The tourism potential of border regions: endogenous resources and destination image evaluation

Tourism has an enormous potential while instrument of regional development. However, the opportunities are not the same for each territory and it is easy to understand that, considering the resources available, not every region has the choice to base its development strategy in the touristic industry. Taking this in consideration, the mission of classifying, evaluating and compare, from a consistent and realistic point of view, several groups of tourist resources became a necessary task and a precondition to define the touristic vocation of a region. This approach allows selecting the best alternative to tourism development. The paper attempts to catalogue and evaluate the tourist resources of Spanish Baixo Miño and Portuguese Alto Minho, as well as to analyze the complementary elements and the external factors related with the image of the destination. We believe that the before mention methodology might be a valuable instrument to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the selected territory in what refers to its touristic development.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT