Sustaining Rural Areas, Rural Tourism Enterprises and EU Development Policies: A Multi-Layer Conceptualisation of the Obstacles in Greece

Nikolaos Apostolopoulos,Sotiris Apostolopoulos,Dimitrios Petropoulos,Ilias Makris,Stavros Stavroyiannis,Eleni Anastasopoulou,Panagiotis Liargovas

doi:10.3390/su12187687

Nikolaos Apostolopoulos, Sotiris Apostolopoulos + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187687

Copy DOI

Abstract

The main lever for the development and promotion of rural tourism in Greece has been, and continues to be, through specific EU programmes. Rural tourism in Greece began with a long delay compared to other European countries. The development philosophy was (and still is) to increase rural incomes as a complement to agricultural and livestock production, not by degrading them. This theoretical paper presents previous research studies in rural tourism and EU development programmes and it describes how European financial tools intended for rural tourism were implemented in Greece. Furthermore, it describes the challenges faced by rural people involved in the development of rural tourism in seeking European funding through a multi-layer approach on the obstacles in the EU funds absorption capacity. The analysis shows that the legislation, design of the programmes, processes from local governments, bureaucracy and malpractices create constraints in the absorption of EU funds and the results in the rural tourism development are not the expected ones. It concludes that there is a need for reforms in the national institutional framework and structures along with a different philosophy in approaching the EU funding initiatives in rural areas.

Highlights

In Greece, rural tourism as an entrepreneurial activity began its growth with a delay of at least twenty years compared to other European countries and considered as a supplement to the rural income of rural residents [1]
We argue that the research interest in EU development programmes implemented in the past or present for rural tourism enterprises in Greece is still at the starting point and a multilayered illustration of the obstacles in the EU funds absorption capacity of rural tourism enterprises can contribute to academic debate
In forestry laws, the high complexity creates opaque procedures and corruption. This is important as practice has shown that legal disputes in rural areas related to land-use or between the rural residents block investments in rural tourism funded by EU development programmes

Summary

Introduction

In Greece, rural tourism as an entrepreneurial activity began its growth with a delay of at least twenty years compared to other European countries and considered as a supplement to the rural income of rural residents [1]. The above discussion is part of a wider picture as there are rural areas facing a new challenging environment [24] and there are contradicting views regarding the rural development model that it has to frame the development programmes [25] since rural areas are multi-impacted and multi-influenced [26] by the policy approaches and mix followed [27] To this extent, we argue that the research interest in EU development programmes implemented in the past or present for rural tourism enterprises in Greece is still at the starting point and a multilayered illustration of the obstacles in the EU funds absorption capacity of rural tourism enterprises can contribute to academic debate. The last section sets the concluding remarks and policy suggestions

Literature Review

European Financing Sources

The 2014–2020 Programme Period

Obstacles in the Absorption Capacity and Implementation

Findings

Conclusions—Policy Suggestions