Project Details
Projekt
Touristification of residential property markets in rural areas
Subject Area
Human Geography
Term
since 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550905723
Research in the fields of tourism geography and urban geography intensively investigated the consequences of the fundamental changes in the relationship between tourism and leisure-oriented mobility of people and capital that have taken place in recent decades. Recent studies have focused primarily on the touristification, i.e. the tourism- and leisure-oriented socio-spatial transformation, of urban residential areas and its consequences for the housing market in large cities. While a broad international debate on the dynamics in large cities has been established, there is a lack of in-depth analysis of touristification and financialization of the residential real estate market in rural tourism regions. Due to the still insufficient research (e.g. importance of short-term tourist rentals via platforms; expansion and professionalization of vacation rental agencies; importance of buy-to-let investment, new work and lifestyle migration to rural areas), the consequences of these dynamics for sustainable development are therefore also barely understood. The project is therefore dedicated to investigating the touristification and financialization of residential real estate markets in rural regions with strong tourism influx, examining both their driving forces and their socio-economic effects in the regions. Building on previous research in Germany, the research project expands the literature, which has so far been strongly anchored in large cities, by means of a comparative case study investigation of the interdependencies of tourism and real estate market development in important Alpine tourism regions in Italy, Austria, and Switzerland. The results are relevant for socially sustainable settlement development insofar as the comparison of the effects of the different regulatory framework conditions in the case study countries allows conclusions to be drawn about the significance and effectiveness of political scope for action.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
