Configuration of the hotel and non-hotel accommodations: An empirical approach using network analysis

• The evolution of the accommodations network is different in the coastal regions compared with the interior regions.
• Network analysis complements the traditional methods of analysis.
• Network analysis confirms the increasingly relevant role of the interior regions.

Recent changes in tourist flows between regions in Spain and the availability of several accommodation alternatives provide useful information to study the most relevant structural changes in the configuration of the accommodations network in Spanish regions. This study employs network analysis tools to provide an alternative methodology that allows us to contrast the results from traditional descriptive analyses: the most important changes related to the configuration of the accommodation possibilities between Spanish regions between 2001 and 2012. Network analysis findings show some changes in the structural dynamics of the regional tourism network such as a greater tourist flow intensity that has become diversified between a more numbers of regions, especially for non-hotel accommodations; also the increasing central role for some of the interior areas in the configuration of the hotel and non-hotel accommodations network. This structural change, thus, has favored the presence of two sub networks determined by the type of accommodation: hotel and non-hotel establishment. This approach could be useful when planning tourism development policies.