A new urban diagnostics approach for measuring touristification: The case of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona

Abstract

Due to the fast growth of the tourism industry in the last decades, many destinations are experiencing touristification. This phenomenon is intended as the socio-economic and spatial transformation process, leading to a tourism monoculture. This study aims to measure the touristification level of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (MAB), focusing on social, spatial, and environmental aspects. Its originality lies in the territorial scale of research. The primary outcome of the research is an analytic methodology for supporting informed decision-making for sustainable urban tourism policies at a metropolitan scale. The application of the MAB allows observing a leopard-spotted touristification of the area with two ongoing processes: the increment of tourism supplies in the first crown of MAB municipalities and the distribution of tourism fluxes on the coastal destinations. Besides, four typologies of municipalities have been established according to their touristification growth. Finally, this study proves the importance of discussing it at a metropolitan scale, providing a methodology relevant to other worldwide metropolises.