Le tourisme coopératif au Québec : un enjeu de développement des territoires

The involvement of local communities in economic tourism development is often presented as a condition and a result of sustainable tourism (ST). As a part of the ST, cooperative tourism or community based tourism emerged from the historical cooperative movement in Quebec (Canada) since the 1990s. Cooperative tourism is characterised by small and multi-stakeholder organisations with a democratic and territorially mode of governance. Most of the time, it is localised in resource regions, where the indicators of economic development are weak and environmental capital strong. In relation to the field of research in regional development, the present paper tries to respond to a central issue with regards to ST: cooperative tourism could be a territorial development tool for the remote and resource regions? Is it really an opportunity as such? A case study methodology, grouping together all 17 regions of Quebec, was used. Qualitative and quantitative data were pooled. The cartographic analysis, at regional and local scales, has also produced results. The main objective is to verify if cooperative tourism benefits the resource regions, in terms of demography (growth of population) and economy (jobs). The principal result shows that this form of tourism is more mobilized in these territories. However, the lack of differentiation in the supply of tourism activity and the weakness of the dynamics of territorial development induced reduce the capacity of these small organizations and the tourism sector to modify significantly the trajectories and dynamics of territories in difficulty.