Urban form under pressure: A spatiotemporal analysis of tourism saturation in Bilbao, Spain

Source abstract

Cities are experiencing new forms of pressure as tourism-related services concentrate in specific areas with limited space and resources, posing challenges for urban planning and land-use regulation. While the concentration of tourism accommodation has been widely examined, less attention has been devoted to understanding how urban form characteristics interact with the spatial distribution of tourism-related services and how these patterns evolve over time. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing Bilbao, a post-industrial city that has transformed into an urban tourism destination. By integrating urban morphology with tourism-service indicators, the study develops a spatiotemporal framework to examine the interaction between Tourism Exposure and Tourism Pressure. In addition, it constructs a cartographic time series to identify the evolution of Tourism Saturation patterns at the city-block scale. The findings suggest that Tourism Saturation does not spread randomly throughout the city but instead emerges through the reinforcement of established tourism hotspots. Furthermore, the temporal analysis reveals a growing spatial selectivity in the distribution of tourism services, leading to higher levels of tourism saturation within the historic core. As urban tourism continues to evolve, the study offers valuable evidence for policymakers seeking to design place-specific strategies to manage tourism in highly exposed areas.