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Natural and cultural tourism are important motivators for international tourism. Spain has impressive tourist attractions that are outstanding on the natural and cultural tourism dimensions. The purpose of this paper is to identify traits of the most attractive destinations in Spain and to understand the relative importance of natural, cultural, and dual (natural and cultural) attractions to target consumers.

The authors compare the level of tourism in the 17 major regions of Spain and identify the key natural, cultural, and dual attractions using a two-step cluster analysis to ascertain the relative importance of the three types of attractions.

The findings of the cluster analysis suggest that natural attractions had the highest importance, followed by dual attractions, with cultural attractions having the lowest importance in affecting the level of tourism in a region. The study identified four categories of regions resulting from “high vs low” total number of attractions by “high vs low” levels of tourism (operationalized via the number of tourist-nights). The regions with high levels of tourism were either located in the bodies of water (a group of islands) or on ocean/sea(s) surrounding Spain. The study suggests placing greater emphasis on promoting cultural attractions in Spain.

The findings suggest that there is a need to put more emphasis on promoting the cultural attractions in Spain. Spain is a diverse country with huge potential for tourism from people all over the world, due to its diverse geography and rich history.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyzes 17 regions of Spain in relation to their tourism characteristics, identifying attractions that are not sufficiently leveraged, and suggesting strategies for identifying opportunities for the tourism industry in Spain.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the possible effects of an economic integration of Portugal, Spain and Greece with the EEC upon the welfare of the region with respect to dynamic effects (such as changes in relative efficiency). To achieve this an ex‐ante model is employed making use of data adjusted for the purchasing power of the different currencies.

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct the development of industrial relations (IR) in Spain since the democratic transition and analyses the current dilemmas of its social and political actors in the context of the long-lasting economic downturn.

Combining a political economy, identifying Spain as a particular variety of modern capitalism, and actor-centred historical institutionalism approach, outlining the formation and strategies of the main social actors, the paper draws on the broad range of research on IR in Spain and its theoretical debates, including proper research in the field.

The legacies of the latecomer industrialisation and the semi-peripheral development model still shape the Spanish economy and IR. The impact of the current economic and political-institutional crisis affects the entire institutional IR system and its actors shifting power towards the individual employer thus weakening trade unions, labour rights and collective bargaining. Regarding the theoretical debate on corporatism, the Spanish case provides ambiguous results. The lack of a coherent institutional system and efficient political administration limits the effectiveness of corporatist arrangements and reduces them to contingent concertation strategies. Spain confirms that IR still largely depend on the specific national variety of capitalism that condition economic development and resources for political exchange.

The paper presents an original, theoretical-informed reconstruction of the Spanish IR and allows an understanding of the current institutional transformations and strategic dilemmas in the light of historical legacies. Additionally, the theoretical debates on neo-corporatism and semi-peripheral development are enriched through its application to the Spanish case.

Due to the recovery of the quality of life coming from a real estate boom and due to the extensive possibilities for leisure and work, the young generation in Spain looks with more optimism into the future as did generations before. Still, Spain is a nation with low employment prospects. This puts many professionals in a difficult position, having to sacrifice family relations for a better job. Another problem is the rate of university degrees, which is over the European average. Therefore, Generation Z has higher goals for their lives than previous generations. One of the traditional problems is that young people get high marks in their professional degrees but have a lack of employability skills and are therefore not always success in their first apprenticeship contract with companies. Generation Z has social skill problems with respect to empathy, communication and conflict management. Due to their digital style of life, they have substituted the gregarious relationships leisure for the bedroom culture of social networks.

This chapter presents an overview of the ‘big’ data of Mediterranean agriculture, with a special focus on the four EU countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece), in order to provide a backdrop for the rest of cases analysed in the volume. In this regard, two thesis are discussed: the assumption that farming systems in the South have not followed the process of ‘productivist modernisation’ characterising post-war Northern European agricultural change, and that, precisely due to this reason, most holdings and regions from the South would have more possibilities to adapt to new approaches of multifunctional rural development.Thus, the chapter tackles both the static and dynamic structural traits of Southern agricultures and their differences with the North, as well as several aspects of the organisation of farming in the Mediterranean and other key components of productivist modernisation: farm intensification and specialisation. Later, the diffusion of multifunctional dynamics is addressed, in order to introduce some reflections about their meaning and scope in the Mediterranean regions. The chapter ends with a straightforward typology of Southern farming systems and a concluding section, which goes back to discuss the two initial theses.

In the 1960s, the Spanish diet was a typical example of the Mediterranean diet. However, in the 1990s, Spanish consumers have moved away from that pattern. This has been the result of many different changes over that period of time. It is important to know how a Mediterranean country moves from a considered healthy diet to another which is not so and the reasons behind that change. There might be a number of policy implications to reinforce food consumption habits which are not properly taken into consideration when a country goes through economic development. Nowadays, public institutions in Spain are concerned about changing diets. They provide information and encourage the appropriate education to achieve those aims. Among other things, they try to promote typical regional products of high quality as well as to avoid unhealthy food habits, by providing nutritional educational programmes at schools, jointly with other policies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of high intensity precipitation events in increasing the vulnerability to floods in Mediterranean Spain. Precipitation intensity in this area appears to have augmented in the last two decades in association with warming trends of the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, intense urbanization processes, occupying and transforming flood prone land, have produced an important increase in exposure. The main objective is to assess whether higher intensity precipitation and changing patterns in exposure aggravate vulnerability to floods.

