Do Hotels Benefit from Agglomeration?

Abstract

The present article reviews some of the most important works published about the generation of economies of agglomeration in the tourism sector. It has traditionally been argued that hotels and other firms in this sector are geographically concentrated around the resources demanded by tourists (demand-side perspective); however, a number of studies show that supply-side externalities also exist in the tourism sector. The article also refers to the tourist district theory–which is still in its early stages of evolution. The work finishes with a summary of the main conclusions drawn from the study and a suggestion of possible lines of research for the future.