Tourism awareness as a tourism development strategy: a state of the matter

Abstract

Objective: Tourism activity has become the main engine of economic, social and environmental development in many countries, so promoting tourism awareness among tourists and the local population should be a priority for governments and include it as a development strategy. The objective of this research is to present a state of research carried out around the topic of tourism awareness.

Design/methodology/approach: The type of analysis is by means of a retrospective bibliometric study and of an exploratory nature. The analysis materials were 12 scientific articles and a training manual published between 2000 and 2020 since they were the only ones found in the Scopus, Emerald insight and Dialnet search engines, using the keyword “tourist awareness”.

Results: When considering the three senses in which the tourist consciousness must operate, it is concluded that the investigations are more focused on the relationship and contact of the receiving community with the tourist. It is observed that, of six articles with this sense, four consider that education, training and government policies regarding tourism awareness must be better developed in destinations so that this is an element that contributes to the development of communities and decrease poverty in developing countries.

Limitations on study/implications: It is considered a limitation not to include thesis works, however, there is important applied research.

Findings/conclusions: It is necessary to make visible the importance of tourism awareness as a strategy for local development in communities, in addition to including tourism awareness by tourists.