Land use conversion from tourist to residential

Abstract

This work analyses the forces that drive the conversion of non-hotel tourist accommodation into residential use. For this purpose, a land use change model that considers spatial autocorrelation is proposed and applied to the tourist area of Maspalomas, in Gran Canaria, Spain, which has suffered an extraordinary process of residentialization in the last decade. The empirical model estimates the probability that a non-hotel accommodation resort (apartments/bungalows) located in this area closes its activity within a prefixed time period. Results show that the state of the neighbouring resorts influences on the probability of closure of the apartments/bungalows, as well as their specific typology and low quality. From these results, some recommendations are proposed about the strategies undertaken by the implied agents.