Banca de DEFESA: DARLYNE FONTES VIRGINIO

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : DARLYNE FONTES VIRGINIO
DATE: 25/08/2025
TIME: 09:00
LOCAL: Auditório 2, NEPSA II / https://meet.google.com/rap-pska-air?hs=224
TITLE:

Tourism Project Management: The Success Theory Applied to Route Development

KEY WORDS:

Project management; Tourism; Route development; PRT; Success criteria.

PAGES: 353
BIG AREA: Ciências Sociais Aplicadas
AREA: Turismo
SUMMARY:

Tourism activity must incorporate project management into its strategic initiatives, as it is through projects that organizations have innovated, implemented improvements, and developed new products (Waldt, 2008; Girardi & Rabechini Jr., 2013). Although project management is often approached in a general way, it is important to consider the particularities of tourism when applying concepts, methodologies, and techniques. In this context, tourism projects tend to provoke significant transformations in the physical, social, environmental, and economic dimensions of places (Nunes, 2016), thus establishing themselves as a powerful agenda. However, in order to secure funding and invest in new products, success in these initiatives becomes a decisive factor—especially when resources originate from the public sector (Osei-Kyei & Chan, 2018). Therefore, the Project Success theory was applied to the field of public sector tourism project management in Brazil, particularly in the management of tourism route development projects (which are essential for enhancing destination offerings). Accordingly, the general objective of this study was to analyze the management of tourism route development projects—their conception, assumptions, and application—within the scope of the Tourism Regionalization Program (PRT), in light of project success theory. The specific objectives were: to establish the field of tourism project management within public administration, based on the PRT and existing literature; to systematize the methodologies, techniques, and tools most used by tourism sector project managers in Brazil; to identify the assumptions and applicability of success in tourism projects; and to propose and validate a relevance scale with the main success criteria for tourism project management, based on the study’s findings. From a methodological perspective, the study adopts a constructivist epistemological stance with a critical bias, applied in nature, and follows a quali-quantitative approach to the research problem. The study population comprises managers who currently or previously worked on publicly or Sebrae-funded tourism route development projects, following specific criteria to define the four sample groups, totaling 30 managers. The geographic scope is the Northeast region of Brazil. The research was conducted in three stages: bibliographic, documental, and quali-quantitative. Data collection was carried out through mixed technical procedures, including literature and document review, semi-structured interviews, an online questionnaire, and the application of the Relevance Scale of Success Criteria for Tourism Projects (ERCS-PROTUR). For data analysis, triangulation of theories, methods, and data was adopted. The Iramuteq software was used to interpret interview data, while spreadsheets and frequency tables were used for quantitative data. Content analysis guided the overall process. Finally, a specific analysis was conducted for the proposed and validated scale using descriptive statistics such as mean, median, and standard deviation. The results suggest that tourism activity, with its capillarity and multidisciplinarity, finds strong support in project management practices. However, the relationship between "project management" and "tourism" remains fragile, both theoretically and practically. The study presents an overview of public sector tourism project management in Brazil, including the intersection of the PRT with route development and the relevance of key initiatives (such as the Tourism Map, categorization, parliamentary amendments, and Sebrae’s support). Among the methodologies most used by the managers surveyed, PMBoK stands out; however, the traditional “iron triangle” areas of project management are not prioritized. Instead, risk management, stakeholder management, and sustainability are considered crucial. Among the practical findings, eight types of tourism projects were identified, as well as the priority segments and tourism product characteristics that most influence route development projects. Another key result is the validation of a tool for tourism projects: the ERCS-PROTUR, which, when applied to tourism route project management, resulted in six categories and 24 success criteria. The study confirms that there is still a long path to be explored in the field of tourism project management. Nonetheless, it lays solid foundations and interweaves fundamental aspects of the field, advancing from conceptual dimensions and theoretical assumptions to its practical applicability through the lens of project success theory.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Externa à Instituição - DANIELA FANTONI ALVARES
Externo à Instituição - DAVID LEONARDO BOUÇAS DA SILVA - UFMA
Interno - 3142757 - GUILHERME BRIDI
Externo ao Programa - 1696802 - JOSUÉ VITOR DE MEDEIROS JÚNIOR - nullPresidente - 1372521 - MARIA VALERIA PEREIRA DE ARAUJO