Economic and Cultural Impacts of Tourism in Santiago De Compostela

This report provides an overview of tourism in Santiago De Compostela, Spain, focusing on its economic and socio-cultural impacts. It describes the types of tourists attracted to the city, including pilgrims and learners, and discusses the city's product portfolio, highlighting the Cathedral of Santiago De Compostela and the Way of St. James. The report also examines the accessibility and supporting infrastructure, the role of the Consortium of Santiago De Compostela in preserving the city's heritage, and the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the city's economy and culture. It concludes with suggestions for managing tourism sustainably.

Santiago De
Compostela

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Overview......................................................................................................................................3
Description of Tourists................................................................................................................4
Product portfolio..........................................................................................................................4
Accessibility and Supporting products........................................................................................5
Description of image....................................................................................................................6
Consortium of Santiago De Compostela......................................................................................7
Positive impacts of Tourism industry on City.............................................................................7
Negative impacts of Tourism industry on City............................................................................8
Suggestions..................................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
Books and Journals....................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Travel and Tourism is one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing industry in the
world. For, some of the countries the industry is backbone of their economy, and it is being well
encouraged in other countries as well, those are very desperate to make it their integral part of
economy. This industry not only helpful in economic terms but it also connect one nation with
the entire globe, in terms of history, geography, tradition, culture and values. In this light, the
travel and tourism industry of Europe is well known to the world (Bermúdez, S., 2018). The
industry is significant to range of countries there, that are home to one of the oldest cultural and
religious civilisations of the world. At the same time, their excellent management and
preservation attracts millions of people every year from entire globe. The report shall be
discussing one the important tourism and pilgrim centre of the Europe, that has centuries back
historical and cultural importance, Santiago De Compostela, and try to comprehend its nature,
importance, growth, opportunities and negative impacts along with all other aspects of travel and
tourism in the city.
MAIN BODY
Overview
Santiago De Compostela is the capital city of autonomous community of Galicia in
North-Western Spain. The city is established on the confluence of Sar and Sarela rivers, that
makes the climate in the city mild, humid and temperate in nature (that much can be attributed to
its latitudinal position). The city has a population of around 96000 as of 2019 and including the
metropolitan area the number goes around 178000. Also, the foreign population living in the city
represents 4.3% of the population. Most spoken language in the city Galician followed by
Spanish. The city of Santiago de Compostela has a well known historical background too, having
its origin in Roman cemetery that goes by 4th century, was later transferred to Subei kingdom and
a history of several raids by Arabs. The city is majorly famous for Cathedral of Santiago De
Compostela (shrine of Saint James the Great). This is also the leading Catholic pilgrimage route
since 9th century (Calvo-López and et.al., 2018). The shrine is visited by hundreds of thousands
of pilgrimages every year, especially in Holy years, that will come after 11 years. This makes
Tourism the main support of its economy, along with public administration and higher education
institutes.

Description of Tourists
The city is one of the major pilgrim for Catholics. It attracts hundreds of thousands of
pilgrimages every year to the Cathedral of Santiago De Compostela. The Tourists that visits the
shrine comes across the globe. And, the numbers are steadily rising every year. This evident
from the fact that, they were more than 216000 in year 2013, more than 238000 in 2014, 262000
plus in 2015 and exceeded 278000 in 2016. These figures are the emotions and faiths of people,
and are not just numbers. The city's beauty is further enhanced by confluence of Sar and Sarela
rivers. The number of tourist rises at the time of Holy year. The holy year in the city will come
after 11 years when Saint James feast day will fall on Sunday. Last Holy year in 2010, the year
saw more than 272000 pilgrimage visiting the shrine, however numbers are still considerable
outside the Holy years (Cebreiro Ares, F., 1770-1805). The success of this tourism is mainly
attributed to the significant investments by Xunta of Galicia (regional Government of Galicia)
and the successful campaign in Holy year of 1993. This is further supported by The Way of St.
James (Camino De Santiago), a network that connects several pilgrim with the Cathedral of
Santiago De Compostela.
Besides, pilgrimages the city is also visited by lots of learners from every corner of the
world. University of Santiago De Compostela is one of the oldest universities in the world that is
still under continuous operation. Learners from the fields of literature, science, philosophy etc.
visits the place to get themselves familiar with the old culture of Galicians. They learn about
their language, literature, history, flags, musics etc. Learners of art and architecture are also seen
in the city. The city is home to Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporaneo, that comprise of
Galician contemporary art. All these facts marks the variety of Tourists that visits the city, some
of them are motivated by their inner feelings, emotions and faith, whereas, some has a specific
purpose. Some of them has psychological impulse and others has material reasons. But the city
accommodate the needs of them.
Product portfolio
The city of Santiago De Compostela is remarkable in the Christian culture of not only
Spain, but entire Christianity (Garton, T., 2018). This marks the struggle of Christianity against
Islam. The city was completely rebuilt in following centuries after it was destroyed by Arabs in
the 10th century. Therefore, it contains sentimental values of Christians around the globe, that is
more clear from the number of figures of Tourists and Pilgrimages that visits the city every year.

