Marisa García Vergara and Nadia Fava are afliated with the Universitat de Girona, Department of Architecture and Construction Engineering, Escola Politècnica Superior, EPS-Edifci PIII, Campus de Montilivi, C/ Ma. Aurèlia Capmany, 61, Girona 17071, Spain; email: marisa.garcia@udg.edu; nadia.fava@udg.edu The frst International Seminar Touristic Territories hosted by the University of Girona and with the theme ‘Touristic imagery and the construction of contemporary landscape’, took place on 23–25 January in Girona, Spain. The substantial growth encountered in tourism clearly marks it as one of the most remarkable economic and social phenomena of not only the 20th century but also the 21st century. While these dynamics have converted tourism into one of the principal driving forces behind economic and urban development, such mass tourism also poses a threat to the natural and cultural resources of regions. Architects and urban planners have not been paying attention to the efects of mass tourism on architecture and urban planning. However, despite tourism being a resilient sector in large national and post-industrial economies in this critical period of recession, the general demise of cultural and natural resources must be taken into account and the multiple efects should be studied. The conference sought to explore the impact of tourism on the transformation of cities and territory. Hosted by the University of Girona, the three-day seminar had a strong emphasis on evaluating the impact that tourism imagery, infrastruc- ture and architecture conceived for tourism has had on the formation of modern territory and the subsequent consequences on the theoretical discourse on planning and architecture. The organisers, Nadia Fava and Marisa García Vergara, who are town planning and architecture historians at the University of Girona, envisaged that the theme of ‘Tourism and its impact on cities and landscapes in the face of changing contexts’, would provide a broad thematic overview for discussion concerning the various current issues in urban planning today. Girona, as the capital of the northeast province of Catalonia and as the geographic centre of the Costa Brava touristic region, is a ftting location to explore the varied regional impacts that have resulted from the arduous development of tourism. In the Conference Report International Seminar Touristic Territories: Touristic imagery and the construction of contemporary landscape, Girona, 2014 Marisa García Vergara and Nadia Fava TPR, 86 (3) 2015 doi:10.3828/tpr.2015.21