Tourism Development and Urban Landscape Conservation in Rural Areas: Opportunities and Ambivalences in Local Regulations—The Case of Spain

Abstract

This article analyzes local-level normative regulations aimed at directly or indirectly conserving the urban landscape in rural areas. Using a discursive analysis methodology on regulatory documents being enforced in a series of localities assigned to a tourism promotion program, the evidence suggests that promotional activity retroactively influences the phraseology of these municipal regulations. The results obtained point to the existence of perpetuating historicist approaches within the current regulations, which appear to largely derive from the search for success in the tourism market and the resulting benefits to the local economy.

1. Introduction

The present analysis attempts to contribute to the scope of current approaches for conserving urban landscapes in the normative regulations being elaborated at local levels of government by exploring the influence that tourist activity exerts back onto these same regulations. With this intent, special attention is given to environments that are considered to be of high heritage fragility, as is the case in the rural world. This has become an essential task in recent years as the consolidation of cultural and natural heritage becomes an ever-growing resource for attracting visitors in an increasingly competitive global tourism market. This phenomenon is largely due to the finding that heritage assets have come to represent the key elements of differentiation capable of attracting visitors and, consequently, of contributing to local development through the configuration of a particular image and a unique proposition for each locality [1,2].

The way heritage is managed today is based on an anthropological definition, i.e., an expression of the totality of knowledge, beliefs, and values of a community [2]. Its formation involves a subjective and symbolic selection of elements from the past that are adapted or reinvented from the present [3] and projected toward posterity [4]. Heritage is, consequently, a social construct [5] and, as such, its characterization has been subject to the constraints derived from the prevailing philosophical, political, intellectual, and cultural trends at each moment. The current conception of the term is largely an inheritance of the profound changes that occurred in Europe between the 17th and 19th centuries, so it entails the origin of the necessity of protecting nature and the exaltation and conservation of the past, which has become an essential task for modern society. It largely depends on maintaining the historical identity of humanity.

In recent decades, with the emergence and subsequent intensification of tourism segments linked to the enjoyment of nature and the rural world, the recognition of heritage has started to extend beyond cultural aspects to include certain economic practices [6,7] that makes it a consumable product in postmodern society. This is especially notable in the countries of southern Europe, where continuous agrarian crises, together with the processes of industrialization and the precariousness of rural employment, favored mass migratory movements from the countryside to the city during the second half of the 20th century [8]. Thus, the development of this sector has led to a redefinition of territory, especially in predominantly agricultural and livestock areas, based on the revaluation of heritage, where assets have become the main element around which to build the tourist image of destinations. This fact has resulted in the conversion of cultural, natural, and scenic resources into engines of development and of the generation of new income through their tourist use. These socio-territorial processes saw public authorities undertaking significant efforts to force the development of alternative activities to agriculture in regions that were scarcely competitive, thereby seeking productive diversification that became largely linked to tourism [9,10,11]. Together with the undeniable maturity of the coastal tourism model throughout Mediterranean Europe, this helped strengthen the status of heritage assets as they became productive assets in the rural context at the end of the last century. This phenomenon, which originated in Spain in the 1960s with the promotion of farmhouses by the Ministry of Information and Tourism to help supplement rural incomes, was subsequently favored by the efforts of community policies to promote alternative activities to agriculture in regions where the degradation of consumer goods would have led to widespread unemployment, emigration, and population aging. In this context, in 1989, the Council of Europe proposed the protection of heritage and the environment as a prime factor in local development, and a few years later, the European Commission acknowledged the need to seek new sources of income through the preservation of the environment to ensure the conservation of natural and cultural resources. Furthermore, subsequently, this interest in territorial rebalancing and multifunctionality would lead to a profound reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the late 1990s, which would focus on a determined commitment to the development of the tourism sector, which, ultimately, was understood as the context in which local resources could find better commercial outlets. This, in turn, favored the development of economic activity and the generation of employment in territories of notable heritage value that were located far from the usual industrial nodes and coastal spaces. In the end, the proliferation of this phenomenon resulted in legitimizing the links between heritage and development at the academic and institutional levels [12,13,14,15], effectively promulgated a major shift in the world tourism system within its framework of neoliberal globalization.

Upon considering landscape as an essential tourist resource, the connection between urban landscape and tourist activity becomes paramount. The appreciation and esthetic enjoyment of environments that differ from the settings of everyday life represent one of the fundamental motivations for tourist travel [16]. The tourism conceived by public administrations has been imposed as a priority instrument for conditioning the use of heritage assets and spaces in rural areas. However, despite also contributing to social awareness and investments into its conservation, the introduction of heritage into the market brings with it a significant change in the very use of these assets [17,18,19]. This is due to the fact that, from the moment they are conceived as productive resources, the success of these heritage assets are measured by variables related to public acceptance, the number of visits, or economic profitability. Because tourism is a sector that tends to generate market orientations and reconstructions aligned with its objectives [20], when local services become consumable by tourists, this necessarily implies a change in their functionality [21,22]. Inside this framework then, as public authorities legitimize new ways of conceiving spaces and their symbolism—particularly in those places of great historical significance—the role of tourist activity as a device from which urbanism is conceived and contemporary experience is articulated becomes wholly accentuated [23].

In this context, many programs have been promoted by both the government and private sectors with the aim of promoting territorial development based on the revaluation and recognition of the symbolic values of heritage. These initiatives share a single approach, whereby revaluation incites economic growth and contributes to conserving the heritage of rural territories using strategies that group together small rural enclaves for joint tourism promotion. These enclaves are selected based on the presence of a series of heritage values which make them unique [24,25]. Consequently, the publicity generated from these designations consecrates certain spaces as important sources of wealth. Yet, the imposition of a merely mercantile orientation that supersedes one of conservation in the use of goods and spaces has also been witnessed in recent years. This is because from the predominantly esthetic viewpoint of the tourist perspective, these resources are being perceived as territorial assets, which emphasizes their exceptional, singular, and distinctive features that respond to external demand [2].

Over the last few years, many academics have conducted studies on the capacity of tourism to promote the conservation of the urban landscape, noting that the relationship between the two—in addition to giving rise to opportunities—also poses a number of threats that must be taken into account. This is mainly because of the direct relationship between the number of tourists arriving at a destination and the economic income this influx is able to generate [26,27,28,29]. Additionally, because tourist activity favors the reaffirmation of territorial and cultural identity through the recognition of the traditions and particular characteristics of each place [30], it may well be expected that this heightening of tourist influx comes to exert a notable pressure on heritage assets and spaces [31,32]. This trend usually translates into the generation of conflicts over the use of space [33,34], a rise in housing prices [35,36], the substitution of various economic activities [37], the displacement of residents [37,38,39,40,41,42], and even the impetus to symbolically dispossess the location from its sense of place [43,44], which may lead to the museification of a tourist spot.

This process of spatial museification becomes a direct result of the flavor of tourist demand. Mainly due to their selection, the conservation and monumental representation of a place effectively causes the deletion of contextual and historical references and the conversion of places into exotic reminiscences of the past. These then become largely associated with forms that are solely attractive, symbolic, or contemplative in nature [45]. Public spaces, where social interactions abound, and where collective memory is generated [37], are relegated to a merely scenographic role [46], also becoming nodes of capitalist consumption, through which they are physically and symbolically altered [47]. And this occurs both tangibly, through changes in their structural configurations, and intangibly, through modifications to their symbolic recognition [48].

The small demographic size and socioeconomic vulnerability of rural territories make them more fragile in response to the dangers of excessive tourism growth and the corresponding transformations and simplifications that spatial reallocations may entail [37,39,46,48]. To circumvent this, authors such as Troitiño and Troitiño [11] demand that responsible management be carried out that seeks to improve the quality of life of the local population while contributing to an improved perception of the diversity of towns and cities based on their authenticity and unique identity.

To this end, and in order to guarantee responsible management in the long term, a series of interventions and regulations need to be imposed by the public administration. In order to achieve more responsible economic and social development and to prevent the generation of tensions and conflicts, public authorities must enact regulations that govern the material transformation of heritage and that authorize or prohibit certain practices [23]. In this way, the conflicts caused by intrusive advertising installations, the use of public roads, as well as the visual deterioration of the general landscape may be circumvented, or at least minimized. Globally, a wide range of legal regulations for the treatment of the urban landscape have been approved and applied, seeking to become the formula guaranteeing the achievement of a mutually beneficial and balanced coexistence between tourist activity and heritage conservation. At the local level, these ordinances are administrative provisions of a general nature, drawn up by local authorities in the sphere of their competence and subject to the legal framework in force. Their application and compliance become mandatory for all citizens [49]. These regulations come to constitute a socio-ideological framing of the contemporary experience of heritage [50], because they play a central role in the deactivation of conflicts while guiding developmentalist practices linked to beautification and re-use.