These facts also becomes from clear from the Art and Architecture of in the city. The influences
of Romanesque art makes the city and its culture more decorated, also the Baroque period
architecture is also visible. The constraints of this art is not up to the City or Galicia but they are
well spread in the entire Iberian peninsula. However, the main imprints in architecture, are of
Galician architecture, attributed to typical wooden galleries and usage of traditional materials
like stone, wood or iron, that are adjoined with great monuments further.
The cultural importance of Santiago de Compostela is majorly noted from the Cathedral
of Santiago De Compostela, the shrine of Saint James the Great. The Cathedral is main centre of
attraction of pilgrimages every year, especially in Holy year.
Cultural products in the city are further helped by Natural beauty in the city. Since the
city is established at the confluence of two rivers, Sar and Sarela, the climate here turns the
aesthetics of city more beautiful (Liutikas, D. ed., 2020). The climatic characteristics of the city
is mainly temperate and mild, and the Mountainous beauty is more icing on the cake. The natural
beauty of the city glorifies its historical and architectural importance more.
But, the popular tourist site is not dispensed from management problems and heavy
tourism activities exerts mass pressure on the city, in terms of sustainability of resources as well
as culture.
Accessibility and Supporting products
The modes of accessibility that supports tourism in the city are well noted. The city has
good transport mechanism to support its main drivers of the economy. The availability of
Airways network, allows pilgrimages, learners and other tourists across the world to connect
with the city (LOIS-GONZÁLEZ and et.al., 2018). Since, the most important destination in the
city is a holy shrine, consideration of sentiments of all the Catholics across the world is
necessity. Within the Galicia autonomous region, the Rail connectivity is significant, that further
goes on connecting other important areas and also City of Santiago de Compostela with other
nearby cities. Maritime network is also helpful for tourists, but that transportation in mainly
indirect.
Other supporting industries, that support Tourism are also well managed in the city. The
regional government in times, have well kept the demands and needs of tourists in mind. And
this is the reason, the city have been undisputed tourist and pilgrim centre from centuries. Hotels
and restaurants, public transport, dormitories and Night shelters are well developed here. Visiting

the city it can be clearly found out that hotels and restaurants here caters the demands of variety
of tourists and pilgrimages, that comes from different classes and categories. Also the charges of
well kept at nominal levels that allowed by pockets of pilgrimages. Variety of cuisines, both
vegetarian and non-vegetarian, not only allows tourists to have their favourite cuisine but to taste
others cultural cuisines as well.
Description of image
The above two images in the report represents the most important pilgrimage site of the
city Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in illustration 1 and Way of Saint James in illustration
2. Way of Saint James is the network that connects multiple pilgrimage sites in the nearby region
with the Cathedral of Saint James, that is the most popular holy shrine for Catholic Christians in
the world (Sánchez-Pardo and et.al., 2017). The network reaches at one point of Cathedral
allowing several tourists and pilgrimages to identify and reach shrine easily. The mechanism is
well established and convenient. The numbers of pilgrimage is increasing steadily every year,
these are balanced somewhere between 0.25 million to 0.3 million every year, outside the Holy
year, whereas at the time of Holy year they are more than that.
Thus, the numbers marks significance of the shrine obviously. The city of Santiago de
Compostela is symbol in Christianity of fight against several Islam that continued for centuries.
The city was completely destroyed by Arabs and was rebuilt many times. Therefore, the
sentiments of people this city garners is very precious (Silva, M. and Borges, I., 2019).
Illustration 1: Cathedral of Santiago de
Compostela
Illustration 2: Way of Saint James

