Cooperativism as a tool for Community Based Tourism. The answer from the literature

Abstract

This article deals with local development as seen in the specialist bibliography and its links with tourism as an adherent benefit. Lack of a clear clear development process, it has been found brings unsustainable growth. In addition to this, the development of the rural sector has converged with the emancipation of communities seeking new ways to improve their quality of life, one of which is community tourism. Therefore, the objective was to chart the state of the art of community tourism, local development and cooperativism over time to see how these three concepts have evolved, using a holistic analysis of 137 scientific articles in Spanish. The main results of the study were that cooperative organisations in tourism can lead to achieving sustainable development. Therefore, community tourism should consider cooperativism as a key factor for local development, since it promotes community integration, governance and empowerment of the territory.