The role of spatial models in tourism planning

Abstract

Tourism is becoming one of the world’s largest growing industries with a continuous growth of around 4% per year for seven years straight according to UNWTO. Consequently, interest in utilizing the potential of tourism to boost economic development has grown dramatically. And although tourism’s beneficial impact on the fostering country’s economic growth and the developmental force tourism generates is undeniable, non-strategic development of tourism industry can result in negative outcomes. The extractive character of the tourist industry poses a challenge to urban policies which have to avert negative outcomes, control the expansion of the tourist industry while responding to a particular set of problems which vary depending on the given political, economic, socio-cultural, environmental context. The article utilizes literature analysis in order to illustrate the role of spatial models, as an extension of those policies, in mediating the tourist-host conflict.