Urban Geotourism in La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain

Abstract

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) stated that “sun and beach” tourist destinations needed to direct more resources towards innovation, sustainability and accessibility. This is related to the crisis that many sun and beach tourist destinations are experiencing. In the Canary Islands, changes to legislation together with urban and tourist products have been made in accordance with UNWTO proposals. For many years the island of La Palma has been offering tourists hiking, stargazing and volcano tourism besides “sun and beach holidays”. However, the 2021 eruption of Tajogaite, Cumbre Vieja aggravated the island’s tourism crisis and caused very negative effects on the economy. This work identifies, selects and characterizes places of interest for geotourism development in the two largest population centers (Santa Cruz de La Palma and Los Llanos de Aridane). Santa Cruz de La Palma has 20 points of interest; Los Llanos de Aridane has 14. All sites contribute to showcasing the diversity of the natural and cultural volcanic and non-volcanic heritage of the regions. The geotourism product in La Palma is relatively new and exploits the topography present, including natural outcrops (cinder cones, lava fields, ravines, cliffs, sedimentary deposits or beaches), and also the cultural heritage (religious and civil architecture, streets or town planning, planes). These proposals for urban geotourism take advantage of the volcanic geoheritage of La Palma and increase the breadth and quality of tourism on offer.

Landscapes of the Yazd-Ardakan Plain (Iran) and the Assessment of Geotourism—Contribution to the Promotion and Practice of Geotourism and Ecotourism

“…Of particular interest in this study is the pursuit of the benefits of transdisciplinarity through which local or indigenous ecotourism is conducted [16], the importance of ecotourism in the sustainable development of thematic products, and activities belonging to geoparks [34]. In other studies, geotourism is based on geology and landscapes [10,35], including features of natural, subnatural, and humanised landscapes [36,37]. Landscapes themselves become territorial resources for tourism [38,39], promoting the image of the countryside [40,41] and conservation [42][43][44][45], geotourism and recreation activities, and preservation [31,46,47].…”

Climate Change and Geotourism: Impacts, Challenges, and Opportunities

“…Urban geotourism is of growing interest, particularly in Europe, e.g., [142][143][144]. However, visitor comfort in the summer season under increasing incidence of heatwaves was not identified as a concern in the geotourism literature.…”

Peran Modal Sosial dalam Pengembangan Komponen Pariwisata di Desa Wisata Pentingsari

“…Selain penelitian-penelitian di Indonesia, beberapa penelitian di luar negeri juga membahas mengenai pengembangan atraksi pariwisata. Penelitian Hernández et al (2022) menunjukkan La Palma di Spanyol juga memanfaatkan potensi sumberdaya alam dan sumberdaya budaya sebagai atraksi pariwisata. Lebih lanjut penelitian Wang et al (2022) menjabarkan pembagian atraksi pariwisata secara spasial di wilayah delta sungai Yangtze dan penelitian di dataran tinggi Tibet menjabarkan pengelolaan spasial diperlukan untuk pengembangan dan pemerataan pariwisata.…”