Expressions of tourism in the rural area

The continuous expansion and diversification of tourism responds to multiple motivations and preferences of the tourists. That in accordance with the Federal Ministry of Tourism (SECTUR), the tourism sector is segmented into conventional and nature tourism. The latter is divided into modalities of adventure tourism, ecotourism and rural tourism (^{SEMARNAT, 2009}), which have a different effect on the dynamic rural communities and their development. As rural tourism have raised a number of practices. Among them, agro-tourism and agro-ecotourism.

Farming is considered as an activity in which the visitor contemplates the agricultural land in the surrounding landscape of the farm, or participating in an agricultural process for recreation or leisure (^{Fleischer and Tchetchik, 2005}; ^{Veeck et al., 2006}) for income generation or add value to the farm and its activities (^{Ollenburg and Buckley, 2007}; ^{Phillip et al., 2010}; ^{Barbieri, 2012}). Several activities are classified as agro-tourism, including daily visits or tours, walks in the garden, recreational auto-extraction as fruits collection operations, as well as hunting and fishing for a fee, outdoor activities, nature observation and wildlife (^{Wilson et al., 2006}; ^{Barbieri et al., 2008}).

This establishes synergies not only in agriculture but other elements such as permaculture, organic agriculture, eco-techniques and alternative energy. For the Federal Ministry of Tourism of Mexico (^{SECTUR, 2004}), agro-tourism is considered as the "form of tourism in agricultural areas, with the use of a rural environment, occupied by a peasant society, that shows and shares not only its idiosyncrasies and farming techniques, but also their socio-productive, natural environment conservation, cultural events and where it is intended that the activity represents an alternative to achieve the farmer to benefit from the expansion of his business, by combining agriculture and tourism".

From the perspective of agro-eco-systemic and multi-functional space, we have considered the integration of tourism in rural areas, where the integrated environmental, socio-cultural and economic aspects enable sustainable development of rural society (^{Mikery-Gutiérrez et al., 2013}). In this sense, agro-ecotourism has emerged as the development of primary production activities (agriculture), secondary (craft, food, etc.) and tertiary (tourism) in rural areas, along with actions to conserve biodiversity and promotion of local culture to promote sustainable local development.

Defining tourism potential of the territory

Because of its latin etymological origins, the term potential is formed from the union of three parts: the term potis which means "power", the link- nt- equivalent to "agent" and the suffix al- which can be translated as "related to", understanding it as “related to an agent of power”. According to the Dictionary of the Spanish Language (^{DRAE, 2001}), the potential term has several meanings, one of which is "referred to something that can happen or exist as opposed to what exists". Thus, the potential can be treated as an adjective refers to what can exist in the area. This has also been used to refer to the aptitude of an area. The aptitude area is defined by an analysis of the vocation of space. This commitment, in terms of land use, has been defined as the result of the interaction between biophysical factors (climate, topography, soil, drainage) and socio-economic conditions in an area and define the best use can be assigned a given space. That is, applications that let you prioritize according to their natural, social, economic and political viability (^{Delgado, 2007}).

The term “potential” is also used more specifically to address a dimension of analysis or a group of them. As in the natural potential or natural potential of the territory, based on the evaluation of natural aptitudes of the territory by analysing the natural vocation of the different units of physical geographic landscape (^{Bollo et al., 2010}). Where aptitude assessment define the potential of the territory, thereof depending on the paradigm of the researchers. Thus, the potential term associated to the territory, refers to the ability or his suitability for activities given possesses the qualities in different dimensions (environmental, socio-cultural, economic, political and institutional). Where identified these qualities allow the prioritization of land use.

For the study of tourism potential, there are two major trends in your definition, one based on "material" approach and an "immaterial". The trend "material" considers the potential of tourism as "the sum of natural and human resources" (Ielenicz and Comănescu, 2006) and "immaterial" trend proposes to study the tourism potential as "sum of objective or subjective conditions" or "conditions basic for development" (^{Muntele and Iaţu, 2006}). The latter emphasizes the fact that the tourism potential is preliminary and precedes certainty; as "potential" or "as possible to achieve", and only expresses the ability of occurrence.

