Inland Spain: Challenges and Opportunities of Undertourism Contexts Within the Local Turn

Spain is one of the main tourism destinations worldwide. However, tourism is not equally present in all the territory and a distinction can be made in terms of tourism development between coastal and urban areas on the one hand and inland areas on the other. This article analyses tourism development in Spanish inland areas, essentially based on a bibliographic review on this topic. An evolution can be observed from concepts such as rural tourism or endogenous development to more recent topics, like slow or proximity tourism as postcapitalist proposals. We conclude that inland areas can benefit from proximity tourism, and the principles of the “local turn” in tourism represent an opportunity to develop within sustainable and responsible frameworks. The use of adaptive cycles and tourism micro-clusters as analytical tools for tourism development in inland areas is also addressed. Most of these areas have large tourism potential, although proper regional planning is required. Lessons learnt from the overtourism experiences in Spanish coastal and urban destinations emphasize the idea of the need to advocate for an adequate tourism in these undertourism inland destinations.