Assessing the Impact of EU Rural Development Programs on Tourism

Abstract

In many areas, rural development programs represent the main driver of tourism. Evaluation is essential to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the resources allocated. However, although evaluation is mandatory under the European Commission, the methods proposed to date have paid insufficient attention to the impact of tourism. The aim of this paper is to examine the methodological tools used by the European Union to evaluate rural development programs. We conducted an analysis of European Union working documents concerning evaluation, and also performed a literature search in the main scientific databases. A total of 75 documents were studied and categorized into: (a) studies analyzing methodology, (b) descriptive studies and funding analyses, (c) contributions on the evaluation process, and (d) tourism-related studies. Although several methods have been proposed to improve the European Union’s evaluation systems, few studies have assessed the impact of tourism generated by rural development programs.