Public Action in the Formation and Transformation of the Tourist Destination of Porto de Galinhas - PE: a study of references in the period 1970-2010

Abstract

The construction of tourist destinies is a little studied phenomenon, but relevant to the advancement of understanding on tourism in the country. The purpose of this paper is to identify how public action spurred the formation and transformation of the tourist destination of Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco, from 1970 to 2010. Sought to identify the actors, processes and frameworks used by them to carry out the analytical re(constitution) in the formation and transformation of a tourism destination. Documentary, bibliographical and field surveys were used as sources of data collection and used document and contents analysis. The theoretical framework was based on the cognitive analysis of public policies developed in France. The results showed that public actions have undergone transformations over the years, indicating changes of conception expressed in the reference of public policy, analyzed from a periodization in three phases. It was identified that the State acted in different roles and who in the 1970s played a propellant and almost exclusively at the local tourism characterized as "social tourism" and, also, second residence tourism. From the 1990s, however, new actors have been protagonists of public shares, primarily to local hoteliers, having built tourism policy to the worldviews of their proponents. The destination has become an attractive national tourism. From 2000 onwards, it was the internationalization of tourism, and the new actors of the tourism industry, large international hotel groups, which developed an "elite tourism". Although still subject to federal programs and despite the rhetoric of sustainability, social and environmental problems of Porto worsened, and may even compromise the attractiveness of the tourist destination.