Resumo: The commitment of public institutions to tourism for the development of rural areas in Spain has been constant since the implementation of the Leader methodology in 1991, becoming the economic activity to which the most resources have been allocated. However, after more than thirty years of investments, few studies have assessed whether these have had any effect on the municipalities in which they have been applied. For this reason, this article proposes a quantitative analysis of rural tourism, between 2006 and 2019, to determine the impact of the programs implemented through this Leader methodology. Since these programs are applied locally, the analysis has been carried out at the local level. This level of analysis presents many difficulties due to the scarcity and poor quality of the existing data. The results obtained suggest a positive relationship between rural overnight stays and participation in rural development programs carried out under the Leader methodology.
