Proximity Tourism in the New Normal: Toward a More Sustainable Tourism Behavior in Spain

The new forms of tourism that have emerged after the COVID-19 pandemic could be essential catalysts for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, especially those related to climate action and carbon footprint reduction. However, these new forms of tourism are still under-researched. The research objective of this chapter is to analyze proximity tourism as a new tourism trend in the New Normal, modeling consumer behavior and defining the profile of the proximity tourist in the case of Spanish residents. This study uses a set of microdata with 72,232 observations obtained from the National Statistics Institute of Spain during the period 2019–2021 to compare the behavior of tourists in the pre-pandemic stage and the behavior of tourists in the New Normal and thus contribute to understanding how new tourism habits can help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The results confirm that there has been a significant increase in the penetration rates of proximity tourism among residents in Spain, which will positively impact sustainable tourism development. This study also finds interregional differences in the participation of proximity tourism between the regions of Spain, as well as in the tourist’s sociodemographic profile and the trip’s characteristics.