Theoretical and Methodological Model for the Study of Social Perception of the Impact of Industrial Tourism on Local Development

Tourism is considered to be an engine for socioeconomic development and a tool to alleviate the problems of different regions and, specifically, of industrial zones. Furthermore, from this standpoint, industrial tourism tries to harness any potential cultural interest that visitors may have in industrial heritage. Using this as a starting point, the general objective of this research is to analyse industrial tourism’s contribution to local development in four case studies that form part of the industrial tourism in Spain and Portugal. For this purpose, a quantitative methodology has been proposed and designed through surveying the local population, the results of which show that the tourism type analysed has positive impacts on each of the local development capitals or dimensions (symbolic, heritage, social, human, economic and infrastructure). Likewise, it has also been discovered that the impacts perceived by the local population are related to the intrinsic characteristics of the territory itself, due to the destination’s degree of tourist development, as well as to the attitudes shown by the local population towards industrial tourism, among other factors.