Governing Locally for Sustainability: Public and Private Organizations’ Perspective in Surf Tourism at Aljezur, Costa Vicentina, Portugal

ABSTRACT

This study explores how a rural municipality of low population density and strong tourism intensity for the practice of recreational activities can exert a sustainable collective action in the policies and strategies of planning and development of local tourism. The study focuses on the case study of the municipality of Aljezur, in Portugal, and is applied to a dominant tourism-recreational activity, surfing. Based on a survey of relevant stakeholders, namely private and public organizations, it was possible to obtain indicators of local environmental, economic and social convergence. These allowed elaborating a proposal for a municipal sustainable management charter of the surfing tourism in the region. The conception of this charter and the consequent strategies moves the management of local tourism destinations to higher levels of institutional sustainability.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable tourism development
• sustainable tourism planning
• surfing tourism
• local governance
• stakeholders
• municipal charter for sustainable management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Virgílio Machado http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7926-3257

Paulo Carrasco http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0713-8366

Joaquim Pinto Contreiras http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0743-6096

Ana Patrícia Duarte http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7066-3956

Additional information

Funding

The study here reported is part of a research project on surfing tourism in Aljezur supported by the Aljezur Municipality [ESGHT/1392/2015].