B Explanatory memorandum, by Mrs Ohlsson
1. The Committee on the Environment,
Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs would like to focus its opinion
on a topic less developed in the report, that is to say rural tourism.
2. Rural tourism is an aspect of particular concern for the Committee
on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs,
as it represents a link between its main fields of interest. The
report of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development already
stresses (in paragraph 4) the importance of tourism to the development
of regions and in particular its role in “stimulating local infrastructure
improvements and the preservation of employment in areas of rural
decline or undergoing rural regeneration”. It also stresses that “sustainable
development offers a forward looking approach that can help local
communities to make the best of tourism and development”.
3. The Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and
Regional Affairs fully supports this point of view and underlines
that rural tourism creates a clear winwin situation for the tourists
themselves, for the hosts in the countryside (both inhabitants and
local authorities) and for the rural environment and agriculture as
well, the only requisite being respect of the principles of sustainable
development.
4. The number of tourists involved today in rural tourism has
increased significantly in the last decades and tourism has developed
in all types of countryside instead of being limited to areas of
exceptional scenic beauty. In its broader concept, rural tourism
now includes a range of activities, services and amenities provided
by farmers and rural people to attract tourists to their area in
order to generate extra income. It covers not only farm tourism
or agritourism (which is generally what rural tourism means for
most people), but also special interest nature holidays, touring
in rural areas and residential tourism. The services offered nowadays
include, besides accommodation, different events, local festivities
and activities, outdoor recreation, educational visits for children,
production and sale of handicrafts and agricultural products.
5. However, the term “rural tourism” has different meanings in
different countries. In France and in the United Kingdom, as in
Finland, rural tourism usually means renting out cottages to visitors
or providing catering services in the countryside. In Hungary, a
special term of “village tourism” exists, indicating that only activities and
services provided in villages are included in this kind of tourism.
In Slovenia, the most important form of rural tourism is tourism
at family farms, where guests stay either with the farmer family
or in a guest house, but visiting farms to have a meal and explore
the farmyard is also popular. In the Netherlands, rural tourism
means especially camping on the farm, with most farm services being
linked to route-bound activities such as cycling, walking or horse-riding.
In Greece, the main provision of rural tourism is bed and breakfast
with accommodation in traditionally furnished rooms and with traditional
breakfasts often based on home-made products. In Poland, a country
with vast forests, a specific form of tourism is proposed to people
willing to spend their holidays in guest rooms in forest-located
houses.
6. Rural tourism, when done properly, can indeed contribute to
important increases for the income of farmers and enable rural communities
to finance infrastructure investments, which would lead to a more prosperous
agriculture and related industries. However, if not well organised,
in accordance with the size and the characteristics of the host
rural areas, tourism might also endanger the environment – in its
larger meaning – and harm the cultural identity of the hosts.
7. Rural tourism could be a real tool for the sustainable development
of the rural areas, if it is used in a responsible manner, which
means, in this case, keeping the balance between the legitimate
quest for increased incomes for locals and profits for travel agencies,
on one side, and the preservation of the quality of the hosting
area, by protecting the heritage and by contributing to the conservation
of the rural environment (so that tourism can stay a perennial activity),
on the other side. If properly managed, rural tourism has the potential to
increase the viability of less developed regions and, at the same
time, to decrease the stress induced by mass tourism to the most
popular tourist areas, by offering alternative holiday destinations
(for example, making a number of tourists move from crowded coastal
areas to inland regions).
8. The characteristics of European tourist areas vary enormously,
with some harmful consequences coming from poorly managed tourism:
inappropriate architectural planning (buildings that do not integrate
in the landscape and/or where there are simply too many for a given
area); soil erosion due to deforestation and excessive skiing; human-induced
forest fires, etc. If not correctly managed, rural tourism can therefore
have its own particularly harmful effects: tourists being usually
most attracted by the industrially least developed regions, and
those being regions particularly sensitive to human interference,
increased stress due to tourism (or changes induced by adaptation
to tourists’ wishes) may change or irreversibly damage the rural
landscape and the natural and cultural values of a given region.
9. The local and regional authorities can play an important role
in developing environmentally friendly rural tourism by promoting,
at their level, the principle of sustainable development in any
activity related to tourism – and to rural tourism in particular.
