Open Data for Understanding Tourism and Its Impact on Housing
This is the second winning project of the Tenerife Island Council’s First Open Data Contest: Ideas for Reuse, created by Maite Ugalde. Her proposal addresses one of the most complex issues facing Tenerife today: the relationship between tourism, housing, and the labor market.
The Impact of Tourism on Tenerife
Tourism is one of the main economic drivers in Tenerife, playing a vital role in job creation and economic activity. However, its growth also poses significant challenges related to housing availability, population pressure on the island, urban planning, and the balance between visitors and residents.
The proposal for an “Analysis of Trends and Models Related to Tourism in Tenerife” stems from the need to understand how tourism is evolving on the island. Although the increase in the number of tourists is linked to job creation, its effects on the reduction of rental supply and the rising cost of housing are evident.
In this context, open data allows for an analysis of this reality from a more objective, visual, and evidence-based perspective.
The solution: an analysis of tourism data to identify patterns
The idea of data reuse is to create a tourism data analysis platform that allows for visualizing trends, studying occupancy patterns, and developing models using Python and NumPy regarding tourist arrivals and their future behavior on the island.
Through this tool, it would be possible to analyze issues such as what type of accommodation tourists prefer, in which areas they concentrate, how occupancy evolves over time, or what scenarios might have unfolded in recent years.
In addition, the platform would allow this data to be cross-referenced with other indicators related to housing, accommodation availability, or land use pressure, helping to better understand the impact of tourism on the local context.
Data sets used
- Number of tourists staying in Tenerife by category and area of accommodation.
- Number of tourists staying in Tenerife by municipality. Includes data on tourists staying in tourist establishments in the municipalities of Adeje, Arona, Puerto de la Cruz, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife
- Overnight stays by tourists staying in Tenerife.
- Occupancy rate of tourists staying in Tenerife.
- Tourist accommodations in Tenerife.
- Tourist accommodation capacity in Tenerife.
- Average length of stay for tourists staying in Tenerife.
In addition, the proposal also suggests the possibility of incorporating other external sources (such as Idealista or Fotocasa) related to the real estate market that can provide up-to-date, representative data on rental prices or housing availability.
Use case for the proposal: issuance of tourist licenses
The proposal presents as an example of use the analysis conducted prior to the granting of tourist licenses in a specific area of Tenerife.
One of the most relevant factors in this type of decision is the evolution of tourist occupancy and its potential relationship with other phenomena, such as pressure on the housing market. In this regard, the platform would help identify areas where high tourist demand coincides with significant housing strain, facilitating more informed decision-making and helping to prevent situations of overcrowding or the displacement of residents.
To this end, the proposal outlines a multi-phase analysis process, ranging from the selection of a specific geographic area to the export of final reports. Key steps include consulting current and historical tourism occupancy data, conducting predictive analysis of future occupancy, studying its potential impact on the housing market, and generating reports to support government agencies, businesses, and planning officials.
The document illustrates a flowchart of the proposed workflow for the platform: selection of the geographic area, consultation of tourism occupancy data, predictive analysis, study of the impact on the housing market, and export of reports.
Potential and Progress of the Platform
The proposal transforms open tourism data into a useful tool for analyzing the evolution of tourism in Tenerife and its relationship with related factors such as housing, land use, or urban planning. Its main value lies in providing a clearer, more visual interpretation of the information, helping government agencies, businesses, and researchers make decisions based on real data.
In the future, the platform could incorporate new sources of information such as updated real estate market data, rental prices, or housing availability, as well as predictive models and maps of tourism and housing pressure. In this way, it could become a tool to support progress toward a more balanced and sustainable approach to tourism management that is aligned with the needs of the population.