In this sense, and as stated by Fernández and Santos [16], public management of the relationship between tourism use and the conservation of urban spaces cannot be limited to interventions in unique buildings or other types of isolated actions. Instead, they must be based on a more comprehensive management which identifies, enhances, and preserves the essential elements that characterize the totality of each urban landscape. Thus, the present work elucidates the idea that local political management must address a series of inherent issues linked to the management of heritage spaces in order to preserve their unique values while procuring social and economic benefits that guarantee local development and conservation inside a distinctly rural context.

2. Materials and Methods

The main objective of the present research is to identify to what extent regulations that lead to the museification of heritage environments in rural areas jeopardize the preservation of local identity. To this end, a methodology based on discursive analysis techniques, i.e., by means of systematic, objective, and replicable interpretations of textual content [51,52], has been applied to the municipal ordinances related to urban landscape conservation being enforced within several case studies. The documents under investigation are general resolutions of obligatory compliance issued by municipalities to regulate those aspects related to the normal development of a municipality.

In this investigation, the regulations analyzed are related to the uses of public space, commercial advertising, or telecommunication infrastructure that generate significant visual impacts and profound esthetic alterations in the urban landscape (Other relevant instruments are the urban planning documents in force in each municipality. However, since these are instruments of territorial policy, whose drafting and approval process is very different from that of ordinances on specific aspects and elements focused on in the article, they fall outside the scope of this article). These uses are addressed from the perspective of leisure and consumption activities since, in addition to being linked to tourism, they are also directed toward the local population [37]. The impact of commercial advertising derived from tourism development is evident in many cities and towns around the world, as it serves as an attraction for customers who often are unfamiliar with the urban context they are in, and this advertising acts as a visual stimulus to attract their attention. Additionally, the use of public space as an extension of business by shops and restaurants is a widespread practice, especially in established tourist areas in Southern Europe, where the mild climate encourages outdoor consumption. Finally, the push for connectivity has led to an increasing number of infrastructures designed to facilitate it, even in rural areas, promoting the proliferation of antennas and cable networks.

A discursive analysis of official documents is carried out in this study in order to identify the existence of those provisions or clauses of a reductionist nature, which may either lead to the formal or esthetic trivialization of public space or reduce the values of its components toward more historicist influences, or both. For this purpose, a comparative study of several localities belonging to the “The Most Beautiful Villages of Spain” Association, a non-profit organization founded in 2010 that was inspired by a network of initiatives such as “Les Plus Beaux Villages de la France” (1982), “Les Plus Beaux Villages de Wallonie” (1994), or “I Borghi Piè Belli d’Italia” (2001) and which, as part of the “The Most Beautiful Villages of the Earth” federation (2012), set out in its founding statutes to endorse the ideals of tourism as an indispensable tool for local development. This Association is of particular importance because it addresses the processes of depopulation through the attribution of new uses to heritage assets [53]. These include, “promoting, disseminating and preserving the cultural, natural and rural heritage; raising awareness and education to respect the values of rural heritage; promoting cultural tourism; promoting geographical areas with a lower level of industrialization; or reducing territorial and population imbalances while respecting the cultural diversity of different nationalities and their corresponding languages” [54] (p.1). In 2024, a total of 116 localities from across almost all the autonomous communities of Spain were members of the Association. However, to do so, localities have to meet a series of requirements linked to demographic, heritage, and tourism criteria. Mainly, candidate towns must have no more than 15,000 inhabitants, have “a certified architectural or natural heritage” appreciated for its “urbanistic” and “architectural quality”, and must demonstrate, through concrete actions, “a policy of valuation, development, promotion and animation of their own heritage” [55] (p.1).

In this investigation, a comparative study of the ordinances approved in 14 towns is carried out (

Table 1. Study localities.

Localities	Municipalities	Region	Geographical Location	Inhabitants (2022)
Alcudia	Alcudia	Baleares	Coastal	20.717
Almagro	Almagro	Castilla La Mancha	Inland	8.907
Atienza	Atienza	Castilla La Mancha	Inland	398
Chinchón	Chinchón	Comunidad de Madrid	Inland	5.658
Ciudad Rodrigo	Ciudad Rodrigo	Castilla y León	Inland	11.973
Cudillero	Cudillero	Principado de Asturias	Coastal	4.928
Frigiliana	Frigiliana	Andalucía	Coastal	3.282
Laguardia	Laguardia	País Vasco	Inland	1.483
Medinaceli	Medinaceli	Castilla y León	Inland	658
Bagergue	Naut Aran	Cataluña	Inland	112
Peñíscola	Peñíscola	C. Valenciana	Coastal	8.210
Potes	Potes	Cantabria	Inland	1.330
Teguise	Teguise	Canarias	Inland	23.044
Zahara	Zahara	Andalucía	Inland	1.371

Source: own elaboration.

