Stakeholders’ Participation in Sustainable Tourism Planning for a Rural Region: Extremadura Case Study (Spain)

Marcelo Sánchez-Oro Sánchez, José Castro-Serrano and Rafael Robina-Ramírez
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Marcelo Sánchez-Oro Sánchez: Department of Business and Sociology, Universidad de Extremadura, 10071 Cáceres, Spain
José Castro-Serrano: Department of Art and Land Sciences, Universidad de Extremadura, 10071 Cáceres, Spain
Rafael Robina-Ramírez: Department of Business and Sociology, Universidad de Extremadura, 10071 Cáceres, Spain

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-19

Abstract: The objective of this research is to obtain and analyze discursive information on the problems and solutions of the tourism sector in an eminently rural region, such as Extremadura, based on the opinions of stakeholders, in order to incorporate them into the evaluation and tourism planning of the region. More specifically, on the situation of the sector, perceptions on profitability and return on investment, the problem of overnight stays, and coordination between tourism agents and training demands, in order to make a sustainable tourism sector in a rural region. The research starts from the following premise: for tourism to be sustainable, stakeholders must participate in the strategic decision-making process. This paper aims, on the one hand, to clarify sufficiently the state of the art regarding the validity of focus groups and their analysis as a research methodology, explaining how to address the main challenges implied by this technique by reviewing a selection of research works that we consider relevant in this field. On the other hand, an analysis of the tourism sector in Extremadura is carried out based on these group dynamics. The main result, after analyzing the discourse of six focus groups, is that the different opinions of their members reveal, despite everything, that the training of human capital in the tourism sector in rural environments is a pending issue.

Keywords: focus groups; interest groups; stakeholders; tourism; Extremadura (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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