Impacts of the second-home tourism on the Algarve region

• Autor(a) principal: Vartanova, Daria
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/18427
• topic: Second - home tourism; Economic impacts; Social impacts; Tourism in the Algarve; Motivational factors; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Outras Ciências Sociais

The main objective of this work is to study the impacts of second - home tourism on the Algarve region, Portugal. This study aims to analyze the social and economic impacts of second-homes, and characterize the main motivational factors that lead to the decision of choosing Algarve, Portugal, as the main destination for second-home tourism. This work employs a quantitative method to examine the impacts of the second - home tourism on the socioeconomical life of the Algarve region in Portugal. A survey was run to deductively explore tourists’ perceptions and experience owning a second-home in Algarve. The research instrument was developed based on the questionnaire by Wong et al. (2014) and Marjavaara (2007) and the literature review of the works on similar topics in different countries around the world. The study involved an online-survey. A total of 300 responses were collected and analyzed in the IBM SPSS Statistics program. The study showed that the second-home owners had a significant social impact on the Algarve, because the second-home tourists make friends with the local population, learn Portuguese and cause the local population to adapt to their needs, while adapting to Portuguese customs. The main economic impacts included the high activity in the recreational, hotel and the real estate sector caused by the second-home tourists. Main motivations for choosing Algarve as the second-home destination were the geographical proximity to the country of origin of second-home owners, mild climate, adapted infrastructure and wide usage of English. This study has been limited to only secondhome owners and did not include local residents, local and regional authorities, nongovernmental organizations, tourism companies, or local officials. In the next studies, it is important to identify perception of the local population regarding foreign ownership and to study the impact of second-home tourism from the perspective of residents.