Tourist renewal as a strategy to improve the competitiveness of an urban tourist space: a case study in Maspalomas-Costa Canaria

Abstract

The reclassification of accommodation for tourism, understood as the change of tourist category or classification in terms of accommodation activity, is put forward as one of the ways to increase competitiveness in any establishment. So, recent regulation on planning, renovation and modernization of Tourism in Canary Islands established the need to increase the classification of the accommodation offering by restoring degraded tourist areas and renovating different public and private infrastructures. Using a case study methodology in this paper, the characteristics of the rehabilitation process undertaken in different touristic establishments of the coast of Gran Canaria, are analyzed, more specifically in Maspalomas-Costa Canaria destination. Comparative analysis of these cases presenting it as a rehabilitation model that allowed it to re-join the market, benefiting from the urban incentives policies through the upgrading strategy, increasing the quality and quantity of the services offered.