Análise da sustentabilidade do turismo de base comunitária a partir do uso de indicadores: um estudo desenvolvido em comunidades do Nordeste brasileiro

Abstract

Community-based tourism (TBC) represents an alternative model to conventional or mass tourism because the last one is unsustainable. The TBC is characterized by the protagonism of community members in the development and decision-making process, by the equitable distribution of income, and by solidarity, enhancement of local culture and identities, as well as by the preservation of the community’s natural resources. The Sustainability Indicators have been used as tools capable of assisting in the process of searching for more sustainable tourism through the measurement of economic, cultural, social and environmental aspects. Thus, the main objective of this study was to analyze the sustainability level of TBC in the communities of Ponta Grossa (Icapuí/CE) and Chã de Jardim (Areia/PB) from the use of indicators. For this purpose, the Sustainability Indicator System for Tourism (SISDTur), proposed by Hanai (2009), was adapted to the reality of small communities where TBC occurs, as a way of making this system more simplified and making possible the monitoring of sustainability aspects in these communities. To achieve the proposed objectives, a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative approaches was methodologically performed. For the data collection, a questionnaire was applied addressing questions for the elaboration of a sociodemographic profile of each community and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS-BP) and Quality of Life (WHOQOLBREF) and a scale was created to generate the TBC perception index. Interviews were conducted with community leaders to verify compliance with TBC principles. Subsequently, statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS Software with the data obtained from the questionnaires applied to verify the reliability and establish their correlations. Water supply, sewage treatment, and solid waste collection indexes were also established in the two communities based on census data from the IBGE (2010). To adapt the SISDTur (Hanai, 2009) to the TBC, three indicator screening processes were carried out. The first one with the TBC specialists in Brazil, the second one from a course and workshop with the communities and the third screening was performed for simplification and approximation to the reality of small communities. The new system called SISDTBC was applied to social actors in the two communities investigated. The results obtained for all indexes in the community of Ponta Grossa were higher than those obtained in the community of Chã de Jardim. The results of TBC perception, Satisfaction with Life and Quality of Life indexes obtained from the interviews with residents of these communities suggest these people are satisfied with their lives and classified their level of quality of life as satisfactory, even though some of their basic needs are not met, such as access to health, education, water, jobs, sewage treatment, and solid waste collection. From the application of the SISDTBC, the TBC sustainability index was generated in each community. This index in Chã de Jardim was considered partially sustainable whereas in Ponta Grossa it was considered sustainable. Finally, the management contributions and limitations of this research and some suggestions for future studies are presented.