Author(s)

J.-M. Carvalho

Abstract

The regulation of the tourism settlements in the Portuguese territory has focused on the specification of the operation requirements that tourism ventures have to comply with, under the major aim of stimulating the tourism investment wherever the State sees tourism as the effective or potential regional economic base. The impacts of the tourism settlements on the environment and on social cohesion, items to be dealt with under the sustainability banner, are regulated through non-specific tourism spatial laws and norms. The consensual concern with sustainability highlights the gap between an integrated approach to tourism regulation and the generalist one that has prevailed. The regulation aim of stimulating and protecting the tourism investments has furthermore been based upon the assumption of economic growth. The regulation does not, therefore, deal with situations where the reversal or deep reconversion of half-developed settlements become the main concern due to insolvency of the developer and disinterest of the developers’ community. An integrated approach of the tourism settlements regulation should be able to allow for a preventive management of the reversal costs of the permitted settlement.

Keywords

regulation, resort development, sustainability, trade-offs business-community