). The analysis sample encompasses 19 ordinances, the comparison of which informs the main conclusions of our study. In addition to being part of the Association, these municipalities are selected because they currently have ordinances aligned with the object of our study.

The selection of these localities is based on the importance of tourism activity in them, which has earned them inclusion in this international organization, and, at the same time, the emergence of a series of issues that local authorities have sought to address.

3. Results

3.1. Ordinances Regulating Commercial Advertising

The proliferation of commercial advertising has become one of the main conflicts related to the heritage–tourism duality. This is because the ultimate goal of advertisements is to attract the attention of potential customers, both tourists and residents, through the use of supports that involve substantial alterations to the landscape values of urban environments [16]. The visual impacts generated in tourist environments through the installation of identification signs, with shapes or colors that do not integrate with the esthetic values of their context, have become a constant. Most common is the presence of navigational supports with strident tones, luminous effects, or sizes and shapes that are as distasteful as they are eye-catching. Perhaps for this reason, many local administrations have begun to promote the drafting and approval of regulatory ordinances that better regulate this type of practice, especially in their most fragile contexts, and where the visual integrity of buildings and sites of renowned cultural significance is to be respected.

Although few regulations include the obligation to adapt existing advertising, in every case analyzed, the installation of new commercial advertising is conditioned by an initial application and a subsequent authorization procedure by the local authorities. This reflects the general concern of supervising and controlling the appearance of new esthetic impacts on the urban landscape. In this vein, several ordinances are in force in the municipalities of our study that include specific guidelines for the installation of advertising media in spaces and properties catalogued under some form of heritage protection. This can be seen in Ciudad Rodrigo, Peñíscola, and Potes, where the ordinances only affect the catalogued area declared as a “historic complex”. This trend demonstrates the need for municipalities to conserve the singular values of properties and spaces in accordance with relevant provisions of national legislation, thus complying with Article 19.3 of Law 16/1985, from June 25, 1985, on Spanish Historical Heritage:

“The placement of commercial advertising and any type of cables, antennas and apparent conduits is prohibited in the Historic Gardens and on the facades and rooves of the Monuments declared of cultural interest. Any construction that alters the character of the properties referred to in this article or disturbs their contemplation is also prohibited” [56].

In other regulations, however, all areas of the municipality are considered equal in relation to the advertising ordinances. This is the case in Naut Aran, for example, where the placement of posters on the facades of buildings, monuments, religious temples, cemeteries, trees, or street furniture is strictly prohibited. Other regulations specify the sections of a building onto which commercial advertising may be located. Ciudad Rodrigo, for example, explicitly prohibits advertising on the upper floors of buildings, which ends up relegating commercial signage solely to the ground floor. This avoids the profusion of signs at different heights while restricting the space allocated to them in the urban landscape as a whole.

Notably, most of the ordinances analyzed prohibit the installation of illuminated signs in their areas of application, albeit allowing the illumination of plaques or signs with low-intensity projectors that direct light beams toward the façade itself, as is the case in Potes. Regarding the materials and sizes of the signs, some ordinances, such as those from Ciudad Rodrigo, allow the installation of banners as long as their design is not judged to be “too historicist”. In most cases, the need to use noble materials is a requirement, and the state in which they are to be presented is clearly identified. This is the case again in Potes, where ordinances state that signage must be presented “in their natural colors or with a natural, non-glossy metallic finish [...] with a natural finish or varnished in color”.

3.2. Ordinances Regulating the Occupation of Public Space

Spain’s need to regulate the occupation of its public spaces began several decades ago when certain areas of the Mediterranean coast started buckling under tourism pressure as the industry began to take off. Subsequently, with the enforcement of the so-called “anti-smoking law”, the hospitality sector’s demand for licenses to be able to occupy public spaces experienced a sharp increase. More recently, this was accentuated even more with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting changes in social behavior.

In actuality, these circumstances pose significant challenges when attempting to reconcile the entitlement to public space with maintaining the freedom of commercial activity. This is the due diligence that is primarily broached by the regulations created by local councils on the matter. In effect, the emergence of outdoor terraces and lounging areas necessarily leads to the privatization of public space, whereby the spatial extent of streets and squares are diminished and their public nature increasingly constrained [47,57]. Recent decades saw public administrations taking careful measures to strike a balance between new commercial opportunities arising from tourist activity and the protection of public thoroughfares, the free movement of citizens, and the proper maintenance of the urban environment.

