Conflicts in the tourist city from the perspective of local social movements (original) (raw)

Tourism without Gentrification? Obstacles to Achieve a “Happy Medium”

Urban spaces are breeding grounds for the reproduction of social inequality. An example of this is the gentrification process that occurs when degraded spaces are intervened, showing class tensions in every time and place. The role of tourism in these cases has been signaled often. For instance, in order to enhance cultural tourism, buildings and spaces are preserved and restored then, at the same time, gentrification dynamics, comprising the displacement of residents from historical centres, are permitted. That “theme park” effect has also been denounced for having a negative effect on the same tourism industry on the long run. To escape this dilemma, local governments are looking for some multi-functionality strategies that may combine urban, touristic, and cultural demands. The goal is developing intervention policies and plans to achieve a “happy-medium”, combining and reconciling tourism with housing. This paper is intended to set out the hindrances toward that goal in a case study: The historical centre of the city of Lugo (Spain). This city is completely surrounded by a Roman age wall that was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the year 2000. This analysis will focus on the recurring challenges for implementing measures aimed at stopping the accelerated neglect of the urban center as a dwelling place and the configuration of areas with a high concentration of especially vulnerable population and marginal activities.

Touristification and Conflicts of Interest in Cruise Destinations: The Case of Main Cultural Tourism Cities on the Spanish Mediterranean Coast

Sustainability

Tourist demands and the ensuing commodification of habitability in cities have led to the emergence of resistance movements. This study aims to define patterns in touristified cities by measuring the presence of citizen initiatives, together with tourism intensification and related socio-demographic variables. All the indicators have been tested in the Mediterranean port cities of Barcelona and Malaga as they lead the cultural offer. Both municipalities have been analysed at census-section level and show a common urban pattern: the Airbnb offer has spread out in the old town in direct competition with traditional accommodation and replacing long-term rentals. Statistical analysis reveals a significant correlation among citizen initiatives with tourism services, which are the driver mechanisms behind the movements. Cluster maps show a clear centre-periphery pattern according to the tourism intensification set with high coefficient values for tourist accommodation. Bivariate spatial a...

The social construction of touristification. Residents perspectives on mobilities and moorings

Tourism Geographies , 2023

One of the last decade's major challenges faced by tourist cities has been dominated by the increasing tourism flows that have harmed the quality of life of residents, the neighbourhood's sense of belonging, and the stakeholders' concerns regarding reliance on tourism. however, tourism mobilities are not the only drivers of structural change in cities. the advent of temporary residents, digital nomads, international students, short-stay expats, and creative workers have shaped the way cities have evolved together with tourism mobilities. this paper will present research conducted in the Vila de Gràcia neighbourhood in Barcelona, which has undergone a thoughtful transformation in terms of tourism-oriented businesses specialisation, housing market prices, sociodemographic changes, the use of public space and nightlife leisure. Gradually, the Vila de Gràcia neighbourhood has become an emblematic area of leisure and tourism consumption experience in Barcelona. Based on ethnographic fieldwork begun in 2017 and in-depth semi-structured interviews with lifelong and new residents, the research analyses residents' attitude toward touristification processes related to social discontent, nightlife noise, the rise in housing market prices and overcrowding.

Not tourism-phobia but urban-philia: understanding stakeholders’ perceptions of urban touristification // 2019 // Journal Article // (only first and last pages) // with A Blanco-Romero, M Blázquez-Salom and R Fletcher

Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles, 2019

Tourism development affects prominent city centres worldwide, causing social unrest that has been labelled “tourism-phobia.” This article problematizes the recent appearance of this term by unravelling the links between the materiality of contemporary urban tourism and the response it receives from social movements opposing its expansion. We endeavour to understand the meaning that different actors involved in the city's touristification attach to this term, and in particular the perceptions of citizens’ movements that claim to espouse not tourism-phobia but urban-philia. To analyze these dynamics, we draw on Lefebvre’s discussion of the “right to the city” to highlight the extractive productive relations characterizing the tourism industry and the contestations such relations trigger. Taking the example of two Spanish cities (Barcelona and Palma), our findings indicate that the social malaise found in tourist oversaturation is due to the disruption it causes to everyday life, including price increases and rising rents. Consequently, the discomfort popular mobilisations have generated among the ruling class has led the latter to disqualify and even criminalise the former’s legitimate claims under the label of tourism-phobia. To conclude, we call for a future research agenda in pursuit of social justice and equity around re-touristification, detouristification or even tourist degrowth.

