Phases of Tourism Planning
Planning as a function of policy (Hall 1994) must be understood
within the framework of tourism demand and supply growth that has
gone on uninterruptedly in Spain, with few recession periods and, logically,
with variable and decreasing growth rates, ever since the 60s tourism
boom. The lack of planning often attributed to the national development
process undoubtedly becomes a paradox considering the
significant role played by the industry in the modernization of Spain’s
economic structure: contributions to production and employment, as
well as to balance of payments equilibrium (Bote 1994); along with
the consolidation of its leading position among the international destination
countries. However, this reasoning is clearly biased, since the
perversion of the scale game offers an enviable national macroeconomic
panorama, which is also projected in the economic growth of
tourism areas, but also hides regional and local socioeconomic and
environmental imbalances that, apart from other negative effects, can
jeopardize the viability of the industry in the future. The evolution of
tourism policy and planning in Spain may be divided into five distinct
phases (Table 2), taking into account the changes operating in the
political and socioeconomic context, in the evolution of the industry,
in the policy objectives and in the planning approaches.