Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment in rural areas . The case of Castilla y León

Edible wild mushroom picking is becoming an important source of income in rural areas. The wide range of activities which add value to mycological production (initial sale, transformation, marketing, etc.) include those related to tourism which can attract visitors to mushroom producing areas, leading to so-called mycological tourism. To date, no research exists quantifying the importance thereof in rural areas endowed with such resources. The present research provides the first model to estimate this activity’s contribution to the economy of rural areas in the region of Castilla y León. The main finding to emerge evidences a close link between influx of visitors, who come principally to pick, and mycological productivity in the region. Based on this relation, we estimate four key variables to determine the impact which said activity has on the regional economy as a whole: the number of overnight stays and trips made by mycological tourists, as well as associated expenditure and employment created. Findings underscore the importance of this activity in the regional tourism industry and point to its significance as a major market niche, particularly during the hotel low season. The need for public administrators to implement a related management policy is also inferred.


Introduction
In recent years, rural tourism has emerged as a viable alternative for boosting development in rural areas in Europe, particularly in less favoured regions (Roig, 2005).This has led to abundant research addressing the study thereof from the standpoint of demand (Fuentes, 1995;Roig, 2005, etc.) as well as supply (IET, 1996;Solsona, 2001;Ribeiro and Marqués, 2002;Barke, 2004;etc.).
Several studies have also explored the situation of specific market niches within the sector, such as wine tourism (Vargas et al. 2008), bird-watching tourism (Juan, 2006;Fernández et al., 2007or López, 2008), or conference tourism (Ordinas and Binimelis, 2003;Besteiro, 2003or Ponce, 2007).Research into mycological tourism remains scarce, however, the only prominent contribution being that of Lázaro (2008), who provides a descriptive analysis of its market structure 1 .
Far less progress has been made in research dealing with the contribution to the chain of value and employment in areas where such activities exist.Existing studies include Rico (2005), for rural tourism in the autonomous community of Castilla y León, or López (2008), for bird-watching tourism2 , although no such works exist for mycological tourism.
The present research thus seeks to gauge the impact of this activity on the economy of rural areas within the autonomous community of Castilla y León.To this end, we estimate four key variables: number of overnight stays and trips made by mycological tourists in the region, as well as the associated expenditure and employment this activity generates.In order to ascertain its contribution, these values are compared to those corresponding to rural tourism, the hotel and catering industry, and the regional economy as a whole.
The paper is organised as follows.Section 2 explores the socioeconomic importance of harvesting wild edible mushrooms.We then describe the mycological tourism market from the viewpoint of supply and demand.Section 4 describes the model applied and sources used to gather data, and offers an analysis of the results.The article concludes by describing the main findings and conclusions to emerge, the references and annexed data.

