Rural tourism – and particularly agrotourism, which has a high share in rural tourist offers – is an intensely discussed and politically supported issue in Poland. This paper critically examines the role of tourism in the development of rural areas. A literature review reveals seven success...

Rural tourism has become a significant economic activity in Spain, contributing also to the social revitalisation of rural areas. However, rural tourism destinations face particular challenges with respect to commercialisation and promotion. Because rural tourism industry remains highly...

The 2007-13 EU rural development framework is expected to reinforce endogenous development forces in European mountainous zones, mainly in peripheral rural areas, by strengthening a number of measures of the 1999 Regulation. This paper attempts to examine the prospects of the second pillar's...

A Long-term Vision of spatial (regional and territorial) development of Slovakia is an integral part of broader work about A Long-term vision of the Slovak society development (up to year 2030). The scientific authorities prepared this official material as a special product for Slovak...

Landscape change today is occurring more rapidly than in any other time in history. Among other influences such as global warming these changes are also driven by political decisions affecting ecosystem services. The overall research objective is to defi ne how the European Union’s...

Resources addressed in this work are human and social ones. They are integral parts of the institutional arrangements domain from the rural web concept. Institutional arrangements are drawn parallel with New Institutional Economics (NIE) in this study. Inside NIE the paper focuses on Social...

This paper investigates the current demographic crisis in Bulgarian rural areas and potential solutions for overcoming it. The future development of rural areas in Bulgaria will depend on the practical implementation of the National Plan for Rural Development – NPRD (2007-2013)....

This paper aims at analyzing business services in bioenergy investments and innovations on farms in the Northern Ostrobothnia region in Finland. Finance into research of bioenergy has strongly increased during the last years both in Finland and Europe. Primary focus of this research has been so...

Since the beginning of transition, rural economies in Central and Eastern Europe have undergone a strong restructuring with increasing urban-rural disparities. The analysis of the rural situation on the basis of GDP p.c., investments, unemployment and sectoral structures leads to the question on...

The collapse of the communist regime in Romania, in December 1989, determined, at a very short period of time, the disappearance of the co-operative sector of Bolshevik type, once Law 18 (Land Law) was enforced in February 1991, which initiated the land ownership reform. The causes of the...