Border tourism: an opportunity for the Dry Line Region, Northern Portugal and Galicia

Border regions are currently an important research topic, mainly in regard to regional sciences (Makkonen and Williams, 2016), especially in Europe and North America (Yang, 2006). With emphasis on topics such as cooperation, regional economic development, governance and tourism (Makkonen and Williams, 2016), these topics turn them into territories of great significance. In order to reinforce the joint interventions of the Member States in integrated territorial development actions, together with the EU strategic priorities, European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) covers a set of actions aimed at promoting and favouring a balanced integration of the European Union territory. This includes cooperation between its different areas on issues of Community importance at cross-border level (cross-border cooperation, to eliminate borders), transnational level (transnational cooperation, experience sharing and good practices) and interregional level (interregional cooperation, for networking in the region). Crossborder cooperation is strategic and decisive for the sustainability and development of tourist destinations located in border regions. Trillo and Lois (2011) point out that cross-border cooperation is an innovating issue that has led to the reflection and understanding of the border under different perspectives since the 1970s. For Beritelli (2011), cooperative behaviour in tourist destination communities is a condition for their sustainable planning and development as a tourist destination, although the results are not always satisfactory. For this cooperation to be advantageous, it is essential that, in terms of tourism, it involves the diversity that complements two neighbouring regions, by perceiving the continuity of the territories that characterize, for example, the dry line of the Galicia-North Portugal Euroregion. The cooperation of Northern Portugal with the Autonomous Community of Galicia has been greatly increased, partly due to their shared linguistic ties and geographical proximity. The two regions ...