Tourism, gentrification and neighbourhood change: an analytical framework. Reflections from Southern European cities

The Overtourism Debate. NIMBY, Nuisance, Commodification, 2020

In the twenty-first century, tourism has grown in cities in an unprecedented way and, importantly, takes place in residential areas that were not planned to be tourist spaces. The sharing of space between residents and tourists is a source of conflict that revolves around competition for resources, facilities and the rights of access to these, resulting in an increased community opposition to urban tourism at an international scale. To understand this opposition, an exploration of the effects that tourism has on cities is needed. This is the principal aim of this chapter. Based both on the discussion of the international literature in the field and on empirical research conducted in the cities of Barcelona, Lisbon and Seville, this chapter provides a framework towards understanding the socio-spatial impacts of urban tourism. We suggest that tourism has an impact on both housing market dynamics and neighbourhood life. First, in these three cities we will show how tourism undermines the right to housing for numerous reasons. Second, the fact that residential neighbourhoods become spaces of entertainment and consumption for visitors leads to a daily pressure that dramatically undermines the quality of life of residents. We suggest that it is the combination of the impacts on both housing and neighbourhoods which makes tourism an increased topic of contention. Based on our framework, in the conclusion we discuss whether the impacts of tourism should be considered a form of gentrification.

Barcelona And Mass Tourism - Overtourism : Tourismophobia and Coexistence

Tourism is becoming a source of wealth for the world. Yet the staging and storytelling process of these cities transforms the urban landscape and the uses of public space. On the one hand, the tourism strategy aims to provide for the creation of new markets. In the past, the success of this communication and marketing process has resulted in an increase in the number of districts, which are sometimes neglected and the concentration of social problems is increased. The Barceloneta "revolt" in August 2014 and in other areas of the Catalan capital from 2014 to 2017 testifies to a crisis and urban transition that we analyze from an original field survey affiche - signs - balconies, interviews, and a census from the Barcelona Tourist Office. Our results highlight three elements explaining social tensions from the confrontation of two lifestyles, sedentary and nomadic: (1) Barcelona and its waterfront districts are victims of success and exponential tourist attraction, but also concomitant superposition of the attraction process leisure tourism, namely: heliotropism, heliotropism, and increased metropolization; (2) residential tourism and digital innovation involves a significant redefinition of the rental properties; (3) An urban crisis related to tourism and its consequences can be observed, and it engenders the desire to find a new tourism governance, but we identify a lack of strategic planning and ideological contradictions in the ability to arrive at a peaceful co-presence tourists - inhabitants.

Resisting tourism gentrification: The experience of grassroots movements in Barcelona

Resisting tourism gentrification: The experience of grassroots movements in Barcelona. Urbanistica Are, Giornale Online di Urbanistica, 2017

#13 maggio_agosto 2017 numero tredici anno cinque UrbanisticaTreiQuaderni#13 UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE giornale on-line di urbanistica journal of urban design and planning ISSN: 2531-7091 edito da con il supporto di per informazioni

Tourism and commercial gentrification

This paper explores the extent to which tourism is a form of gentrification that displaces residents from their place. Residential displacement driven by this process of ‘tourism gentrification’ has been noted by several authors. However, because the concern with quality of life and the provision of consumption facilities are crucial for attracting middle class users, the gentrification that both visitors and residents cause is increasingly commercial. This paper focuses on the commercial displacement caused by tourism gentrification, but it distinguishes between commercial displacement per se and how such a displacement affects the lives of residents on a daily basis. I argue that the displacement of indigenous residents can be driven by changes in the nature and uses of the neighbourhood and not only by the dynamics of the housing market. In other words, I explore how commercial gentrification provokes ‘indirect displacement pressures’: a mechanism of exclusion that constrains the quality of life of residents and that, in the long term, can be the cause for their out migration from their place. Regarding this, the paper provides a conceptual framework to better analyse how the commercial upgrading of central areas excludes long-established residents. Finally, the paper applies the conceptual framework to a case study. A geography of tourism gentrification has been identified in the Latin world and, in this context, the paper focuses on the case of Barcelona, the most visited city in Spain and one which is experiencing significant conflicts between visitors and long-established residents.

" BARCELONA IN COMMON " : A NEW URBAN REGIME FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY TOURIST CITY

A coalition of leftist political groups, civic movements, and grassroots organizations led by social activist Ada Colau has won the Barcelona municipal elections of 2015, and is now governing the Catalan capital. The key to this success may well have been its critical positioning in relation to its tourism. Until recently considered a best practice in urban regeneration and a successful global destination, Barcelona has lived in the last two years a radical change in the public perception on tourism: from " manna from heaven " to serious issue which is affecting the quality of life of its citizens. This paper looks into the factors which may have determined this political change. These go from the growth of tourism beyond what could be considered a critical threshold for an urban system, to the development of a critical discourse on tourism by the new coalition – attributed to its peculiar constituency and working methods – and the role of the media in airing this discursive shift. The paper follows the thread of the " growth machine " theorizations and questions whether the increasing dimension of tourism in urban societies could be a driver for regime changes.