Community-based tourism and rural demographic decline. Reflections from Extremadura (Spain)

Abstract

Policies that aim to tackle rural depopulation have prioritised the development of tourism as a primary strategy to reverse demographic decline. But do we really understand the demographic impact of these community-based tourism initiatives on the development of rural areas in crisis? It is very difficult to address this question from a statistical perspective based on secondary data, because such an approach is unable to establish direct causal relationships between tourism and demographics. In this research, we present an ethnographic case study in Extremadura (Spain) that allows us to implement a scaled analysis of local households to explore the direct links between tourism and demographic evolution based on the economic significance of tourism activities. The results of the study show that there is no substantial demographic effect of tourism, although it has implications for other dimensions of the rural crisis. This conclusion, drawn from one specific but significant case, invites us to reconsider the role of tourism initiatives in the face of the demographic challenge and the appropriate methodologies to study it.