- Peaks and Troughs from Tourism in the Ionian Islands (Greece)    67 kb by    Coccossis, Harry & Beriatos, Elias | beriatos@otenet.gr    Short Outline This Paper refers to the spatial planning problems, caused by tourist activity in the Ionian Islands characterized by strong seasonality. Emphasis is given to the ways of overcoming underutilasation of infrastructures in order to achieve sustainable local development. Abstract This Paper refers to the spatial planning problems, caused by tourist activity in the Ionian Islands characterized by strong seasonality. Emphasis is given to the ways of overcoming underutilasation of infrastructures in order to achieve sustainable local development. The interest of this approach, especially for city and regional planners, lies on the importance of tourist activity in fragile island areas of Mediterranean and consequently on planning methods used to solve problems related to the carrying capacity of existing natural and human ecosystems and to the construction of appropriate infrastructures. The content of the paper: The Ionian islands (Greece) are experiencing dramatic pressures from tourism, after a long period of socio-economic decline and abandonment due to outmigration in the fifties, sixties and seventies. Tourism has provided with unique opportunities for development influencing several branches of the economy, the local societies and environmental resources. However, tourism is also characterized by strong seasonality which influences the performance of the island human and natural ecosystems with overloading of space, infrastructure and services in the summer and underutilization in the rest of the year. Such fluctuations affect the design and raise the costs and undermine the feasibility of construction and maintenance of basic infrastructure and services. This has been a “headache” for local and national planning administrations. Nevertheless, in the last decade or so, broader changes in tourism patterns and access to higher order services at the local level –because of tourism- have resulted in multiple benefits for local societies reducing the risks and uncertainties of peaks and troughs from tourist activities. This paper, at first, presents the main (quantitative) characteristics and key features of the post-war evolution of tourism in the Ionian islands, by investigating tourist flows, in relation to the above mentioned “traditional” migratory movements, through official statistical data and available empirical studies. This investigation includes, inter alia, an intra-regional comparison between the different island and administrative units of the Ionian Region in order to reveal the significant spatial differentiations of tourist development in the area during this period (1950-2000). At a second stage, the paper proceeds to a more qualitative and critical analysis of the impact of these developments on local socio - economic structures and environmental resources. Furthermore, it analyzes government policies, programmes and projects related to tourism, regional development and the protection of natural and man made environment. In relation to the built environment of particular interest is urbanization particularly in coastal areas and the provision of appropriate technical infrastructure (such as for water supply and sewage ). A particular attention is also paid to the role of technological progress and especially its effects on maritime transport and transport networks operating in this region, influencing and transforming (through dispersion of tourist flows in time and space) all kinds of commercial activity as well as islanders’ lifestyle in general (pulsar effect). Finally, there is an attempt for examining the role of innovation in informatics and telecommunications infrastructure and services on local development potential in an island context within a perspective of sustainable development. Keywords islands Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2002: The Pulsar Effect   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper