Addressing regional tourism policy: Tools for sustainable destination management

Policymakers need to develop measures to counter overcrowding and relocate excess tourism in congested areas to others with fewer visitors. This article proposes a methodological framework consisting of a survey and statistical tools to a gain deeper understanding of tourist profiles and characteristics and determine how covariates affect the ratio of each group in the market. Spatial analysis is performed to determine regional cluster patterns and propose measures aimed at alleviating congested areas by redirecting tourism to other destinations with less pressure without losing the economic impact of tourism. The proposed methodology is applied to international tourists in Spain and reveals some relevant aspects of four international tourism profiles. The analysis confirms the existence of spatial dependence between Spanish regions, suggesting that the application of public policies in one region could have implications for neighbouring ones.