Resumen de Quantitative impact and qualitative evaluation of rural tourism in inner Spain regions: an outcome from evaluation of the LEADER and PRODER programs
Daniel Reinoso Moreno, José Sancho Comíns
One of the most evident manifestations of the multifunctional aspect of the rural territory is the consolidation of tourist and recreational activities there. The existence of this function is not new for rural regions. Their attractive natural resources, like water and mountains, always appealed to certain urban populations. The originality is in an organized rural tourism offer dissociated from agrarian activities, and the increasing number of tourists that take part in it; as well as the decisive approach of rural development policy to the promotion of recreational facilities and rural and natural resources. Data for Spain are very significant in this context: about 11,000 rural hotels in 2006, more than 100,000 available rooms and about 7.5 million bookings and 20,000 employed. Compared to 2001, these data indicate an increase of 85% in the number of housing units, 120% in available rooms, 119% in bookings and 150% in the employed population.Rural tourism is associated with the large supply of «alternative tourism» including cultural heritage destinations and town centres. The offer of «sun and beach» which is the authentic element of the Spanish tourist model retains its primary role, yet it is now accompanied by these other tourisms». This is improving the market share and restoring a better territorial balance. The natural and cultural resources of the Spanish rural territory have a sufficient attraction capacity to make change in the tourism model credible. At the same time, policy actions have been fruitful, especially the LEADER and PRODER Rural Development Programs. In this paper the results of the evaluation of nine Local Action Groups are presented. In a first section objective data relating to the rural tourism actions of the last programme are analysed: public and private investment, number of executed projects, employment created and/or consolidated, and finally the presence of women and young persons. In a second section, a qualitative valuation based on the opinion of local agents about the effects of the «LEADER method» and its impacts is presented.
