Tomasz Napierała

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to understand evolutionary changes of hotel intra-urban location policy during the period of the economic transition. Thus, the theoretical model of polycentric intra-urban development of hotel facilities is introduced in this research. Polycentric development is defined as the result of two ongoing and contrary tendencies: (1) spatial sprawl of hotel facilities resulting from new hotel investments, and (2) concentration of hotel enterprises, which is the effect of demand-based and production-based agglomeration processesof hotel facilities in particular locations. To examine this theoretical concept, the changes of spatial distributionof hotel entities in Budapest since 1982 were investigated. Kernel density estimation was applied to identify thenumber, location, and area of clusters of hotel services. Empirical evidence confirms the proposed theoreticalmodel of polycentric intra-urban development of hotels, although significant hotel clusters are only formedin the central districts of Budapest.

Keywords: hotels, polycentricity, city, Budapest, evolutionary economic geography

Tomasz Napierała [tomasz.napierala@geo.uni.lodz.pl], Faculty of Geographical Sciences University of Łódź Kopcińskiego 31, 90-142 Łódź: Poland