Tourism development as a sustainable rural activity

Csete, Mária

Keywords: sustainability, climate change, tourism development, sustainable rural activities, local adaptation portfolio

The subject of the analysis is the Lake Tisza region. This region was chosen because it is rich in natural values coupled with economic and social problems and a significant Romani population, making it suitable for the complex evaluation of interdependences.
I am investigating the contribution of development to sustainability, taking into account the local connections and interactions between sustainability, climate change and tourism. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the possible role of tourism in sustainable rural development and outline an adaptation portfolio accordingly.
A questionnaire-based survey was carried out from June to December 2008 to highlight the major uncertainties in the practical implementation of local sustainability in the examined area. In 2009 the results of my survey were used for a grant application for the Lake Tisza region. As it turned out at the very beginning of 2010, it was a successful process, thus my survey contributed to fostering sustainability at the local level indeed.
Sustainable rural activities play a major role in rural development. Under the right circumstances, tourism can be a useful component of sustainable rural activities. The results of my survey underpinned the importance of tourism development in the examined area. It is crucial to take the natural resources and their preservation into account, because only based upon these natural values is it possible to move towards sustainable rural micro-regions. On the other hand it is necessary to deal with the possible impacts of climate change also in tourism development. Furthermore, adapting to the possible effects of climate change has a significant impact on tourism. To sum up, it is imperative to develop a local adaptation portfolio at the Lake Tisza in the context of tourism development as a sustainable rural development activity. The key steps of this process are presented in this paper, based on the investigations so far.

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