A CHANCE FOR PLACES THAT DON’T MATTER. PLACE-BASED SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PROJECT FOR DEPOPULATED RURAL REGIONS: THE CASE OF PORTUGAL

Abstract

Human desertification of rural areas is a growing evidence, in a never-ending cycle of decline, with lack of services and businesses, fewer jobs and population ageing. Consequently, land and built heritage is abandoned and degradation take root. To this social and economical deterioration, adds the environmental impact, resulting in the lack of forest management, accumulation of flamable biomass, and as a result, wild fires devastation. This project argues that there is currently a triple-sidded opportunity to invert this trend of decline. Firstly, on the digital transformation of rural areas, which offers connectivity and digitalization, and will power many new opportunities; secondly, on the growing attention from policy makers to the rural society, namely to the socio-economic underdevelopment, ecological degradation and demographic situation; and thirdly, on the availability of unused built heritage, that a new generation of rural built owners received as legacy from their ancestors, and that has become a burden instead of an asset or a benefit. This project presents a strategy that, by taking advantage of the combination of these three fields of opportunity, creates an innovative business, grounded on the the touristic offer of hotel rooms in recovered rural houses, integrated in a rural resort. In this way, this project will associate all the facilities, services and hotel refinement with the unique experience of being a part of local community and encountering a rural lifestyle. It provides a model easily replicable in several locations, with similar characteristics and needs, all over the world. With sustainability as a bedrock, this project commits to an effective and positive environmental, social and economic effect in the community, exploring a place-based approach for the community and visitor engagement. Moreover, this project aspires to make a contribution for youth fixation, by creating more and better jobs and transforming rural communities into modern and vibrant living places, grounded in nature and local uniqueness, turning around the decline and switching the expression from ‘places that don’t matter’ to ‘places that really matter’.