An approach to the impact of golf tourism in the south of the Iberian Peninsula: the case of the Algarve and Western Andalusia

Abstract

In recent years, golf has gained great importance for the tourism sector standing out as one of the key products to promote a destination, especially its ability to capture new market segments with high purchasing power, their attractiveness for quality tourism and its great potential to break the seasonality, the main weakness of the tourism market in the Iberian peninsula. Currently, Spain and Portugal lead the European market in this segment, with 28.5% and 17% market share. Golf tourism turns into one of the most strategic tourism peninsular segments significance. This article is an approximation of the impact of golf tourism in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, based on the realization of own polls that have allowed us to have a proper database for this purpose. In Portugal has analysed the Algarve region and in Spain, West Andalusia (the provinces of Huelva and Cádiz). Likewise, analysed the possibilities offered by both cross-border competition as potential cooperative agreements through strategic alliances and cross-border, concluding that the use of inter-regional synergies serve for golf improvement as a tourism product.