Impacts of ‘home stays’ on the protected urban landscape and the social environment (Viñales, Cuba)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Enhancing urban heritage can benefit the local community, but development has a negative impact on both the landscape and the social environment. The Viñales Valley (Cuba) is a priority hub of tourism development where ecotourism and cultural tourism have rapidly increased. The lack of hotel accommodation has contributed to the growth of room rental in private houses in Viñales, a protected world heritage landscape. The aim of this study is to determine the impact of home stay tourism on Viñales, both in physical terms (modifications to housing and the urban landscape) and in social terms (the changes and ‘benefits and losses’ perceived by the owners/hosts of the homes available for rent). The inventory we made detected 392 rental homes and we interviewed 74 landlords. The most clearly negative results are that renting out accommodation for tourists is the direct cause of the reduction in urban green spaces, the use of new building materials or the emergence of modern architectural structures. In social terms, the management of tourist activity is principally shouldered by women, leads to changes to daily habits and transforms the home into a work space. Finally, this activity causes social problems because of the emergence of social differences.