Intangible cultural heritage: An alternative for tourism and local development in Pinar del Río?

Abstract

This article addresses the richness of the intangible cultural heritage in terms of sociocultural traditions and transmission of knowledge accumulated through time, which makes it a dynamic source of experience that is at the core of nationality and should receive the same treatment as other approaches to local development. It pursues the objective of analyzing the intangible cultural heritage as an alternative for tourism in Pinar del Río, taking into account its cultural tourist image as a destination, covering the intangible dimension of tourist identity, which would favor its tourist diversity, its cultural tourist image and the local development of the territory. Historical-logical, inductive-deductive and analysis-synthesis methods were applied to study the evolution of the concepts of intangible cultural heritage, tourism and local development. The empirical methods used consisted of collection and analysis of sources, structured and unstructured interview. As a result, it shows the main contributions of the intangible cultural heritage to tourism in terms of local development in Pinar del Río, indicating its wide possibilities for strengthening identity values, improving the standard of living of its inhabitants and several sectors of the economy, which serve as a basis for the process of local development in the province. As conclusion, it is verified the value of the intangible cultural heritage as an alternative for the implementation of strategic proposals for local development in Pinar del Río in the field of tourism, thus achieving a more integral vision of this process.