VIRTUAL Barcelona
Abstract
The intensification of tourist activity in Portugal resulted from a government commitment to overcome the economic and financial crisis that hit Portugal from 2010 onwards. This intensification was mainly reflected in urban areas where, before, there was no tourism specialisation, with the cases of the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto being the most outstanding. In terms of public policies, one of the measures that resulted from this framework was the flexibility of the housing rental market through short-term rentals to promote local accommodation to tourists in Portugal. At the same time, international trends signalled a tourist demand very oriented towards urban tourism and, in particular, towards the “live like a local” paradigm. The combination of these factors resulted in an explosion in the supply and demand for local accommodation in Portugal, with direct and profound consequences for urban fabrics and populations. Focusing on the analysis of the evolution of local accommodation in Portugal, in the last decade, this article explores the contribution of this phenomenon to the touristification of urban space, in conjunction with the negative social effects resulting from this process, through the analysis of local accommodation and the public policies that have been addressed to it.
Ana Rita Cruz is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Economics of the University of the Algarve and an integrated researcher at CinTurs-Centre for Research in Tourism,Sustainability and Well-being(Faro,Portugal), where she co-coordinates the “Tourism, Leisure and Society” research area. She has been developing research into the interdependencies between tourism and cultural and creative ecosystems, the touristification of cities, and the social impacts of tourism. Ana Rita is also a collaborating researcher at DINÂMIA’CET-ISCTE.