ANDRADE, Cosmo Torquato de.
Resumo:
Locally based ecotourism is a segment of tourism. The use of this term is recent, but its practice is not. Brazil has great potential for the development of this activity, has a wide range of attractions, a long stretch of coastline, forests of various types, perennial rivers that run through much of the territory. In these places the largest supply of ecotourism in the country is concentrated, although this does not mean that geographically underprivileged places such as the northeastern semiarid do not have the potential for the development of this activity. The lack of information on the subject collaborates with this crooked thinking that only places sold by the media have tourism potential. This paper aims to show that a small community located
in the northeastern semiarid in the Caatinga biome has the potential for the development of a tourism segment, the local based ecotourism. The purpose of the study is to bring a theoretical debate about the theme, and to present the potentially identified tourism elements and how the community can develop projects based on these elements, taking advantage of and conserving
the natural and cultural resources of their locality. Building from on-site observations of spaces and subjects, to understand how the local organizational structure is formed, photographic records were made during the visits. As a result of the study, it became apparent that the practice of local ecotourism is a local reality, on a very small scale and spontaneously, local residents do not excite this idea. The lack of joint articulation in project formulation does not take advantage of the potentials there.