The connection between recreational fishing and the traditional fishing sector in the emerging area of marine tourism: challenges and opportunities for diversification with the European Fisheries Fund

The desired diversification of fishing has one of its main lines of development in tourism, especially in countries as touristy as Spain. An important part of the European Fisheries Funds has subsidized, through the FLAG, local development projects in fishing zones with a large part of these projects related to tourism, including nautical tourism. In this new context it is possible to quantify and analyze the subsidized projects' typology and even rethink the ever complicated relations between recreational and professional fishing. This work analyzes 705 projects financed by European funds, of which 172 are related to tourism and 48 to nautical tourism. The objective is to categorize and characterize the subsidized projects and, subsequently, to verify the degree of relationship, if any, between the projects of nautical tourism and professional fishing.