The great decade: main characteristics and effects of the hotel restructuring process in Spanish tourism regions

This paper analyzes the restructuring process of the hotel industry in Spain’s main six tourism regions, through secondary data. According to its explicit objectives, the main aim of the process was to qualify the Spanish hotel industry. In order to do so, the development of higher quality accommodation (i.e, five stars hotels) has been fostered in recent years, through several policies, considering that it would finally lead to the increase the industry’s added value and, ultimately, to promote social positive effects on the host regions. However, research results show that, even if a restructuring process has actually taken place, a vast majority of the expected positive results have not occurred.