Spain's Tourism, Telecommunications and Trade: Key Trends and Challenges

Spain's Telecommunications, Tourism and Commerce

Spain's telecommunications sector is very competitive. Transport infrastructure and freight traffic are key to the economy, and there are significant territorial imbalances between urban, economic and tourist areas, which makes the strategic infrastructure plan important: it should boost the economic functions of airports and liberalize rates and services.

1. Telecommunications

Communication and the development of telecommunications are essential for the economy, since instantaneous exchange of information allows the social and economic aspects of globalization to flourish. The Spanish telecommunications sector, and particularly the telephone sector, has experienced very important growth. The spatial distribution of telephone flows responds to a hierarchical model: the provinces receive the most flows, and the main metropolitan areas concentrate them, with Madrid standing out as the main node.

2. Tourist Areas

2.1 Factors in the Development of Spanish Tourism

Since the 1960s, Spain has experienced large-scale tourist development and has become one of the great world tourism powers. Tourism has grown in volume and in income generated by this activity. The expansion of Spanish tourism over the last decades has been driven by external and internal factors.

External factors:

• Economic growth in Europe after the Second World War and the increase of the middle class, which allowed more travel.
• Paid vacation legislation.
• Transport improvements, such as lower airfares and better railways.

Internal factors:

• Spain's geographic proximity to Europe.
• Exceptional conditions: the weather and landscape.
• Cultural appeal.
• Low costs following devaluation of the peseta.
• State facilities for tourist activity.
• The appearance of large travel agencies and tour operators.
• Consolidation of demand and improved quality of supply.
• Diversification of tourism.
• Availability of qualified human resources.
• Better transport infrastructure.

Some factors that were once important have lost relevance, while others have gained it. Political instability in other Mediterranean countries also favored Spain.

2.2 The Traditional Tourism Model

The tourism model implanted from the 1960s was characterized by abundant supply, which attracted a large clientele with low purchasing power. Another characteristic was the sector's dependence on tour operators, so most of the spending by tourists visiting Spain went abroad.

2.2.1 The Tourist Supply

Tourist supply is made up of complementary products, including accommodation, catering, maintenance and leisure facilities.

• Accommodation is concentrated on the Mediterranean coast and the islands.
• Hotels and other establishments make up the bulk of the accommodation plant, while extra-hotel establishments exceed 10 million places.
• Catering includes restaurants, cafeterias and bars.
• Leisure supply highlights sports facilities, recreational parks and water parks.

2.2.2 The Tourist Demand

Tourism demand was initially dominated by foreign tourists. Today, national demand plays a prominent role.

• International demand has grown since the 1950s. Spain's entry into the EU in 1986 notably increased the number of visitors, mostly from Western Europe.
• National demand has grown since the 1960s, concentrated in industrialized areas, with less polarization along the coast.
• The excessive seasonality of demand is one of the main problems of Spanish tourism. Most demand is concentrated in summer (August), especially among foreign tourists. This concentration causes excessive use of seasonal infrastructure, saturation, loss of quality and environmental problems.

3. The Crisis of the Traditional Tourism Model and Alternatives

3.1 Causes of the Crisis

Although the number of tourists and income still remain high, the traditional tourism model shows signs of depletion and crisis. Its causes are:

• The predominance of mid- and low-end tourism.
• Tourist supply faces problems with prices.
• Dependence on international tour operators.
• Deterioration of the environment and landscape.

3.2 Alternative Tourism and the New Tourism Policy

These problems demand renewal and reconversion of the sector, based on territorial planning policy. Planning must then be scaled down to regional and local levels. Tourism policy has the following objectives:

• Promote quality tourism.
• Foster new tourism modalities, such as rural, ecotourism, urban and active tourism.
• Reduce dependence on external tour operators through the creation of national tour operators.
• Make environmental quality and tourism development compatible.

4. Tourist Areas and Their Typology

Tourist areas are spaces that attract tourist flows, both national and foreign. These areas exist in attractive locations with different features, such as ski resorts.

Areas can be classified by their use as tourist areas: with medium seasonality, stabilized or specialized in tourism, or visited only occasionally for a particular reason.

4.1 Sun and Beach Tourism Areas

These include the Balearic and Canary Islands and the Mediterranean peninsular coast. They receive the greatest tourist influx and show notable differences in the following aspects:

• Accessibility: Accessibility determines tourist occupation. Good air and road connections with the origin markets of tourists favor development.
• Spatial occupation model: In some cases, tourist accommodation integrates into the pre-existing urban structure, affecting the traditional nucleus or the seafront, or sets up new developments.
• Type, quality and clientele of accommodation: Hotels and extra-hotel establishments predominate, with extensive low-density or intensive mid- or high-category models. The national or foreign clientele also differentiates these areas from others.