Consortium of Santiago De Compostela
The main responsibility of conservation of the site, its historical centres and traditional
activities is delegated to Consortium of Santiago De Compostela. The Consortium was created in
year 1991. For achieving better efficiency in work and overcoming any hurdles in its work, the
consortium is integrated with National, Regional and Local administrations as well as
archbishopric and University of Santiago De Compostela. Many important works are carried out
by the consortium pertaining to restoration and preservation of monuments and public spaces.
Also it has subsidized and implemented rehabilitation projects for both Housing and Business
premises (Stöber, K., 2020). The regulatory framework in support of conservation activities is
Special Plan for Protection and Rehabilitation of City of Santiago De Compostela.
Positive impacts of Tourism industry on City
Any city or a country that has prominent levels of historical and cultural significance, or
that is rich in Natural aesthetics and Biodiversity will have huge potentials in tourism growth.
The industry of travel and tourism lays many positive impacts over the development of a region.
Two of these important impacts are discussed in the report, that helped growth and development
of Santiago de Compostela.
Economic impact
Growth of travel and tourism in a region have several positive impacts on the economy of
a region. Growth of this industry helps in development of other businesses as well, like Hotels,
Resorts and Chalets etc. This eventually gives a boost to the Real estate and land business
development (Streit, J. R., 2019) . Providing opportunities to new businessmen and contractors,
construction material providers, casual labourers etc. Along with this Restaurants and food
services providers are also gained with tourism. Establishment of new restaurants and their
demands further helps agriculture and allied services in region. The most direct positive impact
is seen on development of infrastructure, transport and connectivity. Development of public
transport, railways, buses etc. further boost automotive industry and provide new jobs and
employment. Tourism industry itself is a home to numerous opportunities. A range of jobs and
services are included in this. These varies from ticket servicing to guides to maintenance of
monuments and other centres. Since all the sectors and businesses are integrated with each other
an requires human resources and material resources, the ultimate impact is rise in income levels
of people in the region.

Socio-cultural impact
Tourism allows number of people of to visit a region or a city, they all belongs to other
regions and countries, the countries that are across the sea also. When these people visits the
region, they know about variety of important reasons that one region is popular for, like
historical importance, cultural importance, food habits, language, literature, education, political
system and people and their perception. Not only they just learn about that city or region, but
they also exchange their culture, values, language, cuisines with that region. This exchange of
history, culture and values through through tourism eventually helps diversification in that
region, which further supports growth of tourism only.
Negative impacts of Tourism industry on City
With the presence of numerous positive impacts of tourism industry over any region, the
industry do also come with many challenges and negative impacts. The most obvious of them
could be those discussed in the report.
Stress over the resources in the region
Any sort of development in a particular region, comes over the cost to its resources. The
fact is same in case of tourism industry. At the very first stance, it requires heavy expenditure
from Government side in terms of maintenance of monuments, like their security and
preservations, cleanliness, polishing, arrangements and facilities for tourists, protection from
natural disasters etc. Also maintenance of transport mechanism, roads, railways or airways,
requires sound investments from the government side. Like seen in case of Consortium of
Santiago de Compostela. This can not be done in absence of proper planning and regulatory
framework. The growth of other businesses like, construction and restaurants, rely burden over
natural resources of minerals and mining, land and forests. Over pressure exerted on the
agriculture, that helpful in Restaurants and hotels can make lose the region its soil fertility and
raise the cost agricultural produce. The risks becomes higher in the tourist places that are situated
at geographically sensitive locations, like coastal areas or on the hill top. The pressure on the hill
or coast exerted by developments of buildings, hotels and also people and vehicles can cause
tectonic disturbance, and result in landslides or frequent earthquakes in the area.
Migration
Immigration is a very sensitive issue in the modern world. Many countries like USA,
China and India can be seen becoming intolerant towards the issue. The causes of migration

