New regeneration strategies for mature tourist destinations. More than one hundred years of “Platja de Palma” construction

Abstract

Urban regeneration has been one of the main challenges faced by European cities during the last quarter of the 20^th Century. While postindustrial European cities have experimented one consolidation stage over the methodology of urban reform with the turn of the millennium, Mediterranean mature touristic spots, over more than thirty years of trying, still have to discover their regeneration mechanisms. This research explores new ways to rethink mature tourist destinations in connection with the paradigmatic case of Platja de Palma in Mallorca. Intrinsic destination characteristics are explored from the morphological constructed space characteristics and the shore landscape. The accessibility level evolution, the developed kind of touristic product, as well as the town-planning tools applied to each stage, lets recon which principal factors have catalyzed its development. Besides, the analysis of the values and fragilities experimented in the landscape shore allow us to rethink the potentialities of the first tourist source. The tourist spot of Platja de Palma has been shaped by a discontinuous planning, applying different models of tourist space construction as well as preexisting landscape transformation. Identifying its intrinsic values provides us with new tools for accomplishing a regeneration based on the economy of means and the strengthening of its identity, as well as the resources diversity that configures the destiny, which are key factors for its future regeneration.