The Statute of Tourism Municipality

Tourism municipalities are the front end of a long chain of services. As tourism destinations, they are the place where the work of both public institutions and private companies is made visible. For that reason, all the actors involved in the supply of the tourism product must count with the sufficient means and resources. The ‘Statute of Tourism Municipality‘ approved by the national government of Spain in 2002 is meant to provide those means to the local public administrations. But seven years after the approval of this regime, only 21 townships have made it possible to be declared as ‘Tourism municipality’. This work investigates the implications for the traditional tourism townships of being granted with this special regime. It also analyzes the difficulties encountered by the townships that aspire to get the declaration. Furthermore, it analyzes their current financing model and their dependance to real-state investments. The evaluation enables to compare this regime with other alternatives for financing, such as regional regulations and tourism taxation.