The evaluation of Tourist Routes in Portugal – a case of social policy

Abstract

This paper analyses the Tourist Routes in Portugal from a point of view of social policy, specifically focusing in the evaluation procedures and from there deriving conclusions about the management of those routes. The methodology has two parts – first the basic framework of evaluating programs in social policy is defined; secondly the Tourist routes in Portugal are described. After that, the routes are analysed according the evaluation methodology. We find out that the routes are evaluated, when this happens, by very basic results methods, which suggests that the routes are made by political or administrative or even marketing considerations and not by economic reasons. We also found that most of the routes are managed by municipal councils, on a shared basis, and their enjoyment is mostly free. The evaluation of results of the routes is made in an unreliable way. Signaled routes are in the minority, and route promotion is done using information technologies, but leaflets are not dispensed with. These findings question the relevance of the investment in the routes. Further studies should be done to further analyse the importance of the routes in the country.

The paper is composed by the following sections: 1. Introduction 2. Literature review on social policy and tourism routes 3. Methodology and Data collection. 4. Results. 5. Discussion 6. Conclusions.