No abstract

Olive-oil tourism is an emerging tourism typology that is especially developing in the Mediterranean basin, though successful cases also exist in other regions of the world. The main motivation underlying olive-oil tourism demand is the desire to learn about and enjoy the world of olives and olive oil. The objective of this article is to characterise this new tourism typology and identify its main activities. Based on a thorough bibliographical review and an expert panel, we show that this tourism typology corresponds to special interest tourism, and derives from three types of general interest tourism (rural, nature and cultural) with connections to other specific types of tourism. Furthermore, we demonstrate its links to an increasingly broad range of activities and services, thus revealing how complex this type of tourism can be, a feature proper to so-called special interest tourism.

Although tourism expenditure is determined by different factors, the literature has not analysed the extent to which trip cultural activities affect tourism expenditure in the destination. The focus of this paper is a microeconomic analysis performed in 14 emerging urbancultural destinations in Andalusia (Spain). The results confirm that there are activities related to cultural visits, attendance at events or gastronomic activities that determine tourism expenditure. These results guide the implementation of specific actions by the policy-makers in these destinations aimed at increasing the economic impact of tourism, based on the creation of high value-added tourism products to overcome their mere dependence on built heritage.1 La Caixa is a Spanish bank that, since 1996, publishes a statistical yearbook, which includes, among others, an index that synthesizes the tourism development in the municipalities of Spain.

Olive oil tourism is a recent development in the countries of the Mediterranean basin, but it is now spreading to other regions of the world. The main reasons people are choosing this special interest tourism (SIT) are to find out about the culture surrounding olive oil and to enjoy the whole host of activities related to the product. This has led to the creation of strong links between olive oil tourism and other types of special interest tourism. The studies undertaken thus far to characterise the profile of olive oil tourism’s demand, and its motivations, expectations and needs, have been limited and partial, focusing on specific cases. Therefore, this paper aims to take a closer look at the demand for olive oil tourism. Based on a survey of 609 visitors to olive oil mills in the south of Spain, olive oil tourists were segmented according to the type of trip and the olive oil tourism experience enjoyed during the trip, using a two-step cluster analysis. The results obtained enabled us to identify four segments with well-differentiated behaviours, which will help stakeholders, policy makers and destination managers to reach decisions, with a view to adapting their product to the expectations and needs of potential customers.

Globally, tourism has been identified as a means of poverty reduction and development, and as a means of encouragement of females, minorities and small businesses to better engage in the mainstream of economic life. This paper examines whether the international and governmental financial support, grated by international financial institutions, is effectively achieving these aims in Latin America and the Caribbean. A series of indices are established in the paper that assess the extent to which such funding includes non-corporate enterprise while also considering the volume and nature of such funding. It is concluded that the goals of inclusiveness are not being met.