SOUZA, Eudes Barbosa de.
Abstract:
Tourism has spread all over the world, and in the religious tourism, which manifests itself through the displacement of large numbers of people to various places of visitation and devotion. In this sense, this study aims to analyze the impact of religious tourism on the local dynamics in city of Ipaumirim, Ceará. The research proposal is justified in view of the the interest of the researcher in characterizing the relevance of religious tourism for municipality, given that annually there is the pilgrimage of St. Sebastian, co-patron of the city, bringing together a large number of faithful of the locality and surrounding cities. It is an exploratory and descriptive research, of qualitative character. It was possible to notice that the pilgrimage of Saint Sebastian is important for the economic development of the city, but could receive incentives and develop further by encouraging local and regional benefiting various branches of activity. The accomplishment of the present study clearly demonstrated the precariousness of local infrastructure, which does not sufficient lodging and gastronomy equipment to meet the demand of the pilgrimage However, research into hosting surrounding cities has shown that customer behavior does not relates to the religious festivities in the Municipality. In this way, it was possible to conclude that religious tourism in the city of Ipaumirim promotes an impact of population and local economic activity, since The concentration of pilgrims is transitory and requires little use of services, in view of the fact that the precarious hosting infrastructure and theabsence of investments directed to the sector prevent the growth of thisactivity.