Socioeconomic impact of harvesting edible wild mushrooms
Harvesting of edible wild mushrooms is becoming a key source of income in rural areas.Quantifying its impact in rural economies is an emerging line of re-search in which most international as well as national studies focus primarily on how such a resource is managed within forest planning programmes (Hosford et al., 1997;Palm and Chapela, 1997;Martínez, 2003;Martínez et al., 2003, etc.).
Most of these works are based on studies of tourist influx to production areas, and describe the profile of harvesters in terms of number, origin and socioeconomic features.Research aimed at quantifying and evaluating use of mycological resources remains, however, in its infancy.At a global scale, there are no reliable statistics or estimations of the number of edible wild mushrooms harvested and marketed, published data being only partial, disperse and heterogeneous (Delmas, 1989;Courvoisier, 2000;Boa, 2004;Pilz andMolina, 2002, andEdouard, 2003).
According to data from the Department of Forest Research and Experiences (Spanish acronym: DIEF-Valonsadero) at the Regional Government of Castilla y León (Martinez et al., 2006), 53.6% of the rural population in the region regularly collect edible wild mushrooms (approximately 516,000 pickers), threequarters of whom state that they do not usually sell what they pick, but harvest for their own consumption.This would indicate that some 10,000 tonnes per year of over a dozen species of socioeconomic interest are being harvested.In financial terms, the estimated amount that can be harvested in Castilla y León points to the possibility of generating up to 65 million euros a year in direct revenue through the trading of the main commercial species3 .Taking this figure as a starting point, the chain of added value is extremely important in sectors such as transformation, commercialisation or the restaurant industry, which creates a significant number of permanent as well as temporary jobs that have yet to be quantified (Frutos et al., 2008).
A further emerging line of research deals with the recreation value linked to harvesting edible wild mushrooms.Over the last decade, studies have been published estimating harvester consumer surplus in various areas and therefore, level of satisfaction associated to collecting.Authors apply a range of different techniques to evaluate intangible goods, particularly those based on observed preferences, such as the cost-travel Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment method, as well as others based on stated preferences, such as the contingent valuation method or choice models.
In the first case, for instance, Starbuck et al. (2004), calculate daily consumer surplus at 30$ for gathering fruit and edible wild mushrooms in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the state of Washington (USA).Martínez de Aragón (2005) estimates this value to be 38€ per visitor collecting in the area of Solsones in Catalonia, and Frutos et al. (2009) estimate a value of 10€ per collector in the area of Pinar Grande (Soria).In the second case, Mogas and Riera (2003), applying a choice experiment, estimate willingness to pay to gather wild mushrooms in future forested areas in Catalonia to be 5.77€ per year, whilst Martínez de Aragón (2005) and Frutos (2010), using contingent valuation, estimate this willingness to be 8€ for a daily licence to collect in the above-mentioned forested areas, and 10€ for a season in the forested areas in the province of Soria, respectively.

