Abstract
This study contributes to the knowledge of decision-makers on how tourism, small and medium-sized enterprises, return migration, and cooperation strategies can contribute to growth and sustainable development in rural areas. More specifically, it uses the Portuguese case to answer the following question: can the expectations and perceptions of emigrants provide directions for sustainable tourism development and common planning in order to contribute to rural development? The results obtained in a study developed in Portugal, through the application of a questionnaire survey of 5157 Portuguese emigrants, confirm the validity of this question. It is concluded that there are the emigrants at an active age (29–39 years old) and with a house in a rural area that have a greater propensity of returning, investing, and gaining employment in the area of tourism in Portugal, and they also have more training and professional experience in this area. Similarly, considering the experiences and migratory characteristics of these emigrants, it is argued that there is a strong probability that the return of emigrants from Southern European countries will contribute to the development of tourism in the rural areas of these countries. Besides, the study enables the identification of recommendations and directions for sustainable common planning in the political–strategic, financial–economic, resource sustainability, and sociocultural fields.
Highlights
In low-density areas and developing countries, where the socio-economic bases are almost indivisible from tourism activities, sustainable development strategies and approaches are critical [1,2,3,4]
The typology of return migration shown in the present work refers to the movement of workers and relatives from the more developed countries or regions to regions that provide labor in rural areas [60]
It is concluded that return migration presents several opportunities in terms of sustainable development, since the impact on consumption can be linked to the impact on production [9,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77]
Summary
In low-density areas and developing countries, where the socio-economic bases are almost indivisible from tourism activities, sustainable development strategies and approaches are critical [1,2,3,4] In this context, return migration presents several opportunities in terms of growth and development, since emigrants preferentially return to their starting regions, which are the most in need (see Section 2.2). Studies that have addressed the impact of returned emigrants on sustainable development, in Portugal and the remaining Southern European and Mediterranean countries, are very scarce, and most of this literature belongs to the 1980s. These studies showed that return migration had no impact on rural development. But they did so with conservative ideas, which were reflected, above all, in the acquisition of a small parcel of land and a new house and with business objectives that were based only on the creation of small-scale companies linked to the services sector, shops and bars [5,6,7,8,9]
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