Suburban hotels and the atomization of tourist space in large cities: the case of Rome

Drawing on theoretical and empirical studies on hotel location, as well as on enquires into the specificities of contemporary suburbanization, the article investigates the drives, directions and consequences of the dispersal of hotels into the suburban areas of large historic cities, with an illustration of the case of Rome. The attractiveness of suburban tourism for both private investors and planning authorities - it is argued - is not simply a response to the congestion of city centres, but is constructed upon more general changes in the spatiality of urban tourism. The spread of suburban hotels exemplifies an atomization of the tourist city and it is an excellent indicator of the changing sociofunctional relations between the hospitality system and the city, the different role of accessibility and of agglomeration economies, the transformation of tourists’ experience of cities in an age of global suburbanization.