taking place can be various. Such as, rise in opportunities in work and employment that is very
obvious through tourism. It is seen that many people comes on a tourist visa in a particular
country, for a limited period of time but stays there and starts a new life, they are called illegal
migrants. The results of this illegal migration, makes country and its people pay heavy prices. If
the migration goes beyond control, a country can is seen loosing its natural and original,
habitants, culture, language etc., the migrated ones overtakes the originality of the region. Also,
in search of work and money, these can be seen adopting illicit and criminal methods.
Suggestions
Although, the management of tourism is well functional in the city of Santiago De
Compostela, few improvements can still be made in ways that could attract more tourism and
city more popular in world with consideration of preserving resources and culture.
Autonomy to Consortium
The well established body for managing the tourism in the city is delegated with
sufficient powers although, where it is working under a specific framework and collaborating
with National, Regional and Local administration as well as universities for making city a better
destination (Valci, M., 2018). The autonomy shall come in terms of more funds, functions and
functionaries. It is required that the consortium make their own plans and policies without any
hurdles, and have sufficient funds to implement them with the support of sufficient numbers of
functionaries. Also the accountability levels of consortium shall be increased, where the body
will be directly accountable of any misconduct to the people and to the government. The
autonomy can also come in the terms of civil court, where it can take up cases of any misconduct
by any other authority, release summons notices, record statements and order adjudications.
Environmental regulations
The adverse impacts on environment and climate are one of the very sensitive issues in
the world currently. Countries and people themselves are becoming very sensible towards this
issue and are keen to find progressive ways for sustainable growth for future. Tourism industry
in many ways lays adverse impact on the environment. Travelling arrangements for tourists, their
private vehicles and other transports they all come at the cost of pollution. Also, the allied
industries of tourism like construction and agriculture are drain over the resources of a country,
be it increased extraction and mining or loss of soil fertility. Therefore, in this scenario it is
important that a proper statutory framework shall be made that will govern all the aspects related

to adverse environmental impacts, garnering from draining and misuse of resources to
maintaining hygiene and sanitation.

CONCLUSION
Thus from the discussion in the report it can be concluded that the City of Santiago de
Compostela has a very huge prominence not only in travel and tourism industry, but in culture
and history of the world. Declared as World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985, the city
represents the struggle of Christianity over Islam, which symbolised by city's Creation and
Destruction that continued for several centuries. Besides the historical importance, city is also
culturally important. The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is a very precious Holy shrine of
St. James for Catholics in the entire world attracting hundreds of thousands pilgrimages every
year, in and beyond the Holy year. The connectivity enabled by Way of St. James raises the
attraction and convenience levels. The maintenance and development of tourism in the city is
credited to well established Consortium which is empowered by regulatory framework of
planning and developments in the city. However, mentioning all the goodness that city possess,
some improvements in terms of environmental concerns, autonomy to consortium, migrations
and over-stressed tourism is needed to be rectified.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bermúdez, S., 2018. Santiago de Compostela and the Spatial Articulation of Power: From the
Cathedral to the Cidade da Cultura. Abriu: Textuality Studies on Brazil, Galicia and Portugal,
(7). pp.47-58.
Calvo-López and et.al., 2018. The Vault over the Crossing Tower in Lincoln Cathedral in the
Context of European Gothic Architecture. Studies in the History of Services and Construction.
p.221.
Cebreiro Ares, F., Women and Credit in the Area of Santiago de Compostela at the end of the
Old Regime (1770-1805). In Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial Europe (pp. 321-344).
Garton, T., 2018. 1 The Experience of Medieval Pilgrims on the Route to Santiago de
Compostela, Spain: Evidence from the 12th-century Pilgrim’s Guide. Pilgrimage in Practice:
Narration, Reclamation and Healing. p.1.
Liutikas, D. ed., 2020. Pilgrims: Values And Identities. CABI.
LOIS-GONZÁLEZ and et.al., 2018. The Camino de Santiago de Compostela: the most important
historic pilgrimage way in Europe. Religious Pilgrimage Routes and Trails: Sustainable
Development and Management. p.72.
Sánchez-Pardo and et.al., 2017. The church of Santa Comba de Bande and early medieval
Iberian architecture: new chronological results. Antiquity, 91(358). pp.1011-1026.
Silva, M. and Borges, I., 2019. Accessibility on the Santiago Ways: the Portuguese Central Way.
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, 7(2). pp.62-75.
Stöber, K., 2020. An Ecclesiastical Identity in the Making: the Medieval Cathedral and Bishopric
of St David's (Wales). Imago temporis: medium Aevum, 2020, núm. 14. p. 185-197.
Streit, J. R., 2019. Pilgrimage and Liminality at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Le Puy-en-Velay,
and the Saint Michael Chapel, Aiguilhe. Source: Notes in the History of Art, 39(1). pp.6-16.
Valci, M., 2018. Pilgrims, Merchants and Coins: A Santiago de Compostela Case Study.
Nottingham Medieval Studies, 62. pp.83-110.