Local Rural Gastronomic Traditional Tourism. A Strategy for Local and Regional Development, at the south of the State of México

Abstract

During 2010, we started the promotion of communitarian projects at Progreso Hidalg village, located in the Central Mexican Subtropical Highlands. Then, during 2013, we began the management and installation of two communitarian projects: one agro-industrial and the other, eco-touristic, which are both operating nowadays. The transaction procedures were made on behalf of Women in Agrarian Sector Program (PROMUSAG) and financed by the Agrarian Reform Ministry of Mexico. The method applied for environmental, economic, and social characterization consisted of the design and application of a questionnaire; interviews with families; direct systematic observation on field, observing natural environments and cultivated fields, geo-referenced sites through a Differential Global Positioning System, as well as the making of automatized cartography. As a diagnosis, Natural and Social Sustainable Resources Management Strategies were applied in order to analyze them from a Logic Frame Approach and participatory diagnosis. We are currently working on the design and transaction procedures of an Agro Alimentary Located System (SIAL), at a regional scale, based on a Local Rural Gastronomic Traditional Tourism project at a local scale. In order to encourage the management of the project, feasibility, profitability and viability analysis as well as a participatory prospective were carried out to end up in a Multi-scale Strategy for the development of a regional SIAL, based on local, regional tourism and gastronomic qualities. The research gets theoretical support over the SIAL approach and the Rural and Gastronomic Tourism. The SIAL approach highlights the importance of mesh and network functioning of small agroalimentarian enterprises at Progreso Hidalgo, along with other formal and informal local organization units, at territorial scale.