Ecocultural tourism is the result of a complementarity between the geography of the place, the heritage, the ways of life and the economic and socio-cultural organization of the community. In this approach, the community plays an important role in the relationship with tourists and the territory, promoting the compression of the links between socio-economic and cultural traditions and practices with the geographical space, promoting value and enriching experiences for tourists. The territorial networks of Schist Villages and Mountain Villages represent destinations that combine rurality and heritage value with the cultural expressions of their communities. These realities present a valuable association between the preservation of local ecosystems, ways of life and their socio-cultural materialization, promoting identities and the affirmation of traditional knowledge allied to the sustainable management of resources.
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Tourism practices tend to be complex in the ways they are carried out, the means involved, the experiences required, and the links with the territories that support them. Tourism, in its relationship with geographical space and the transformations it undergoes, gives it the meaning of a tourist destination, promoting its resources as products, to which services are associated and functionalities are generated for their enjoyment. The forms of appropriation by tourism require ever greater care and a properly planned process, to guarantee the best use of resources and the sustainability of destinations. It is necessary to recognize that visitors to tourism and leisure destinations show an appetite for participating in mixed portfolios of experiential activities that blend nature and culture, which are not easily or exclusively classified. In practice, natural and cultural elements come together as articulated factors of tourist interest, promoting a more immersive connection with the territory and a deeper interpretation of the geographical space visited. This process requires getting closer to their physical and sociocultural origins to obtain more information and recognize connections and experience.
Ecocultural tourism is a conceptual approach in which the ecological and cultural aspects of a landscape are combined to create a space for tourist enjoyment (Fernandes, 2023). It is proposed as a way of interpreting how cultural and ecological resources (main or marginal) develop tourist attraction and increase the notoriety associated with the values held by the territory, combining heritage, culture, and geographical identity with the didactic dimension and citizen science (Jelisavka & Rajovic, 2017).
Sustainability and collective participation are crucial for the future of tourism, which is embodied in an integral territorial approach, both in the cultural discoveries of its communities and ways of life, and in the interpretation of the landscape and the articulation of its elements in the territorial approach of the destination. In this sense, governance is required to play an important role in building local capacity and valuing the territory's culture, in pursuit of the successful development of ecocultural tourism and its contribution to social well-being.
Currently, the tourist experience seeks to reach the different tourist resources of the destination/region, both natural and cultural, trying to understand their origins and establish relationships with the communities. In this way, there is an articulation of value in a composite product that is refocused on understanding the relationships between the physical environment and its communities, in the evolutions and relationships built, with their consequent materialization in the territory (Cajee, 2014; Hasono, 2019).
In this context, we seek to reflect on the meaning and scope of ecocultural tourism, and its emergence as a product that supports, in an integrated and connected way, the material and the immaterial. To structure an analysis of ecoculture-based tourism approaches, in the context of experiencing the geography of the place, experiencing the associated ways of life, the established cultural practices, and the understanding of natural history and its relationships in the socio-cultural materializations produced.
The Schist Villages and Mountain Villages networks are two destinations built on cultural identities developed in their geographical contexts, where the materializations produced expressways of valuing the landscape, cultural identities, and heritage. Today, they represent projects of recognized tourist value, where they go beyond the context of rurality to promote the cultural value associated with how their communities have organized themselves socially and economically, preserving their ecosystems and generating sustainable strategies for the use of resources in low-density territories. Their identity generates differentiation in the context of rural tourism, by highlighting materializations whose interpretation requires an understanding of the place as a geographical space, its ways of life, and the ways in which it connects with nearby ecosystems. The aim is to highlight the strategic value of these projects in enhancing local communities, preserving heritage, and creating a differentiated tourism offer.