International Journal of Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Law 2023

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM, TRAVEL AND HOSPITALITY LAW What I am referring to in this section is the joint use of different technological tools not only to increase the number of visitors, as has been the case up to now, but precisely to control the tourist offer and, therefore, reduce the factors that can encourage so-called “overtourism”. Logically, this control and limitation activity must be adequately underpinned by a regulation with the status of law, in compliance with European and state regulations on access to economic activities. However, there is nothing to prevent these limits from being set and that this type of technology can be used for this purpose. It is a question of using appropriate, proportional and effective techniques. 3.5.3. – Digital tourism from the perspective of public administrations. An unfinished business. The use of information and knowledge technologies to manage the tourist offer has led, as shown above, to an increase in demand by facilitating and speeding up the different stages of the trip for tourists. From hiring means of transport and accommodation, to making it easier for tourists to get to know the places of tourist interest, to moving around the destination in question. There remains, however, a pending issue. The use of these same technologies by the competent administrations to guarantee adequate control of the tourist offer and to avoid, as far as possible, the main problems to which I alluded at the beginning of this paper and which, if action is not taken forcefully, could worsen as a result of the pandemic and the apparent economic crisis derived from the Russian-Ukrainian war. As I noted above, problems related to overcrowding, overtourism and gentrification are pushed into the background when the economic crisis and unemployment are used as arguments. It seems that anything goes to avoid these difficulties which, on the other hand, are structural and cannot be solved in the short term, but only in the medium or long term and after a general reflection and a political consensus which, realistically speaking, we are, unfortunately, very far away from. Examples such as the Canary Islands and Andalusia illustrate this last point. The approval of legal regulations aimed at facilitating supply, without taking into account other issues to which we have already alluded. Thus, Law 5/2021, of 21 December, on urgent measures to boost the primary, energy, tourism and territorial sectors of the Canary Islands, in its Chapter III, entitled “Actions for renewal and modernisation of tourism”, establishes a whole range of legal tools

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