Social tourism: Research about the motives of providers and the communication toward different target groups.

Despite peoples right to leisure and vacation, and despite the fact that it is scientifically proven that participating in outdoor leisure activities has a positive impact on the wellbeing of families and individuals, we come to the conclusion that a lot of people still have no access to such touristic activities. Social tourism advocates for creating affordable tourism activities that are accessible for less fortunate and other social groups. Therefore it is important that social tourism can be further developed in Belgium and other countries. This doctoral project will focus on the search for the underlying motives of touristic service providers to provide social tourism activities. How can managers in tourism be convinced to engage in social tourism? Also, it is important to investigate how social tourism providers should communicate their social tourism offer to target groups and non-target groups of the social activities?

Keywords:Social tourism, motives of providers, communication toward different target groups

Disciplines:Applied economics, Economic history, Macroeconomics and monetary economics, Microeconomics, Tourism