After a careful analysis of the ordinances being enforced in the various locations being studied in this investigation, it becomes evident that the presence of tax regulations is actually more common than the presence of ordinances regulating the occupation of public thoroughfare. This hints to a hierarchy that may be attributed to the pressing need for financial income by public administrations, given how crucial tax ordinances are as a source of local government funding.

After analyzing the current regulatory norms, it is possible to determine that across the board, municipal authorization is required for the special use of public thoroughfares, for which the interested parties submit a prior request to the relevant municipal entities. In addition, it is unanimous that the authorized space and every element of the property is to be maintained in proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation. In some cases, there is also the need to collect and store away the various elements of the terraces when the establishment is closed to the public, as is the case in Medinaceli during the off-seasons, and even daily in the cases of Ciudad Rodrigo and Atienza. Other sites follow suit by establishing a commitment to help facilitate the work of municipal services by maintaining a strict level of cleanliness to safeguard the overall urban esthetic quality.

Several of the regulations analyzed also prohibit the installation of screens or wind deflectors. Others condition their authorization on a case-by-case basis, as in Potes; establish a mandatory typology, as in Medinaceli; or require that these elements be arranged transversally to pedestrian traffic, as in the case of Cudillero. In most of the towns analyzed, the fixing of elements to the ground by means of screws or anchors is prohibited, although some ordinances, such as those of Ciudad Rodrigo, allow fixed installations to be authorized on an exceptional basis, “provided that the nature of the design of the installation is supported by an esthetic proposal or another reason of interest that justifies it”. Other, frequently unauthorized elements include service bars, counters, refrigerators, irons, barbecues, grills, toaster ovens, heaters, or vending machines. The same applies to the installation of ambient music, although, in this case, some regulations allow the possibility of authorization as long as they comply with the latest acoustic regulations and are certified in their technical reports to not produce any environmental impact on dwellings, as is the case in Chinchón, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Cudillero.

Although it is not a generalized fact, several of the ordinances analyzed establish a differentiated zoning type according to the “degree of protection that each area of the municipality required, taking into account its uniqueness and conservation needs” to promote the best development and compliance with these regulations, as specified in the case of Almagro. This trend facilitates a higher degree of specificity in relation to the furniture on-site and, in turn, favors these for areas with a higher level of heritage protection. For example, specific models of tables, chairs, parasols, separators, or heaters are specified to create homogeneous and harmonious environments that align with the surroundings and its urban character.

This esthetic harmonization is pursued in all the norms from the regulation of the design to the materials and chromatism of the elements used in the occupation of the public space. In some cases, specific materials or colors are established for their authorization, which usually includes wood treated in its natural color, wicker, canvas, aluminum, or wrought iron, while plastic in any of its forms is strictly prohibited. The established colors vary according to the territorial character of each place. For example, white, ochre, earth or wenge is authorized in Ciudad Rodrigo; ochre, red, blue, dry green, white, and tiles in Cudillero; raw colors in Frigiliana and Atienza; and wood, wrought iron, and dark tones in La Guardia. In general, strong or strident colors are not allowed, and a general requirement in almost all the analyzed ordinances is the use of matte tones. Some regulations, such as those in Atienza, oblige areas to be marked with “fences or planters in keeping with the surroundings”. The presence of advertising motifs on these elements is strictly prohibited in many of the ordinances analyzed, as is the case in Ciudad Rodrigo, Cudillero, Medinaceli, Potes, and Zahara, albeit in other cases, authorization is sometimes made possible, as it is with Almagro. Finally, in order to favor the generation of a homogeneous and harmonious image and to ensure the contemplation and enjoyment of monuments or unique buildings, some rules even go so far as to regulate the heights of umbrellas.

In stark contrast to the timeline impacts of commercial advertising regulations, most of the ordinances regulating public spaces establish a period for terrace owners to adapt their spaces to the administration’s new requirements.

3.3. Regulatory Ordinances for Telecommunication Infrastructure

The development of telecommunications over the last few decades has incited a series of benefits for the public at large, linked primarily to an increase in general services and connectivity. However, there have also been a number of drawbacks associated with their infrastructure, related in most cases to the influence of electromagnetic radiation on people’s health or the saturation and disorder in the urban landscape caused by the visual impact of cell towers, as well as by high- and low-voltage power lines. The objective of municipal telecommunications regulatory ordinances approved by local public administrations in recent years is to establish ideal conditions for the location, installation, and operation of telecommunication equipment to produce minimal impact on the spatial and visual urban landscape.

All the regulations analyzed in this study require municipal authorization for the installation of telecommunication infrastructure in municipal areas, thereby subjecting the resulting urban and environmental impacts to the scrutiny of the corresponding licensing regime. Of the regulations studied, this type of ordinance is the least commonplace inside the provisions for local urban planning. There are, in fact, very few cases in which an outstanding obligation remains present to adapt previously existing facilities to the newly established guidelines.

A common obligation amongst all the standards analyzed involves employing the construction solution that best minimizes the installation’s visual and environmental impact. This would require the intervention to be both compatible with the environment and appropriately integrated architecturally. In order to do so, the standards propose a series of requirements and prohibitions that involve prioritizing underground piping on urban land. All the regulations analyzed in this study expressly prohibited the installation of telecommunication elements and infrastructure in historically listed buildings and protected complexes or in those deserving special protection, as is the case in Teguise. Thus, in Frigiliana, for example, permission is exceptionally granted for their installations as long as an inexcusable need is proven and as long as measures are incorporated to completely eliminate any visual or environmental impact, subject to a favorable opinion from the competent bodies.

Mandatory camouflage is a common practice in the standards analyzed. This does not only affect facades as specific regulations are commonplace for rooftop infrastructure as well. This includes requiring a maximum height for masts when antennas are installed on roofs. There are also minimum setbacks for rooftop equipment to ensure that they remain offset from sightlines when viewed from the public thoroughfare. In Teguise, it is mandatory to paint satellite dishes the same color as their background supporting walls when they are necessarily visible. In this sense, all of the visual impacts that the desired installations would have on the urban landscape must be captured in the technical application project document, with illustrative photomontages demonstrating its invisibility or camouflage as seen from the public thoroughfare. This project document must then receive a favorable opinion from the competent bodies in order to be implemented.

4. Discussion

As explained at the beginning of this work, this investigation aims to shed light on the ways in which tourism activity affects public management in rural areas. In the shadow of its economic gains, there are a number of negative consequences that may even eclipse the sum of its positive benefits. Tourism’s great capacity to transform the functionality and symbolism of public spaces is reaffirmed [37], even when driven by the governmental sphere. This occurs when regulations are applied that favor spatial transformation, as their wording is conditioned by the dynamics of the tourist activity itself. As Calle [39] points out, this could lead to a resignification of the pre-existing landscape within a context that constantly creates ephemeral products designed to satisfy the tourist’s gaze and the need to evoke images and spaces that consolidate themselves into the global imaginary [58]. This idea is based on the economic theses of Rifkin [59], according to whom products suffer a reduction in their life cycles in the contemporary economy as they adjust themselves to changes in demand and reinvent themselves in an ongoing manner for this purpose. Although this process has been the focus of many studies on the historic centers of urban destinations, there are few texts that consider rural contexts, which are characterized by low demographic size and high socioeconomic vulnerability, and which are made even more fragile by the dangers of excessive tourist growth.

The case studies analyzed in this investigation represent municipalities that enjoy a certain level of equity capital and present a particular commercial infrastructure that is largely aligned with the preferred desires of tourist demand. For this reason, they have been assigned to an initiative called the “The Most Beautiful Towns in Spain” Association, which promotes rural development through tourism activity at the state level. Paradoxically, the notable ability of these localities to attract tourists parallels their increased risk of suffering from the typical transformations of uncontrolled tourist development. This forces local administrations to legislate on matters such as the uses of urban space and the ways in which its esthetics are presented. In this way, regulations are often approved in order to effectively contribute to the resolution of related conflicts.

This study has focused on the analysis of a total of 19 ordinances, all approved in the municipalities included in “The Most Beautiful Towns in Spain” Association as at the time of the writing of this article (

Table 2. Study regulations.

Name	Locality	Year	Scope	Degree of Austerity
ORDENANÇA MUNICIPAL REGULADORA DE L’OCUPACIÓ DE LA VIA PÚBLICA.	Alcudia	2015	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA MUNICIPAL REGULADORA DE LA ORDENACIÓN DE LA OCUPACIÓN DE TERRENOS DE USO PÚBLICO CON MESAS Y SILLAS CON FINALIDAD LUCRATIVA.	Almagro	2004	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specific guidelines for catalogued places -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE LA CIRCULACIÓN Y OCUPACIÓN DE ESPACIOS Y VÍAS PÚBLICAS.	Atienza	2016	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Collecting elements of the terraces away when the establishment is closed to the public is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE MESAS Y VELADORES EN LA VÍA PÚBLICA.	Chinchón	2004	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE LA UTILIZACIÓN PRIVATIVE O APROVECHAMIENTOS ESPECIALES CONSTITUIDOS POR LA OCUPACIÓN DE TERRENOS DE DOMINIO PÚBLICO Y TERRENOS DE TITULARIDAD PRIVADA Y USO PÚBLICO CON FI NALIDAD LUCRATIVA.	Ciudad Rodrigo	2022	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Collecting elements of the terraces away when the establishment is closed to the public is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
“ORDENANZA MUNICIPAL REGULADORA DE LA OCUPACIÓN DEL DOMINIO PÚBLICO MEDIANTE LA INSTALACIÓN DE TERRAZAS DE HOSTELERÍA EN LA VÍA PÚBLICA.	Cudillero	2020	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specify guidelines for screens or wind deflectors -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA NO 11 DE LA OCUPACIÓN DE TERRENOS DE USO PÚBLICO CON MESAS, SILLAS Y AFINES CON FINALIDAD LUCRATIVA.	Frigiliana	2007	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA MUNICIPAL REGULADORA DE LA INSTALACIÓN DE TERRAZAS EN EL CASCO HISTÓRICO.	Laguardia	2010	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE TERRAZAS EN LA VÍA PÚBLICA.	Medinaceli	2004	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Collecting elements of the terraces away when the establishment is closed to the public is mandatory -Specify guidelines for screens or wind deflectors -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE LA OCUPACION CON FINALIDAD LUCRATIVA DE LA VIA PÚBLICA Y OTROS ESPACIOS ABIERTOS AL PÚBLICO.	Peñíscola	2019	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA MUNICIPAL QUE REGULA LA OCUPACIÓN DE VÍA PÚBLICA CON MESAS, SILLAS, VELADORES E INSTALACIONES ANÁLOGAS.	Potes	2000	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specify guidelines for screens or wind deflectors -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE LA OCUPACIÓN DE LA VÍA PUBLICA CON MESAS, SILLAS Y OTROS ELEMENTOS ANÁLOGOS, CON FINALIDAD LUCRATIVA.	Zahara	2018	Occupation of public space	-Maintaining proper conditions of hygiene, health, safety, and ornamentation is mandatory -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANÇA DE PUBLICITAT ESTÀTICA I DINÀMICA.	Alcudia	2004	Commercial advertising	-Specific guidelines for catalogued places -Specify guidelines for the sections of buildings -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANÇA DE PUBLICITAT I ALTRES USOS EXCEPCIONALS DEL PAISATGE URBÀ DEL MUNICIPI DE NAUT ARAN.	Bagergue	2004	Commercial advertising	-Similar restrictions across all types of places
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE INSTALACIÓN DE RÓTULOS DENTRO DEL RECINTO AMURALLADO DE CIUDAD RODRIGO.	Ciudad Rodrigo	1984	Commercial advertising	-Specific guidelines for catalogued places -Specify guidelines for the sections of buildings -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA REGULADORA DE LA PUBLICIDAD EXTERIOR EN EL ESPACIO PÚBLICO.	Peñíscola	2012	Commercial advertising	-Specific guidelines for catalogued places
ORDENANZA DE INSTALACIONES Y ACTIVIDADES PUBLICITARIAS	Potes	2002	Commercial advertising	-Specific guidelines for catalogued places -Specific guidelines on materials and measurements
ORDENANZA MUNICIPAL REGULADORA DE LA INSTALACIÓN Y FUNCIONAMIENTO DE INFRAESTRUCTURAS RADIOELÉCTRICAS.	Frigiliana	2019	Telecommunication infrastructure controls	-Specific guidelines for employing the solution that best minimizes the installation’s visual impact -Specific guidelines for catalogued places
ORDENANZA MUNICIPAL REGULADORA DE INSTALACIONES Y FUNCIONAMIENTO DE INFRAESTRUCTURAS DE TELECOMUNICACIÓN.	Teguise	2003	Telecommunication infrastructure controls	-Specific guidelines for employing the solution that best minimizes the installation’s visual impact -Specific guidelines for catalogued places -Technical application project document is needed

Source: own elaboration.

). This small number reflects the operational limitations faced by the governing bodies of smaller territorial entities, with their limited human and economic resources, which makes it difficult to draft new regulations.