Mycological tourism
The development of mycological tourism over the last few years is framed within what Velázquez (2007) refers to as new trends in rural tourism, which involves specialising in creating a "unique product" based on a particular theme such as business tourism, training tourism, health tourism, etc.This is leading to excellent growth prospects in certain market niches which in recent years have witnessed the emergence of concepts like mycological tourism or wine tourism, and even others that are far more specific such as bird-watching tourism or theatre production tourism.
From the supply standpoint, these models do not focus exclusively on the existing accommodation infrastructure.Mycological tourism, for instance, encompasses a wide variety of products able to encourage visitors not only to come and stay but also to engage in a whole range of activities related to collecting wild mushrooms.Lázaro (2008) states that such initiatives may fall into the category of not just price-related tourist products, which would include guided wild mush-room tours, basic and combined mycological packages, culinary workshops and sale of wild mushroom products, but also non-price-related mycological products, such as wild mushroom workshops, self-guided tours and specialisation centres4 .
As regards price-related tourist products, guided edible wild mushroom trails may be described as a service usually offered to relatively inexperienced amateur pickers, aimed at showing them how to distinguish the main edible species which are of socioeconomic interest.These trails tend to be four or five hours long and are usually comprise: 1) visitor welcome, 2) informative explanation, 3) picking wild mushrooms, and 4) identifying species collected.Mycological "package deals" are tourist products which have a wide-ranging impact in the area due to the number of stakeholders involved and the possibility of prolonging the stay in the area.In purely mycology related tourism, only activities linked to mycology (mycological guides, tasting and sale of products, sale of dissemination material, etc.) are offered, and might include accommodation, usually for the weekend.In mixed packages, mycological activities are offered together with other outdoor leisure and nature-related pursuits such as sports activities (cycling tourism, hill-walking, etc.), cultural visits, etc. Cuisine is perhaps the main element available in rural tourism.Such is the range of possibilities that it is impossible to provide a single definition that would embrace all the potential aspects of mycological tourism.For instance, as well as purely gastronomic events, hundreds of restaurants offer dishes that include wild mushrooms, thereby providing an added attraction for visitors.Further related activities such as mycological snack contests or others not directly connected to the hotel and catering industry, such as mycological cuisine contests, food tasting events, demonstrations of haute cuisine using mushrooms and so on should also be considered.Finally, as regards the sale of mycological products, these are becoming increasingly sophisticated and more and more prominent in specialised delicatessen food stores.
With regard to non-price tourist products, mycological seminars originally emerged as a means of disseminating the activities undertaken by mushroom associa-tions and are currently the most popular mycological tourism activity.They vary greatly in terms of format and content, ranging from exhibitions, lectures, outings to pick mushrooms, and specialised markets to cooking and photography contests, etc.As regards self-guided trails, these are signposted in situ and/or using maps, allowing mycological tourists to follow them on their own without the need for a guide.All the information concerning the route, habitats, species, areas of natural beauty, etc. may be easily interpreted by the visitor.Finally, specialised centres go under a wide range of names: mycological centres, mycological interpretation centres, mycological museums, mycological information points, etc.These are infrastructures equipped with all that is required to engage in a wide range of mushroom related activities, particularly visitor training and information.In an effort to attract them to the area, visitors are also normally offered courses, exhibitions, workshops, conferences, and so on.In many instances, these also serve as information points for mushroom collectors, where different species may be identified.
Whatever the case, two aspects remain key to attracting mycological tourists.Firstly, the actual infrastructure in terms of accommodation and restaurants in the area, which it shares with other tourist activities, and secondly productivity in the forest areas where the activity exists.As will be seen later on, mycological tourism cannot be conceived without highly productive forests, which provide the main attraction for tourists.
From the standpoint of demand, the main problem is defining what is understood by the term mycological tourist.Given the range of services available, a broad definition may be made of this group, such that a mycological tourist might be considered as someone who consumes one of the products or services defined above.Yet, such a definition entails two problems.Firstly, this does not have to include in the target group those whose main purpose in coming is to collect, who stay overnight in the area, but who do not consume the available mycological goods and services, which would mean overlooking an important number of people when quantifying demand.Secondly, others who may be classed as mycological tourists are those using some restaurant services, such as enjoying a dish of edible wild mushrooms or visiting a specialised centre, but who have not travelled to the area to pick mushrooms or who may even have undertaken the journey for a completely different reason.
As a result, for the research at hand, a mycological tourist is defined as someone who travels to the specific area of the case study, both from within5 as well as from outside the area, who stays in the area overnight and whose main purpose for travelling is to collect edible wild mushrooms, irrespective of whether or not they consume mycological goods and services.This also means excluding so-called "day-trippers" or recreational pickers who harvest for their own consumption and whose main goal is to pick, regardless of whether or not they consume mycological goods and services, but who do not stay in the area overnight.Despite the importance of mushroom pickers who do not stay overnight, methodologically it is not possible to take account of them when estimating their contribution as tourists to the regional economy, since the World Tourism Organization (WTO, 1994) defines tourists as visitors who spend at least one night at a collective or private accommodation establishment in the country/ place visited.This definition has subsequently been accepted by most countries, who include as tourists in their statistics visitor who fulfil this requirement (EU-ROSTAT, National Statistics Office, etc.) In this vein, Martínez et al. (2003) find that 54% of pickers from outside the region returned to their place of residence the same day, with only 7% booking accommodation6 .Moreover, of all the collectors surveyed, only 54% stated that the main reason for making the journey was to pick edible wild mushrooms.These data reflect how difficult it is to provide an accurate definition of demand, many descriptions and categories being available depending on the criteria chosen.

Setting out the model
The model presented was designed specifically to estimate mycological tourism's contribution to the regional economy of Castilla y León.Since a review of the scientific literature failed to provide us with a model which might be used for our purpose, we were Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment forced to develop one ad-hoc for the case in hand.This model was divided into four different parts.Firstly, the number of overnight stays by mycological tourists is calculated, together with the total number of mycological tourists, in the main edible wild mushroom producing areas in the region.Secondly, these variables are estimated for the remaining rural areas of the autonomous community, irrespective of the importance of mycological resources.Thirdly, the expenditure linked to these overnight stays or tourists in the rural area under study is estimated.Finally, the number of equivalent full-time jobs generated by the activity in the autonomous community is estimated.
The sample unit used was a local action group (LAG) within the region of Castilla y León, which covers all municipal areas of less than 10,000 inhabitants, such that the estimated data may be considered to correspond to all rural areas in Castilla y León7 .

