Sustainable Tourism Law

740 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW responsibility, which, generally speaking, benefits local communities in economic, social and environmental terms. II. SOCIAL MOBILIZATION AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION When a Sustainable Tourism Development Programme is implemented in a territory or destination, it is absolutely vital to consult the local community before all the other phases in the Project. The local residents may and need to manifest themselves and to explain how they perceive and place themselves when they are faced with local or regional governance initiatives in its three segments: public, private and the tertiary sector. Social mobilization and community participation are the foundation of the whole structure and future success of the Programme. We may understand social mobilization as the process of raising willingness to bring about a change of reality through common purposes established by consensus, in order to understand the demand for communication and community engagement when structuring a mobilizing social project in which people feel they are participants and protagonists in the proposed project, truly identifying themselves with their cause Henriques (2007). Since the participation is an intrinsic and essential condition for mobilization, the main function of communication on a mobilization plan is to generate and maintain the bond between social projects and their respective public, by recognizing the existence and importance of each one, as well as the participation in the definition of meanings and values. The ideal audience intended for any project of social mobilization is found on the level of shared responsibility, so that the established objectives may be reached in a full and lasting basis. Shared responsibility exists when the public acts because it feels responsible to do it, believing in the success of the project and considering its participation as fundamental. Since individual and/or isolated interventions may be ineffective or counterproductive, integrated actions should be favoured, because they are the ones which allow sustainable development in the strict sense of touristic destinations. These interactive and cooperative actions include structured researches adapted to the reality of the project area in the programme, gathering the