O Turismo comunitário como estratégia de desenvolvimento sustentável: o caso da reserva extrativista do Batoque-Aquiraz/CE

Abstract

The development model guided by mass tourism adopted mainly from the 1980s on the northeast coast and, more specifically, in Ceará triggered numerous conflicts with local populations. These divisions were the genesis of the resistance movements and community mobilization in these areas. It is in this context that emerges community tourism. Treated by some as the true sustainable tourism by bringing the value of cultural identity and the creation of direct benefits to the community at the center of planning, which allows give greater decision-making power to local people themselves. This is how the main purpose of this study arises: the analysis of the basic tourism and its participative management as a real strategy for achieving sustainable development. A review of the theoretical framework was carried out building the concept of sustainability, in addition to the design and correlation between the development of coastal tourism in Ceará and the emergence of community tourism. For case study was chosen a community among 15 communities that develop based tourism in Ceará. The community of Batoque’s Extractive Reserve, located in the Ceará’s East coast, part of the Community Tourism Network of Ceará since its foundation (2008). We built three semi-structured questionnaires involving the key dimensions of sustainable development, specific to interviews with each group (held between May and July 2014): general population (62 local families), emphasizing that the approach used was random and simple; local entrepreneurs (owners of the main tourist facilities); community leaders and institutions that maintains a relationship with the activity; as well as on-site observations. From the field results it was concluded that the distance of the actions planned in theory about the actions applied in practice does not allow a sustainable nature to the tourism developed by Batoque’s community. Although it is recognized that the sustainability process is gradual and based tourism has a real potential to promote it locally. The lack of institutionalization, the disorganized management, weak coordination and public participation in decisions, the hegemony of private interests, among other factors, hamper the best generation and distribution of income, the formation of clusters, better management of ecosystems, while weakening the interest of the population to join the planning of the activity.