According to this trend, tourism potential has been defined as "the sum of chances of the natural and social environment offers tourist activities" (^{Glăvan, 2006}), where the main work is focused on the installation or function activation of them to achieve the maximum potential of an area. Thus, the research in the beginning was based on "existing" (in terms of supply and demand) extended to the "possible" (in terms of tourism resources and tourism potential) and this paradigm shift has resulted predicted and planed for tourism development in different regions of the country (^{Iatu and Bulai, 2011}).

Methods used to identify the tourist potential of the territory

The valuation of natural resources and the level of structuring of the attractions in tourism products has been the key element in addressing the tourism potential of rural areas. Where the valuation is mainly in the development of an inventory with descriptive information about the resources they have in the space of interest (^{Franco-Maass et al., 2009}). Hence, resource inventory has been considered a basic method to have certain characteristics, highlighting proposals made by ^{Leno (1993)} and ^{Gutiérrez et al. (1998)} in Mexico, which have been taken up for the development of several proposals methodological.

For the inventory has also been proposed classification of the attractions in actual and potential (^{Zamorano, 2002}) that include functionality, aesthetic interpretation and integration of overview of the attractions. Where the ranking of each resource has been considered as an important element in the inventory, which will select products with best qualities to attract tourism. The researcher decides the criteria of relevance to decision-making on a tourism product, and according to research approach may vary. One of the most widespread proposals, proposed a hierarchy of natural resources based on the degree of conservation, ecological, microclimates and existence of endemic species (^{Bote, 2002}). However, the Federal Ministry of Tourism of Mexico has been suggested for the inventory, consider the idea that the local people have on their own resources (^{SECTUR, 2004}).

The Table 1 shows the main methods used for the study of tourism potential based on the assessment of biogeographic resources. Where the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is key to the integration of natural tourism resources to extend territorial levels (^{Marín-Yaseli and Nogués, 2001}; ^{Chhetri and Arrowsmith, 2008}; ^{Nouri et al., 2008}). With the creation of suitability maps or tourist potential, the priority areas identified in the management and tourism management. Also, the multi-criteria evaluation (EMC) has been used for ranking and prioritizing tourism activities (^{Blancas et al., 2009}; ^{Franco-Maass et al., 2009}). It is also proposed to generate indicators for the evaluation of different tourist areas (^{Huerta and Sánchez, 2011}). In recent years, EMC has integrated the GIS to generate maps of multi-criteria spatial of decision, allowing the identification of tourism potential on extensive territorial levels, which differs according to the potential index that represents the set of criteria selected to evaluate the tourism potential (^{Marín-Yaseli and Nogués, 2001}; ^{Nouri et al., 2008}; ^{Kumari et al., 2010}; ^{Pérez-Vivar et al., 2013}).

Some drawbacks in these studies are that they operate at the level of experts and local agents are excluded from these processes, including its idiosyncrasies and local culture. In addition, elements such as support infrastructure for tourism and attractive elements associated with the culture, history and economy are not integrated into the suitability analysis or potential tourism. So, it is not possible to argue a potential tourism rather an environmental potential. Since tourism is needed for integrating information from the demand and expectations of the local population, participate as a provider of services and other elements that make up the tourism phenomenon.

Other studies have included culture, society and infrastructure support, and biogeographical resources (Table 2). This type of research is characterized by attractive linking roads together and perform strategic planning for the same under the criteria of geographical economics. Thus, the análisis of the resources may be by description of qualities (^{OAS, 2005}; ^{Yilmaz, 2011}), or mixed, where qualitative and subsequently quantitative methods assessing the resource of potential indices (^{Juárez et al., 2008}). Or, the analysis is strictly quantitative, supported by multicriteria evaluation of biogeographic and socioeconomic resources (^{Chaviano and Aro, 2007}; ^{Enríquez et al., 2010}), also using probabilistic tools for characterization of regional tourism potential (^{Reyes-Pérez et al., 2012}).

