Study of tourism empowerment in the region el chagüe with a gender perspective

Abstract

Tourism has reached a wide diffusion around the world, so it has recently brought many developing countries into this market. Rural areas have also joined this process, where local communities share their natural environments with tourists seeking immersive wildlife and nature experiences. In rural areas, community-based tourism allows local people to maintain substantial control over the process. Also, the sustainability of projects is based on the capacity of rural experiences to limit the impacts of tourism activities, ensure central participation and involvement of rural communities, enabling cooperation between public authorities and local stakeholders, focusing on the preservation of ecosystems and on the social empowerment of weak collectives, for example improving the social role, life opportunities and self-esteem of rural women. The present article studies the successful entrepreneurial businesses that rural women of the region El Chagüe can have by taking advantage of the resources that surround them. The research defines a theoretical model that links the existence of natural and social resources in the natural space, with public and private cooperation. Emerging activities in the planning and design of the rural tourism process result in the empowerment of weak collectives in the communities, mainly women, obtaining clear benefits from tourism for the region and improving local living conditions, becoming a truly sustainable dimension to the whole process. Finally, the benefits include the reproduction of community identity, the preservation of social, cultural and natural resources of rural communities in natural areas, the limitation of tourism impacts on local and natural environments, and substantial control over the development process.