Wind farms and rural tourism: A Portuguese case study of residents’ and visitors’ perceptions and attitudes

Luís Silva 1 and Ana Delicado 2
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  • 1 Portugal
  • 2 Portugal
Volume/Issue:
Volume 25: Issue 4
Published online:
29 Dec 2017
Pages:
248–256
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1515/mgr-2017-0021
Open access

Abstract

Residents’ and visitors’ perceptions of and attitudes towards existing wind farms, as well as the perceived impact of wind farms on tourism, are examined in this article with reference to a built heritage site in the Portuguese countryside. Based on a set of semi-structured interviews, the paper sheds light on the positive impact that the community’s or local actors’ involvement in the constitution, management and decision-making processes has on the residents’ perceptions and attitudes regarding wind farms, and also on the trade-off with the perceived effect of wind farms on local tourism. Moreover, it shows that although most visitors criticised the proximity of wind turbines to medieval architecture, a clear majority of them accepted their presence and virtually all of them stated that these facilities had no impact on their choice of destination.

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Journal information
ISSN:
2199-6202
First Published:
30 Jul 2013
Language:
English
Impact Factor

IMPACT FACTOR 2018: 1.870
5-year IMPACT FACTOR: 1.858

CiteScore 2018: 2.07

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2018: 0.445
Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2018: 0.877

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