Touristification on a Southern European Context: The Cases of Athens, Lisbon and Naples
Authors: Nick Dines, Cristina Mattiucci, Stavros Spyrellis, Simone Tulumello
The scope of this presentation is to detect and examine touristification trends on a Southern European (SE) context. The analysis will place under the spotlight, and compare, three major SE cities: two capitals –Athens and Lisbon– and the second biggest Italian city, the capital of southern Italy, Naples.
Acknowledging that the increase in tourism, especially the short-term tourism, fuels changes on preexisting urban structures, the research will underline changes that could help identify undergoing touristification mechanisms. We identify as such real estate and socio-spatial transformations taking place. Methodologically, the analysis will primarily use qualitative data describing the urban spaces in question and not upon economic/ financial indexes.
The common characteristics that the cities share, facilitate the comparisons and helps understand a distinct SE context. All three cities were established as important tourist destinations in the mid 2010s, during a period of extend economic instability, on a national level, which resulted an acute drop of the tourism cost. After all, Portugal, Greece and Italy were major components of what media identified as PIIGS throughout that period. Athens showed high level of tourist inflows much earlier, but low levels of “city break” brief stays, being the main gateway towards the popular Greek island. Lisbon from a second tear city, on the European urban hierarchy, came also to the forefront. Lastly, Naples, already an established, infamous, tourist destination also went through a striking increase on inflows.
Three case studies will be used, seeking to achieve an in-depth, even on the micro-level, analysis of touristification trends. Changes at the neighborhood level and comparisons between Kypseli in Athens, Quartieri Spagnoli in Naples and Arroios in Lisbon will help extract important conclusions