The Insertion of Youth in the Rural Tourism and the Construction of Local Hospitality: the case study of the Ipanema Settlements (Iperó-SP)

Abstract

The rural youth is an important agent to reach local autonomy with regard to rural development’s new trends. The pluriactivity in family farming, for instance rural tourism as a non-farm activity might help to increase local income and might offer these families the opportunity of hosting visitors. The higher income and the coming of visitors coupled with incentives from public policies seemed to be fundamental for local families to build their own hospitality, and one way of building it is to invest in the potential of their rural youth as managers of local tourism. To address these issues, semi-structured interviews were applied to 30 young residents of the Ipanema settlements located at municipality of Iperó in the state of São Paulo, (Brazil). Results indicated high interest of young settlers in tourism, thus these results suggested potentiality to include youth in the management of the tourism.