4.2 Other Tourist Areas

After 1990, tourism spread across space more intensively, due to the following factors:

• Increased tourism in areas close to population centers.
• Rural interior areas, seen as a strategy for tourism diversification and economic development.
• The need to restructure spaces, which led to tourism expansion into coastal areas.
• Improved quality of new attractions demanded by consumers.

Besides sun and beach areas, other destinations are based on different factors:

• Madrid has little seasonality and is the most important destination for cultural tourism and congress and convention tourism.
• The Cantabrian coast and Galician coast offer unsaturated interiors and outstanding rural and natural landscapes.
• Rural tourism centers are growing.
• Ski resorts are based on mountain snow tourism.
• Historic and artistic cities attract cultural tourism through museum and monument visits.

5. The Spatial Impact of Tourism

Tourism has significant impacts on the territorial areas that receive it. The most evident and traditionally most intense impacts occur in coastal tourist areas, but they also affect other regions.

5.1 Demographic Repercussions

• In coastal areas, the effective population increases with tourism. In some cases, young people arrive seeking work, as do adults and people of retirement age. Foreigners establish permanent residence for various reasons.
• In rural areas, tourism has in some cases stimulated and slowed depopulation, and revitalized crafts. Emigration has also been mitigated in some historic cities facing economic crisis.

5.2 Settlement Repercussions

• On the coast, tourism has contributed to the creation of new settlement structures.
• In some rural areas, tourism has contributed to the urban rehabilitation of built heritage.

5.3 Economic Repercussions

• Tourism generates employment, providing a significant contingent of jobs for workers who may otherwise be unemployed.
• It has a leverage effect on other economic activities.
• Tourism accounts for approximately 11.4% of GDP (2003), making it one of the main pillars of Spanish economic prosperity.
• It compensates for the trade balance and the external debt.
• It influences transport policy, aiming to provide good tourist accessibility.

5.4 Political, Sociological and Cultural Repercussions

• Tourism fosters rapprochement between peoples, contact between cultures, and political understanding that favors stability.
• It influences the way of life of local societies, in some cases negatively and in others positively.
• It affects residents' quality of life when services and infrastructure become saturated.

5.5 Repercussions on Territorial Planning

a) Areas and tourist spaces are organized according to tourism needs, becoming recreational or service-oriented surfaces where supplies are installed. Their consequences are:

• Alterations to the environment and landscape.
• Transformations in the economy.
• Land-use conflicts over resources.

b) Tourist points of interest and historic centers specialize in services for tourists. Their primary functions are second homes and satisfying tourist demand.

c) Tourism in rural areas can create conflicts with other economic activities and lead to the abandonment of farming.

5.6 Environmental Repercussions

Strong development has come from the tourism sector, concentrated in space and in a short season. Environmental concern was not widespread until recently. The consequences have included the construction of large blocks of apartments along the coast and beaches, uncontrolled urbanization of natural spaces of great value, beaches, and pollution. Protection policies now demand active rehabilitation.

Domestic and Foreign Trade

Commerce consists of offering products and services to consumers. It can take place within a country's borders or beyond them.

1. Domestic Trade

Domestic trade is characterized by:

• Location, which depends on the existence of a central transport system connecting producers, consumers and merchants, and on the existence of a wide consumer market. Both factors favor urban areas with good road transport.
• Changes in its structure, which have affected distribution channels, sales formats and payment methods.
• Types of commerce:
  • Wholesale commerce, which sells mainly to retailers.
  • Retail commerce, which sells directly to consumers.
  • Traditional commerce (grocery stores).
  • New formats, such as shopping centers.
• Commercial areas are spatially formed as logistical hubs whose population depends on them for the acquisition of goods.
• Spanish commercial policy has two basic instruments: the Framework Plan for the Modernization of Commerce (1995) and the Law on Retail Commerce (1996).

2. Foreign Trade

Foreign trade involves the exchange of products between a country and the rest of the world.

• Exports have lost importance in the primary sector.
• Spain's foreign trade changed after its entry into the EU.
• Trade policy is influenced by the establishment of a single market within the EU and by agreements signed with the World Trade Organization.
• Spanish trade policy seeks to promote exports through various measures.