抄録
One of the characteristics of tourism promotion measures in the EU is that a wide variety of funding is provided to the tourism sectors throughout the member countries and regions, regardless of whether the sectors is public or private. Among them, a series of LEADER programs have shown epoch-making effects since the early 1990s in disadvantaged areas of the EU region in terms of rural development.
In Europe, it was pointed out that in the 1980s, the shift from “agricultural policy” to “rural policy” began, and the promotion of non-agricultural business became the EU's policy theme, wherefore, also rural tourism spreaded widely throughout the EU. The EU's rural development funding support program “LEADER”, which started in 1991, has brought about the development of rural tourism and has made a great contribution to the revitalization of the endogenous type in the EU region. In fact, looking at only the 217 groups in the first phase of LEADER, 71 groups, which is about one-third, invested more than half of their budget in tourism-related business plans.
This study aims, firstly, to summarize the historical background of the LEADER program in the EU, secondly, to clarify the seven “features and principles” contained in this program, and thirdly, to elucidate LEADER's policy theory which continues to grow and develop even after 30 years.
