The Consolidation Stage of the Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) Model: The Case of Ibiza from 1977 to 2000

Abstract

Ibiza is an island in the Western Mediterranean internationally known as a sun and beach tourist destination, and it is notable for its nightclubs. This fact is the result of a century of tourist history that began in the first third of the 20th century and reached its maximum data at the end of that century and the beginning of the 21st century. Using the tourism area life cycle (TALC) model as a reference, it is possible to affirm that Ibiza has already gone through most of the stages proposed by the TALC. The objective of this work is to undertake a historical approach to the events and context that this island experienced during the period that could be considered to be a consolidation stage (1977 to 2000), which is still little analyzed. During this period, demand growth continued, although at a slower pace than in the previous stages, and suffered the first major crisis. The regional administration had to face the errors of the previous decades with various legal actions as follows: the limitation of the accommodation supply, which was already oversized by that stage; the environmental protection of spaces that had not yet been affected by urban development; the modernization of the offerings, much of them being obsolete and degraded; and the diversification of the issuing markets, which had until then been focused on Germany and the United Kingdom. The economic crisis of the early 1990s was a turning point for the tourism sector, both in terms of administrations and companies, and quantitative growth was replaced by qualitative growth in the following years. Starting in 2000, tourism in Ibiza entered a new phase characterized by the modernization of the offerings and the stagnation of data.