Using adaptive cycles and panarchy to understand processes of touristification and gentrification in Valencia, Spain

Abstract

This paper takes a multi-level approach to gain a better understanding of (tourism) gentrification and tourism excesses in three popular tourist neighbourhoods in Valencia, Spain. This city radically changed tourism policies in 2015, from a top-down approach that was focused on economic growth, towards one in which localhood and community development are stimulated. However, the change has done little to mitigate issues related to high levels of gentrification and touristification. This issue has been investigated using adaptive cycles and panarchy as a framework. Using these concepts has helped clarify how current policies mainly stimulate bottom-up innovations to overcome the lack of creative capacity at the local level (in other words, the ‘poverty trap’). Yet they insufficiently address processes that relate to the worldviews and higher governance levels that contribute to maintaining the current economic growth-oriented tourism ecosystem (the ‘rigidity trap’). The implications of our findings and ways forward conclude the paper.