“Overtourism in Spanish Coastal Destinations. Tourism Degrowth Strategies” (RTI2018-094844-B-C31)

The aim of this project is to analyse overtourism in Spanish coastal destinations, define growth contention, and explore degrowth strategies. It will also develop a diagnosis based on social, environmental and economic variables:

  1. The theoretical development of the main research topics.

  2. The expansion of the tourist commodification frontier and its economic nature, particularly those aspects that concern housing.

  3. Evaluating the social conflicts that arise from overtourism in order to gain insights for the development of collaborative planning.

  4. The environmental dimension of overtourism, particularly the use of beaches and the supply of urban water.

  5. Growth contention and degrowth strategies by first exploring the territorial and tourism planning policies and toolkits available.

Departing from a collaborative task among research teams, maintaining a common transversality by implementing tests across the project, this inquiry will work on some of the most popular tourist destinations in Spain: the Canary Islands, Costa del Sol, the Valencian Community, Barcelona and the Balearic Islands.