El patrimonio como recurso turístico en los territorios de Trujillo, Parque Nacional de Monfragüe y Geoparque Villuercas-Ibores-Jaracomunicación, difusión y educación

Abstract

Tourism offers excellent prospects for economic growth, while it promotes the understanding and appreciation of heritage assets and encourages respect for different cultures. Nevertheless, the conception of tourism under a commercial approach, based mainly on attracting a massive volume of visitors, creates threats that put the conservation and survival of heritage at risk. In this context of fragility of resources, heritage education appears as a balancing factor and as a priority solution to alleviate tensions between tourism and heritage. Under this premise, this thesis is presented in order to stimulate tourist activity through effective dissemination and communication of heritage, committed to education, sustainability and quality. This aim is to know the wishes of the tourist demand, value and enhance the attractiveness of resources, promote the participation of population in management and generate a communication of heritage based on heritage education. For this, this doctoral thesis provides five research articles that have evaluated different dimensions of heritage education in the context of tourism: presence of the trinomial education, heritage and tourism in scientific literature, training of the agents involved in the dissemination of heritage, significance of educational factors in the valuation of destinations or problems derived from tourist activity in relation to heritage, among other issues. The research is located in three regions of Extremadura, close to each other, selected both for their wealth of heritage and for being great centers of tourist attraction: the Monfragüe National Park, the Villuercas-Ibores-Jara Geopark and Trujillo. The results show that the principles of heritage education are not yet sufficiently integrated into tourism approaches. In addition, they reveal that the introduction of educational factors during tourism practices is decisive to improve the valuation of destinations, as well as a priority for future decision-making, aimed at improving the quality of tourism experiences. The findings suggest creating interdisciplinary tourism plans that, based on education and didactics, guarantee the tourist competitiveness of destinations, while projecting their educational potential.