Lecture at Intelligent Coast Master in Barcelona

February 5, 2007

Beatriz Ramo gave a lecture on the topic Tourism and Fiction at the UPC in Barcelona for the Master Intelligent Coastdirected by Manuel Gausa, Silvia Banchini, and Luis Falcón.

MASTER PROGRAM: theoretical frame: (from directors)
Tourism. Catalonia is recognized as one of the world’s best and most experienced coastal laboratories. In the 21st century, tourism will continue to encourage the discovery and settlement of high-quality coastal areas. However, new geopolitical, logistical and infrastructure-related parameters – above and beyond the economic efficiency of the tourism sector – are now leading the development of the sector, our landscape and our most highly valued land: the coast.
Coast. Catalonia and Barcelona are major nodes in the current and future process of building the European Union’s new urban conurbation: the Mediterranean coast. The 25-member European Union now has 456,791,700 inhabitants. The coastal regions of the Mediterranean are home to a total of approximately 458,000,000 people. Populations no longer shift from the country to the city, but from inland regions to the coast. In Spain alone, the coastal population – currently 22 million people – is expected to triple in the next fifteen years. How can we comprehensively rethink the coast to make it habitable? If tourism is the epitome of the contemporary urban scene, what essential issues should the disciplines responsible for its development be dealing with in order to transform this market phenomenon into an exceptional field of research with great potential? How can we turn the process of coastal migration into an opportunity for local development?

Tourism and Fiction Lecture
Intelligent Coast Master
Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) Barcelona, Spain.
February 5, 2007

↑image above: Entrance to Benidorm © Beatriz Ramo
Aerial view of The Palm, Dubai (UAE), from Google Earth
Benidorm ©Beatriz Ramo