Foresight in designing sun-beach destinations

• Foresight brings together key agents of change in order to develop future visions.
• Mass demand will experience a growing environmental consciousness.
• Tourism value chain will no longer be driven by demand, but by motivational centers.
• Airports will become more efficient, engaging and environmentally responsible.
• This method is user-friendly for decision makers and manageable for technicians.

Foresight tools have been less used than forecasting methods by tourism planners because they seem to provide little added value to the planning process. To overcome this biased perception, this paper shows the potential of foresight for dealing with tourism development issues burdened by complexity and uncertainty, as well as its capability to bring down analysis from global challenges to local and spatial implications. A model framework is presented to incorporate foresight studies into the process of planning and designing tourist destinations. The model facilitates a gradual transition from a narrative vision to the spatial design of a future destination. Stakeholders play a very important role in the proposed model, being involved throughout the process in identifying future trends, formulating visions and helping to design urban patterns. In order to facilitate stakeholders' involvement, various analytical and design tools are used to envision the future development of tourist destinations.