Turismo de negócios e eventos na região das Missões: um estudo a partir das experiências de Gramado/RS

Abstract

Tourism is segmented in different ways in literature, one of which is business and events. This, in turn, has become one of the most important, as it is responsible for a large part of the tourist flows from various destinations, and acts as a generator of income and direct and indirect jobs, regardless of seasonality, generating spontaneous media and promoting the own development process. Therefore, business and event tourism can be a useful and advantageous tool for the development of a region. This research aims to understand the experiences in holding and capturing events in Gramado/RS, and how they can be used to benefit the Mission Region, through business tourism and events. The territory of analysis of this study are the municipalities of Gramado, Santo Ângelo and São Miguel das Missões in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The first has approximately 36,000 inhabitants and receives around six million visitors a year. It is one of the main tourist destinations in Brazil, has the largest tourist infrastructure in the state and hosts various cultural and business events throughout the year. The other two are in the Mission Region, also located in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, but they do not have a strong and consolidated business and event tourism as in Gramado. Despite having a rich cultural diversity due to the ethnic groups that established themselves, and for being a tourist region because of its historical value, the tourist potential of the Mission Region is still little explored. The present study has exploratory, qualitative research as its methodology and, as for technical procedures, bibliographical, documental and case study research was carried out, as it investigated specific cases: business tourism and events in Gramado, Santo Ângelo and São Miguel das Missions. As a result, this research presented experiences in holding and capturing events in Gramado, described the limits and potential in business tourism and events in the Região das Missões, focusing on the cities of Santo Ângelo and São Miguel das Missões and, finally, suggested actions to promote business tourism and events in the Mission Region.