Calculating the number of overnight stays and mycological tourists in the main LAG producers
Following the proposed definition, the number of overnight stays (NP i ) by mycological tourists in each of the local action group areas sampled in the year under study is calculated as follows: where: -NSC: average number of weeks the edible wild mushroom season lasts.
-NA i : number of places available in rural accommodation in each LAG area.
-NMP i : mean number of places in rural accommodation in each LAG area.
-POOFD i : mean percentage occupation rate on autumn weekends at rural accommodation establishments in each LAG area.
-POOFDTM i : mean percentage occupation rate by mycological tourists on autumn weekends at rural accommodation establishments in each LAG area.
-POORS i : mean percentage occupation rate at rural accommodation establishments in each LAG area during the rest of the week in autumn.
-POORSTM i : mean percentage occupation rate by mycological tourists in autumn at rural accommodation establishments in each LAG area during the rest of the week in autumn.
Based on the number of overnight stays, the number of mycological tourists in each local action group area sampled (NTM i ), assimilated to the number of trips to the study area complying with the characteristics described, is calculated as follows: where DETMM is the mean length of the stay by a mycological tourist.Given the lack of available data for this variable for the case of mycology, a further additional value is taken into account, based on the mean length of the stay of 1 to 3 days (DETMC).The two values have been chosen from the mean length of stays in rural tourism in Castilla y León (see data source).

Estimating the number of overnight stays and mycological tourists in rural areas in Castilla y León
Although the arrival of mycological tourists to production areas may be dependent upon a number of factors (distance, accessibility, etc.), the most likely hypothesis is that the number of overnight stays/mycological tourists basically depends on the expected harvest, where a positive relation between the two variables should exist.As a result, the explanatory variable would be the value of edible wild mushroom production in the woodlands and forests in each local action group area, such that we might calculate the corresponding function of overnight stays for all groups as follows8 : where: -PBE i : gross production value of socio-economically important edible wild mushrooms (except truffles) in each LAG area.
-α and β: parameters to be fitted in the regression procedure.
ε i : error regression term.
A further important variable might be search time.In other words, a woodland or forest might be rich in terms of edible wild mushrooms, yet might extend over a large area.In such cases, the time needed to collect the same amount would increase as the size of the forest area in question also increases, which might discourage pickers in general and mycological tourists in particular from coming.In an effort to include this hypothesis, a second model based on forest or woodland productivity was posited, such that the following overnight stay function is also estimated: where: -PRODUCTE i : value of mean productivity of socio-economically important edible wild mushrooms (except truffles) in each LAG area, calculated as the PBE divided amongst all forested areas in each group.
-α' and β': parameters to be fitted in the regression procedure.
The two models are adjusted through ordinary least squares, where the dependent variable used (NP i ) is calculated based on the procedure described in the previous section.Based on the value of the parameters obtained, the number of overnight stays in all the local action group areas in Castilla y León is fitted.This gives rise to two different estimations, one based on production, NP(PBE) and another based on productivity, NP(PRODUCTE).As with the groups surveyed, using previous data, the number of mycological tourists is fitted, based on the two assumed cases of length of stay, for all the LAGs in the autonomous community, using both models (gross production value and productivity): NTM(EM/PBE), NTM(EM/PRODUCTE), NTM(EC/PBE) and NTM(EC/PRODUCTE)9 .

