Fonte: Journal of Tourism & Development; v. 1, n. 13/14 (2010); 163-174
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Resumo: Travel and Tourism represent one of the most important industries of our century, being considered by World Tourism Organisation as the biggest industry and the one that will have a higher grow in the next few years. Ria de Aveiro region, composed by eleven municipalities, presents a strong potential for the practice of sustainable tourism, by the valorisation of natural and cultural resources. It is a region that has the “Ria de Aveiro” as a connexion point between all the municipalities, being one of the most important natural wetland area of Portugal. Besides “Ria de Aveiro”, this region also have a widely variety of tourist resources, from littoral beaches to mountains that exist in the inland municipalities. This variety of resources constitutes an excellent opportunity for this region, because they can help to define and to sustain more competitive tourism strategies associated to the broad of available natural resources. However, it is fundamental to have political will to promote and apply sustainable tourism strategies in this area. This paper pretend to analyse the interviews realized with the policy-maker responsible for tourism sector, in each one of “Ria de Aveiro” municipalities, with the purpose to evaluate the perception of policy-makers about tourism sector importance, for local and regional development and to identify the priority betting areas for this sector.
