The beach as a strategic element of governance for Spanish coastal towns

ABSTRACT

Governance models and future strategic visions for Spain's beach social–ecological systems are assessed using an online questionnaire. Beaches continue to represent the most valuable attraction for Spanish coastal towns, but their strategic vision regarding the beach consists more of it being a profitable attraction and of maintaining the traditional “sun and sand” model, rather than of planning strategically. There are three trends looking to 2020. First, beach resorts are becoming linked with culture and heritage, gastronomy, events and ecotourism to enhance their attraction capacity and competitiveness. Second, the coastal towns plan to reduce the strain on beaches by increasing the number of square metres of sand per user. Third, they plan to reduce the strain of the seasonal population compared to the year-round population. Two indices (Beach Quality and Governance Quality) and two factors (Beach Management Proximity and Tourist Resource Expectations) were developed to assess municipal beach governance frameworks, enabling us to construct a typology of four municipal governance models. The country follows a classical public hierarchical model of beach management. Other than at the local scale, beaches are not strategically managed. There is a lack of implementation of adaptive measures, collective actions, integrated management, or policy learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Beach governance
• sustainable sun and sand tourism model
• beach quality indices
• coastal town strategy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was carried out within the framework of the MeVaPlaya-II project [CSO2009-14589] and the PLAYA+ project [CGL2013-49061] of the National Research Plan of Spain in R+D+i.

Notes on contributors

Josep-Francesc Valls

Josep-Francesc Valls is a Professor in ESADE's Department of Marketing Management. In 1990, he created the Tourism Management Centre (CEDIT), and was its Director until September 2004. He is a co-editor of the book “Hacia un nuevo modelo integral de Gestión de playas”, Documenta, 2013.

Josep Rucabado

Josep Rucabado is a professor in ESADE's Department of Quantitative Methods. He is co-author of the book “Hacia un nuevo modelo integral de playas”, Documenta, 2013.

Rafael Sardá

Rafael Sardá is a Senior Scientist of the National Council of Research (CSIC) doing research at the Coastal and Marine Social-Ecological Systems Unit of the CEAB; Associate Professor of the Operations and Innovation Department of ESADE Business School teaching Environmental Management Courses; and cofounder of the Business and the Environment group of the Global Alliance of Business Schools. He is representing the CSIC in international expert group consultations on coastal and marine research affairs.

Antoni Parera

Antoni Parera LIc & MBA at ESADE. He is assistant researcher in ESADE's Department of Marketing Management.