Estimating expenditure associated to overnight stays/ mycological tourists in rural areas in Castilla y León
Taking the above described variables as a basis, we calculate for each of the local action group areas the total expenditure generated by tourism related to activities for which the main reason to travel was to pick edible wild mushrooms.Merging the assumed cases yields eight expenditure variables: four based on the number of overnight stays, which we refer to as GNP(EM/PBE), GNP(EM/PRODUCTE), GNP(EC/ PBE) and GNP(EC/PRODUCTE) respectively, and a further four based on the number of mycological tourists, which we refer to as GNTM(EM/PBE), GNTM(EM/PRODUCTE), GNTM(EC/PBE) and GNTM(EC/PRODUCTE) respectively.
Each is calculated using the following formula: where: -GVDTM: mean expenditure per trip and day of a tourist staying at rural accommodation in Castilla y León.
-GVDTC: mean expenditure per trip and day of a tourist staying at a rural house in Castilla y León for a short period (1 to 3 days).
-GVTM: mean expenditure per trip of a tourist staying at a rural house in Castilla y León.
-GVTC: mean expenditure per trip of a tourist staying at a rural house in Castilla y León for a short period (1 to 3 days).
-FC: correction factor for expenditure variables.Taking the results of the survey conducted amongst rural accommodation establishments, a mycological tourist spends approximately 10% less than other types of tourists in rural accommodation.The correction factor thus used was 0.91.

Estimating the number of equivalent full-time jobs associated to overnight stays/mycological tourists in rural areas in Castilla y León
Finally, to calculate employment generated by mycological tourism Castilla y León, we multiply expenditure associated to the activity in each of the Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment models by the number of jobs created in the hotel sector in Castilla y León by each euro of expenditure.To calculate the coefficient in each sector (CNAE-93 55), final household consumption in hotels and catering at basic prices in Castilla y León (GCFHHpb) is divided by the number of equivalent full-time jobs in the hotel and catering sector (total number of employees) (PTEHtc).For 2005, this coefficient is 0.000010037110 .This yields eight estimation models for employment linked to each of the eight previous expenditure models, which we refer to as EMPNP(EM/PBE), EMPNP(EM/PRODUCTE), EMPNP(EC/PBE), EMPNP(EC/PRODUCTE), EMPNTM(EM/PBE), EMPNTM(EM/PRODUCTE), EMPNTM(EC/PBE) and EMPNTM(EC/PRODUCTE) respectively.

Data source
The information for calculating the number of overnight stays in local action group areas best suited to benefit from mycological resources is taken from a survey carried out in 2005 in rural municipal areas (of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants) belonging to 11 local action group areas involved in the "Mycology and Quality" inter-territorial cooperation project funded by these LEADER + and PRODERCAL groups and by the Regional Environment Ministry at the Regional Government of Castilla y León.
A total of 499 telephone surveys were conducted amongst rural accommodation establishments, of which 466 took part and 403 were considered valid.Since the total number of establishments is 930, the percentage surveyed came to 43.3%.The survey comprised ten questions relating to the number of places, occupation rates, type of client and expenditure, as well as management attitude towards activities related to edible wild mushroom collecting.
As regards client profile, establishment managers were asked what percentage of rooms were normally occupied during the harvesting season by people whose main reason for travelling was to pick mush-rooms in the area, both at weekends as well as during the rest of the week.Since these were small establishments, with an average of eight rooms, the managers (owners in virtually all the cases) tend to be sure why their guests are staying.There is often a close relationship between guest and owner, such that the latter is usually able to distinguish between those who are there for rural tourism and those who are engaging in other activities like fishing, hunting or mushroom picking11 .This was made very clear during the survey, and during the questioning hardly any managers stated that they did not know or simply did not answer, indicating there was no ambiguity amongst interviewees.Moreover, almost all of the managers evidenced that they knew their clients well when it came to answering other questions related to their guests' socioeconomic profiles.
Data for estimating the number of overnight stays at rural accommodation in Castilla y León are taken from the MICODATA system (Geographic Information System on production, use and planning of mycological resources in Castilla y León), provided by DIEF-Valonsadero.Data for calculating the number of mycological tourists, based on overnight stays, are taken from the institute of tourist studies, specifically statistics on Spanish tourist flows (FAMILITUR, 2005) corresponding to 2005.Data used to calculate expenditure and employment generated as a result of the activity are taken from the input-output framework for the autonomous community of Castilla y León for 2005 (latest available) and (FAMILITUR, 2005).Finally, data on the total number of rural accommodation establishments in each LAG are taken from the survey into tourist infrastructure in Castilla y León at the Regional Ministry of Culture and Tourism at the Regional Government of Castilla y León (2005), and the mean stay during the mushroom season was obtained based on expert opinion.
A more thorough analysis of these sources, variable by variable, is found in Table 1, which provides the name of the variable, its description, its source, any related remarks, the value or mean value, and in the latter case, the standard deviation.Assumed to be the same as for tourists staying at rural accommodation establishments in Castilla y León.

