The rapid increase in urban tourism flows generates problems of tourist overcrowding and gives rise to important challenges for city management. Within this context, urban tourism planning is experiencing a convergence of new paradigms related to the so-called Smart Tourist Destinations (SD). Smart tourism and its operational level open up new avenues for intervention in the city which can help to manage overtourism. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyse the level of implementation of smart solutions in four Spanish destinations: Donostia-San Sebastián, Madrid, Málaga and Valencia. The methodology used combines the compilation of information on initiatives and measures found in public tourism planning documents with semi-structured interviews with those responsible for managing the Smart City strategy and the SD project. The results reveal that there is a gap between the SD approaches, the level of implementation of smart solutions and their operability in relation to the management of tourist overload. Almost no technological solutions have been developed to address this issue, which is barely perceived as a problem by local governments. However, the need to generate knowledge that is useful for managing tourist overload constitutes a challenge faced by a growing number of destinations.

The rapid growth in urban tourism has brought great pressure to the historic centres, intensifying the negative externalities that threaten their protection and proper functioning. The aim of this article is to analyse the use of urban planning regulations as an instrument for containing tourism activity in situations of overtourism. A two-stage methodological approach is employed: Firstly, a review of the local governments’ response to the effects of tourism growth and the possibilities of local control in 46 Spanish cities is presented; secondly, a comparative analysis of the stricter short-term rentals regulations adopted by those cities is carried out. The common basis of the adopted regulations is the control of tourist use of an entire dwelling. Of the cities analysed, Barcelona has the most restrictive regulation, while in all the other cities, regulation is less restrictive and depends on the type of accommodation in question and/or the conditions imposed on issuing new licences. The results demonstrate the difficulties entailed in the process of formulating and applying regulations and reveal imbalances between the economic and urban planning visions, and between the rapid change in tourism and the much slower response capacity of governments.

Tourism gentrification, as a complex phenomenon in large urban destinations, is an important topic for future tourism professionals. The aim of this paper is to offer a digital cartography making activity based on the contemporary dynamics of commercial transformation within tourism gentrification contexts in Madrid in order to facilitate its understanding. This innovative teaching activity is in accordance with the sustainable tourism pedagogy approach and follows an active methodology using three different GIS applications: Google Street View, ESRI ArcGIS Desktop and ESRI ArcGIS Online Story Maps application. A 4-phase methodological design is proposed so that the activity is customizable (1- recognition of previous ideas), achievable (2- significant streets’ mapping), collaborative (3- collective idea-sharing) and replicable (4- academic and didactic evaluation). Finally, the results from an initial implementation are brought to light: i) an initial conceptual lack was found, ii) examples that help to see the proposal materialized are shown and iii) expected positive consequences according to the scientific literature are presented. It is concluded that, despite the scarce bibliography, the use of GIS software and Google Street View in tourism higher education is convenient, not only to facilitate the learning of complex territorial phenomena but also to learn digital tools highly valued in the professional field.

Las ciudades atraen buena parte del flujo turístico mundial. Este flujo tiende a concentrarse sobre determinadas zonas, en general sectores concretos de los centros urbanos. La concentración favorece los procesos de turistificación y puede generar problemas de saturación turística. Como respuesta, algunos gobiernos locales están impulsando medidas de contención de la actividad turística en los espacios más saturados y ampliación de la huella turística hacia zonas más periféricas. En la ciudad de Madrid se constatan ambos fenómenos. El turismo se encuentra muy concentrado sobre el área central: la zona delimitada como Conjunto Histórico y, en especial, determinados sectores del Distrito Centro. Estos sectores sufren procesos acusados de turistificación: expansión del alojamiento, ya sea convencional o viviendas de uso turístico; transformación de las actividades comerciales y hosteleras, que se orientan hacia el consumo foráneo; banalización del paisaje y la imagen urbana; congestión de calles y plazas acentuada por la presencia de los visitantes y sus vehículos; etc. Ante esta situación, el gobierno municipal empieza a adoptar unas primeras medidas que implican una limitación del uso turístico de las áreas centrales y su extensión hacia zonas más periféricas de la ciudad. Entre otras, estas medidas incluyen una regulación zonal de las implantaciones de alojamiento, campañas para la activación turística de nodos periféricos y una distribución más equilibrada de los eventos por todos los distritos.

Urban tourism is in constant growth. The increase in the number of tourists has a special impact on historic centres. Some problems related to overcrowding arise in these spaces, which represent important challenges for urban management. This chapter reflects on the need to define overtourism indicators that allow dimensioning the phenomenon and its impacts. But it also involves a deep reflection on the limits of application of these indicators. These limits derive from the absence of reference values and the operational difficulties to obtain data. First of all, the state of the art regarding the indicators is made. Secondly, based on a review of the existing bibliography, the next section raises some indicators of activity and tourism specialization. The focus is on European cities and the application of these indicators is shown in the historic centre of Madrid. Another section also looks at the perception of the phenomenon by different local stakeholders due to the absence of commonly accepted overtourism values, referring to these perceptions as valuation criteria.