CHANGE OF CYCLE IN THE EVOLUTION OF VACATION TURISM IN SPAIN .

April 22, 2026 Traveller Times

CHANGE OF CYCLE IN THE EVOLUTION OF VACATION TURISM IN SPAIN .
By José Aleixandre Caballero

In this fourth article I am going to refer to the evolution in Spain of the vacation tourism world, in coastal resort destinations from the period 1980 to 1992.

The almost full integration of the internet into tourism businesses in Spain arrived in 1990, although since 1985 it had already taken its first firm steps in its introduction.

This system, which ended up being implemented globally, would create in a short time a chaos of enormous and incalculable dimensions, unthinkable uncontrolled consequences, which were as innovative as they were very negative at first… affecting all aspects of the commercialization of tourism businesses, devastating sales systems especially in the structures and commercialization systems created by global “tour operators”, which it affected so directly that most of them gradually began to go bankrupt.

Businesswoman changing reality of drought to spring season

Along with the fall of these very important structures of large industries in tourism markets, especially European… tourism companies followed… charter airlines fell, travel agencies, some national and international airports partially closed, hotels and tourist apartments that were left without clients and were sold or closed… European coach companies ceased their activities, as well as the structures created in the different resorts or tourist destinations, important structures that served to attend arrivals and attend to their own clients during their stay… even some of the Spanish airports whose operations depended on charter flights temporarily closed, ceasing their activities due to lack of movements and activities.

We must add that many other tourism businesses in Spain such as restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, nightclubs, party and show venues, supermarkets, etc. also suffered negative economic consequences and had to close their doors or reinvent themselves…

One of the worst consequences stemming from the situation of that period occurs in the tourism markets of origin “the client”… “has lost almost all references for buying their vacations” their possibilities to acquire a “package” disappear… they are no longer a client of anyone… “loyalty” consequently impacts the destination and is lost… the times arrive in which the “client” as a concept disappears in favor of “occasional consumers”.

The transition and adaptation to the new systems and channels of commercialization and sales that is presented to us once the market is dominated by the internet… The transition causes radical changes, many of the businesses in our tourism industry such as airlines, railways, hotels and tourist accommodations that adapt to the new systems of commercialization and markets that seek to satisfy their needs, forcing them to reinvent themselves by adapting their businesses to the new systems of promotion, commercialization, sales and communication, one of the first being the creation of their own websites and sales channels for direct commercialization or/and, through the new reservation centers that are skillfully born from the need created in the commercialization of the hotel sector… somewhat later “Low cost” flights grow which, without managing to fill the void left by “charter flights”, join a dispersed tourism offer; distinct and different.

The number of new commercializers of Hotels and Restaurants grows, increasing and diversifying their offer as reservation centers through their WEB pages capturing the consumer, under the prism of price comparison and their own supposed surveys on qualities…

This new situation in free and globalized markets causes serious problems for the operating systems in Spain… and hotels finally give in, lacking means of attracting clients and grant great prominence to the new intermediaries “embracing their systems” which, without realizing it, fall into dependence on them and become captives of these companies… by ceding a large part of their commercialization and sales and once again “they have lost the loyalty of their clients”…

They now assume that their means are reduced to direct sales on their own websites and passing consumers who clash with a conflict caused by the “free price market” as there is no coherence between service quality and sales prices.