-
DETMC Length of average stay of mycological tourists (stays between 1 and 3 days).
Assumed to be the same as for tourists staying at rural accommodation establishments in Spain, corrected by the length of the mean stay in the region compared to the rest of the country (correction factor = 1.0753).

-PBE
Mean gross production of edible wild mushrooms (except truffles) in each LAG area (thousand €).

Results
Calculating the number of overnight stays and mycological tourists in the main LAG production areas Table 2 shows the number of overnight stays and tourists generated by mycological tourism in the local action group areas surveyed, calculated based on the proposed formulas.The province to which they belong is also shown, as is the percentage of forested area in each, the number of rural accommodation establish-ments on the date the survey was carried out, and the percentage of those who stated that there were mushroom pickers amongst their clients.
The mean number of overnight stays per group is 4,340, with between one and two thousand mycological tourists travelling to the areas surveyed every year.
The group with the highest number of pickers who stayed overnight is ASOPIVA, located in the north-west and south-east, respectively of the provinces of Soria and Burgos, with over 23,000 overnight stays and between five and ten thousand mycological tourists each year.Second and third were ASOCIO, in the province Assumed to be the same as for tourists staying in Castilla y León at any type of accommodation, corrected by the national value for rural accommodation establishments (correction factor = 0.7134).

-
GVDTC Mean expenditure per trip and day of a tourist staying at rural accommodation in Castilla y León for short stays (1 to 3 days).
Assumed to be the same as for tourists staying in Castilla y León at any type of accommodation, corrected by the national value for rural accommodation establishments (correction factor = 0.7695).

-GVTM
Mean expenditure per trip of a tourist staying at rural accommodation in Castilla y León.
Assumed to be the same as for tourists staying in Castilla y León at any type of accommodation, corrected by the national value for rural accommodation establishments (correction factor = 0.7134).

GVTC
Mean expenditure per trip of a tourist staying at rural accommodation in Castilla y León for a short period (1 to 3 days).
Assumed to be the same as for tourists staying in Castilla y León at any type of accommodation, corrected by the national value for rural accommodation establishments (correction factor = 0.7695). of Ávila, and PROYNERSO in the province of Soria, with over 6,000 overnight stays and between 1,500 and 3,000 pickers each per season.The groups recording the lowest incidence in this kind of activity are ADISAC and ADATA in Zamora and ADEZOS in Salamanca, all of which registered fewer than 50 overnight stays.

Calculating the number of overnight stays and mycological tourists in rural areas in Castilla y León
A summary of the models estimated to generalise behaviour of mycological tourists to all areas in the autonomous community of Castilla y León is shown in Tables 3 and 4.
In both cases, the explanatory variable (mycological production and productivity respectively) accounts for approximately 80% of overnight stays in the local action group areas.As a result, the fit may be considered good, with an R 2 above 0.8 in both cases.As a whole, the two models may also be deemed significant, since the F test indicates that the level of significance is above 99%.Since, after having conducted the relevant comparisons, no problems which might invalidate the results were found (self-correlation, heteroskedasticity, etc.), the model calculated can be extrapolated to all local action group areas, such that

