O turismo de aventura no município de Quixadá: análise e proposições ao desenvolvimento turístico local

Abstract

Quixadá is a municipality in the planning region of the Sertão Central do Ceará with semi-arid climatic conditions and concentrated rains between the months of January to May. Although the state is inserted in a prominent position in the national tourist scene, it is important to highlight that tourism in Ceará develops in a concentrated manner in coastal regions. However, even in the concentration's face, the municipalities in the countryside have potential for the development of various tourist segments, such as the case of Quixadá, where segments such as Nature Tourism, Religious Tourism, Scientific Tourism, among others, are present. Among the multiple segments found in Quixadá, Adventure Tourism stands out, a segment that involves the practice of adventure activities without a competitive character and that makes the municipality widely known among practitioners of this segment, with emphasis on the practice of free flight (paragliding and hang gliding), with record-breaking in national and international settings. The primary research’s aim is investigating the development and systematization of Adventure Tourism in Quixadá. The results got in the research’s course allowed to identify the limitations and potentialities of local development, enabling subsidies to carry out a proposal for tourism development more contextualized with the local reality, aiming to maximize its potentialities and minimize its problems, through join tourist planning to environmental specificities, as it is believed that given the tourist context of Ceará, it is important to value the potential of the hinterland areas as an alternative for local development. This research it's based on the precepts of Geoecology of Landscape, systematized in four phases: Organization and Inventory; Analyze; Diagnosis and Prognosis. With the results, it was identified that the Adventure Tourism offer is concentrated in six centers named: Municipal Headquarters, Fazenda Magé, Serra do Urucum, Serra do Estevão, Açude Cedro and Juatama. Each nucleus has its own structure and offers differentiated activities. It has also identified problems and limitations that impact local tourism development, including the lack of integrated tourism planning. In view of the results and the identification of other tourist potentialities, it was elaborated a proposal for geotouristic zoning for Quixadá with an integrated perspective to the tourist potentialities and environmental particularities of each area. It also elaborated a proposal map of potential tourist routes that can be developed in the municipality.