Tourism development: Analysis of the perception of residents based on the level of tourism evolution.
Tourism. Development. TALC. Resident Perception.
The tourist activity interacts with different sectors of society and is responsible for moving localities through different perspectives. The factors that influence the effects that tourism can have on a given society are strongly related to its planning and management. It is imperative that local managers seek to carry out programs and projects that include the community in tourism development. In recent decades, several studies and theories have sought to understand the evolutionary process of tourist activity in destinations, as well as its positive and negative impacts. Therefore, this thesis aims to analyze the perceptions of residents about tourism development, currently and for the next five years, in the light of the theory of the evolutionary process of tourism advocated by Butler (1980), which suggests a life cycle of tourist areas, presenting an “S” base curve, emphasizing in the illustration the undulation of tourist activity. He explains that there are at least six phases present in this cycle: exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation, and rejuvenation or decline. An approach was taken to the formulation of Brazilian Public Tourism Policies and National Tourism Plans as a criterion for understanding the development of tourist destinations and thus evaluate the resident's perception in relation to the activity from the different levels of tourism development in the localities and the dimensions of sustainability with a focus on environmental, cultural, social and economic developments. The research is characterized as exploratory-descriptive, with a quantitative approach, survey type, cross- sectional. Data collected by the DEL Turismo Program were used (IDEL – FECOMÉRCIO RN-MS, FACISC, FECAM, FEDERAMINAS, FIEAC) – 2019-2022 and, made available for the purposes of this study. The program that was implemented in 2019 in the State of Rio Grande do Norte and expanded to the five Brazilian regions, divided into 06 states and 21 municipalities, has a database with 1.247 respondents, all residing in their destinations. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics using the Statistical Package for Social Science software (SPSS 22.0). Among the results, it was observed that residents have high perceptions of positive impacts and low perceptions of negative impacts, moreover, they perceive tourism as an alternative to increase local sustainability levels through development in the environmental, cultural, social and economic areas.