2,010
Source: own. the parameters fitted may be used to predict and estimate the number of overnight stays in all rural areas in the region.In this sense, the parameters associated to the predictive variables show the expected sign, where the greater the production value (or productivity) in the area, the greater the expected number of overnight stays.Moreover, after carrying out the t test, the two parameters were above 99% significant.As regards the constant term, only the one estimated through the production model was significant at 95%, the productivity term not proving significant12 .
Table 5 shows the mean values of the number of overnight stays and mycological tourists in the autonomous community of Castilla y León for each model.Data by local action group may be consulted in annex 1.
Mycological tourism in Castilla y León is generating almost 120,000 overnight stays (between 100,000 and 137,000 depending on the model estimated).Rural areas in Castilla y León are thus attracting over 42,000 pickers, from within the region itself as well as from other autonomous communities, the number ranging between 24,000 and 63,000, depending on the model chosen.
However, not all areas are able to attract mycological tourists.Specifically, in 10 groups in the case of the productivity based model, and in 24 groups in the production based model, the model failed to return a positive number of overnight stays.In these cases, estimations show that insufficient resources are generated to act as a factor to attract pickers, thereby failing to gener-ate any kind of economic activity in the sector.In the remaining cases, the importance varies, with groups in which the number of overnight stays is very small and others where it emerges as an extremely important activity, as is the case of SEGOVIA SUR or ASOPIVA.As was found with the data calculated through surveys, this latter group proved to have the strongest appeal to mycological tourists, with an estimated 21,493 overnight stays (23,452 calculated), just over 5,000 mycological tourists according to the most conservative estimates (5,659 calculated) and some 10,000 in the least conservative (10,861 calculated).

Estimated expenditure associated with overnight stays/mycological tourists in rural areas in Castilla y León
Table 6 shows the expenditure variables estimated in terms of the hypothesis shown in the model.As can be seen, pickers who spend the night at a rural accommodation establishment in the autonomous community spend around 4.5 million euros, with a variation ranging between 2.8 million in the most conservative model and the 6.5 million in the least.For instance, in ASOPIVA almost one million euros is being generated each year, almost half a million in SEGOVIA SUR or over 200,000 euros in CUATRO VALLES (León).Expenditure generated in the remaining groups can be consulted in annex 2.

Estimated number of equivalent full-time jobs associated to overnight stays/mycological tourists in rural areas in Castilla y León
Finally, estimations of employment for all the models are shown in Table 7.In this instance, 46 equivalent fulltime jobs would be created in rural areas in the region, with a minimum of 29 and a maximum of 66.During the season, this would mean 184 jobs that were dependent on pickers from outside the region staying in the autonomous community.Annex 3 provides a detailed analysis of the equivalent employment created in each group.This contribution can obviously not be interpreted as reflecting an equal number of contracts linked to mushroom picking related activities, but rather as support for overall employment deriving from edible wild mushroom picking, particularly for the hotel and catering sector.One further point is that this is an extremely important contribution as it comes at a time of the year when occupation rates in accommodation are lower than in the high season, particularly in summer and at Easter.

Summary
To conclude this section, we present a calculation of the relative impact of each of the estimated variables (overnight stays, number of mycological tourists, associated expenditure and employment generated) on rural tourism in the region, on the hotel and catering industry as a whole in the region, and on the overall economy of Castilla y León.All of these ratios are calculated for the minimum, mean and maximum values for the estimated variables (Table 8).
The number of overnight stays related to mushroom picking would account for between 7% and 10% of the total number generated by rural tourism in the autonomous community of Castilla y León, with an average approaching 9%.These values are slightly higher for the number of visits, with an average of 13% (between 7% and 19%).The contribution to the regional hotel Not available Not available %s regional hotel and catering sector 1.1% 2 1.9% 2 0.13% 0.13% %s regional total --0.020%0.007% Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment and catering sector as a whole is obviously much less and is around 1%.
As regards expenditure associated to this kind of tourism, no data are available enabling us to draw a comparison with rural tourism, although as expected it has little impact on expenditure in the regional hotel and catering sector, representing 0.09% of the total, and ranging between 0.06% and 0.13%.The difference in percentage terms with the impact of the number of overnight stays and mycological tourists is due to the fact that total expenditure includes that incurred not only by all visitors, whether staying at hotel establishments or not, but also by those resident in the region.The impact of this activity on the overall economy of the region is nominal, accounting for 0.014% of all expenditure in the region.The same may be said of employment, with 0.09% of the hotel and catering sector, and 0.005% of all employment.

