Tourism and new governance structures, a relation with potential to develop depressed rural areas: the example of the municipality of Almeida (Portugal)

Abstract

Nowadays in Portugal some rural areas are facing the challenges resulting from the reform of traditional economic activities and new markets’ characteristics. These challenges promote new local development policies that result in mobilising local resources and in expanding rural activities. In this context, tourism is considered, in many cases, a key sector for the economic growth of these territories. In rural areas tourism can include different types of tourist activities, such as community-based tourism, ecotourism, cultural tourism, adventure tourism, guest house, backpacking, riding and agro-tourism. Developing tourism in rural areas increases participation of the poor and brings wider benefits, for instance, involving ownership and territorial management. The aim of this paper is to explore strategies for expanding tourism in a peripheral rural region of Portugal, the Municipality of Almeida. It draws on an overview of the likely challenges and motivations involved in promoting tourism. Almeida, a poor rural and peripheral Portuguese territory, is the case study presented to validate that tourist resources can emerge as a local potentiality to the territorial development. Through a prospective analysis based on stakeholder’s interviews, tourism was classified as the most capable activity to revert the current regressive trend and so, different objectives and actions were explored in order to promote tourist activity in Almeida. The economic potential of tourism as a key sector of growth and development in Almeida is based on the competitive advantages that the region has in its cultural and natural resources. Tourist activities in Almeida also complement a worldwide trend towards alternative tourism, signalling a break away from the perception of sun, sea and sand as representative of the ideal holiday in Portugal. At the same time, the prospective analysis revealed the urgent need of a higher cooperation between local (and regional) entities, through a new model of governance.