Responsible Nature Tourism Development Models

Abstract

Recent decades have revealed profound changes in population leisure paradigms, strengthening social representations attributed to the enjoyment of natural spaces and leading to the growth of informed, demanding, and conscious visitors. Responsible nature tourism assumes a continuous growth in tourism destinations and their marketing strategies. Without the attractiveness of the hot-water islands, the Azores follow a development model towards differentiation factors based on the quality and notoriety of the destination privileging, among others, specialized markets anchored in this territory's main resources and potentialities. The current expression of whale watching in these islands, assumed as one of the main representations of nautical tourism in the region, seems to raise important questions about the real impacts of its practice. This chapter proposes to synthesize this segment as a case study, presenting a successful and recurrent sustainable product and several valorisation strategies to promote its responsible development.