Conclusions
The present study is the first to gauge the importance of mycological tourism in the economy of rural areas.Given the high explanatory power of the model developed, the authors feel that it might be used to estimate mycological tourism's contribution to the economy in other regions and areas endowed with such resources.
As expected, the values obtained do not point to any major impact on the hotel and catering sector or regional economy as a whole, but do suggest the relatively important weight this particular kind of tourism carries in rural tourism in the region.As a result, this market niche may help maintain a sector felt to be of vital importance in rural development policies in most autonomous communities.In this sense, the contribution this particular branch of tourism makes may be deemed crucial during periods in which occupation rates drop, thereby helping to offset one of the main setbacks inherent in this sector: high visitor concentration over only a few days of the year and the subsequent problems in terms of obtaining sufficient return on investments in the sector.
Public administration support for this sector is seen as a cornerstone in the strategy for developing rural areas endowed with natural resources, the management of which should adopt a twin horizontal focus.Firstly, a forest policy needs to be implemented, planning and resource control of which must embrace management of mycological resources so as to safeguard forest productivity and thereby ensure continued appeal to tourists.Secondly, a tourist infrastructure management policy needs to be in place for rural accommodation establishments to ensure sufficient quantity and quality thereof, suited to visitor needs.Action in aspects not directly related to the management of this kind of tourism should contribute towards its development, without neglecting vertical measures aimed specifically at promoting mycological tourism, such as those being successfully implemented by autonomous communities like Castilla y León or Andalusia.
However, the main problem facing this particular activity is one which fundamentally affects the whole resource management strategy, namely the enormous seasonal variability in mycological production.Estimated data may triple in exceptional seasons and fall to zero in the worst, years which may be considered poorer predominating over those deemed as better.In addition to seasonal variability, this introduces a further distorting factor when managing the activity.
It should also be remembered that not all rural areas hold an equal appeal.Even though visitor numbers basically depend on productivity, account needs to be taken of other variables that also have a major impact such as the proximity or remoteness of mushroom picking areas in Castilla y León to regions which have a long-standing tradition, as is the case of the province of Burgos or the northern part of the province of Soria and their proximity to the Basque Country.Another key factor is access from densely populated areas to places such as the southern part of the provinces of Segovia or Ávila, which are easily reached from large urban areas in Madrid.At the other end of the scale are provinces such as Zamora, Salamanca or even León which, despite having abundant mycological resources, lack the appeal of the features mentioned above, the contribution of mycological tourism to rural development suffering significantly as a result.
Mycology's contribution to the economy does, however, go beyond the data estimated in the present study.As a result, further research needs to be conducted along two lines.Firstly, an estimation should be made of the economic contribution of all visitors who come to an area and whose reasons for travelling include mushroom picking or enjoying what the area has to offer in mycological terms, regardless of whether they stay overnight or not.Secondly, an effort should be made to estimate the total contribution of all mushroom picking related activities, such as selfconsumption, sale, transformation, etc. to overall production, an input-output method perhaps providing a useful benchmark for calculation.Finally, the model developed should also be verified to ascertain whether it can characterise what contribution other kinds of tourism (such as cultural or wine tourism, etc.) may make to economies in terms of the specific tourist resources that various rural areas are endowed with, not only at a national level but also at an international scale.

Table 1 .
Statistical Sources Used Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment

Table 2 .
Number of overnight stays and mycological tourists in the lag areas surveyed(2005)

Table 3 .
Summary of the models estimated

Table 4 .
Summary of the models estimated -continuation Dependent variable NP.Source: own.Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment

Table 5 .
Number of overnight stays and mycological tourists estimated for Castilla yLeón (2005)

Table 7 .
Estimated mean employment generated by mycological tourism in Castilla yLeón (2005)

Table 8 .
Importance of mycological tourism in Castilla y León (summary)

Annex 1 .
Overnight stays and mycological tourists in local action group areas estimated by models Overnight stays and mycological tourists in local action group areas estimated by models Edible wild mushroom tourism as a source of income and employment Employment estimated by models in local action group areas (equivalent jobs) Annex 2 (cont.).Expenditure estimated by models in local action group areas (€) Employment estimated by models in local action group areas (equivalent jobs)