Analysis of the Accommodation Density in Coastal Tourism Areas of Insular Destinations from the Perspective of Overtourism

Moisés Simancas Cruz and María Pilar Peñarrubia Zaragoza
Additional contact information
Moisés Simancas Cruz: Department of Geography and History, University of La Laguna, 38200 San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain
María Pilar Peñarrubia Zaragoza: Department of Geography, University of Valencia, 46010 Valencia, Spain

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: Accommodation saturation is transcendental in island destinations; especially when we include it in the sustainability paradigm. A coastal tourism area is considered saturated when tourists feel the area is overbuilt. This can lead to unpleasant experiences that decrease tourist satisfaction—diminishing the competitiveness of the destination. This issue is especially relevant in insular areas. However, estimating optimal levels of accommodation density is complex, with many conceptual, methodological and operational controversies. Moreover, there is a lack of measurement data and assessment standards at the micro-local scale. The main objective of this paper is to analyse tourist accommodation density because it is commonly used to measure the level of saturation in urban coastal tourism areas. The intention is to identify from the perspective of overtourism, the weaknesses of using tourist accommodation density as a parameter to assess the urban saturation of coastal tourism areas located in the destination, the Canary Islands, Spain. A systematic method of observation and interpretation is employed to examine the use of density indicators and assess their efficiency. The main conclusion is to determine the optimal accommodation density. In order to achieve this, we must consider more than just the pressure and condition indicators; we also have to examine other related responses to the behaviour of the demand and, more specifically, the level of satisfaction of the tourists. The objective of this work is to evaluate the weaknesses of using tourist bed places as an indicator of the level of saturation in a coastal tourism area.

Keywords: Coastal tourism areas; density; saturation; overtourism; tourism accommodation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/11/3031/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/11/3031/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:11:p:3031-:d:235191

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().