The Barcelona Model?: Agents, Policies and Planning Dynamics in Tourism Development

Abstract

Barcelona’s success as a tourist destination, together with the growing internationalappraisal of its urban upgrade, have portrayed the city’s urban renewal experience as asuccessful urban model worth replicating in other cities.Building on urban regime and regulation theories, this dissertation examines howthe urban regime that promotes tourism and urban redevelopment in Barcelona shapes thetourism industry outcomes. It also shows how the labor market institutions in Barcelonashape labor market outcomes in the city’s hotel industry.The analysis demonstrates that the “Barcelona model” in tourism and urbandevelopment is the product of an urban regime dominated by the local council whoseurban agenda shifted from an initial redistributive approach, present in the urban conceptsof neighborhood re-equilibrium of the early 1980s, to a boosterist approach dominated byproperty development in the late 1990s. The urban reforms in Barcelona have notescaped the entrepreneurial character that has characterized the urban policies in manyiiReproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.PREVIEWEuropean and US cities since the 1980s. The urban redevelopment process has beenchanneled through public-private partnerships and characterized by a lack of effectivecommunity participation. Following a trend present in European cities since the 1980s,Barcelona’s urban regime has placed culture at the center of its tourism and urbanredevelopment agenda. The ultimate control of the redevelopment process by the councilhas however decreased some of the negative effects associated with profit maximizationtypical of urban reforms guided by the private sector. Regarding labor conditions,despite the high level of flexibility in the labor processes introduced by global forces,regional and national labor regulations have ensured good labor conditions in the city’shotel industry

Date of Award	May 2003
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Supervisor	Briavel Holcomb (Director)