Finally, highlighting the methods whose purpose is to integrate biogeographical, socioeconomic and cultural resources with the diagnosis of the demand for tourism (Table 3). These investigations usually base their analysis on information from secondary sources of supply and the demand can be supplemented with field information, interviews or survey.

Tise research seek to analyse both, endogenous resources and tourist perspective. However, the main difference between these studies lies in the tools used to obtain information as well as their integration and analysis. The propose made by ^{Zimmer and Grassman (1997)}, is the one that considered more elements to determine the potential tourism, but concludes with the integration of these but are only described and evaluated according to defined qualities at an expert level. While ^{Sánchez and Propin (2005)} in addition to the natural, cultural and infrastructure available qualities, considered the opinion of tourists to determine the potential tourism.

Meanwhile, ^{Özcan et al. (2009)} complement the resource inventory with the analysis of satellite images and interviews with local people. Recently, the proposal of ^{Iatu and Bulai (2011)} integrates the resources of the demand-supply, using an index of attraction to the generation of a GIS for the integration and comparison of data at the country level.

Perspective of the methods for the analysis of the potential tourism of rural areas

The research led to the identification of the region's potential is vast. However, there is a lack of research that analyses tourism, not only as generating income but also as a phenomenon involving many facets of human existence (^{Netto, 2005}). In this sense, rural tourism in all its aspects would have to address the construction of a paradigm studio where tourism is inclusive and complementary element for local development from the perspective of sustainability (^{Palmas et al., 2011}). This requires knowledge of various disciplines that converge in the rural reality. Although, in recent years the trend towards the use of mixed methods has been increasing, it requires crucial changes for the development of frameworks and research methodologies in tourism, consider the multiple positions, practices, perspectives and cultural differences (^{Ren et al., 2010}).

Different proposals are presented in this paper, characterized by addressing segments of reality and a most of them generate proposals that integrate the different aspects of the territory. The Tables 1-3 show that the study scales also vary (municipality, region, country) and methods can make strong generalizations about the characteristics of the territory. In addition, an important aspect omitted by the methodologies it the residents perspective on the processes of change in their lifestyles, with the addition of activities and complementary services into their regular activities. This represents a crucial element since accepting visitors to the territory may be an aspect that limits the potential development.

Often the importance of cultural attractions is recognized associated with natural spaces where influence the rural community, particularly in locations that were or are occupied by indigenous (^{Weaver, 2005}). In such situations, the boundaries between nature and culture are often blurred, as ecosystems have been substantially a result of the activities of indigenous (fire, plant dispersal and hunting) for several hundred years (^{Hinch, 2001}). Therefore, the inclusion of the cultural component is focused on the "nature-based" logical, because different natural areas are often not free from human influences (^{Weaver, 2005}).

Another element to be considered for the analysis of potential tourism is that in rural areas of the natural space for food production is used, and multiple landscape products can be availed for various practices (organic, traditional medicine, educational tours, etc.) . Also bear in mind the management and integration of traditional productive activities of society by offering tourist services. It also requires scientific knowledge about the processes of change arising from the integration of tourism and the implications in terms of the limitations and potential of people and resources involved (^{Brandth and Haugen, 2011}).

Determining the potential tourism of rural areas, involves different agents that are related to rural land and tourism. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate the perspectives of the different knowledge, skill level, the resident and the visitor and local authorities managing different programs for local development. For this reason, it is also necessary to generate more robust methods of analysis, inclusive for promoting sustainable management of touristic products. This involves the management of GIS to integrate information from different dimensions, participatory processes for the evaluation of the territory, allowing prioritize resources from different perspectives. Research needs to move towards the use of new technologies for the management, analysis and integration of information as well. An integrative and participatory process eminently rural, multi-purpose space to develop rural tourism activities.