Inland tourism: An approach from the dimension of tourist-recreational modalities

Abstract

Inland tourism represents an ideal framework for the analysis of tourist activity from a geographical perspective. This concept replaces the usual productive component with an integrating, cross-sectional approach that has its foundations in the territory. Inland tourism is not a tourist product in itself but the sum of numerous tourist-recreational modalities and formulas. Consequently, traditional products related with rural and natural contexts coexist with other tourist products imported in a forced way from coastal areas and even with new emergent products which are progressively entering rural areas.
The aim of this article is to adopt a theoretical-conceptual approach to the mixture of tourist-recreational modalities and formulas that must learn to coexist within inland tourism spaces. The competitiveness of inland tourism will largely depend on the actors’ knowledge of each modality and the degree of adaptation between different tourist products which are found in the same territory.