Fostering Nautical Tourism in the Balearic Islands

The aim of this paper is to determine pillars for fostering nautical tourism based on the beliefs and attitudes that professionals in the sector have towards the particularities and difficulties that the market is going through. To achieve these goals, in-depth interviews structured around 37 questions were carried out with agents of associations and nautical firms, public institutions, and the Chamber of Commerce. The qualitative analysis program NVIVO 11 was used to analyze the content of the gathered data. The findings reveal that the main difficulties are related to normative issues and taxation, illegal supply, and a lack of definition of the nautical tourist profile. This absence of definition causes a vagueness when estimating the total number of nautical tourists that visit a destination. Thus, this affects evaluation of the economic, social, and environmental impact of nautical tourism.