Tourism as a driver of economic and social development in underdeveloped regions

Cross‐border cooperations have been usually approached by developing trade agreements between international regions to upgrade their socioeconomic conditions and promote international tourism flows in territories. However, little attention has been paid to the role that tourist companies play in underprivileged territories highly dependent on tourism. Through the theory of social exchange, theoretical implications can be drawn from those territories and compared with developed regions to understand what role tourism flow plays in the reciprocal attitude between tourist companies and visitors. Political implications force tourist authorities to involve companies in promoting their regional tourism resources through participatory tourism programmes. For this, the opinion of companies is strongly related to the tourism generated by the Parque Natural Tajo Internacional on both sides of the border between Spain and Portugal, who have participated in the research to develop tourism on both sides of the border. To collect the data, 126 interviews were carried out with companies among the 53 Spanish and Portuguese companies that participated in the research between January and June 2022. For data tabulation, version 3.26 of SmartPLS was used. The study concludes that social exchange policies that bring companies and residents closer together favour socioeconomic development in territories that have natural resources and are economically disadvantaged.