Tourism planning in Spain - Evolution and perspectives

Spain's democratization and decentralization process during the late 70s opened new ways for regional tourism planning, on a scale that had been neglected in the context of Franco's regime's centralist policy. Twenty years after the transfer of powers to autonomous communities started, the results obtained in regional planning matters are uneven and, in general, scant. The consolidation of regional tourism policies shows its weakest point in the field of planning. Among the causes of this situation is the difficulty of fitting the various (sectorial, territorial, economic, sociocultural, or environmental) dimensions of tourism within the present distribution of powers, this being a problem that requires coordinated and truly operative political and technical solutions.