Rural tourism initiatives in Northeastern Portugal: analysis of seven years of national incentives promoting sustainable tourism

Migration flows from rural centers to urban areas, abandonment of agriculture and lack of jobs opportunities are frequent phenomena at the Northeastern Portuguese region. The Rural Development Program (PRODER) has been an important instrument of the Common Agricultural Policy, promoting and valorizing the territories potentialities by creating conditions for a balanced development. Rural Tourism has little in common with conventional forms of tourism. Its primary objective is to promote destinations, culture and facilities, offering users the opportunity to contact and enjoy local values, practices, knowledge, traditions of rural societies, benefiting from a unique and personalized welcome. LEADER funds provided patrimony reconstruction for touristic purposes, supplementary farming activities, such as handicrafts and local certified produces, as well as educational and recreational programs. This study examines results from Rural Tourism projects locally funded through the measure LEADER. Data support that regional tourist promoters require a network involving different stakeholders to be successful. They claim that a network will enable different activities in a broad area, profiting everybody (promoters and visitors) by enhancing individual actions, improving motivation and offering a wide range of fully enjoyable opportunities for longer periods of staying.