Essays on local currencies, development, and sustainable tourism

The past years brought challenges to humankind. This was not different to the tourism sector which needed to face travel restrictions and the perspective of changes in behaviour when travelling. As a consequence, this thesis aims to deal with new perspectives on tourism, addressing local development and well-being. This work is divided into three papers and brings three different propositions to improve local conditions and deal with visitors by using local currencies. The goal of local currencies is to allow money coming from out of the community to circulate in the local economy, possibly creating a virtuous circle. The first chapter treats the Maricá's case, a small city in Brazil that is implanting basic income for its inhabitants using oil royalties and a local currency called Mumbuca. It proposes a change in the engine of the city's economy, coming from oil to sustainable tourism, including tourism in the local financial framework. The second chapter proposes a balance in the negative externalities coming from visitors in favour of locals. To do so, it suggests a basic income coming from tourism, being paid through local currency. On the contrary, the last chapter proposes a kind of local cryptocurrency, based on cases in the literature and in specialized markets, in order to foment tourism and improve locals' well-being.