| Summary: | Rural tourism has been widely seen in the last years as an effective means of addressing the socio-economic problems of rural territories. Accordingly, not only the supply has grown significantly, but academic interest has also been paid to the rural tourism impact. However, its impact is controversial and not always evident. To analyse these issues, this paper presents a research on rural tourism impacts in the Portuguese small town of Almeida and in its rural municipality. So, this paper focuses on the case of rural tourism in Almeida illustrating two dominant objectives: primarily, analysing the real contribution of rural tourism in the local development process, mainly in the economic diversification and in the rehabilitation of traditional activities and heritage; and secondly, examining the entrepreneurship factor and the innovation capacity in Almeida’s rural tourism development, because tourism is one of the economic sectors in which a great degree of involvement and cooperation is needed to face the market increases and its new demands. Key factors that enable or hinder the contribution of rural tourism and the entrepreneurial spirit into a sustainable development process are put in relief. Some conclusions, due to the same nature of problems involved, can be extrapolated to other peripheral municipalities and small towns of the East part of Portugal.
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