In this paper, vulnerability is understood as the result of the interrelationships between exposure, sensitivity, impacts and adaptive capacity. Consequently, methods used involved the compilation and analysis of published and unpublished precipitation data, population and land use data, data on insurance claims, and media sources related to those variables.

Changes toward episodes of more intense precipitation in the expanding urban areas of Mediterranean Spain increase exposure but not necessarily vulnerability, at least in terms of human deaths. However, adaptative capacity needs to be formulated. Actions that attempt to absorb and eventually reuse flood flows (as the flood park in Alicante) appear to be more effective than traditional hydraulic solutions (as in Majorca).

The paper provides a systematic and coherent approach to vulnerability analysis taking into account the changing dynamics of its components. Especially, it signals the limits of current adaptive approaches to flooding and advocates for changes toward a more circular and less linear approach to urban drainage.

The present study aims to understand how a culture associated with proximity to the Mediterranean Sea transcends political boundaries fostering common values and beliefs across three countries.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted in Italy, Spain and France to assess similarities and differences between respondents. The qualitative data were augmented with the literature pertaining to Mediterranean identity, culture and the influence of contextual factors on its development.

The three geographically proximate countries all border on the Mediterranean Sea. The interviews revealed common cultural elements that transcend political boundaries suggesting that the common context fosters similar cultural elements. At the same time, there are important cultural elements that are uniquely associated with each country.

The geographic composition of the sample limits the generality of the results. By design, it focuses on three countries to limit other sources of variation such as affluence and religion. A sample across additional countries would have provided greater confidence in the results, although the selected countries are representative of a large portion of the Mediterranean area, especially in terms of values. Inclusion of respondents from countries with different levels of wealth, religious and political ideologies would likely uncover additional facets of Mediterranean identity.

A key implication relates to the extent that similar values and beliefs appear to cut across political boundaries suggesting the existence of transnational segments. It also suggests the importance of considering contextual factors when developing an understanding of consumer behavior.

The paper provides insights into the concept of Mediterranean identity, through an examination of the literature and respondents’ perceptions and attitudes about the sense of belonging and attachment to Europe, their country of birth and about being Mediterranean. The notion of a Mediterranean culture has been examined conceptually, but not empirically. This study begins the process of establishing the degree to which Mediterranean identity and the extent to which it exists across multiple countries.

This paper analyses Roman fish tanks, which have functional elements that could be used to research on palaeo-sea-levels. Thus, the conditions of 37 installations in the Western Mediterranean basin are reviewed to identify those that have the best environmental and constructive conditions to be analyzed.

The methodology was largely based on the review of existing scientific bibliography dealing with sea-level variations from studies on historical constructions, existing historical documentation on Roman fish tanks on the Mediterranean coast, as well as the fieldwork carried out in fish tanks on the Mediterranean coasts.

The Roman coastal fish tanks located in the shoreline of the Western Mediterranean Sea have turned out to be an excellent indicator of sea-level changes. Nevertheless, current coastal retreat, erosion and storm surges are posing significant threats to their preservation, and they could be considered as a heritage at risk of disappearance. Moreover, variations in the tectonic behaviour of the different coastal sectors make it challenging to select these facilities as an indicator of the sea level.

The analysis of Late Holocene sea-level changes and palaeoenvironments from archaeological and biological evidences, although not without difficulties, is very convenient because it provides very precise data that cannot be obtained with other absolute dating methods. This approach is increasingly gaining popularity with researchers and is very innovative in its method of combining the results of several scientific disciplines.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the main changes regarding flood policy in Spain during the period 1983-2013, that is right after the large and very damaging episodes of 1982-1983 in Valencia, Catalonia and the Basque Country.

This is above all a review paper that looks retrospectively at flood policy in Spain during the past three decades. In order to collect and organize the information the authors follow the methodology of the IPCC regarding vulnerability studies. That is, the authors provide evidence for an overall assessment of the evolution of exposure, sensibility and adaptive capacity to floods in Spain for the period of reference. The authors approach these issues through the own experience and expertise on this subject as noted in the reference list.

While exposure to floods has generally increased (especially after the massive growth of urbanization in flood prone land of the 1990s and early 2000s) overall flood policy has contributed to make Spain less sensible and more adapted to floods. Still some issues remain unsolved especially the control of urban growth and the adaptation of the built environment to floods. For these reasons absolute economic losses from floods may continue to be important in the future (perhaps more so with climate change) even though, overall, Spanish society may have become less vulnerable and therefore more resilient than in the past.

The paper provides a retrospective study and assessment of policies taken and their changes regarding floods at a national level over a long period of time (30 years) which is a theme still relatively little explored in the scientific literature on this hazard.