Análisis de los métodos de evaluación de la aptitud del territorio para turismo alternativo

The inadequate valuation of the natural system and the lack of planning, sometimes causes that the practices of alternative tourism break with the criterion of sustainability of its own principles. For this reason, the study of the aptitude of the territory is a fundamental management tool prior to establishing any type of tourism activity, which allows both the villager and the manager to identify the resources in the natural and socioeconomic dimension with which the territory to define the best areas of use that allow the conservation and development of communities. The objective of this work was to analyze the research methods used to determine the aptitude of the territories for alternative tourism activities in their modalities ecotourism, adventure tourism and rural tourism. International literature was analyzed identifying authors, objectives, methods and results, resulting in a grouping in three categories: 1) research based on natural and socioeconomic resource inventories, 2) research based on the natural system only and use of GIS, and 3) research based on natural and socioeconomic system with the support of the use of GIS. It is this last category that presents more complex works following the theory of sustainability and the objectives pursued by alternative tourism. Even so, it is recommended to innovate in methods that allow to include more variables for the characterization of the territory, and scales of better definition and detail.