Tourism destination zoning in rural regions: A Consumer-based approach in Terres de l’Ebre

Abstract

This document puts into question the conventional way of delineating tourism destinations. It intends to show a model of spatial analysis, to find new interpretations of the reality, more balanced and more optimized, in comparison with other territorial views most of them based on administrative boundaries. This paper portrays a methodological exercise that aims to structure tourism geographies into new tourism areas on the basis of visitor’s consumption patterns, which would be better fitted to the needs of tourist demand. The projects consisted in the categorization and thematic grouping in clusters of the tourism products and resources of a rural destination with different non-international boundaries (Terres de l’Ebre), based on the time distance between these tourism resources.