Spatial Imbalance Between Tourist Supply and Demand: The Identification of Spatial Clusters in Extremadura, Spain

The techniques provided by spatial analysis have become a great ally of tourist planning as they allow the carrying out of exhaustive territorial analyses. The greater availability of georeferenced databases together with the more and more extensive use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is materialising in the proliferation of studies analysing the distribution patterns of tourist territories. The present study uses these techniques to study the degree of equilibrium in the distribution of places and its level of occupation in a region where the use of expansionary policies of growth of the tourism sector has been able to cause a strong imbalance in said activity, i.e., the case of the region of Extremadura. To verify this, both global contrasts, global Moran’s I and G (d) of Getis and Ord, are used, as well as local contrasts, to map LISA (Local Indicators of Spatial Association). The results obtained confirm the existence of strong imbalances in the effectiveness of the places created while allowing the identification of different clusters of high and low values. These findings represent an important output for the strategic planning of the territory in order to develop a strategy that allows the sustainable tourism development of the territory.