative hypotheses could be ruled out not
only because of the reactive capacity for adaptation on the part of destinations, but also due
to research evidence on how adaptation of the capacity and characteristics of each place have
managed to assure their economic continuity (see Aguiló
et al.
, 2005; Claver-Cortés
et al.
,
2007). In fact, different destinations are responding in a diversity of manners to the persistent
demand for tourism on the coast. We might argue that mass coastal destinations have
embedded in their geographical, economic, institutional and social conditions (types of tour-
ists, recreational facilities, resources, governance procedures and cultural and environmental
assets) certain key enabling elements for their future success.
It can be stated therefore that mass coastal destinations are adapting themselves to a
new reality through the progressive application of three types of multi-sectoral and multi-
stakeholder strategy which are now contributing to new processes that need specifi c attention
(for a discussion of this question in the Spanish case, see Anton Clavé, 2004). These three
types of strategy are:
