Search Results (48)

This research analyzes the discourses and narratives surrounding the platform tourism economy in a highly touristified city, using Madrid as a case study. Rather than focusing on the socio-economic or spatial transformations themselves, the study examines how these processes are discussed, identifying the discursive strategies employed by different actors and ideologies, along with the power relations embedded in these narratives. A corpus of literature was compiled from twelve newspapers with varying ideological orientations and categorized according to political stance, access mode, and ideological radicalism. Using the LancsBox concordancer, a quantitative analysis was conducted to identify key discursive categories and preferred lexical items across ideological positions. These findings informed a subsequent in-depth qualitative analysis aimed at uncovering the rationalities behind each discourse: who speaks, how, and with what intent. The results reveal a dominant left-wing narrative that emphasizes institutional and economic mechanisms underlying platform tourism, highlighting associated social and urban harms. In contrast, conservative and liberal narratives are divided into two strands: a ‘heretic’ discourse that promotes and defends this new economic model, but also its urban results (e.g., gentrification), and a more institutional narrative framing platform tourism as inevitable and benign, thereby concealing the underlying structures of power. Full article

This article presents a social and historical analysis of Barranco district in Lima, Peru, examining its evolution as a postmodern tourism destination. Through documentary analysis of historical records, guidebooks, press articles, and novels, we investigate the significant social milestones along history with cultural, and economic impacts on tourism development in Barranco. The research employs a methodology to identify key elements that have shaped Barranco’s trajectory from a fishing settlement to a bohemian district in a lively city and finally to its status as a “hipster” neighbourhood. Drawing on postmodern tourism theory and Hawley’s socioeconomic development theory, we argue that Barranco represents a distinctive case of how cultural capital transforms and resignifies tourism spaces through complex identity processes. Findings reveal that Barranco’s development follows three clear phases: rural settlement (until the 19th century), seaside resort (mid-19th century to 1940s–60s), and urban district with postmodern tourism appeal (1990s onward). The study concludes that while Barranco’s bohemian and artistic identity has become a distinctive tourism asset, the district faces gentrification challenges that threat its sociocultural diversity and authenticity. This research contributes to understanding how postmodern tourism influences territorial identity transformation and illuminates the social, historical, and economic forces that shape distinctive urban tourism destinations. Full article

The research herein presented aims to analyze the impacts of gentrification in a medium-sized Mallorca municipality because of the tourism accommodation changes. Using the available data from national and regional official sources, qualitative research is undertaken. The main findings show how gentrification has exacerbated issues such as rising real estate prices and the loss of houses, which are nowadays devoted to tourist rentals or boutique hotels, thus not available for the local population. Another effect is a displacement of young local residents from Sóller towards other island municipalities and, finally, the presence of conflicts over the use of public spaces. Even if the local authorities already implement some measures, it is concluded that more measures should be included in order to avoid the increase in “tourismphobia” attitudes related to the gentrification process and the public space occupation. Full article

Tourism gentrification and lifestyle migration are reshaping both urban and rural destinations, yet no studies have examined how these trends might support regenerative tourism. This paper addresses a clear gap in the literature by being the first, to the authors’ knowledge, to explore their combined potential to contribute to regenerative outcomes. The research questions were structured using the PICOTS framework, and the review process followed the PRISMA 2020 protocol for transparency. A two-stage review design was used. First, a bibliometric analysis was conducted using Web of Science and Scopus data, applying co-occurrence mapping to identify thematic clusters. Second, an integrative literature review was performed to synthesise these findings and interpret them across spatial levels. Findings show that, while both gentrification and lifestyle migration can produce displacement and inequality, they also offer opportunities for regeneration when guided by inclusive governance, local participation, and value-based migration. The proposed multi-level framework explains how mobility-related transformations unfold at the individual, community, and policy levels. This study contributes to the field by introducing a multi-level framework that links fragmented debates, clarifies the conditions for regenerative transformation, and provides a structured approach for analysing tourism-driven socio-spatial change. Full article

The Lower Silesian Voivodeship is one of 16 Polish voivodeships—it covers the Lower Silesia region. The area was chosen for this study due to its location at the crossroads of three countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany), centuries-old traditions in terms of the tourist function, wealth of nature, and the specificity of its demographic potential (almost total replacement of the regional community after World War II). The article identifies the main components of the settlement network and refers to the 11th Sustainable Development Goal. The purpose of this article is to analyze demographic changes and the evolution of the tourist function in Lower Silesia, with particular focus on their correlations and spatial diversification. The conducted analyses were based on the statistical data provided by the Local Data Bank of the Statistics Poland (LDB SP). Synthetic measures of development were used to analyze the tourist function. The research period varies depending on the particular stage and results from the availability of statistical data. The core of the research covers the years 1946–2023. It was established that Lower Silesia is characterized by a developed tourist function but, simultaneously, has been experiencing an increasingly pronounced demographic crisis. The research findings point to divergent choices made by the users–residents and users–tourists. The leaders in terms of the tourist function include, i.e., the Karkonosze County and Jelenia Góra city with county rights and, at the same time, the rapidly depopulating areas. The leading cities of Lower Silesia are not developing in an even manner; in this respect, the region is moving away from the 11th Sustainable Development Goal. Full article

This systematic review examines the role of arts places in fostering urban sustainability and resilience, investigating how these spaces contribute to long-term urban development goals. By synthesizing 79 peer-reviewed articles published between 2013 and 2024, this review identifies the mechanisms through which art spaces promote sustainability and resilience across economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions. Urban resilience is achieved through civic engagement and empowerment, as well as the repurposing the spaces to adapt to new uses within the community and strengthening cultural heritage and identity. Similarly, urban sustainability in different aspects, such as economic, environmental, and social, is fulfilled by new revenues from tourism income, as well as educational promotion on ecological issues through art. The findings reveal how arts places—ranging from permanent museums and galleries to temporary and public art installations—stimulate community engagement, economic revitalization, and environmental stewardship. This study provides a theoretical framework that illustrates the connections between the types of arts places, their initiators, and their intended outcomes. The results also highlight challenges such as gentrification and the tension between artistic and commercial purposes. Implications for urban planners and policymakers include integrating arts places into urban regeneration strategies. Future research should focus on quantitative measures of the long-term impact of arts places and their role in mitigating urban inequities. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many accommodations to close. However, the pandemic might play an important role in providing an opportunity to achieve sustainable tourism with a good balance between housing for residents and accommodation for tourists. As the theoretical framework, this study aims to investigate the change in households triggered by accommodation closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Kyoto City’s historical center. Furthermore, the causes of these changes were examined by analyzing the real estate properties traded on the market. For the analysis, this study considered the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment to investigate the causal relationship between the number of households, closed accommodations, and real estate properties. As a result, it was found that households increased by approximately 1.34 in neighborhood associations with closed simple accommodations. Regarding the causes of the increase, closed simple accommodation properties tend to change to short-term rentals. This study also highlighted that closed simple accommodations have significantly smaller room sizes than other property types, with only slightly higher prices. As a theoretical contribution, our findings suggest that the pandemic might have suppressed tourism gentrification, but increased the number of households. Full article

This paper is the result of a preliminary research phase aimed at identifying the phenomenon of gentrification in Rome’s San Lorenzo neighborhood, examining the perception of the phenomenon and the urban planning tools that have been adopted until today to contain it. The experimental framework proposed, based on qualitative research methods, aims to discuss if some urban transformations can be related only to market phenomenon inherent to gentrification or to the lack of planning tools able to manage—through the construction of a shared view on neighborhoods development—the negative externalities resulting from the real estate investments induced by the tourism sector and linked to the presence of universities in the reference territory. The research combines an international theoretical framework; the analysis of the policies and of the urban transformation during the contemporary history of the neighborhood; and interviews to key informants such as representatives of local institutions and associations, researchers, inhabitants, and others. The research approach intends to deepen the general perception and the comprehension of the phenomenon of gentrification from the local community, in relation to his own involvement in decision-making processes about the strategic regulatory–prescriptive development of the neighborhood. The primary objective of the paper is to advocate for an analytical framework that facilitates a better understanding of gentrification within the national context and explores potential institutional responses. It seeks to clarify the concept of gentrification, which is often misunderstood when interpreted solely through its Anglo-Saxon definition. By doing so, the paper aims to contribute to informed discussions and effective policy-making regarding urban development in San Lorenzo and beyond. Full article

There is a strong relationship between heritage-led urban regeneration and the UN initiatives for Sustainable Development (SD). These include the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention (ICH; 2003) and Historic Urban Landscape (HUL; 2011) under the UNESCO mandate and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs; 2015) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA; 2016) under the UN mandate. Despite the presence of those initiatives, regeneration in a World Heritage city often leads to the disappearance of intangible heritage, gentrification, excessive tourism, and social exclusion. Therefore, this paper critically identifies the shortcomings of those initiatives in addressing social and cultural sustainability. It uses the recently inscribed city of As-Salt on the WHL to showcase how the relevant SDGs’ targets and indicators are problematic in monitoring and measuring the sustainability of urban regeneration practices in WH cities. This is achieved by investigating where heritage and culture are embedded within the descriptions of goals and indicators in the three initiatives (SDGs, NUA, and HUL) document. A content analysis, using the NVivo qualitative data analysis tool, was conducted in order to identify complementarity, synergies, and correlations among the goals and indicators related to social and cultural sustainability. This paper concludes by suggesting an integrated approach under the umbrella of the SDGs for a more sustainable heritage-led urban regeneration alternative for cities acquiring UNESCO WH status. Full article

This research focuses on the proposal of a corridor design that allows social and ecological integration in the context of a city with emerging potential as a tourist destination in Chinchero, Cusco. Key challenges addressed include lack of infrastructure to manage growing tourism demand, fragmentation of social identity, displacement of the local population due to gentrification processes, uncontrolled urban sprawl, and inappropriate exploitation of natural, cultural, and agricultural lands. To address these issues, a comprehensive diagnosis was carried out covering various urban-environmental dimensions, such as topography, road infrastructure, archeology, climate, and biodiversity. In this process, digital tools such as Blender, AutoCAD, Photoshop, and Affinity Designer were used. As a result of the analysis, an urban green corridor is proposed consisting of seven sectors covering the shores of the Piuray lagoon, the city center, and its archeological area, through the creation of socially active public spaces equipped with cultural, sports, and recreational facilities. The city of Chinchero, with its growing importance as a tourist destination, presents the opportunity and the need to develop a controlled urban development axis that promotes the connection between environmental, cultural, archeological, social, and tourism aspects. This objective is materialized in the form of a green corridor that seeks to promote social integration and a sense of territorial belonging. Full article

In multicentric and increasingly complex urban regions, a city centre reinvents itself. In the case of Porto, tourism was essential for its “Baixa” renaissance. A relevant increase in visitors meant also a dramatic increase in real estate prices and significant land-use change. In field interviews, retailers noticed a “new life” before COVID-19 arrived, remarking on the positive role of tourism on urban rehabilitation and the economic viability of companies, and the negative effects for residents and traditional shops, directed to the common resident. In this article, we present and discuss its main effects in this exceptional area in Portugal’s second city. We also discuss tourism dependency and the challenge of sustainability in a high-density context, defending public policies oriented for a “city with tourists” that replaces the current construction of a “city of tourists”. Full article

Encouraged by the administration, the gen9otrification process has been useful in economic terms for the reactivation of the socio-cultural fabrics of historic urban spaces in decline. What was initially considered an advantage has led to the touristification of historic centers, and in turn to the alteration of their original use. In these settings, the demographic void caused by increasingly shunning local identity has combined with pressure from excessive tourism and the obsolescence of heritage protection bodies in charge of conservation. Given the crisis affecting the definitions of the current system, this study aims to review the environmental agents of heritage value in relation to the processes of touristification and gentrification. Data obtained from different methodologies are analyzed using a multidisciplinary database, a model which enables the analysis of the relevant information from the different interacting fields. This case study focuses on the historic town center of Seville, specifically between 2015 and 2020. Elements are defined as indicators for these processes and the analysis of this case study will comprise the main results of this research. Full article

Before the Coronavirus Disease pandemic of 2019, many tourist cities suffered from over-tourism, and tourism gentrification seriously impacted the living environment for residents. This study aimed to clarify the statistical relationship between the increase in the number of accommodations―hotels and simple accommodations―and housing prices in Kyoto City, one of the world’s most famous tourist cities. As a key result, this study clarified that the price change in houses for sale was significantly related to the number of hotels in the historical center of Kyoto City. Specifically, it was found that the average price of houses for sale increased by JPY 2,013,957/USD 18,382 per hotel in a neighborhood district. In addition, the average price of houses for sale increased by JPY 6,412,102/USD 58,526 from 2015 to 2019. Compared to previous studies, in the historical center of Kyoto City, the novelty of our finding is that the cause for increasing housing prices was not simple accommodations but hotels, and the effect of housing prices was not on houses for rent but those for sale. These results are significant because they indicate that tourism gentrification causes housing affordability risk for the local communities, including young households. Full article

Tourism gentrification in traditional industrial areas presents issues regarding the privatization of public spaces, transformation of public services to cater to tourists, erosion of community social bonds, and the commodification of regional consumption, which has far-reaching impacts on residents’ stress and their desire to relocate. This study aims to understand the impact of tourism gentrification from residents’ perspectives with a case study of the 798 Industrial Art Zone in Beijing, China. Using Q methodology, residents living in the community (N = 20) were involved in the interviews. The finalized statements (N = 26) were derived from the interviews. Based on the stress threshold theory, the results revealed four factors that influence residents’ stress: neighboring environment, community attachment, economic interest, and cultural identity. This study further proposes a framework with four dimensions (i.e., environmental, relational, economic, and emotional) to explain the relocation decision-making of residents in traditional industrial areas due to stress from interactions with migrants and visitors, and changes to the place-functions of industrial regions and communities. This study is the first to conceptualize tourism gentrification in traditional industrial areas by elucidating the residents’ stress. It provides practical guidance for policymakers and destination marketing organizations for promoting the sustainable development of industrial tourism. Full article

Existing research has noted a clear interaction between touristification and commercial gentrification; however, the differences between these two coexisting but distinct phenomena require further research. This study uses online big data and quantitative methods to explore the relationship between touristification and commercial gentrification. Taking Yuzhong District in Chongqing as an example, this study constructs an inter-attraction network based on 1306 itineraries extracted from online travel diaries, develops a method to evaluate community tourism centrality based on network analysis, and examines the correlation between community tourism centrality, touristification, and commercial gentrification. The results suggest that attractions with historical value, unique local landscapes, and mixed functions show greater tourism centrality in the tourist flow network. Attractions with similar themes are more likely to be included in one travel route, and the influence of distance is insignificant at the district level. Communities with higher tourism centrality are clustered in old city areas with a rich historic heritage and have experienced profound commercialisation. Although similar, touristification is primarily a bottom-up process, while commercial gentrification tends to be more involved with the top-down urban planning process. This study contributes to the methodological development of network analysis in tourism research and advances the understanding of the different mechanisms of touristification and commercial gentrification. Full article