Want to avoid the throngs of European tourists? Go off the beaten path

Europe’s tourism industry is undergoing reinvention to strengthen remote communities, with the help of EU-funded researchers.

The San Estebo de Ribas de Sil monastery in northwest Spain is less than 20 kilometers from the Camino de Santiago, but to Martín López Nores, the two places felt like completely different worlds. And that gave him an idea.

In 2019, Lopez Nores, a professor of telematics engineering at the University of Vigo in Spain, attended an event at an 800-year-old monastery with researchers and local representatives. Participants discussed the best ways to boost the local economy.

Slow down

The Camino de Santiago was a popular pilgrimage route to the holy site where the Apostle St. James is believed to be buried, but the monastery, one of the most spectacular heritage sites in Spain’s Galicia region, was often overlooked by tourists.

“We were meeting in a gem of a place, a magnificent spot that goes unnoticed by the thousands of pilgrims walking nearby,” Lopez Nores said. “We realized we needed to make this place more visible, to draw people in and encourage those on the Camino to get to know the areas they pass through, rather than just focusing on reaching the next point on their guide.”

He led an EU-funded project to pioneer a new form of tourism across Europe that is distinct from the hordes of international tourists that fill countless European cities and towns for much of the year.

In doing so, Lopez Nores took to heart a sentiment expressed by one of the 20th century’s greatest wanderers, the late British author and Helophile Patrick Leigh Fermor, who in 1966 wrote about the advent of mass tourism in Greece, “destroying the object of our love.”

Lopez Nores advocated for a different approach called “slow tourism,” which encourages visitors to take their time and immerse themselves in their surroundings.

“Mass tourism consumes a place, but cultural tourism is about creating meaningful connections with people and places,” he said. “It’s a less destructive way of tourism, it benefits everyone, and leaves them a little richer at heart and a little more interesting.”

Spread the wealth

The many people who travel the Camino de Santiago spend a considerable amount of money, more than 300 million euros in 2019, but because so few tourists stray from the path, the economic benefits are relatively small.

This phenomenon is occurring across culturally rich Europe, which prompted a group of researchers from Spain and Portugal, including Lopez Nores, to join forces to promote the benefits of pilgrimages. The project, called rurALLURE, will run for three years until the end of 2023.

The team’s goal was to increase the appeal of “cultural tourism” in countries from Spain to Norway, and spread tourism dollars beyond major destinations.

For the Camino de Santiago, researchers created a web portal and app that highlights places of cultural interest near the route, including museums, areas of natural beauty, and bars and restaurants serving local food and drinks, including Ribeira wine. A total of 7,362 such places were mapped in this way for the project.

You will also find written and audio guide materials, local testimonials and history, as well as thematic compilations of information such as natural sites and local traditions.

Other pilgrimages featured by rurALLURE include the route to the Italian capital of Rome, the path known as St. Olav’s Way to Trondheim in Norway, and the Way of the Virgin Mary across Central Europe to Csiksomljo in Romania.

New Thinking

The researchers aimed to go beyond technology and encourage a change in thinking among businesses, cultural institutions and other organisations involved in the different routes.

Lopez Nores said the competitive spirit that once saw road signs to rival destinations being vandalized in some parts of Europe has been replaced by a spirit of cooperation.

Now a network of over 100 members from across Europe is coordinating efforts in the belief that by working together they can attract more tourists and increase the overall popularity of the Camino. Insights into best practices and what didn’t work so well are freely available.

For example, the northern Portuguese town of Vila do Conde has long been shunned by tourists flying into nearby Porto for Santiago de Compostela, the final stop on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route, but Lopez Nores says it has benefited from it.

The rurALLURE portal and app now present the town as a literary heritage guide on the Camino de Santiago, complete with multimedia content, making the region a thriving destination for pilgrims and literature lovers.

“This cooperation strengthens our cultural community and promotes the exchange of knowledge and resources, benefiting everyone,” said Ivone Teixeira, coordinator of the Vila do Conde Museum.

While it is difficult to measure the impact of the rurALLURE app in terms of overall tourist numbers, it is clearly making a difference in certain destinations.

For example, the Otero Pedrayo Foundation in the village of Amoeiro in Galicia saw a significant increase in visitor numbers after being featured on the rurALLURE site around the Silver Way, the longest but least used stretch of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route.

Visitors to this home of a key figure in Galician culture have grown from just a few to nearly 200 per year.

Peripheral Appeals

Europe’s remote regions were the focus of another EU-funded tourism project, “INCULTUM,” an acronym for Innovative Cultural Tourism, which ends after three years in April 2024.

The researchers chose 10 test locations in nine countries, from Ireland to Slovakia, located in remote areas not featured in traditional tourist guides.

“We wanted to highlight the value and potential of cultural heritage that has been denied or hidden,” says José María Martín Sivantos, professor of medieval history at the University of Granada in Spain and project coordinator. “We use tourism as a means, not an end.”

In Ireland, a pilot programme focused on grassroots heritage conservation, with local groups carrying out field surveys of historic cemeteries and recording oral histories.

Called “historic cemeteries,” the effort was expanded under INCULTUM to include deaths from the Great Famine, which killed around one million people between 1845 and 1852.

Over a million people emigrated from Ireland during that time, and many of their descendants in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand trace their ancestry through historic cemeteries, some of whom traveled to Ireland along the way.

In Slovakia, INCULTUM also targeted an abandoned mining area in the centre of Banská Bystrica, a source of industrial heritage where local schools and other organisations are working together to restore the area’s memory.

An interactive digital map is being developed that will showcase the “mine treasures” that tourists can visit.

Coincidentally, the area is on the Slovakian part of the Way of the Virgin Mary and is therefore also featured on the rurALLURE digital map.

Better balance

Both projects provide a roadmap for Europe as it seeks to spread the economic benefits of tourism and mitigate its environmental costs.

For Martin Sivantos, Europe must find ways to reimagine its rural areas’ future while staying true to their past. Such an approach, he said, would benefit both tourists and local communities in the long run.

“It means that when you visit a place, you are not negatively impacting the environment or the local community,” says Martin Sivantos, “and you are actually helping that community maintain its values ​​and traditions, giving something good back.”