Amongst these regulations are the ordinances guiding commercial advertising in public spaces, through which the councils attempt to guarantee the esthetic harmonization of population centers and promote the general decorum of the urban landscape. These are the most frequent types of interventions due to the objectives they fulfill, which are none other than to attract the attention of potential clients, residents, and foreigners through the use of supports that sometimes involve a substantial alteration in the landscape values of their surroundings.

Regarding the regulations governing the occupation of public thoroughfares, the ordinances currently in force are also common. This suggests that they are a problem perceived with great intensity by local administrations. Through these regulations, the aim is to combine the right to public space with the freedom of commercial activity, which is what councils have the duty to address. Furthermore, the existence of regulations that attempt to alleviate the multiplicity of telecommunication infrastructure in urban spaces due to increasing services and connectivity is also notable. However, these are less frequent among the cases analyzed, which may largely have been due to the ever-persistent technological gap between the Spanish rural world and her urban contexts.

Many of the ordinances analyzed include provisions that place special emphasis on minimizing these impacts in historic center environments, for which more restrictive guidelines are presented. Others, however, include the entire population core in their scope of application. Many regulations include the obligation to use certain esthetics and materials, evidencing the existence of a series of provisions that favor the conservation of the urban landscape from the perspective of the romantic ideal. This, in turn, questions whether visual stereotypes are being reinforced by the institutions themselves, thereby fostering the clichés and prejudices held about the territories by the tourist-issuing centers [48]. These would induce the foreigner to travel not only spatially, but also through time, in order to enter into a territory where the authenticity and purity of an exotic and picturesque space prevail.

Given the contributions of tourism to the development of places, it is worth considering whether the legislative profusion that exists inside the rural texts is a response by local authorities to obtain social and economic benefits from the projected notion that smaller municipalities are in fact the ideal places to visit [60]; or if, on the contrary, they are simply trying to limit the transformations that tourist activity naturally entails for the urban landscape and its resignification. A conversion that does not necessarily require the physical presence of the tourist, but only the promise of his arrival, is capable of causing the organizational as well as physical and symbolic restructuring of the space by the locals themselves.

5. Conclusions

Tourism has become an important factor in economic and territorial growth and development. This phenomenon has had a special impact on rural territories, where the slowdown of traditional productive sectors as well as demographic decline has forced administrations to promote alternative activities aimed at creating jobs and wealth. In this context, the heritage wealth of territories and the image that it projects constitute a decisive factor in the trip selection process, while at the same time having an enormous influence on both the perception the visitor has of the destination during their stay and the resulting economic returns. That is essentially why local entities strive to develop strategies and promote regulations that favor territorial developments through tourism.

Local regulations, which are often largely influenced by the tourist perspective, tend to address a myriad of factors that directly affect the adaptation of the space. This study has shown how many regulations approved at the local level perpetuate the historicist esthetics of urban centers based on provisions and concepts that are largely in line with the esthetic and romantic idealizations being generated in the field of tourism.

This phenomenon strengthens the theses about the power of abstraction that tourism has over these goods and spaces, their re-functionalization, and the simplification of their values. In numerous studies carried out in fundamentally urban contexts, it has been shown that these practices can generate conflicts in the human relationships that develop around spaces for tourist use, some of which are even linked to their own resignification.

In this way, it is possible to verify how there continues to be a predominance of approaches to protect esthetics in the heritage conservation of historical places in current local regulations, where guidelines aimed at preventing visual degradation prevail. This formula is ideal for achieving greater success in the tourism market, but it also raises a series of questions about the esthetic considerations of the urban landscape and its control, and the degree to which these considerations take precedence over others linked to technological and commercial development.

Studies on the impact of tourism on public spaces grapple with a series of limitations, which include the difficulty of delimiting the incidence of tourism itself in a place shared by visitors and residents alike. And although there is no doubt that tourist activity applies a special kind of pressure, particularly on sites of notable heritage wealth, it is necessary to take into account that this said pressure also responds to larger and more complex processes.

The methodological model can be applied to similar studies on regulations and ordinances on public spaces in urban or rural contexts. It contributes to the generation of a thematic corpus from which to debate related concepts such as to what extent regulations that lead to the museification of heritage environments in rural areas jeopardize the preservation of local identity. However, while it is necessary to highlight that the selection of regulations and localities in this study has certain limitations regarding its representativeness, it is important to note that the objective of the research was to analyze the phenomenon in areas with a high incidence of tourism, as evidenced by the membership of the localities in the Association. Additionally, the aim was to generate a study that allows for its replicability and expansion to other contexts and policies.